I can't sit still, I've no choice but to combust!

Things to write about:

-         Character

-         God’s calling (gender specific)

-         Past abuse of body, heart, and soul

-         Being so abundantly blessed by the long overdue conversation with Mollie

-         Redemption: what it means, what it involves, how future redeemed relationships will look

-         Guarding my heart, not becoming attached to a brother as anything more ahead of what is actually happening in the situation

-         How to relate to Christian brothers and unsaved men

-         Waiting on God’s will, dying to my own will

-         Being transformed from a Proverbs 7 woman who lures to a woman who waits to be pursued

-         Things with mom: difference of personalities and view of the world, how I treat her verses how I treat other people when she is the one who provides the most for me, learning to love even though we never see eye to eye and sometimes liking is difficult

I find myself wishing that somehow my current self could travel back in time and have a self-to-self conversation with the me of about 15. That’s pretty much when I started coming into my own and making more significant decisions than I probably had ever made before. The timing was unfortunate since at that time my world was shaken with the loss of Craig and most of the significant decisions I was making dove into the world of withdrawal, secrecy, destruction, and abandonment. I wanted to die only because I had no clue how to cope with life and the chaos around me but I could never lose the spark of hope that somehow stayed lit within me enough to actually do it. Plus, since part of the chaos included the disastrous relationship with my mother and the many times that she threatened suicide, I knew I could never be selfish enough to lay the burden of burying their second child on either of my parents. I recall one particularly terrifying car trip where my mother was talking about how she felt like she had nothing left to live for and in her anger and misery she nearly drove us both into a concrete wall. I can’t understand her pain because I know that hers was greater than mine and much different, but I remember that moment and how I felt. That moment wasn’t the beginning of the cycle of self-destruction, but it was very much so the fuel needed to continue on and drastically escalate the intensity of how far I would dig myself down. It’s a catch 22: my mom apologized for that dangerous outburst the following day by buying me a ceramic dragon that I liked (because materialism is definitely the way to address deep-rooted conflict) and writing a note about me being the only reason she’s still here and that she would never do something like that with me in the car. So great, not only was the moment completely warped since my misery stricken mother was going to take down the only thing that she claimed was worth living for in her own grief, but there is also the weight of being told that you’re the only reason your own mother sees for not ending her own life. But all in all, it’s okay because now she realizes that she wouldn’t ever do anything to end her own life while I’m with her. Great. So what does a 15 year old do after losing her brother and basically her own mother? Well what I did was build a cocoon of pain within myself. I harbored all the hurt inside and kept it as my own. Somehow it’s okay to hurt if you’re causing it yourself, so I used my suffering as its own antidote. The aftereffects of this are still apparent today because I still struggle with internalizing pain and emotions and I’ve actually grown to somewhat relish physical pain. I’ve developed a decent pain tolerance so if ever I’m tortured, I’ll have a tool to my advantage, but mostly this development is another thing to add to the “Why Melinda Is Messed Up List.” I went from the extreme control over food that led to unnecessary weight loss while my brother was struggling with drug addiction to binging on food as a maladaptive coping mechanism. While I was binging I was causing my own pain, filling the emptiness of Craig’s loss with the fullness of a bloated stomach, and lavishing in the misery and guilt that followed a binge. Then I started dating, giving everything up so that I could further the cause of making myself a shell. I don’t want to get too graphic because I don’t know who may end up stumbling upon this and I want to protect people, but I’m also not going to leave out what are intrinsic details.

One of the many realizations of this Christmas break was that I’ve never really had a home. I’ve pretty much bounced between shelters and more than ever now as I grow spiritually, I’m realizing how empty my should-be home is. In the very much so persistent group get-togethers with friends over the past month, I’ve been blessed with what a home would feel like to at least some degree. Ironically, this took place entirely (with the exception of one night) outside of my own home. Thankfully this wasn’t a perfect sense of home, though. Even in feeling the joy of companionship with friends, I still felt the pang of being separated from the Lord in my heart. He drew me to Him throughout the insanity of late-night (early/late morning) games, movies, road trips or other exploits we partook of over break. I needed to step away from comfort from friendship and worship and talk with the God of true comfort and perfect love. I don’t know what His will for me is, but I know whatever situation He puts me in, whether He draws me to somewhere close to serve Him or calls me to some far-off place, whether I stay single or whether He has a husband and a family in store, whether the road will be marked with suffering or with ease, the most important thing is to chase after Him and praise Him for what He has given (everything). This is advantageous for immediate application since I’ve just spoken of how my home now isn’t really a home.

My heart is aching. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I’ve got so many open sores in my heart and I know that the Lord is healing them but I’m not sure that the scars will ever quite go away. That’s probably a good thing though, it will help remind me of what the Lord has delivered me from and continually bring me back to a place of humility and thanksgiving when I on my own would be full of pride and ungratefulness.

I have spat in the face of the One who loved me so much that He stretched His arms over the cross for me and took all of the blame that I deserved. I forfeited my heart and my body over to men. I’ve used sex as a numbing agent, as a tool to mar myself much as I would have with a blade to flesh. I’ve also used it when I fashioned myself “in love” and decided that because the relationship made me feel good more than I was feeling terrible, it was a good thing, that I could love, and that because this was a good love and not a defacing one, this time the sex would be redeemed. What are all these lies?? How on earth did I continue to listen to them for so long? For four years I wandered around ignoring the open arms of the Lord beckoning me towards Him. I chose other means to satisfy my wicked heart; abusive, selfish, depraved methods of continuing hiding the greatest need of them all: to have a committed relationship with God through His Son, my only Savior, Jesus Christ.

What are the repercussions of my past sins that continue to lay on my heart? Well first off, I am free from the condemnation that should follow my debauchery because when Jesus died on the cross, He bore the weight of ALL sin. So just as much as God forgives me for my daily faithlessness, my lack of love towards His people, for my pride and my selfishness, He has forgiven me for my literal adultery. I struggle in general with accepting His grace, either out of pride (I feel like I need to earn it) or in this case, because I’m so greatly tormented by the stain of sin that I truly don’t know how to release myself from it. I know that God is working at that in me through the Holy Spirit and eventually I will truly be free from all remnants of the sin as I am already free from condemnation.

I’m working on having less concern for what my body looks like and feeling down about how I look. Instead of worrying over physical beauty, my heart yearns to glorify God with how I rule over my body and my appearance. I want to die to the worries about what other people think about my appearance and die to abusing food to abuse myself. I know that I am a beautiful creation outside of any physical consideration. In Proverbs 31, the picture of a Godly woman doesn’t describe her physical appearance whatsoever, but rather detracts her beauty from her character and how she serves the Lord and those around her. I know that seeking to glorify God in my daily habits will be more effective in working out body and eating issues (and pretty much all issues) way more than trying to focus on the issues themselves. When I try to make myself feel better via the self-esteem route or simply try to alter how I eat, it works for a short time but then ultimately fails. This goes back to the heart verses fruit approach to change. If I want any change to happen, I cannot manipulate the fruit to get the results that I want. The fruit is growing off of the tree of my heart and if my heart continues to be misguided, no matter how much I try to produce healthy, good fruit, I will continue to yield rotten fruit. However, if the goal is to glorify God, to point to the cross in my identity rather than my own feelings of esteem, good fruit will begin to birth from within. God is so good.

Praise the God who gives and takes away!

This blog was actually written on December 14, 2008:

This can only start one way: the Lord is good and His love is perfect, enduring, and more satisfying than anything. My heart, my mind, my soul, my outstretched arms and my guided steps all yearn for Him and in yearning find that He is always faithful.

Romans 8 – He works FOR the good. It doesn’t say anything about making everything good. God never promises (post fall) that we won’t feel pain or hardship, but He does promise that He can use pain, hardship, or whatever other situation towards good for His people.

Pastor Dave talked about this in church today and I immediately related it back to what I’ve learned over the past few days. Since school ended for the semester, I’ve been constantly working, the only times I haven’t are the 8 hours in between 16 hour shifts where I drive home, shower, catch a few hours of sleep, and make the trip back to St. Joe’s Center (with the exception of this morning since I didn’t work a double so I could go to church). I was not at all looking forward to the madness of cramming in seven shifts in four days and as I left school at 2:00 on Thursday to drive straight to work, I wasn’t exactly in the best spirits. But even in my sin, God has worked at my heart, chipping away the plaque and making it more tender and filled with His love.

On the drive home from work, I was so in awe of the majesty of God revealed through His creation that I actually started to cry. A bonus of working until 7:00 am in the winter is that the timing is perfect for when the sun is breaking over the horizon. By the time I left work and was on my way home, the sun was creeping over the tops of ice glazed trees. The few light clouds that were hanging in the sky were the perfect offset from the hues of reds and oranges and purples. Okay, so my description does absolutely no justice to how beautiful the scene actually was. But trust in the fact that it indeed was powerfully beautiful, overwhelmingly so. Then as I drove down Cortez Road meditating on the Lord’s goodness and praising Him, He showed me yet another beauty: the moon was still visible in the winter sky and it was magnificent. The sky was cloudless surrounding it and as the moon was facing the sunrise, the sky was a lucid blue. Later that morning I learned on the news that the moon hasn’t appeared so large since 1993 and won’t again for another 8 years. Thanks for letting me witness its beauty, Lord. It was quite spectacular to behold.

A slip into a not so far gone past

This bit of writing was actually done on February 6, 2008. While it is much of the same old and is a bit outdated since much of the discussed content stayed in February, it still has some worth and therefore will break the bubble of the first post for the new blog. I did edit a little (mostly just deleting) because it was heavy in pride and self-worth rather than worth derived from what God did. Praise Him that He is constantly at work!

And now a look back into Wednesday, February 6, 2008:

For some reason today, I realized that it feels like longer than a year since I’ve been single when, in actuality, it isn’t even quite a year yet. I find the transitions that occur after a relationship ends really interesting. I went from feeling glad about what was going on because I didn’t really see it as an end so much as turning a new leaf. It was the first step of doing what I new was right (glorifying God with my life: mind, body, spirit) rather than what was easy (instant gratification from a man). It wasn’t easy to walk away from my relationship with Chris without having a really concrete reason for doing so. But there was just something in me, and in him, that gave us the affirmation that we needed to split paths. Then from this gladness for making a change came the sadness of realizing what was being left behind. That was the predominant attitude for the few months following our break up. I missed feeling the acceptance and security that came with the relationship. I missed knowing that I had insight into his life and getting to share my life with this person that I absolutely adored. But then I realized that there was a lot that I didn’t miss. Suddenly I could tell how dependent I had been on him. That really wasn’t fair for him because he had to carry me along behind him and I was trying to make him fulfill a need that only the Lord could. But I really think that in such a situation it’s even less fair for the person being carried along. You’re made to feel like you are inadequate, weak, and useless. I think the best thing that could have happened to me is to be thrown off, left to walk on my own. And really, that’s what breaking up did for me. It gave me that experience. Suddenly I didn’t have a crutch and the sad state was followed by the growth state: remembering the resilience I once had, the heart that I never quite lost but was more so suppressed. I remembered that I am boisterous and decided that it’s okay. I had a restoration of my happiness as it was before I had deemed myself unworthy of it.

Something that I’m noticing just about everywhere in our society is how we our so consumed with instant gratification. It’s somewhat disheartening. The first method that is generally used for treatment of mental dysfunction is medication. What the crap good is that??? Medication should be a last resort because first off: no drug is without secondary effects and second: in most cases of mental disorders, other forms of treatment are more beneficial to a client.

I don’t really know how to say what I’m trying to say at this point so I’m just sort of going to go with a stream of thoughts until I get somewhere and if it’s comprehensive, I’ll delete this disclaimer, if not, it will stay.

I guess the main point is that I’m really glad to be where I am right now. I actually have respect for myself, I am starting to realize that I am capable of contributing to the world, and I don’t define myself by how others treat me or what their opinions are of me. I feel like I’m becoming a fully functional Melinda. Well, that’s probably a vast overstatement. I’m probably just starting to tap what my functional level is. I’m still an awful procrastinator, I still do things to put myself at a disadvantage, I still put off things that I know are good for me, and I’m still not willing to completely step out of my comfort zone and take on responsibilities whole-heartedly. But I’ve taken steps. And that’s what it’s really all about. I remember reading that somewhere. I think it was from Don Miller’s Blue Like Jazz. But since I’m not sure and I don’t know the direct citation from it, I’m going to claim it as an original idea. Because if you really think about it, the likelihood that any thought that we have or any feeling we have is truly unique to us is really impossible. Think of all the classic literature… read some Austen or Dumas or Dostoevsky or whoever and imagine even just those who are on this earth currently. Can a feeling that any one person has really be unique to that person? I’m not talking about some deeper philosophical point about how we each experience life because I do think that to each person the same feeling can have a different effect. For instance, I don’t believe any one person loves exactly the same as any one else. That’s just how it is. It’s inevitable because no two people are exactly alike. And oh my gosh that was such a ridiculous tangent, it’s not even funny. It sort of reminds me of reading classic lit… lots of tangents about abstract issues to provoke some complementary thought processes. I don’t even remember what elicited all of this stuff. …Scrolling… Ah, yes. I was about to make an unoriginal original statement. And so here it is: the final destination or goal is generally not a valid measure of the efforts a person has put forth.