piling on

i feel like i should write something tonight but i have no idea what to say.  i'm overwhelmed.  that's all i feel...overwhelmed by everything:  life, the bookstore, upcoming choices, the past, my present, the future, grief, hard facts that have to be faced, going through life with a mental illness, looking at everything through the lens of trama and loss.  

how would one not feel overwhelmed?

i am, by no means, alone in this.  most of these things are faced by an awful lot of people on this green and blue planet hurtling through space.  but one thing i really struggle with is that people offer me very little comfort.  i'm not a people person.  i want a deserted island and the comforts of life but NO people.  knowing i'm not alone is, most often, a very cold comfort to me.  i wish i were alone...most of the time.

i don't wish i were different in this but i feel like maybe it would be easier at times.  community and all that.  i know that's what God created us for; it's one of the things i can't wait to ask him about on the new earth.  here on this earth i struggle with it so very much.  

i'm gonna try to get a little extra rest tonight so i'm headed to bed early (at just after 11:00 - it's very early for me).  

grace and peace and rest

overload

today is an emotional day for me all-around.

 

first:  it's Good Friday and as a Christian this is always an emotional day as i remember the sacrifice Jesus made for a sinner like me!

 

 

second:  it's the beginning of Passover when Jews (and Christians) remember God's deliverance from slavery;

 

third:  it's april 3, my best friend's mother's birthday.  i love her very much and rejoice that she is alive.  i am the first to say that i envy, very much, their relationship as i deal with the broken relationship with my own mother.

 

fourth:  as it's april 3, it's the anniversary of MLK's last speech on the night before he was brutally assassinated.  he's been a hero of mine for as long as i remember.  this speech makes me weep and rejoice at once.  "mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!"

 

on this Good Friday we Christians continuously say, "sunday is coming!"

 

AMEN to that!

grace and peace and glory

four and counting

here's the only way i know to describe it:

 

4 years ago tonight i feel as if i was diagnosed with a terminal disease that won't kill me.  i feel like i've just been waiting to die.  not constantly fearing my death - i have a great faith and believe in Heaven and believe 100% that i will spend eternity there - it's a waiting.

 

as if my car tires lifted off the ground as i drove through the raging water and, 4 years later, they have yet to touch ground.  so much of me died that day:  who i was, who i thought i was, my belief in my future, my belief in myself, my sense of safety and security, my fearlessness, my self-assuredness, my ease. 

 

now i'm 4 years removed and it feels as if it's all happening RIGHT NOW!  they describe PTSD as the brain "shutting down" to protect itself therefore keeping itself in the HERE and not allowing it to process memories as the PAST.  so here i am.

 

i'm grateful that i have a have a job to go to - that part of the day passed without fanfare.  now i'm home and the tears won't stop, my heart won't stop pounding, i can't stop pacing, i can't eat, i didn't sleep at all last night.  i don't hold out much hope for tonight.  i wish i were a person who could just let anniversaries pass without dwelling on them but i'm not that person.  i feel them.  i REALLY feel them.

 

3 1/2 years of anxiety (the anxiety didn't start until i moved back into the house in october 2010) and i feel like i'm just waiting to die.  waiting.  to.  die. 

 

it's not a good feeling, it's not a normal feeling, it's just what i feel.  i am grateful for a good many things:  it didn't rain today, i have a good job that i love, i came home to my sweet pets, i have the weekend to process and (hopefully) relax.  i have friends who know EXACTLY what i'm going through because it happened to them too, i have a God who is bigger than my anxiety and i didn't die in the flood (some people did!)

 

grace and peace

 

  

the anxiety strikes back

this morning i had my first panic attack in several weeks so i'm both overly anxious and overly tired tonight.  i'm weary of living with PTSD and severe anxiety.  the fact that it can take over my brain in a split second and bring me to my knees is something that is hard to accept.  i was diagnosed 3 1/2 years ago (6 months post-flood) though i've probably been living with PTSD since i was 9 or 10 and just didn't know it.  it's some better but it continues to hang on tooth and nail.

 

i did all i know to do to make the panic attack pass and felt some better while walking the pug.  i had no choice but to go to work (no doubt that makes me feel better anyway) but it was a struggle.  once i have an attack i live in fear of a worse one following closely on its heels.  rarely does that happen but with anxiety the constant fear of a panic attack is often much worse than the short attacks themselves.

 

because i know that God is a gracious God i know that He guided my cousin and her kids to stop by for a visit.  she is one of my favorite people alive!  she never fails to make me laugh and feel better about the world in general.  not to mention, her kids are 2 of the most adorable people in the world!  the rest of the day was nerve-wracking and long but i made it.  i am grateful that i have a bookstore cat to love on days like today.  petting an animal is PROVEN to lower your blood pressure and make you live a longer and healthier life.  thank God for orson!

 

 

grace and peace

  

 

 

soapbox time

disclaimer:  this a political diatribe - feel free to not read, to disagree, to comment but know that it comes from a place of exhaustion and disgust at the tone of discourse these days.

 

on my way home from the grocery today i passed a tractor trailer with these words written into the dirt:  “vote God in and vote the devil out!” 

this made me so angry.  yes, i am a liberal democrat and an obama supporter but never, be it romney, mccain, or even bush would i call my political opponent’s agenda of the devil or imply that my candidate’s platform was of God.  if indeed that as the implication rather than calling the candidates themselves “God” and “devil.”

i am so tired of this argument:  this is a Christian nation!  and that the republican platform and their ridiculous family values agenda are more “Christian” than we democrats who are gay-loving, baby-killing, terrorist-appeasing, welfare-taking pinko commies. 

this nation was founded by a group of men who were the descendants of men and woman who came to this land so that they could worship who and how they chose to.  did most of the founding fathers believe in “God?”  YES.  But was it Christian God as we think of him?  NO.  was their belief in the divinity of Christ?  Mostly NO.  did they frame our laws based on Judeo-Christian principles?  YES.  But did they not make the First Amendment: “congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...”  YES! 

our constitution doesn't mention God but it does say that the black man was 3/5 of a person.  abraham lincoln said, “the bible is not my book, nor Christianity my profession.”  see, he was a politician not a preacher.  we do not elect our representatives to impose or religious or moral beliefs on others.  we, as Christians, are to live out Christ on this earth.  ourselves. 

we all have to vote our conscience and i realize that there are many who don’t agree with me and will vote likewise.  i am a democrat and a Christian.  i believe the bible is the inspired word of God; that Jesus died for my sins and was resurrected and sits at the right hand of God.  i believe there is no way to the Father but through Him and we will all stand in judgment.  i just hope that i won’t have to answer for the disgusting vitriol that is spewed toward and from both sides of the aisle. 

when someone disagrees with me, i hope that i have the wherewithal to listen and disagree and go vote to cancel theirs out but that i will respect their opinion, their God, their church, or synagogue, or mosque, or temple, or cathedral and pray for them as my brother or sister and remember that we are all here to learn from one another and we WILL be judged on how we treat each other.

Teacher, what is the greatest commandment in the law?  Jesus replied, “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  this is the first and greatest commandment.  and the second is like it:  love your neighbor as yourself.  all the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments.”  Matthew 22:37-40  

grace and peace and harmony?   

the first day of #%*&+!

"just as the painter needs light in order to put the finishing touches to his picture, so i need an inner light, which i feel i never have enough of in the autumn."  leo tolstoy

 

yes, the weather is glorious here in nashville today.  yes, the air smells clean and crisp.  yes, i've spent most of the day out of doors.  yet i mourn to my core the end of summer.  fall brings with it some things i love, football, hockey (in a good year), the vibrant colors but for me it is the precursor to wet, rainy, dreary, sunless november.  the rainy season is almost on us here in middle tennessee and the ground will be soggy, muddy and cold from november-february.  it hurts.

 

this is always the time i vow to spend every sunny minute outside before the sun hides itself from me during the nashville winter.  i sometimes wish i could be the person who embraces fall as the beautiful season it is and yet i more closely align to the russian novelist quoted above.  a sad state of affairs, i suppose, but this quote is far more positive than the ernest hemingway i almost quoted.  that one is a killer!

 

i've been sick for a couple of days and that has added to my melancholy.  the house is still a shambles and though i have managed to run the dishwasher and wash a load of linens i've done precious little.  i read my lesson for church tomorrow and walked winston.  now i'm going to attempt to eat a bland dinner and find some mindless movie or TV episode to distract me.

 

thanks to some very generous friends, when my appetite returns, i have money for groceries.  though i certainly take for granted this season i've been given i do not take for granted the friends and family God has blessed me with.

 

grace and peace  

thanks be to God

so many days i use this forum to share my anxieties, fears and complaints but today i want to give thanks to a great and generous God.  not knowing what to do about the fast-approaching payment dates of most of my bills, last night i reached out to three Godly, loving and caring women at my church with my needs and my prayer requests.  this morning i heard from all 3 of them and have a paid mortgage and car payment.  

these women don't know that when our preacher asked us yesterday morning to give thanks for our "mothers in the faith" that i prayed for all 3 of them by name.  see, this is not the first time they have come to my rescue since the flood.  

even after all this time it's still humbling and sometimes very hard to ask for help.  i have certainly done it enough and will no doubt continue to ask for assistance until employment comes my way.  the most humbling things remain the help that comes without my asking:

the cash i got today in a card from my best friend,

the overly generous birthday gift from a friend,

the dozen or more meals another friend has bought with no thought to when i will be able to pick up the check,

the groceries bought by my mother,

the money from daddy to refill my long-overdue prescriptions,

the monthly check from my best friend's parents,

the therapist who sees me for free,

the hugs,

the willingness to listen,

the 'i'm sorry',

the late night phone calls from my brother,

God's never-ending grace and provision.

i keep repeating a scripture over and over when i begin to worry about what i will eat, drink or wear...

"therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.  each day has enough trouble of its own."  matthew 6:34

grace and peace and thanks

         

Happy Easter

when i reflect on the last year, as one is want to do at birthday time, i’m reminded of how hard it was.  at the time of my birthday i was spending nearly every day at a local rehab center where both my grandmothers were recovering, one from a fall and one from complications due to pneumonia.  neither of them was able to be alone.  my mother’s mother, then 84, was watched over by my mother, my aunt and me.  my father’s mother, then 93, was watched over by my dad, 2 of his sisters and me.  there were times when i was the only one able to be there and i had to run back and forth from room to room.  luckily for me they were on the same floor.  my paternal grandmother was there for 4 weeks and my maternal grandmother there for 6.  in the meantime i was traveling back and forth, 180 miles round trip; to be with my dad’s other sister who was in the last stages of cancer.  she would die before either of my grandmothers’ left the center.  My 93 year old grandmother would not be able to attend her daughter’s funeral.  i was tired and frazzled beyond what i thought was possible.  after surviving 2010 and the bronchitis, the pneumonia, the firing, the flood, the loss of my house, car, my possessions and possibly my life i didn’t think i would ever recover.  i would soon lose a 17 year old dog as well.  i was one big, raw nerve.

when i think of the last 2 years i cannot remember a day that i didn’t feel exhausted, a day when i didn’t feel helpless in some way, a day when i wasn’t terrified of the next catastrophe awaiting me.  i still feel that way, but i am grateful that this birthday was spent in a more peaceful place, every little bit helps.  my life is still in limbo as i await the changes yet to come, the completion of the house, the inevitability of a new job or school, the subsequent plan to escape this anxiety-inducing heap of a house and go somewhere else—anywhere else; a place where i can relax, a place where i can leave the house and not have to see this wretched river that is now my arch-enemy, a place without torturous memories.

so i experienced my birthday as not much more than the marking of time.  one big red “X” on the 37^th year of my life.  then i woke up this morning, Easter—day 2 of my 38^th year—and was reminded that i was to celebrate the best thing to have ever happened in human history:  the resurrection of Jesus.  the thing that makes all that we suffer in this world worth it.  the thing that gives us Christians hope in the painless and tearless Heaven that awaits us.  the thing that proves to me that the pain is not the end of the story but a necessary means to an end that is greater than anything we can imagine in this fallen, sinful world.  praise be to God for being bigger, better, kinder, more merciful and more loving than our human minds can comprehend. 

Happy Easter!

grace and peace