Do Not Dwell on the Past

If you read my last post, "Happy" New Year, you will know that I was crazily overwhelmed during the months of December and January, with Christmas preparations, children going berserk, the house catastrophe and subsequent remodel. God is good and He always brings good out of challenging situations. But that doesn't mean I can handle it all. More likely, I handled it incorrectly. In any case, by the end of January, I. Was. Fried. My brain and my emotions were completely overloaded. I felt emotionally drained. Dead. Lifeless. Unable to take one more step.

What do you when you feel like that? I'm telling you, folks, this definitely wasn't a pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps type of situation. This was complete and utter brain failure in a way that I've never experienced before.

It took me a few weeks to recover, but when I first hit rock bottom, I cried out to God, begging him to please show me just one thing I could do to move forward, to fight my way back. As I prayed, one phrase from Scripture popped into my head: "Behold, I am doing a new thing." God almost always speaks to me through Scripture. People wonder how to hear God; for me, it's almost always through God's Word.

I looked up the chapter from which that one little sentence was taken, Isaiah 43. I read through the entire thing, carefully, and two things jumped out at me.

First, Do not fear, do not be afraid, (verses  1, 5).  

Okay, easy enough. God wanted me to not be afraid, and to not dwell in the past. The problem was that I'd finally admitting to myself that I was pretty ticked off at God. I mean, think about it: In the past four years, my husband was taken away in a sense. I've struggled painfully with depression and self-pity, and often left our children to fend for themselves or take more responsibility than they should have had to, and subsequently the kids have developed some behavior and emotional issues for which they need a counselor. We filed for bankruptcy, and we literally live paycheck to paycheck, sometimes just barely squeaking by. (For the record, God always, always provides! Did I mention that He always provides?) I lost my job and Al has had short periods of employment. I haven't found a new job yet because, as always, I took the time to get on top of some health issues - fibromyalgia, crippling depression and anxiety, and I got my gall bladder removed right after I was let go. I've also tried to use the time to break into my dream career of being a bestselling author. My first book has sold maybe 150 copies, so hey, it's a start. But this is while many family members and friends have made subtle (or not so subtle) remarks about the fact that I don't have a job yet, and, hey, wouldn't it be fun to work here or there? To top it off, during that period of a few weeks when I truly felt dead inside, a relative sent me a series of messages that all had some truth to them, but the delivery of those messages was extremely harsh. That caused me to spiral a bit into my lifelong struggle with self-condemnation.

Wow, okay, enough whining! My point is to say we've been dealing with a lot, not to throw a pity party. Seriously! Please don't have pity on me. I've had plenty of pity on myself to last a lifetime.

For anyone who says, "But your husband is still alive," I would respond, "Yes, he is and I am very grateful." But imagine this - your spouse or other close family member has suffered a debilitating illness or injury. Then, on top of the physical effects (which are both internal and external), he has altered brain function. It's kind of like my husband's brain had a "factory reset," meaning he still has some memories, although short-term memory is compromised in a big way, and he still has his same corny sense of humor. His emotions have been weakened and his personality is just...different. So, in a way, we've started over from the beginning, trying to figure out his deficits and treating our relationship as if we're each falling in love with a new person, choosing to love a new person because we're both vastly different than we were when we first fell in love.

Okay, rambling again, sorry. Remember, NO PITY! I'm just giving you the whole picture.

So, when God told me not to be afraid, I was challenged. I shot back at him (sarcastic, snotty little me), "Why would I be afraid? Because You've already taken away everything I loved, everything that gave me security?!" Thank God He is merciful because I am a spoiled brat sometimes. I always end up going back to Him and telling Him I'm sorry and asking for more grace to see things through His perspective. The idea has slowly been creeping up on me that my life seems like a heap of ashes right now; everything I planned or expected for my life has been snatched away. But that is okay, because now the rebuilding begins. God's purpose is to re-form me into what He desires and not simply to give back all of my wishes and dreams from before. It's extremely scary when neither my husband nor I have jobs or careers and the future looks really blank, as in completely unknown. He is having us walk step by step, moment by moment, day by day.

Rock bottom isn't such a bad place to be, in reality. I know (at least I pray and hope) that God will create someone better and stronger than who I was before. If I can't rely on what I wanted for my life, I can still rely on God's most perfect plan. (I kind of hope His new vision for me includes losing about 50 lbs. Nothing is impossible with God, right?)

"Do not be afraid; do not fear." Yeah, that makes sense now. Does it mean I have no more fear? Hell no! Does it mean I have to remind myself from moment to believe God and His Word? Absolutely.

On to the second part of God's reminders for me:

18 Forget the former things;
    do not dwell on the past.
19 See, I am doing a new thing!
    Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
    and streams in the wasteland.

I take this as a challenge to let go of my self-centered expectations for my life. To not cling to the pain of the past four years and allow it to make me bitter and resentful. He is willing to walk through it with me, healing it and helping me to let go.

Challenge accepted: This could be exciting, a new adventure. It will probably be difficult and I'll most likely want to quit and go back to my old self-pity. But God is pretty tenacious. I suspect that He won't let me give up. And He hasn't given up on me yet.

I'll leave you with this song from the late, great Rich Mullins, a man whose music was truly inspired.

The Boundary Lines

Many years ago, I had an inspiration to claim Psalm 16 as my "Life Psalm," the psalm that would define, dictate, and comfort throughout my life. (In retrospect, I should have chosen 2 Chronicles 9:13, "Every year King Solomon received over twenty-five tons of gold." I'm just kidding, of course, because the Bible is always quick to tell us that money is the root of all kinds of evil. But I wouldn't mind finding out for myself!)

About six months ago, I had a revelation. For all of my life, I had thought I really trusted God. Probably because my life was relatively easy until then - no major health issues, I had a decent education, I got to do a little traveling before getting married and having kids. I found a good husband and had some pretty cute kids. Sure, I got all hot and bothered when they were little, thinking that I was failing as a mom and not trusting that God was using me to my full potential. But now, I can see better in hindsight, that God has given my children grace to grow in spite of my failings and my weaknesses. 

I usually trust God with money and material things, too. I just know that He knows our needs and the money usually shows up when we need it. I'm not saying I'm perfect in my trust for this area, but even when I get myself to worrying about it, I'm usually soon reminded of all the ways that God has been faithful in the past.

After Al's stroke, almost four years ago now, I felt the presence of God like I had at no other time in my life. He literally carried me through the darkest time in my life; when I felt I could hardly get out of bed because the weight of life was so heavy upon me, God gave me the grace to get up and go to work for yet another day, when some days, I honestly just wanted to give up and die. Somehow, over the past four years, my trust in God began to wane, and I blame that in large part on self-pity, when I started thinking, "Woe is me, God has left me to do this on my own." I felt very much alone, raising a family, paying the bills, working outside the home, with limited help from my husband due to the physical and mental damage done by the stroke. Basically, I felt like God promised me something, a happy life, an ideal family, and always enough to make ends meet, with maybe a few run-of-the-mill challenges thrown in to make me stronger or to help me train my children. But, as my priest once said to me, I felt like I'd been the victim of a bait and switch, and I felt like I had the right to be angry with God. And that's where my trust began to fail. God didn't give me what I thought He promised; he didn't live up to His end of the bargain, so why should I trust Him?

This past weekend, I went on a women's retreat, where I experienced a lot of grace to deal with this junk. Now, God is always giving us grace, but we aren't always in a position to receive it. For example, when I was folding my arms and stomping my foot like a little child, there wasn't a lot of room for me to receive His grace. So I repented. A lot. And then I asked God to just come in and do an overhaul in my heart. I felt like I had strayed so far from Him that I wasn't even sure how to get back, so I need Him to tug on my leash to bring me back to where I could at least hear his voice. (and yes, I did just compare myself to a dog.)

During a personal time of prayer, I was reminded of Psalm 16, my "Life Psalm." I began to read. I was stopped at verse 2: "I said to the Lord, 'You are my Lord, apart from you, I have no good thing.'" And again at verse 4: "The sorrows of those will increase who run after other gods."

There was my grave mistake: not living and acting as if God is enough. Not letting God be enough. I get impatient very easily, and I didn't want to wait for God to act anymore. So I just started taking matters into my own hands. The problem was that I didn't really know how to run my own life, and I certainly didn't know how to do it better than the Lord, so instead of living, I just escaped. I escaped into writing, surfing the web, reading, sleeping. I was trying to live an imaginary life vicariously through stories instead of trying to live the life God wanted me to, and being the woman He created me to be.

Verses 5 and 6 brought me to weeping: "Lord, you have assigned my my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places."

The heart of the matter was that I didn't like where the boundary lines had fallen. It sure didn't seem "pleasant" to me that I was trapped in struggling family, with both my husband and myself out of work and barely living from paycheck to paycheck, neither of us having any peace or direction for our future. I kept saying to myself, "Lord, this is not what I signed up for."

But while I was on retreat, God gave me the grace to accept the boundary lines. I also came to the realization that, as I've gone through periods of grief where God has gently forced me to come face to face with the pain, I've actually gotten through it, and now, hallelujah, I've arrived at the final stage of grief, the stage of acceptance. This is where He has planted me and expects me to serve. And He wants me to serve joyfully, peacefully, with a willing heart, not grudgingly. And here's the wonderful thing about the Lord - when He gives you grace to do something (and when you open yourself to actually receive the grace), He gives you the peace to do it as well. 

So, now the game has changed. Instead of grudging the fact that I realistically have to do more to carry our family along than most wives would have to do, I am choosing to trust that God is giving me what I need to do it, and that He is also giving my husband what he needs as well. My tasks won't be any different. My service to my husband and family will be the same. But hopefully, they will be done better and more cheerfully than it had been done before. Because I have made peace with living inside of my boundary lines. I have accepted my portion and my cup.

Verse 11 says, "You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand."

This is the path that God has set me upon, the place where He deemed fit for me to serve and to grow in holiness. 

This is the boundary outline of my childhood home, 

where my parents still live. This place is the epitome of peace for me. 

My prayer is that I will grow to find the Lord's boundary lines

 for my life to be just even more delightful than this place.