Keith came back from a week long gunnery a few days ago. He came back with a bald head and smelling like cannon fire, the first because the scouts outshot the tankers (had to be dumb luck) and because he hadn't been able to take a shower the entire time.
I had forgotten how much space a man takes up in a house. He takes up space in a room even when he isn't in the room. In fact, right now there is a mound of smelly gear in the dining room, another mound on the couch in the living room, his gloves on a chair, his boots by the door and his uniform tossed over the end of the bed.
We had the fun of falling in love all over again, which is like going down a water slide with your hands up, and not caring if the water goes up your nose.
So this morning we slept in and then made maple sausage omelets. Outside it is cloudy and the wind of the last few days have swept the leaves off of most of the trees. The ground is covered with a tumbled carpet of copper. Last night as I was doing the last of the dishes, I looked up to see the full moon, pure white, shining through bare black branches.
It feels like Halloween, like winter is coming on. I decided I needed to outfit my little household for the coming season, so I did a lot of on line research, going from store to store. Keith said he likes to shop for his stuff at WalMart, so that was easy enough. For myself, I found this navy fleece jacket at LLBean that I adored, but just didn't feel right about the price tag of fifty dollars.
Then, then I stumbled upon JCPenney's weekend sale and I got one turtleneck, two long sleeved tees, one pair warm yoga pants, one embroidered long sleeved top and one fisherman cable knit sweater, all for sixty one dollars. I literally saved more than I spent and the shipping was free.
What a high that was, I tell you what! It was a total adrenalin rush. Now I'm like a shark, quietly patrolling the waters of the internet, looking, looking for the next sale that I can snap up. And waiting for the FedEx man.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Thursday, October 21, 2010
October 21st
You would not believe the amount of internal chastising I received after I posted yesterday.
"How dare I declare myself to be good? How dare I say publicly that I might have something valuable to say, to declare it a ministry? That's absurd! Only God declares ministries! You don't have the authority! You have to suffer miserably through life, miserably wondering till the day you die if you are in God's will and how God is using your life; that kind of suffering keeps you humble and saves your soul from sin.
"But you, you arrogant blogger! You think you have the authority to declare! Well, I have one thing to say to you, missy, and that's that "Pride goes before a fall!" and I predict God will soon whack you a good one over the head for claiming anything so good and so powerful for yourself. Tremble!
"Besides, it's just tacky. And no body's going to understand the fact that referencing Dr. Peck and Buddha together was tongue in cheek. They will just think it weird."
This part of me really does not want to let go of my old idea of God's judgement and the twin roles of suffering and humiliation. It's fear, is what it is. If I approach everything in life with fear and trembling- if I am in constant suffering- well then, I risk nothing, don't I?
Nothing can be taken from me, because I have nothing. And because I have nothing, because I am nothing, then I have no role to play in the world around me. I am safe from God's judgement and I am safe from expectation.
And it is an initially very frightening thing to declare that I have intrinsic value, just as I am, value to God and value to the world. That really does set one up for failure on a large scale, there's no denying that reality.
But, the beautiful thing about failure is that, firstly, it's inevitable, so I might as well not worry about it. I will fail. Secondly, it's the engine for everything meaningful in life. If there were no failure, there would be no wisdom, no perspective, no adjustment.
Anyway, regardless of the fact that I have openly admitted that I think of this blog as a ministry, I am not constantly going to be going on in a philosophical bent. That would be boring, quite frankly, and after a while, I would be forced to make stuff up. And while that would probably be a great exercise for my already active imagination, I'd much rather just go on being myself. It's easier.
Besides, one of these days I'm going to get around to blogging about the really delicious cheesy corn chowder I made or the festive fall leaf garland that drapes the fireplace mantel.
"How dare I declare myself to be good? How dare I say publicly that I might have something valuable to say, to declare it a ministry? That's absurd! Only God declares ministries! You don't have the authority! You have to suffer miserably through life, miserably wondering till the day you die if you are in God's will and how God is using your life; that kind of suffering keeps you humble and saves your soul from sin.
"But you, you arrogant blogger! You think you have the authority to declare! Well, I have one thing to say to you, missy, and that's that "Pride goes before a fall!" and I predict God will soon whack you a good one over the head for claiming anything so good and so powerful for yourself. Tremble!
"Besides, it's just tacky. And no body's going to understand the fact that referencing Dr. Peck and Buddha together was tongue in cheek. They will just think it weird."
This part of me really does not want to let go of my old idea of God's judgement and the twin roles of suffering and humiliation. It's fear, is what it is. If I approach everything in life with fear and trembling- if I am in constant suffering- well then, I risk nothing, don't I?
Nothing can be taken from me, because I have nothing. And because I have nothing, because I am nothing, then I have no role to play in the world around me. I am safe from God's judgement and I am safe from expectation.
And it is an initially very frightening thing to declare that I have intrinsic value, just as I am, value to God and value to the world. That really does set one up for failure on a large scale, there's no denying that reality.
But, the beautiful thing about failure is that, firstly, it's inevitable, so I might as well not worry about it. I will fail. Secondly, it's the engine for everything meaningful in life. If there were no failure, there would be no wisdom, no perspective, no adjustment.
Anyway, regardless of the fact that I have openly admitted that I think of this blog as a ministry, I am not constantly going to be going on in a philosophical bent. That would be boring, quite frankly, and after a while, I would be forced to make stuff up. And while that would probably be a great exercise for my already active imagination, I'd much rather just go on being myself. It's easier.
Besides, one of these days I'm going to get around to blogging about the really delicious cheesy corn chowder I made or the festive fall leaf garland that drapes the fireplace mantel.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
October 20th
My dad called me yesterday. "Get ready for an outpouring of love and adoration," he said, and then told me he had posted a link from my blog to the Free Believer's Network and his facebook page.
And boy, he was not kidding. I have read and reread those comments many times.
In the last few days, things have been falling into place for me. I seem to be adjusting to a greater degree of authenticity in all areas of my life, giving up illusions and embracing reality. This is what happens, I think, when one has the courage to be completely real about oneself; the rest of the world comes into better focus.
For example, I am seeing my parents in this whole new way. I am seeing them as people, as adults. I am able to see their imperfections not with the angst of the teenager, or even the fervent, over forgiving belief that they are what I want them to be, but instead with the clarity of the adult. In fact, I like them more because of their imperfections, it makes them them. I feel like my heart has been hugely enlarged because of this. I don't just love my parents, I like them and I like them because they are unique, flawed, colorful individuals just like I am.
Then, as a natural progression of this, I was able to give my mother the incredible gift of seeing into her heart and grieving with her over her pain. It was a gift I gave freely, as one adult woman to another, as one who knows the exact nature of that pain.
It is as though I am looking at a whole new phase of my life, one that is tempered, almost defined by the fact that I am an adult and that life is short. I don't feel morbid about it, it's just that I am looking into middle age. That knowledge has an effect on me like the moon on the oceans, I'm moved and shaped by it.
I think this must be happening in part because I am going back and releasing and freeing those parts of me that had still been trapped, for better or for worse, in my childhood. Trapped by the repression of memories, or by the fear of an old god or by illusions I didn't want to let go of.
But now I am letting go. I am coming to terms with my childhood and my life in a much more thorough way then I could before and that frees me to move forward and to accept my adulthood.
It was the anger that was the key to all this. I thought all along that anger was a bad thing and had no good purpose. But I was denying myself an integral part of my humanity and holding up the latter part of my healing.
I am also so much more at peace with my solitary nature. That is who I am, that is what I was created to express. I am a quiet creature who basks in the quiet pleasures of life and who moves through solitude like a fish in water. It's my element. Maybe society does not recognize natures of my sort, but that doesn't make our way of life illegitimate, it just illustrates the fact that society by its nature requires ardent participants and therefore values them greatly.
Also, I have let go of the judgement that I am being selfish in my solitude. I am not, in fact, I am incredibly generous. There is more than one way of ministering to the world at large, more than one way of relating to it. And my way is through words and through words I pour out and reveal the depths of my heart. This is a true ministry and deeply meaningful and dovetails with my solitude.
In fact, it seems as though all along I have been expressing the personhood I was meant to be. And I fell into it in a natural way, as one might guess would happen, if one thought about it. A true ministry does not have to require anguish, as I previously thought. How could a ministry be viable if I enjoy it? was my question. Now I might well ask, "How could it be a ministry if I do not?"
One cannot overlook the obvious fact that marriage is the hardest, most pleasurable and binding ministry there is and I am deeply invested in mine.
Between the two of them, I am leading a life of great and purposeful meaning, all without having a vibrant social life or a home church or a blackberry or a woman's group. Or children, for that matter.
Though soon, I will add to add them via adoption and begin the work of parenting. I look forward to it and I have lately been able to give up the idea of "running out of time" or of there being the right age to be a parent.
There is no way I am ever going to be a young mother. That option in life is closed for me; it will never be a part of my life. Instead, I can move on and embrace the fact that I will be in my middle to late thirties when I begin the work of parenting, that I may well adopt or have children in my forties. This will be the shape and the reality of my life.
And once I gave up the, what now appears to be ridiculous, idea of there being an "ideal" age for parenting and have come to terms with what will never be, I feel released, free to enjoy what is real. And I will deeply enjoy being a parent.
I will love my life the way it is, and all because I gave myself permission to be deeply, horribly angry about the fact that it wasn't the way I first wanted it to be. I'll keep doing this work for the rest of my life, because as Buddha has said, "Life is suffering," and as M. Scott Peck has added, "Once we truly know that life is difficult-once we truly understand and accept it-then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters."
-The Road Less Traveled
And boy, he was not kidding. I have read and reread those comments many times.
In the last few days, things have been falling into place for me. I seem to be adjusting to a greater degree of authenticity in all areas of my life, giving up illusions and embracing reality. This is what happens, I think, when one has the courage to be completely real about oneself; the rest of the world comes into better focus.
For example, I am seeing my parents in this whole new way. I am seeing them as people, as adults. I am able to see their imperfections not with the angst of the teenager, or even the fervent, over forgiving belief that they are what I want them to be, but instead with the clarity of the adult. In fact, I like them more because of their imperfections, it makes them them. I feel like my heart has been hugely enlarged because of this. I don't just love my parents, I like them and I like them because they are unique, flawed, colorful individuals just like I am.
Then, as a natural progression of this, I was able to give my mother the incredible gift of seeing into her heart and grieving with her over her pain. It was a gift I gave freely, as one adult woman to another, as one who knows the exact nature of that pain.
It is as though I am looking at a whole new phase of my life, one that is tempered, almost defined by the fact that I am an adult and that life is short. I don't feel morbid about it, it's just that I am looking into middle age. That knowledge has an effect on me like the moon on the oceans, I'm moved and shaped by it.
I think this must be happening in part because I am going back and releasing and freeing those parts of me that had still been trapped, for better or for worse, in my childhood. Trapped by the repression of memories, or by the fear of an old god or by illusions I didn't want to let go of.
But now I am letting go. I am coming to terms with my childhood and my life in a much more thorough way then I could before and that frees me to move forward and to accept my adulthood.
It was the anger that was the key to all this. I thought all along that anger was a bad thing and had no good purpose. But I was denying myself an integral part of my humanity and holding up the latter part of my healing.
I am also so much more at peace with my solitary nature. That is who I am, that is what I was created to express. I am a quiet creature who basks in the quiet pleasures of life and who moves through solitude like a fish in water. It's my element. Maybe society does not recognize natures of my sort, but that doesn't make our way of life illegitimate, it just illustrates the fact that society by its nature requires ardent participants and therefore values them greatly.
Also, I have let go of the judgement that I am being selfish in my solitude. I am not, in fact, I am incredibly generous. There is more than one way of ministering to the world at large, more than one way of relating to it. And my way is through words and through words I pour out and reveal the depths of my heart. This is a true ministry and deeply meaningful and dovetails with my solitude.
In fact, it seems as though all along I have been expressing the personhood I was meant to be. And I fell into it in a natural way, as one might guess would happen, if one thought about it. A true ministry does not have to require anguish, as I previously thought. How could a ministry be viable if I enjoy it? was my question. Now I might well ask, "How could it be a ministry if I do not?"
One cannot overlook the obvious fact that marriage is the hardest, most pleasurable and binding ministry there is and I am deeply invested in mine.
Between the two of them, I am leading a life of great and purposeful meaning, all without having a vibrant social life or a home church or a blackberry or a woman's group. Or children, for that matter.
Though soon, I will add to add them via adoption and begin the work of parenting. I look forward to it and I have lately been able to give up the idea of "running out of time" or of there being the right age to be a parent.
There is no way I am ever going to be a young mother. That option in life is closed for me; it will never be a part of my life. Instead, I can move on and embrace the fact that I will be in my middle to late thirties when I begin the work of parenting, that I may well adopt or have children in my forties. This will be the shape and the reality of my life.
And once I gave up the, what now appears to be ridiculous, idea of there being an "ideal" age for parenting and have come to terms with what will never be, I feel released, free to enjoy what is real. And I will deeply enjoy being a parent.
I will love my life the way it is, and all because I gave myself permission to be deeply, horribly angry about the fact that it wasn't the way I first wanted it to be. I'll keep doing this work for the rest of my life, because as Buddha has said, "Life is suffering," and as M. Scott Peck has added, "Once we truly know that life is difficult-once we truly understand and accept it-then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters."
-The Road Less Traveled
Saturday, October 16, 2010
October 16th
There is a wasp trapped between the screen and the closed glass window in my kitchen. He's been there for two days now and each morning when I see him, this feeling of grief comes welling up from inside me. "I'm so sorry for your fate," I tell him. This morning he was all closed in tight against the cold. He seems to be taking a long time to die.
It'd be one thing if I could kill him quickly, with wasp spray, but the slow death, trapped away from life just feels so sad to me. If I open the window, it just releases him into my house, where he'll die anyway. And he won't even feel the fresh air.
I've also been realizing how I've kept myself trapped. I have a part of myself that held on tightly to the religion of my childhood. I couldn't let go of it. So instead, I developed this deep schism between the part of myself holding on to those old beliefs and the part of me that went ahead and started living real life, willy nilly.
Only this year have I begun to address this schism and it's painful work. A few days ago I had a piece of the puzzle fall into place. I always assumed that the part of me that held to the old religion was doing so freely. But what I realized was that I was forcing that part of me to hold on to the religion just in case. In other words, I have been sacrificing parts of myself on the alter to the old religion, and they, the fervent martyrs, have kept on keeping on.
The things I thought about was, what if it is true? What if everything the church said or believed is true? Would it matter that just a part of me was holding to the faith? Would it matter to that god if one inner part of me clung to old traditions and standards while I went out and was sinful and ruined?
No, not one whit. So it's all for nothing anyway. If that god is a true god, then I've failed completely. I failed a long time ago and can look forward to greater punishment than other, mere sinners, because to whom much is given, much will be required. And I was given much and then completely ruined everything; I turned rotten and unusable before I even properly matured, occurring to that god.
If I had a choice now, would I choose to put myself under the dominion of that old god? Of course not.
What it comes down to is, I have to risk completely, in order to have complete freedom and that feels terrifying to me. I must give that part of me freedom to choose, freedom to ask questions and look around at the real world. I must risk that if the old god is real and I choose freedom, there will be nothing more holding me to him; I will be completely lost to him.
You may well wonder what all the intensity is about if you haven't experienced something similar in your own childhoods. But I am talking about a church that my father's father was born into, that my mother's parents were born into. It wasn't just a church, it was it's own worldview. A worldview that held terrors at every side and the only salvation lay right along it's own teachings, everything else was less-than or down right deception.
And I was a very good little girl, let me tell you. I was obedient, receptive, eager, naive, innocent, ardent. I wanted to hold to the highest of the high standards of behavior. I wanted to be one of the forty four thousand very special people.
When I first left the church, I literally did not know how to think for myself. I did not know how to make decisions, to weigh the options. Thinking for myself was dangerous, I had no authority, I had no wisdom, how could I know what to do?
I'm still angry at God for this. Not just for my upbringing, but for failing to protect me once I left the church. I'm a big girl now, I'm all bruised up and weathered and I have my eyes open. But then. You'd think if He was merciful, He'd have kept me safe from people like my first husband until I could get my feet under me, at the very least. It must be that His mercy means something else, must have a far different meaning than the human one we would like to attach to it.
Anyway, after years of stuffing this under the rug, as it were, again and again and again, I can't keep it closed in anymore. It is frightening to be angry at God, but at least it's living, instead of constant, fearful denial of there being any problem.
There is a problem. I have a problem with God. I have a bone to pick with Him, so to speak. I think that this is really very good in the long run. I'm acknowledging His ability to meet with and answer my anger. In fact, I am trusting Him more deeply with my anger than I ever did with my love or adoration.
It'd be one thing if I could kill him quickly, with wasp spray, but the slow death, trapped away from life just feels so sad to me. If I open the window, it just releases him into my house, where he'll die anyway. And he won't even feel the fresh air.
I've also been realizing how I've kept myself trapped. I have a part of myself that held on tightly to the religion of my childhood. I couldn't let go of it. So instead, I developed this deep schism between the part of myself holding on to those old beliefs and the part of me that went ahead and started living real life, willy nilly.
Only this year have I begun to address this schism and it's painful work. A few days ago I had a piece of the puzzle fall into place. I always assumed that the part of me that held to the old religion was doing so freely. But what I realized was that I was forcing that part of me to hold on to the religion just in case. In other words, I have been sacrificing parts of myself on the alter to the old religion, and they, the fervent martyrs, have kept on keeping on.
The things I thought about was, what if it is true? What if everything the church said or believed is true? Would it matter that just a part of me was holding to the faith? Would it matter to that god if one inner part of me clung to old traditions and standards while I went out and was sinful and ruined?
No, not one whit. So it's all for nothing anyway. If that god is a true god, then I've failed completely. I failed a long time ago and can look forward to greater punishment than other, mere sinners, because to whom much is given, much will be required. And I was given much and then completely ruined everything; I turned rotten and unusable before I even properly matured, occurring to that god.
If I had a choice now, would I choose to put myself under the dominion of that old god? Of course not.
What it comes down to is, I have to risk completely, in order to have complete freedom and that feels terrifying to me. I must give that part of me freedom to choose, freedom to ask questions and look around at the real world. I must risk that if the old god is real and I choose freedom, there will be nothing more holding me to him; I will be completely lost to him.
You may well wonder what all the intensity is about if you haven't experienced something similar in your own childhoods. But I am talking about a church that my father's father was born into, that my mother's parents were born into. It wasn't just a church, it was it's own worldview. A worldview that held terrors at every side and the only salvation lay right along it's own teachings, everything else was less-than or down right deception.
And I was a very good little girl, let me tell you. I was obedient, receptive, eager, naive, innocent, ardent. I wanted to hold to the highest of the high standards of behavior. I wanted to be one of the forty four thousand very special people.
When I first left the church, I literally did not know how to think for myself. I did not know how to make decisions, to weigh the options. Thinking for myself was dangerous, I had no authority, I had no wisdom, how could I know what to do?
I'm still angry at God for this. Not just for my upbringing, but for failing to protect me once I left the church. I'm a big girl now, I'm all bruised up and weathered and I have my eyes open. But then. You'd think if He was merciful, He'd have kept me safe from people like my first husband until I could get my feet under me, at the very least. It must be that His mercy means something else, must have a far different meaning than the human one we would like to attach to it.
Anyway, after years of stuffing this under the rug, as it were, again and again and again, I can't keep it closed in anymore. It is frightening to be angry at God, but at least it's living, instead of constant, fearful denial of there being any problem.
There is a problem. I have a problem with God. I have a bone to pick with Him, so to speak. I think that this is really very good in the long run. I'm acknowledging His ability to meet with and answer my anger. In fact, I am trusting Him more deeply with my anger than I ever did with my love or adoration.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
October 14th
Some things I've been learning lately:
I have to be careful not to tuck the ends of my hair into my skirt along with my shirt. I felt something slide across my hip in the shower and whirled around in alarm. "Hey, hey, none of that," I sternly admonished my hair. My hair has definitely reached a New Frontier. I chalk it up to all the otherwise pointless prenatals I've taken.
Anger does not diminish God. This feels like a bold thing to say. I continue, at least a part of me continues, to be angry at God, in a smoldering, white hot, defiant way.
And what happens when someone defies God indefinitely? That's right: they get the lightning bold of His Righteous Wrath. Hell, even if they're His Best Dude, like Job, you can get utterly smashed. You just never know. But ratchet up the ante with defiant, personal anger? Risky behavior with God, I couldn't help but believe.
So that kind of put me in a tight spot. Here was part of me who wouldn't let go of my anger at God. Here's a whole other part of me that terrified of the Wrath Of God. And here's another part of me that has faith in a loving, merciful, redemptive God and believes that God understands the anger and will work with it.
I was ok for a while with the anger, but apparently I had an unwritten "proper length of anger at God" measurement and I was exceeding it. So that measuring part of me was all like, "No, really, you're gonna have to reel it in now. Seriously. You have to be done now."
It's very uncomfortable being me sometimes.
So, I was having this interesting conversation with my father, during which my father suggested I must be serving a very small god, if my anger was somehow threatening to him.
I thought, gosh that makes sense. "So what you're saying is, anger glorifies God?" I asked.
Now there's a potentially heretical statement if ever I wrote one. But I think, in the heart of me, that it is true. How is it that those songs sometimes go; "God, I lift you up, I glorify You..."? Well, what could be higher up than beyond the reach of even my greatest anger, my deepest disappointment? If I release those to God and at the same time say, "I know you are so much greater than this, so much larger, so much deeper. You surround the anger as you surround me."
Dad also mentioned that in talking about anger, one is also going to be, quite naturally, talking about power. Because anger and power go hand in hand. And if I'm angry at God, then I've taken on power for myself. And Dad suggested that God is so powerful Himself that He isn't threatened when I behave toward Him in power myself. In fact, to act in power, even powerful anger, is also to glorify Him.
Why? Because we're made in His image. We are a little, imperfect reflection of Him. So my power reflects unto His greater power, to His greater glory and not to His detriment. When that clicked, then I realized that I had been worshiping a very small false god indeed, one who was threatened if I empowered myself toward him in anger and would seek to wipe me out and cut me down to size just to show me what's what. And I don't want to worship a false god. It's so much more satisfying to be in relationship to the True God.
Then, dear readers, I read this in M. Scott Peck's "The Road Less Travelled."
"It is one thing to believe in a nice old God (or a crabby, mean God, in my case) who will take good care of us from a lofty position of power which we ourselves could never begin to attain. It is quite another to believe in a God who has in mind for us precisely that we should attain His position, His power, His wisdom, His identity."
So, I continue unabated angry at the True God. I really am. I don't know how it will be resolved ultimately, but I'm rather curious to find out.
I have to be careful not to tuck the ends of my hair into my skirt along with my shirt. I felt something slide across my hip in the shower and whirled around in alarm. "Hey, hey, none of that," I sternly admonished my hair. My hair has definitely reached a New Frontier. I chalk it up to all the otherwise pointless prenatals I've taken.
Anger does not diminish God. This feels like a bold thing to say. I continue, at least a part of me continues, to be angry at God, in a smoldering, white hot, defiant way.
And what happens when someone defies God indefinitely? That's right: they get the lightning bold of His Righteous Wrath. Hell, even if they're His Best Dude, like Job, you can get utterly smashed. You just never know. But ratchet up the ante with defiant, personal anger? Risky behavior with God, I couldn't help but believe.
So that kind of put me in a tight spot. Here was part of me who wouldn't let go of my anger at God. Here's a whole other part of me that terrified of the Wrath Of God. And here's another part of me that has faith in a loving, merciful, redemptive God and believes that God understands the anger and will work with it.
I was ok for a while with the anger, but apparently I had an unwritten "proper length of anger at God" measurement and I was exceeding it. So that measuring part of me was all like, "No, really, you're gonna have to reel it in now. Seriously. You have to be done now."
It's very uncomfortable being me sometimes.
So, I was having this interesting conversation with my father, during which my father suggested I must be serving a very small god, if my anger was somehow threatening to him.
I thought, gosh that makes sense. "So what you're saying is, anger glorifies God?" I asked.
Now there's a potentially heretical statement if ever I wrote one. But I think, in the heart of me, that it is true. How is it that those songs sometimes go; "God, I lift you up, I glorify You..."? Well, what could be higher up than beyond the reach of even my greatest anger, my deepest disappointment? If I release those to God and at the same time say, "I know you are so much greater than this, so much larger, so much deeper. You surround the anger as you surround me."
Dad also mentioned that in talking about anger, one is also going to be, quite naturally, talking about power. Because anger and power go hand in hand. And if I'm angry at God, then I've taken on power for myself. And Dad suggested that God is so powerful Himself that He isn't threatened when I behave toward Him in power myself. In fact, to act in power, even powerful anger, is also to glorify Him.
Why? Because we're made in His image. We are a little, imperfect reflection of Him. So my power reflects unto His greater power, to His greater glory and not to His detriment. When that clicked, then I realized that I had been worshiping a very small false god indeed, one who was threatened if I empowered myself toward him in anger and would seek to wipe me out and cut me down to size just to show me what's what. And I don't want to worship a false god. It's so much more satisfying to be in relationship to the True God.
Then, dear readers, I read this in M. Scott Peck's "The Road Less Travelled."
"It is one thing to believe in a nice old God (or a crabby, mean God, in my case) who will take good care of us from a lofty position of power which we ourselves could never begin to attain. It is quite another to believe in a God who has in mind for us precisely that we should attain His position, His power, His wisdom, His identity."
So, I continue unabated angry at the True God. I really am. I don't know how it will be resolved ultimately, but I'm rather curious to find out.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
October 13th
Hello Blog!
I didn't mean to be away so long, but our Internet provider, AT&T the Craptastic, finally provoked my husband into abruptly ending our contract with them. We figure the nine extra dollars a month we now pay to not have them as our Internet service is worth the charge.
Now we have the local company and a dial up connection, which really is very fast. But they were swamped with business and it took them a week to get out to set up. Anyway, long story short, here we are again with excellent, steady, affordable Internet.
It is definitely fall down here. Most of the leaves have fallen, leaving a fine network of bare branches to define the hills. I have bright yellow mums at the front steps, a wreath of leaves on the door and spiced pumpkin candles inside. I love fall.
I have not gotten pregnant but I have found to my relief that I have completely burned myself out on that front. I can truly say that I no longer care, though I still can't say it with much grace. This is mainly because my desire for children has shifted towards adoption in a more permement and determined way. I don't want to go back to infertility treatments and it's possible that we won't.
I seem to be experiencing some kind of internal growth spurt, a deeper healing of things left over. This is great and all, but it also means that I'm uprooting (again) old ways of thinking and doing, and must put them back together in a better way. Because the issues I'm reconstructing have a lot of import for me, I feel like I need a good ally with experience and insight to help me in the process, so I've found a really well qualified therapist down in Louisville.
She has thirty years experience and I really liked her philosophy of healing. She was booked out two to three weeks, but I don't mind waiting that long for an appointment, since I'm not in crisis or anything, I just want some guidence. I'm looking forward to the growth process and being in therapy with someone who knows what they're doing.
Anyway, as my long time readers can probably tell, I'm not in a "writing" kind of mode, but I felt bad about leaving my poor blog empty for so long. Things are good, I'm deeply enjoying the simple quiet of my life. Who knows what's coming up? A lot, if we do go the fost/adopt route, so I'm just enjoying this little breathing space right now.
I didn't mean to be away so long, but our Internet provider, AT&T the Craptastic, finally provoked my husband into abruptly ending our contract with them. We figure the nine extra dollars a month we now pay to not have them as our Internet service is worth the charge.
Now we have the local company and a dial up connection, which really is very fast. But they were swamped with business and it took them a week to get out to set up. Anyway, long story short, here we are again with excellent, steady, affordable Internet.
It is definitely fall down here. Most of the leaves have fallen, leaving a fine network of bare branches to define the hills. I have bright yellow mums at the front steps, a wreath of leaves on the door and spiced pumpkin candles inside. I love fall.
I have not gotten pregnant but I have found to my relief that I have completely burned myself out on that front. I can truly say that I no longer care, though I still can't say it with much grace. This is mainly because my desire for children has shifted towards adoption in a more permement and determined way. I don't want to go back to infertility treatments and it's possible that we won't.
I seem to be experiencing some kind of internal growth spurt, a deeper healing of things left over. This is great and all, but it also means that I'm uprooting (again) old ways of thinking and doing, and must put them back together in a better way. Because the issues I'm reconstructing have a lot of import for me, I feel like I need a good ally with experience and insight to help me in the process, so I've found a really well qualified therapist down in Louisville.
She has thirty years experience and I really liked her philosophy of healing. She was booked out two to three weeks, but I don't mind waiting that long for an appointment, since I'm not in crisis or anything, I just want some guidence. I'm looking forward to the growth process and being in therapy with someone who knows what they're doing.
Anyway, as my long time readers can probably tell, I'm not in a "writing" kind of mode, but I felt bad about leaving my poor blog empty for so long. Things are good, I'm deeply enjoying the simple quiet of my life. Who knows what's coming up? A lot, if we do go the fost/adopt route, so I'm just enjoying this little breathing space right now.
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