2 Years Approaching

So, it's been a while since I posted something, but I have been accumulating future posts in my brain hoping for the time to make them sound really smart and chic. HA HA HA! Time- what a joke! Instead of stock piling for later eloquent discourse- here is what has been percolating in my noggin:

- Grad School is wonderful! I love school and want to be paid to learn. :) Anyone else want to join me? Thank you God for nurturing our minds.


- What about worshipping God, walking with God with Pure Love, Pure Faith and Pure Hope as St. Theophan mentions? This is serious business and means dieing to myself in a way I haven't really wanted to explore... but the hardest step is the first and each day I am taking it! I want to worship God, love God, connect with God for WHO He is and not just WHAT He does or doesn't do for me. More to come on this topic...

- Is God ever NOT "doing"? Isn't He ALWAYS pouring forth His Love, Beauty, Goodness, Grace, and Salvation to all of Humanity all the TIME? And furthermore, isn't He every moment of every day giving us HIMSELF in His Son, Jesus? This is powerful stuff to take in... really take in. I think if I REALLY believed this, I would live sooo very differently and far more FREE!



And Tuesday is the 2 year anniversary of my beautiful Mother's death. Still weird typing those words. Still feels like I am writing about another's loss- not my own. And yet, this past year, has been the hardest for me- much more permanent. Much more REAL. She is GONE (not in St. Louis or Door County or Iowa visiting dear friends and family.) And I can't call her, cuddle into her warm body, hold her sweet veiny hands, smell her skin, or be seen by her beautiful hazel eyes that went right to my soul and affirmed my being. I have LOST much in her and carry a sorrow in my soul... but the Beauty of it all is that Christ trampled down death by death! And God is showing me that He is my Life (not my family, not my relationships, not my externals) and Rock. And that it is possible to live this life with pain, loss, holes and still have joy, still marvel at the Beauty all around, still laugh till your sides ache, still love till it's hard to breathe and still let go of it all if Your Father allows or asks this. I have realized in a gut-level way that Life (and the Christian Life) is not about happiness or comforts or dreams come true or even really good, noble things you want to happen working out... but saying Yes to our Father, His Son and the Holy Spirit and trusting (working out that salvation with fear, trembling, crying, cursing even at times) that He is far more invested in our True Being (Theosis- for those that are willing to entertain such a preposterous idea) than even we are... and in Him we are Home.

Thank you for reading!

"Whoo Whoo" the Owl calls

I just came in from sitting outside in the dark listening to the owls discuss something of great importance. I would love to hear what walls would talk about, but owls- now that would be fun.

The night ended on good conversation with two great women I have befriended, Amber and her sister Allison. We watched Seabiscuit which left us feeling very good and hopeful. I am thankful for these women, whom I have really just met, and believe that it not to be coincidence that our paths have crossed.

Vicki took me out to dinner for a girl's night, which was just what I needed. Struggling for most of the day to rinse off the residue of an OCD attack, or as I affectionately put it: "spinning" is exhausting and can be very disheartening when done alone. It was good to have her there, to talk to, to do the Four Steps with, to simply admit that I had been battling and needed someone to speak the truth with me. She of course was more than obliging, she was thankful for my invitation into this place of darkness and within the first sips of our waters, the panic and trauma I had been carrying with me drained from my body and crawled out the door scratching its head at how it had lost this one. The night carried on with great fellowship and enjoyment of how God does work ever wondrous and mysterious ways in our lives.

I sense this work even as I write because just as Vicki appreciated, welcomed and encouraged me sharing my dark hole with her- so too, does the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Infact, he would have it no other way. For this, I love Him.

When I woke this morning, I began the Orthodox morning prayers and stopped mid-sentence because the urge to spin was overpowering. I think it was a lack of sleep because whenever I am tired, the OCD runs over me like a bull-dozer. But, I hadn't struggled like this in weeks and I have been doing the prayers for the same amount of time. So I was caught off guard, and that is never good when dealing with the Imp of the Mind. Alas, I fell back asleep and had some dreams!

First, I was reprimanding, if not yelling at my younger self. I was holding this little Bethany by the shoulders saying, "I will be there for you! I will be there for you!" Then, cut to a window and I am standing, not my younger self, this is me currently, standing watching as the sky turns muddy black, the clouds furiously march across and a storm is brewing. Then the clouds come at the window like a train and I don't flinch, but just as they graze the window- someone, I think my sister, Hannah, pushes me away and I fall to the floor. But, enticed as I am, I get up and go to the window to meet this barreling steam enemy, and as the clouds approach, they pass through the window and come at my face, steal my breath as I meekly mutter the whisper, "Jesus". The wind is knocked out of me and I fall to the floor. And the dream ends. I wake up and ask God to explain.

So here is what I sensed from the Lord immediately following: I am not to confront my fears, doubts, or OCD thoughts, I am not to engage them, I am not to reason or spin or "try and figure it out". God is saying to me, "Tell me your fears. Come to me and tell me when you are afraid, when you doubt me, when you feel the panic, when your throat is being zipped up and your chest is in a blender. Come to me, don't try to solve this on your own. Come to me." I sense that only the truth can set me free, the truth in the Four Steps.

And as far as talking to my younger self, weird as it may be, I think there is something there of real importance. Funny how I have no problem showering love and affection on little children, especially my nephew, Samuel (who, by the way is the cutest baby ever), but I would not do the same for myself. Instead of affirming, encouraging and lifting myself up with the Truth, I find myself consistently negligent in caring for Bethany, in really loving her. Why is that? Why does it seem so foreign, self-indulgent, even un-Christian, to love yourself as much as you do a friend, spouse, brother, or child? Aren't we to love our neighbors as ourselves? Where have we gone wrong, and how can we undue this?

Along these same lines, I have often contemplated, "God do you feel the same way about me as I feel about Samuel?" I have never fully been able to really accept this, take it in and rest in this kind of love, but I long to and I know that He is patient. As one can see, He is opening my heart to this love, even now... for this, I love Him.

Peace,