moving to wordpress

I'm moving my blog over to wordpress.  I would love it if you would still follow my blog over there!! You can find me at inthequietinthechaos.wordpress.com .  Thank you.  Over & out. Hehe.

like a drug

Like a drug this fills me up

Gives me a buzz for one more vacant moment

and the empty ecstasy that I pursue

a false satisfaction that keeps me from You

And the guilt - it washes over

and I'm drowning in the shame

Self-indulgent, safe emotions

The elusive front that I parade
 

 

 

 

When I was about 15 I had this friend.  She came to school one day with cuts all over her forearm.  I asked her about them & she said, 'When my mum is angry with me for something, I do this.  Then she feels bad & stops yelling at me.'  
'Oh . . . cool,' I said.  'Freeeeeeaky,' I thought.
 

I have many positive memories of my childhood & youth but I also went through some hard times.  I responded to the chaos and conflict with fear & a sense of helplessness.  I felt like nothing was in my control.  I experienced a lot of confusion & difficult emotions.  I felt isolated in this & I didn't feel I had anyone to help me make sense of what was going on.  When I was 20, I finally found a way to manage unwanted, messy emotions. I didn't know it was a 'thing', I didn't know it had a name.  What I knew was that when I burned myself  I no longer had to feel anything.  Nothing but momentary physical pain & a neat, long  line to acknowledge it.  Sadness, anxiety, fear, shame, & anger.  All gone in the drawing of burning embers across my skin.  Other times, when I knew I should be hurting & instead just felt numb; burning myself was a way of feeling something & it brought relief.  That's messed up, right?  I mean, that is messed up. I remember flipping through the pages of a magazine while at Teachers College one day, & coming across an article on self-harm.  My friend leaned over my shoulder & glancing at the article said, 'It's really sad, eh?'  & with my heart racing like it was about to explode, I casually said, 'Yer.' and went on slowly flipping. That there was a name for what I was doing & that it was a growing issue amongst young people didn't help me.  I already knew it was not healthy.  I knew it was messed up & I was ashamed.  I didn't want anyone to know that I was so broken. 

I wanted to be better. Often I would manage months of no self-harming only to cave again as soon as the pressure came on.  During those periods when this was sometimes a daily occurrence, I had conflicting feelings of not wanting anyone to know  & longing for someone to intervene. 
Throughout this time I battled with feelings of anger towards God & a desperate desire to earn His favour.

When I was lucky enough to marry my 'first love' a few years later, I hoped it would be a fresh start.  This young couple, starting a new & beautiful life. But for all the happiness of the day & what it symbolised, it was a miserable time in my life.   I felt consumed by darkness & the belief that I had nothing to offer.  And I was burdened with guilt for joining with this person for what I would gain & most certainly not what I had to give.  I had a deep desire to see healing in my life. I also had some wonderful people supporting me during that time. I began to make progress in my thinking & I  hoped that maybe self-harming was a thing of the past. However, a couple of years later when some issues resurfaced, I fell back to that old pattern of coping.

The incentive to cease this behaviour came when I saw the way it impacted negatively on my husband.  I could no longer justify what I was doing with the idea that it wasn't hurting anyone else.  When my daughter  (who was not long speaking in sentences) touched my arm and  asked in alarm, 'Mama, what happened?' the payoff was no longer big enough.  The final time I self-harmed I felt no relief from the inner chaos & I knew that in order for it to 'work', I would need to do something much more drastic.  So, I had a choice to make; end the pain, or work through the pain.  I was not planning any hasty exit from this earth so I chose what felt like the more difficult latter. 

Recently at church, one of our pastors, Sam, shared the following story:

Luke 7 vs 36-38 - When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee's house and reclined at the table.  A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee's house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume.  As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.

It was a horribly awkward situation for all the guests - dignified, well-respected members of the community sitting down to dinner only to have an uninvited woman with a 'bad' reputation show up and begin to make a scene.  This was an embarrassment for Simon, the host & when Jesus seemed unfazed by the situation, Simon criticized him for sitting there and allowing her to behave in this way.  This was Jesus' response:

Luke 7 vs 44-48 - Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, 'Do you see this woman? I came into your house.  You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair.  You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet.  You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet.  Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven - as her great love has shown.  But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.'  Then Jesus said to her, 'Your sins are forgiven.'

He then goes on to say to the woman, 'Your faith has saved you; go in peace.' (Luke 7 v 50)

This woman was living in shame & brokenness. She had a bad reputation & she was a mess.  But in her desperation, she brought her mess to Jesus. He saw her act of humility & surrender as beautiful & responded with love & by bringing freedom & healing to her. 

I remember one particular night, during a time when Craig was working away from home, & my two babies were asleep.  It was late and I sat on the couch alone. I had been attending counselling for a couple of months, trying to make sense of  some past experiences and trying to  wade through the subsequent  overwhelming emotions, with little progress.  My life felt like it was unravelling.  It felt like a dangerous place to be and at times I wondered if I would ever be able to find order in my thoughts again or be able to experience emotions in a normal way.  That night, I closed my eyes & just started talking to God about it - about my anger, my unforgiveness & bitterness & my shame . . .  As I sat there in the quiet I saw a picture of this place filled with light & other people covering me with clothes of light.  I felt like God was saying to me that all that 'stuff' that had previously defined me was no longer who I was.  That I was His child, this was my new identity & could start living in that. If I'm honest I think in that moment I still didn't feel His love for me but I began to believe that He loved me. 

It was a turning point. In that moment of surrender, He revealed the truth - that I was His & I didn't have to walk in that shame & brokenness anymore.  I was done with self-harming.

Acts 17 v 28  - 'For in him we live and move and have our being.’  As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring'.

The last couple of months I have been swept up in the busy-ness of life & there are changes in the air.  It's easy in these moments to become a bit unhinged, a bit ungrounded.  When life feels like it's slipping out of my control, the nightmares come again taunting and haunting.   Its  easy then for  doubts to creep in.  Slipping back to the old, familiar and forgetting momentarily, my identity.  Forgetting where I find my identity.  And seeing my broken, more than His beautiful.   

What I have realised over these last few years, and what I have been reminded of again in the last few days is that yes, I'm still living with brokenness.  I'm messed up.  Life is messy. I can't navigate my way through this alone. And honestly, I still have seasons where I struggle to trust that God is good & that He loves me.  BUT, I have experienced a genuine understanding of His love and a growing intimacy in my relationship with Him.  I find hope and cling to the fact that because I have experienced His love & His grace, I know I can come to Him with all my ugly mess & surrender it to Him.  And when I do, He gently takes that & transforms my broken into His beautiful.

Hebrews 4 vs 14-16 - Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are - yet he did not sin.  Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. 

'The gospel is this: We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.'  - Timothy Keller. 


If you want to listen to Sam's message based on the scriptures I have shared here, you can click on this link & select the Podcast 'The Source of Healing & Holiness'.








awkward . . .

                          

picture source

I'm awkward.  If you know me, chances are we've had some kind of awkward encounter at some stage.  I want to assure you, just in case there was any doubt at all, it's not you, it's me. I'm just not awesome with people.  Small talk, eye contact & hugging.  All things that can literally make me break out in a cold sweat. 

When I was a teenager I used to bribe my little sister to buy items from the local dairy for me because you know, having to talk to the girl at the counter was just SO terrifying. It was a nice little set-up for us both until she decided that she was enabling me & refused any more bribes. So I stopped buying stuff.  People used to think I was her taller, better looking, younger sister, because in social situations, I would kind of linger behind & let her do all the talking. Awesome.

As I got older, I used to dread those moments when I was walking through the supermarket & glanced across the aisle to see someone I knew. 'Don't make eye contact, do not make eye contact . . . '  Suddenly the ingredients list on that can of red kidney beans became really fascinating.  I've gone to church all my life & until recently found those before & after service times almost unbearable.  And when they would say, 'Now, lets just break for a coupla minutes & take some time to greet the person next to you,'  this was a weekly moment of horror for me.   I'm not great with small talk. 

 

'The awkward moment when someone says, 'Hello' and you say, 'Good thanks!' - anon.

 

Eye contact has been the bane of my existence.  This is something I have worked incredibly hard to overcome with little success.  And the more I try to establish strong eye contact, the more awkward it becomes. In the first place, it can be a huge effort for me just to meet someone's eye.  I'm never sure how long is appropriate to maintain eye contact & then  I don't know how to look away without appearing rude or disinterested.  In the end, it gets to the point where I have absolutely no idea what the other person is talking about because I'm so uncomfortable and distracted by the whole eye contact dilemma. If they are great at making eye contact - well, that's even worse for me.  Because if someone is looking at me intently while I talk, I start to feel very self-conscious and then the stuttering starts.  My husband has got used to me stumbling through the same sentence 3 or 4 times before I ask him if we can just come back to it later. Yep, at times I'm awkward around him too.  I used to have a phone phobia.  I would avoid making phone calls at all costs & if I did have to make a phone call I would have to write down what I was going to say & then psych myself up just to dial the number.  And I love the idea of Skype but having someone staring at my face for the entirety of the conversation is just too overwhelming to make it practical.

 

Even with my kids, I'm awkward.  I know, that's pretty crazy right?  Its mostly the eye contact thing.  I'm standing there, trying to have a conversation with them, & they are staring at me all intently and . . . well . . . it makes me nervous.  Sometimes when they're misbehaving,  I have to reprimand them.  There I am in the middle of a good telling off & they are standing there just staring, & I get all self-conscious and start stuttering or worse, giggle nervously.  There goes the telling off, out the window.  You can't take your mum seriously when she is awkwardly giggling or trying to stutter out a sentence.  Sunny learned to anticipate what I was going to say & was able to finish my sentences for me, before he turned 2. 

 

And the hugging.  I have spent a great deal of time successfully evading prospective hugs by well-meaning relatives or friends over the years.  ARGHH. SO. MUCH. AWKWARDNESS.  A word of advice, unless you can commit to it 100%, just don't even go there!  Unless you are one of those naturally 'huggy' people & can sweep me earnestly into your bosom, with wild abandon, just don't do it.   Honestly, I will NOT get hurt feelings if you refrain. It's just not worth the discomfort that ensues for either party involved.  & understand that I am actually doing you a favour by never imposing this on you & subjecting you to the awkwardness that is my spatially impaired self.    

 

 

So, now that I've got that off my chest here's the thing.  Mostly I'm ok with this.  All of this.  Even the dreaded small talk.  I've got pretty good at not taking myself too seriously or walking away from a situation and thinking, 'God, that was awkward' and being able to have a laugh with Craig about it.  But sometimes its not that cool.  Sometimes I really want to engage with someone & the awkwardness that is myself makes that difficult.  I miss opportunities because I want to avoid those unbearable feelings.  The worst is when I can see that the way I interact with someone actually hinders us from connecting on a deeper level.  I have a genuine desire to connect with people and when my 'social ineptitude' gets in the way, it is bloody frustrating!  And sometimes I come away from situations like that wondering how God could ever use someone like me. 

Which is where Moses comes in.  So, here he is in Exodus 3 & 4 and he's been hanging out in the desert when God decides to reveal Himself in this epic moment through an apparently ever-burning bush.  He reveals His plan to save His people from slavery and oppression and explains that He is going to use Moses to do it.  Instead of being totally blown away & excited to take on this new role that God has personally set out for him, he starts on a bunch of excuses.  Each time he comes up with an excuse God patiently explains how He will support Moses in this but I guess Moses is still kinda freaked out at the prospect of having to actually speak to his people & to Pharaoh.  Because in chapter 4 vs 10 he says, 'Erm, I don't mean to be a bother . . . but I'm not really awesome at the whole speaking thing, now or ever for that matter.  I'm not very good with words & I struggle to get them out & end up stuttering.'  (ok, I'm paraphrasing). God got frustrated with Moses then, & said He'd send his brother Aaron along for support.  Evidently God saw something in Moses that he couldn't see in himself.  & maybe it wasn't ever really about Moses' talents anyway.

 

But that's something I love about the Bible & I love about God.  All through the Bible we see these weak, imperfect people used by God to do awesome things.  And that gives me hope because I think as hard as I try, I'm probably always going to be at least a little bit awkward. 

 

1 Cor 1 vs 26-31 - Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called.  Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential: not many were of noble birth.  But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise: God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.  God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things - and the things that are not - to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.  It is because of Him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God - that is our righteousness, holiness, and redemption.  Therefore, as it is written; ' Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.'