This may be a bit rambling, but if I don't get this posted tonight, I never will...
Spiritual Jello
Imagine in front of you a table. On this table are a number of bowls. Each bowl holds an ingredient. What are we making? Jello Salad. (A yummy dessert one... not an icky one with shredded carrots and mayo.. YUCK!)
So what's in this Jello salad? To find that out we'll have to look into each bowl and look at the ingredients. We'll look at a bowl's ingredients, set it down, and then look at the next bowl – rather than try to look at all the bowls at once. At the end we'll mix it all together and hope it congeals.
Bowl #1 – Something Bubbling to the Surface
Bowl #2 – An Accomplished Week
Bowl #3 – Iraq Comes to Visit
Bowl #4 – Stolen Freedoms
Bowl #5 – Stubbornness
Bowl #6 – Help from a Friend
Bowl #7 – Redemptive Compote
Bowl #1 – Something Bubbling to the Surface
The other week I spent some time distancing myself from God. After a few days of my usual so-not-in-touch-with-my-inner-workings-ness, I realized that I was avoiding praying, not reading my scriptures, and just being a brat. I was in the middle of a full-blown spiritual hissy-fit and was angry with God. And I had no idea why. I actually prayed a bit, and was given a mental image of a boiling liquid with something floating to the surface. That made sense in a way, but what was bubbling up? I couldn't quite see it.
Bowl #2 – An Accomplished Week
That same week I was experiencing organization hereto unexperienced. I was exercising every day. My house was becoming clean. And despite my spiritual hissy fit, I was still learning a lot about my heavenly father. This was also the week that I rediscovered to joy of play dates. Not play dates for the kids. For ME! I went to the library and found out about lots of lovely things going on and put them into my BlackBerry. I started scheduling some mystery shopping and merchandising. I was spending time with my family and generally having a lovely time of it, although it made me quite tired. Which means, of course, I was sleeping well. (I've had sleeping issues since I was a kid.)
Bowl #3 – Iraq Comes to Visit (Same week – really!)
My husband, Greg, was injured in Iraq. Some nut job thought it was an exceptionally brave and glorious thing to plant IEDs along the roadsides in Iraq. Greg made acquaintance with some of those. Then, on the first day of Ramadan '04 (October), he made very good friends with a VBIED (car bomb). Another nut job thought it would be highly glorious to blow himself up. Fortunately the only fatality was the insurgent. However, it left Greg with PTSD and blast-related traumatic brain injury (mTBI).
One of the sneaky things about mTBI is that it causes brain cells to change on the molecular level. The metabolism of the cell changes so basically the brain starts aging faster than it should. In “dog years” so to speak. So the goal is to teach the injured soldier how to build new neural pathways faster than the old ones disappear. Unfortunately, there are some things that are gone forever.
Sometimes Greg seems like good ol' Greg. Other times he's the “new from the scratch and dent store” Greg. The funny thing is that they both look the same, and you never know which one is going to show up, and sometimes they choose to switch places without warning. Sometimes there are tell-tale signs... the way he nervously rubs his thumb against his fingers, a look in his eyes, known stressors....
This week that the “jello” was being made was one of those tricky weeks where you weren't sure which Greg was going to show up. Was I talking to the reasonable, rational, able-to-think-in-abstracts and able-to-extrapolate Greg? Or am I going to talk to the uber-concrete Greg that acts like a petulant teenager and is horribly difficult to communicate with? After a long time of having the “old” Greg here, Iraq paid a visit and I got a lot of time with the “new” Greg. Often the “signs” weren't there. Just triggers I didn't know about and couldn't see. I hate it when this happens.
Bowl #4 – Stolen Freedoms
Friday I learned of a “new” law. One that was signed in August '08 and takes effect Feb 10, 09. It seems like a good law... limit the amount of lead allowed in products sold to children, right? But how is this going to be accomplished? If carefully written it could have been a very good law that could have spread the cost of implementation so that people could stay in business, products could still be available to the public, and we wouldn't see too much of a cost per item increase. But of course, this is not how things were done.
The cost of implementation will be enormous to all business selling anything intended for children. Clothing, toys, shampoo, detergents... anything that could come in contact with children under 12. Beginning Feb 10, 09 we will see many small businesses close. Many more people will lose their jobs. Many retailers will be hit hard by this. I'm not sure what the final consequence will be, but I'm going to pay attention.
What bothered me most is that almost no one knew about this law. There are many retailers who are unaware of this law. How could this have been passed so quickly? It's happening so fast, our loss of freedom. Hastily written laws touted as “for the children” passed in the middle of the night without any press or announcement. No representation. No vote. No scrutinization until it's too late. I wonder what the stores will look like on February 11?
Bowl #5 – Stubbornness
Need I say more? Stubbornness can be good or bad. I decided to be stubborn in the Lord. I was not going to continue in this spiritual hissy fit. I was not going to give in to despair over my husband's condition. I was not going to give up hope for freedom. My stubbornness helped me get on to the next stage:
Bowl #6 – Help from a Friend
Cranal-anal-ectomy. Head out of buttocks. Perhaps a little more detail?
Here's part of an IM conversation between me and a dear friend:
Me: All I want to do is hide under the covers - which is what I've been doing for a little while - I came in to take a nap but I can't sleep. I'm just kind of laying here and dozing a bit-mostly hiding. But from what? Hmmmm.... This may be a good topic for some kind of cathartic blog.
Her: well, I think that God is beginning to hand out answers to some of our burning questions. I would probably tell you to pull a Samuel and ask him what he is trying to tell you
Me: I think I'm in mourning
Her: for what?
Me: I'm in mourning for the freedoms we keep losing as careless and too-quickly-written laws are passed without our knowledge and consent (found out about one of those on Friday and I get to start reading it tomorrow while the bread rises). I keep getting surprised by the changes in Greg since Iraq. At the same time this week has been full of good things like epiphanies and play dates with friends and a chance for more involvement with church and community now.
Me: I feel like I've been in this weird fog - with the move, dealing with Greg, the breakdown, the surgery – lots of healing and changes- mostly good ones. I feel a bit spiritually dizzy and a bit disoriented if that makes sense
Her: Yes it does. I have to believe that the answers are coming. God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. He is not surprised by anything happening right now.
Me: I think I'm having some control issues-in other words I want to be in control but He's wanting me to quit getting in his way It's not like I'm really able to control anything anyway. But I want to try to be. Even the way I'm being led to garden this year requires me to "let go" and quit trying to fiddle with things - like sprouting things indoors and such.
Her: I told you fear likes to control. What is your biggest fear?
Me: My biggest fear.... Hmmm.... Thinking.... My biggest fear is that I have failed God - or will. That somehow I'm going to mess things up and make a mistake that will cause someone else to turn from Him or cause someone else to suffer. I'm determined to "keep the faith" - to always follow Him - but I still can't seem to shake this deep seated terror that I have messed up too much.
Her: Can I ask you a question?
Me: Go ahead –
Her: Do you think that the creator of the universe, the one who loves us enough to send his only son for our redemption, expects us to get it right all of the time?
Me: This is where I have trouble - my brain knows that we are here to make mistakes - to learn from our own experience - to fail and rely on the atoning sacrifice and be redeemed – But why do I have such a hard time getting it through to my heart? Why is it so easy to believe that redemption is available to everyone else, but I sometimes doubt it applies to me? It doesn't make any sense. It's completely irrational.
Her: Because we believe the lie that we aren't worthy of redemption. It's a pride issue, we think higher of ourselves than the atoning blood of Jesus.
Me: Head has now been removed from buttocks. Cranal-anal-ectomy was successful.
Her: I know that usually does it for me too.
Bowl #7 – Redemptive Compote
In the fairy tale “The Snow Queen” by Hans Christian Anderson, a mirror was created by the devil. This mirror would only reflect the evil and none of the good in the world. In the story the mirror is broken and shattered into millions of pieces, some no bigger than a grain of sand. As these shards got caught in peoples' hearts, they could only see the darkness in the world and became miserable and some even outright evil.
That made me think on the “shard” in my eye. The incorrect way I saw myself. I thought that I had been cleansed of all of them, but it turns out there was one more. This one was left over from a “childhood trauma”. This is what was bubbling up to the surface of my soul. My fear of messing things up.
This concept led to remembering this:
1 Corinthians 13:11-13
11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
12 For now we see through a aglass, bdarkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
[Note that the term “darkly” comes from the Greek, meaning obscurely or enigmatically.]
So as my Father refines me and heals me, I no longer look obscurely through a shard of mirror made by the devil. I see clearly, and know even as also I am known.
My dear friend suggested reading 1 Corinthians 13:1-8 but to replace the word “charity” (which is the pure love of Christ) with the word “Jesus”. So, here it is with the substitution:
1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not JESUS, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
2 And though I have the gift of aprophecy, and understand all bmysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not JESUS, I am nothing.
3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the apoor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not JESUS, it profiteth me nothing.
4 JESUS bsuffereth long, and is ckind; JESUS denvieth not; JESUS vaunteth not [him]self, is not puffed up,
5 Doth not behave itself aunseemly, seeketh not his bown, is not easily cprovoked, thinketh no evil;
7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
8 JESUS never afaileth: ...
The Results?
The Jello congeals and looks like this:
LOVE
My Heavenly Father loves me enough to be patient with me and my “hissy fits”. He loves me and comforts me as I go through His refiner's fire. He loves me enough to wash me with fuller's soap. He loves me not in spite of my weaknesses, but because of them. He loves me enough to offer me mercy. He loves me because I'm His daughter, and He's my Dad.
He loves me enough to offer His Only Begotten Son.
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My beautiful friend... prayers for you and your soldier. I love you... ;-)
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