Coffee Chat: Warts and All

 

Do come in.  I know it's unusual to have a chat on Saturday but I've time and things I'd like to say and so Saturday it shall be.   There's hot cocoa and coffee or tea.  Take your choice and settle in and let's talk.

Be forewarned...It's not an easy one today.

Anyone else struggling with holiday blues?  I am.  I cannot lie about it.  

I had a long and difficult conversation with Amie a bit over a week ago.  Difficult  in that I heard all the many things she's been through in the past months of her silence, all the things her therapist assured her she should share with me.  Things that were hard to hear and that were surely hell to bear.  

I told her how strong she was to endure these things and reassured her that bad things happen over which we have no control, no matter how diligent we think we have been.  We don't and can't control others who might bring in harm, especially those whom we are loving and trusting, and it's no fault of ours that we didn't know.   I told her that she'd need to work hard to find self-forgiveness, but that no one blamed her except herself.   And then I asked if she could forgive me for failing her at times.  She told me how she felt about me.  Not, as I'd feared, that I was a bad mother but that I was a good one who had taught her much.  She told me the  reasons for some of the strife that had gone on which had nothing to do with me...And so we sobbed together.   It was a long and emotional conversation.  It was a good one in some ways but it drained me.  

And then there has been another issue ongoing.  What I want to do is crawl in the bed and snivel for hours.  What I've done is what I must do, as any adult does.  I might feel like a lost child but I am grown up.  I might be heartbroken over how horrid another might be, shocked even at the depth of hatred another might feel,  but life goes on anyway.  Thank you Advent writings for proving that.  One gets on and prospers anyway.  That is faith in action.

A minor thing, a fly buzzing about, has been a constant barrage of annoying negative comments.  Hence why I put on comment moderation.  I can delete them from the blog, but not always from my brain, especially if I'm feeling a bit low anyway.  But it has made me think of why I write as I do.  I'm certainly not going to win any rewards for my work.  I'm not going to make the best seller's lists and I'm not going to be famous. I'm most assuredly not going to be rich.   That buzzing fly has helped me to define to myself why I do what I do here on this blog.  I suppose that it's proof that even things meant to discourage and be negative can have a positive effect.  There is good coming from hurt and hate even if we do not see it at the moment.

But yes, I am battered.  I'm battle weary.  I'm tired.  

Isn't this supposed to be the season of Joy?  Why is the world about me trying so very hard to destroy it?  

Years ago, just before this 11 year battle of a continuing barrage of hard and difficult things, someone came to visit our church.   I had never heard of this woman before and haven't heard of her since.   God spoke it into my spirit that day as we were getting ready to go, as I dragged my feet about going,  "Go...She has a word for you..." So I went and it was a good word.  It wasn't of hard and difficult things but of a spiritual move that would forever change our spiritual lives, and of blessings like we'd never seen them  before.  "God is going to bless your socks off!" she said with great emphasis.

 Please understand me here.   I don't think I am blind to blessings, but do you know how many times since that announcement I've looked up at the sky and cried out "Is THIS blessing?  Does THIS look like blessing to You?"  Because to me it looks a lot different.  To me it looks like heartache and loss and pain too difficult to bear.  To me it looks like disaster and ruin.  To me it doesn't look like what I thought blessing would look like.   I pictured blessings like Job's restoration.   But the truth is blessing thus far has tended to look like Job's trials.  It's been a lot more dust and ashes and a whole lot less glitter and sparkle.   It's been more oozing sores scraped with broken pottery and less spa days.  It's been more "Why don't you curse God and die?" than it's been feasting and multiplication of my flocks. 

To say that I don't understand  what was spoken into my life is truth.  And to say that I struggle to see what God is doing is truth.  To say that it's made me stop and look long and hard into the mirror of my soul and ask what can you do, Terri,  to be better for this, is truth.  But at the root of it all, is a deep and hurtful wail of "WHY?!"  

This week has brought to light that a difficult relationship will never NOT be difficult.  That the only person who can change is the one who most longs to see the situation change and that is me.   Years ago, I heard a statement that has resonated repeatedly in my life.  "Prayer doesn't change things for you...It changes YOU for things."  This week I've recalled that over and over again as I've prayed.  This is fact.  I am changed.  

I realize now that my love is not enough to change someone into a better person.  My love is not the cure-all they need.  My love is never going to be what is required.  My love will only agitate and frustrate and create still more and deeper hatred.   I do not know why.   It seems the kindest thing I can do is to quietly step away and leave this poor soul in peace.   It is also the most difficult choice.  Because co-dependence is as much of an ailment for the one 'helping'  as it is to the addicted,  be the addiction to drugs and alcohol, or anger and rage and extreme negativity.

John and Katie have been towers of strength.  "You are enough as you are.  You are loved by so many others.  What does one matter?"  

I know why it matters to me.  Because giving up says that I will never be enough.  And it says that there is never going to be a chance to have what was never mine in the first place.  Inside my head, I hear words that have been screamed at me over and over again, that I am selfish, lazy, thoughtless, rude, unforgiving, unrelenting, un-Christian, wrong, self-pitying, immature, whining, cold, stupid, etc.    God help me, I believe them every one.  Those words carry more weight than the positive ones spoken over me by those I know truly love me, who see me, warts and beauty marks alike.

No, I'm sorry it's not a happy chat today.  But it's an honest one.  

So here I am in the middle of Christmas preparations, trying hard to find what will give meaning to the season for me.  It comes back to the Advent series.  It comes back to the reason for this journey.  To get to the heart of God.    To remember that in the season of earth dying, comes life that brings hope.