Voices held captive

Posted on Wednesday, July 16, 2014 by Rebecca

On another blog, someone asked poignantly how long my voice had been held captive. This was my reply:

Robert, it was in college that I somehow got up the nerve to send up a desperate cry for help to a therapist I was seeing at the insistence of a concerned friend. Rather than asking questions, or seeking better understanding, my therapist seized on one of the things I’d stammered, and made a blaming statement. I walked out and never returned. I remained silent for about 30 years, telling myself that the long ago sexual abuse was “no big deal”, just “that weird thing we did”, and that it had no impact on the rest of my life. That’s if I thought of it at all.

After college, I was raped by two neighbors. My initial intent was to tell no one but my doctor; however, that didn’t work out. I wasn’t completely silenced, but close to it. Very few people knew, and I dealt with the aftermath of my ordeal pretty much on my own.

Time does not heal wounds. Most of the time, I thought I was OK. The thing is that I had no frame of reference for “OK”. Five years ago, the whole house of cards came crashing down. This time there was no more propping things back up and pretending all was well.

I didn’t “find my voice”. Desperation and anguish drove it out of me in agonizing shrieks of pain, wracking sobs, and frightened whispers. It has been a difficult road out of captivity, but so much worth it.

May God bless you with freedom and joy.

May God grant us all the powerful, unrestrained voices He always intended us to have.

Prayer therapy, part 2

Posted on Tuesday, July 15, 2014 by Rebecca

Part 1 is here.

Today was my therapy session. I’ve spent the last week alternating between trying to get unstuck and trying to avoid thinking about it…between wrestling with God and feeling filled with gratitude for His goodness…between fear and anticipation.

Yesterday I spent time thinking about and meditating on the meaning and practice of trust. This has clearly been something that God has been trying to teach me over the past year or so.

Last night, I barely slept. So much for resting in Him…

I went for a walk before my session, hoping it would make me feel more alert and awake. It did, but I also felt like bursting into tears, and couldn’t quite figure out why.

After catching Donny up on the past week, and reading him part of my blog entry from last Tuesday (which was the first I’ve told him about having a blog) I said that I was ready to pray. Then I corrected myself: No, I didn’t feel much more ready than last week, but I was going to pray anyway.

So I prayed about 10-11 year old me, and it struck me as quite silly that I’d been dreading this so much. Most of my prayer was thanking God for the many blessings I experienced during that time.

Next week, it will be time to pray about when I was in 6th grade. That was a good year in many ways, but also a troubling one because of a friendship I had. I’ve been sitting here trying to come up with an adjective to describe that friendship, and failing. Let’s put it this way — there were three of us, and one of us thrived on nonstop drama…and it wasn’t me. At the very end of the school year, she was absent and the two of us looked at each other and asked, “Why weren’t we just friends with each other instead of letting her always get between us?” I still have no idea.

The attitude of gratitude

Posted on Friday, July 11, 2014 by Rebecca

OK, I’ll admit that I get a bit annoyed at that phrase “attitude of gratitude” because it can sound too cutesy and trite. But I’ve been thinking about joy and happiness (not necessarily the same, but there is some overlap) and I’ve been pondering how huge a role gratitude plays.

My mother has, at least during my lifetime, faithfully lived out the verse, “In everything, give thanks.” We were talking about this recently, and she admitted that this isn’t always easy, especially in the midst of tragedy. She has pointed out that we are not asked to give thanks for everything, but in every situation.

To be honest, my attempts at that have sometimes been truly pitiful. “Uh, thanks God, that You promise to never leave us…although I’m finding it hard to believe You haven’t completely deserted me for some time now!” I’m learning that, since God knows what I’m thinking anyway, I might as well give words to my doubts and fears instead of trying to pretend them away, deny them, or minimize them. God wants a relationship with us, and not that we jump through hoops to approach Him, or resort to semi-fake formulaic prayers that we aren’t really feeling or even believing.

Which brings me back to gratitude: I’m beginning to believe that it’s far more for our sakes than His. God is…well, He’s God. He doesn’t need our affirmations or emotional support, because He is perfect and complete in Himself. He doesn’t suffer from insecurities, or feelings of resentment because we don’t appreciate Him enough. He doesn’t need us to help motivate Him, or to fill up His “love tank”. He doesn’t have our human frailties.

We, however, can get caught up in circumstances that seem far to huge for us, far too daunting, far too catastrophic. Come to think of it, some of those circumstances are exactly that — far too terrible. But, when we can catch our breath, when we begin to realize that we may survive after all, gratitude reminds us that all of life is not forever and always one nightmarish ordeal. When God asks us to remember “the former miracles”, it’s not because He has a need to be thanked over and over again — it’s because we have a need to remember that our entire existence has not always been this crushing defeat. Gratitude gives us perspective, and it gives us hope.

Sometimes, we need someone to “do hope” for us. What we don’t need is Job’s comforters from the Bible. And we don’t need someone urging us to put on a happy face, or telling us, “Buck up, kiddo!” If someone wants to help me when I’m despairing, first they need to be willing to sit and weep with me. The Bible doesn’t say, “Rejoice at those who weep” because God wants us to be truly compassionate with each other, and not just platitude-mouthing cheerer-uppers. Maybe we don’t need someone so much to “do hope” as to “be hope”.

Gratitude remembers what is good. It can be like a beacon drawing us out of darkness and despair.

But life isn’t all trauma and tragedy. There’s the mundane, daily grind. Gratitude gives us perspective there also, helping keep us from getting worn down and discouraged, by keeping us from focusing entirely on the negative.

There was a time during the early years of marriage that I was feeling especially defeated and exhausted. I wondered if there was something wrong with our marriage, or if this was just the way life was. No matter how hard I tried, I felt like a failure as a wife, and I felt lonely and unappreciated. I began resenting my husband for what I saw as a growing list of his shortcomings, failures, and unreasonable expectations.

One day, something dramatically changed: for some reason, I decided to write out a list of all the many things I appreciated and admired about my husband. Suddenly I remembered the guy had all sorts of good traits after all! My spirits lifted. Yes, I was still physically exhausted, and life was still life. But my feelings towards my husband underwent a complete turnaround. Once I reminded myself that his positive traits far, far outweighed the negative, my perspective greatly improved.

There are people for whom nothing ever seems good enough. They will go to a beautiful concert and complain about one wrong note only they could hear. They will notice the minutiae out of place in an otherwise immaculate room. They will comment on your failures, but not your successes. Wherever they go, they seem to feel a need to point out flaws and mistakes — as if drawn to what is negative. Even if you force them to admit that a situation is mostly positive, it’s hard to shake the feeling that, for them, that one flaw kinda ruined the whole thing.

I’ll find myself saying, “Wow, that was really enjoyable!” only to be asked, “But didn’t you notice…?” It can sound like a rebuke. Perhaps my standards are too low, or I would not find such pleasure in that which is of inferior quality.

Or maybe I have decided to be grateful even when things are not perfect. I will never have the perfect life, the perfect husband, the perfect house, the perfect anything — but is that a reason not to thank God for His abundant blessings in my life? Is that a reason to rob myself of enjoyment?

Today I spent some time thinking about what makes me feel happy.

It’s not an exhausted list…and putting it together reminded me of a preschool “craft”…but it sure put me in good spirits!

Then I thought, what about those times when I’m feeling down for no particular reason? I’m not talking about pasting on a smile when life is falling apart — that would be fake and ridiculous. But what about those days when I’m just feeling blah and out of sorts? Sometimes I need a “dose of happy”…a reminder of the beauty and goodness of life…a reminder that I have many reasons to smile.

I don’t have the answers but I’m gonna celebrate anyway

Posted on Thursday, July 10, 2014 by Rebecca

A discussion today made me ponder the question, am I happy?

First, some definitions I found via Google:…

•feeling or showing pleasure or contentment
•delighted, pleased, or glad, as over a particular thing: to be happy to see a person.
•characterized by or indicative of pleasure, contentment, or joy: a happy mood; a happy frame of mind.

•Definition: in high spirits; satisfied
•Synonyms: blessed, blest, blissful, blithe, can’t complain, captivated, cheerful, chipper, chirpy, content, contented, convivial, delighted, ecstatic, elated, exultant, flying high, gay, glad, gleeful, gratified, intoxicated, jolly, joyful, joyous, jubilant, laughing, light, lively, looking good, merry, mirthful, on cloud nine, overjoyed, peaceful, peppy, perky, playful, pleasant, pleased, sparkling, sunny, thrilled, tickled, tickled pink, up, upbeat, walking on air
•Antonyms: depressed, discouraged, dissatisfied, miserable, morose, pained, sad, sorrowful, unhappy

•Happy is a feeling of joy, pleasure, or good fortune — exactly how you’d feel if you learned that you won the lottery or got accepted into your number one choice of colleges.

•Happy hails from the Middle English word hap, meaning “good luck.” Many of the early European words for happy actually referred to good luck, rather than a feeling of joy. On its own, happy means an enjoyable or satisfied state of being.

I also found this online:

This devotional is based on Kay Warren’s new book, “Choose Joy: Because Happiness Isn’t Enough.”

Finding joy is a challenge for me. I’m not naturally an upbeat person; I’m more of a melancholy. When I talk about joy, I’m not doing so from the perspective of a generally peppy person who never has a bad day. In fact, it’s because of my own inability to live with joy that led me to explore why my experiences didn’t line up with Scripture.

My problem was my definition of joy. I thought joy meant feeling good all the time. That’s impossible! Even for those who are naturally upbeat and optimistic, that’s impossible. We have to start somewhere more realistic — and close to Scripture.

So here’s the definition I’ve come up with from studying Scripture:

Joy is the settled assurance that God is in control of all the details of my life, the quiet confidence that ultimately everything is going to be alright, and the determined choice to praise God in every situation.

You’ll find nothing in that definition about happy feelings, because, as we all know, happiness is fleeting and temporary.

We tend to think that life comes in hills and valleys. In reality, it’s much more like train tracks. Every day of your life, wonderful, good things happen that bring pleasure and contentment and beauty to you. At the exact same time, painful things happen to you or those you love that disappoint you, hurt you, and fill you with sorrow. These two tracks — both joy and sorrow — run parallel to each other every single moment of your life.

That’s why, when you’re in the midst of an amazing experience, you have a nagging realization that it’s not perfect. And while you’re experiencing something painful, there’s the glorious realization that there is still beauty and loveliness to be found. They’re inseparable.

If you look down train tracks into the brightness of the horizon, the tracks become one. You can’t distinguish them as two separate tracks. That’s how it will be for us, too. One day, our parallel tracks of joy and sorrow will merge into one. The day we meet Jesus Christ in person and see the brightness of who he is, it will all come together for us. Then it will all make complete sense.

I like this analogy! It makes a lot of sense to me.

——————————-

Maybe it’s just my temperament…after all, God made me to be that 3 year old who could skip happily through the house singing my made-up song of “Life is miserable!”…or maybe it’s my oblivious non-attention to detail that keeps me from seeing every imperfection and flaw…or maybe it’s being raised by parents who modeled gratitude rather than whiny complaining…or maybe it’s because so much of my early childhood was idyllic and happy…or maybe it’s because a friend once encouraged me to look for a blessing every day…or maybe it’s because I’ve never grown up enough to completely lose my childish sense of wonder…or maybe it’s because I need joy and beauty so much, almost as much as I need food and water…but it takes a lot — as in a LOT — for me to remain in a constant state of unhappiness for very long.

Yes, it seems contradictory. After all, I am no stranger to grief or sorrow. I am the same person who once penned reams of poetry with lines like, “melancholy has stolen my heart”, and who described myself as a “child of sorrow” in a never ending gloomy rain. I’ve experienced clinical depression so severe that it made me overcome my extreme aversion to antidepressants. Despair has almost killed me. Literally.

But joy always broke through.

Always.

The darkest of nights has always, eventually, been followed by a morning when joy came. The “eventually” may have taken excruciatingly long. Sometimes it was a somber joy. Sometimes that “determined choice to praise God in every situation”, as Kay Warren describes it, involved some initial teeth-gritting and an amazement that such great sorrow, and such heights and depths of joy, could exist in the same heart and mind in the very same instance.

But maybe it’s not me at all. Because the bottom line is that I can’t praise God for very long — I mean really praise Him rather than mouthing words — without remembering what kind of God He is. I find my perspective changing from “woe is me” to realizing that, even in the most horrific of circumstances, I have reasons for thanksgiving, even if I can’t think of one beyond, “Heaven will be better than this nightmarish horror.”

But then I remember Jesus. And He melts me. And He opens my eyes. Gratitude comes trickling into my spirit as I begin remembering Scripture passages that speak to my pain. It may not happen quickly enough for me, but it is the gratitude that re-orients my thoughts and feelings. Maybe I am just unusually blessed, but it is rare (impossible?) for me to sit in God’s presence for very long without feeling enormously thankful for His extravagant, scandalous grace and generosity towards me.

Eventually more of my feelings follow. There have been valleys in my life, despite the truth of the train track analogy. But, as Corrie ten Boom loved to remind us, there is no pit so deep that Jesus’ love is not deeper still.

Today, incredible as it seems even to me, I thank God for the pits that threatened to consume me, because God’s love won out, every time. Even when I doubted or denied Him, He never gave up. Besides, for every pit there have been mountaintops — a few times, I have felt joy so overwhelming, so extreme, so powerful, so beyond description, that I thought if it lasted any longer with such intensity, my heart would give out and I would die. Seriously.

Because I choose to be grateful, today I choose joy. Today I choose happiness. Today I reach out with trembling, fearful, overly-inhibited, weak and puny little hands towards the abundant life God keeps showering on me. How can I walk with Him, talk with Him, and listen to Him without — once in a while — experiencing a joy that spills over into a happiness that at least borders on giddiness?

A dear friend of mine promised me that, when I first recognized my true freedom in Christ, I would feel almost giddy about it. He was right; I still remember the moment it hit me and I wrote him an email that ended with, “Excuse me while I go out and dance in the streets.”

I know, I know. Happiness should not be our goal. It is a fleeting emotion. In many circumstances, it would be completely inappropriate to feel happy. We should seek holiness, die to self, etc., etc.

But today I choose to celebrate. I won’t dance in the streets, because I’m still too shy and inhibited, but I’m not going to pretend that it’s somehow more spiritual to ignore all of God’s present blessings and put on a serious face just because I’m not in Heaven yet.

Little 3 year old me had it right. Life is miserable. But that’s no reason not to sing and dance at least some of the time — because God is good.

———-

Note: I don’t know why, but I’ve had to edit this umpteen times. The formatting got scrambled. Entire sentences and paragraphs disappeared. And I kept getting interrupted by life. Very frustrating! I’m no longer feeling quite as celebratory. Haha.

Prayer as therapy

Posted on Tuesday, July 8, 2014 by Rebecca

After all the years I’ve spent as a Christian, all the hours I’ve spent reading and studying the Bible, and a lifetime in the church — I should have most of the answers, right? But knowing about God is not the same as knowing, really knowing Him. He remains a Mystery, too vast for my puny, human mind to comprehend. Sometimes, in His Presence, I’m reduced to the little girl who went forward years ago at a Billy Graham crusade.

Some days, I have more questions than answers. Some days, I struggle. But my earthly father has always assured me that God can handle all our questions, even the messy ones.

This is raw. It’s not neat and tidy. But it’s true. And it’s where I am today.

“Thanks for not being a traditional therapist.”

That’s what I said to Donny as I hugged him goodbye at the end of one of our sessions months ago. After that, I wrote the following in my journal, slightly edited here for clarity:

Earlier, I’d expressed pretty much the same sentiment at the beginning of my prayer — only the words I’d chosen then were more vulnerable in some ways, and more expressive of how deeply thankful I am that my therapist has always been far more concerned about pleasing God and serving Him than he has been about living up to human standards and expectations. Of course there have been times over the past five years that I have been less than thrilled with the guy, and wished he was more of the feel-good kind who wanted me to leave the office smiling after every session, one who wouldn’t ever stoop to “imposing his values” on me. Once I even jumped on him for something I now don’t remember — I thought he was wrong to “make me feel guilty” — and he let me know quietly but firmly just Whom he was serving. (In case anyone wonders, it wasn’t me.)

The irony is that this “odd” approach of serving God instead of the person he’s supposed to be serving — as in me, his all-important client, the one he is being paid to make feel better — turns out to have been the most healing thing for me. Then again, that’s hardly ironic; God has always had my best interests at heart.

So it was that we started our New Adventure in Therapy: praying through my past. I felt a little apprehensive and self-conscious at first. Part of me was afraid that I hadn’t quite communicated what I meant when I originally brought up my idea, and that Donny would suddenly put on the brakes once he realized what I really meant. Then I worried that he would want to structure or stifle it somehow…but all those fears were laid to rest after my first introductory sentence or two. (All that seems unrealistic and silly now. I thought I’d gotten over my fear that Donny will unexpectedly morph into a Completely Different Sort of Therapist, one that is Frightening and Sinister…or just one I no longer like.)

At that point, my nervousness was about the prayer itself. Other than a few desperate phrases here and there, and I mean truly desperate, I’ve only prayed out loud with him once, and that was before his last mission trip. I could tell that I was possibly using some delaying tactics, and was about to start using said tactics in a big way, so I forced myself to…gulp…just get started.

I ended up covering my life from the beginning — in utero — up until we moved when I was 5. The starting point was what I’d already planned, but I’d not given much thought to where I’d wrap things up for today.

As I’d anticipated and warned Donny, I cried pretty much the whole time. It wasn’t some big huge sob-fest — not at all an “ugly cry” — but what seemed like a fairly steady stream of tears and no small amount of sniffling. Next time I need to remember the Kleenex box conveniently located on the end table, so I won’t be reduced to using the cuffs of my sweatshirtish jacket.

There were lots of good memories in there, and they probably caused the most tears. I thanked God for so many things, and I felt as if He kept bringing really special pictures, thoughts, feelings, events, and people to my mind. I was truly blessed during those early years, and it’s no wonder that I remember myself as mostly happy, and feeling right in my own skin — even if I was an unusually fearful child.

Yes, and I’m glad I have a therapist who doesn’t pooh-pooh the idea of being impacted by maternal emotions while in the womb…or my wacky ideas about early attachment…or any of that stuff.

Towards the end, I thanked God for the personality and temperament He gave me. Some babies would have been a wreck not to be held “constantly”. I didn’t spend hours weeping or screaming in my crib, nor did I shut down. God spared me that, and He spared Mums that. After all, she didn’t choose to be ill, weak and exhausted.

So I left, feeling wonderful. Sat in the car, jotted down some notes, and started writing this. Dropped off two bags of bedroom junk and clothes for Goodwill. Drove to Laguna Lake and practically raced into the bathroom — a result of all that water and coffee. It was then that I felt a sudden wave of anxiety. Uh, oh. Not good. It was wrong to pray like that in therapy. It was bad — bad — and not therapeutic at all. That’s why I’ve never heard of any reputable therapist — or even a disreputable one — conducting “therapy” in such a manner.

For a looooong moment there, I was convinced it wasn’t just wrong; it was dangerous. I felt that familiar panic — yeah, that one, the one I haven’t missed having around at all — and I got the desperate urge to call Donny before I fell apart in a completely hysterical shambles.

But…!

Before the panic mounted up into the stratosphere, I suddenly thought, “Huh? What could possibly be wrong or dangerous in praying about my past?” I’d like to take credit for that sensible thought, but I’m convinced it was a God thing. And, just as soon as I thought it, my panic vanished — poof! — and seemed laughably ridiculous. Oh, yeah, praying is so dangerous — to whom? (I really did think that last part with correct grammar. Yet another miracle. Haha.)

It seemed such an obvious ploy of the Enemy. All too often, I had fallen for that sort of thing; in fact, there had been an almost uncanny pattern of:

an Especially Good Session — a significant breakthrough —
followed by Suddenly Being Convinced the Session was Really THE BIGGEST MISTAKE EVER —
followed by anxiety, panic, desperation…and sometimes tequila.

That is, unless I took a Xanax or two first, or ended up in the hospital (which happened only once…my panic attack that tried to disguise itself as a heart attack). But this time…well, I was going to say “God intervened”, but I bet He did the same all those previous times. Only this time I listened.

God is good.

It’s as if I’m just spreading everything all out in front of Him, asking Him to clean it up, free me from it, and redeem it — and seeing what He chooses to do. But what about putting it at the foot of the Cross — that’s where it really needs to go, isn’t it? What more redemptive place is there?

And now? What about these months later?

I’ve hit a wall. It took me a while to realize it, because I kept coming up with excuses to put “praying through my life” on hold while dealing with supposedly more pressing current life issues. Last week I let Donny know that’s what I was doing, although I suspect he already knew. We spent that session trying to figure out what exactly I was avoiding, and why I didn’t want to pray about 10 to 11 year old me. It’s not like something horrid happened to me at that age; in fact, those were good years, full of wonderful memories. It was during that time that I encountered a very personal God in some very real ways, and I treasure those memories beyond words.

No real answers for my avoidance. I left, feeling still stuck.

And kinda silly about the whole thing.

A week later, today I was in his office again, trying to will myself to just start praying. I mean, really, how hard could it be? It’s not as if God and I had never talked about any of this stuff before!

I couldn’t. Finally I figured out that I wasn’t so much avoiding praying through those good years as I was dreading praying through the years that followed. I decided this whole “prayer therapy” was ridiculous anyway. It was stressing me out. Here I was, after sitting mostly adult-like in therapy for months upon months, suddenly reduced to taking off my shoes so I could adopt my childish couch-huddle, hiding behind my knees, chewing on my fingers, playing with my hair, and hugging myself. Even worse, my legs started trembling. Ugh.

We tried to talk about it. Finally it dawned on me why I was so afraid: what if God “fussed” at me for some of the things I did during my teens? What if He turned out not to be as compassionate, tender, and forgiving as I hoped? What if I ended up feeling as I did then? My voice no longer sounded like an adult as I said the words that described those long ago feelings: “Dirty…small…insignificant…dirty…”

Then another, stronger fear hit me. What if God turned out to be as loving and compassionate as I am beginning to hope and believe He is? How will I survive such love without feeling completely undone? vulnerable? naked?

“I think I’d prefer a somewhat impersonal God,” I said, feeling like a doubting, rebellious heretic for even voicing such a thing. Then I cried because how could I doubt the extravagant love of God after all He has done for me? How often must He demonstrate it to me?

As Donny talked about leaps of faith and jumping off cliffs, and I told him my high-dive story and said that this felt like jumping into a foggy abyss without knowing if there was even a swimming pool there, I kept picturing myself standing on a mountain top, yelling up at the sky, “Who are You, God? Who are You?”

…and being afraid of the answer, even while demanding it.

“Why does God have to be so complicated?” I cried, only to laugh at how ridiculous that sounded. I answered myself, “Duh, because He’s God.”

This is not a mature, adult faith. It’s a mess, a broken jumble of confusion. But I’m posting it here because it’s real. Jacob wrestled with God. David asked Him tough questions, and lamented and wailed. The Bible is full of people struggling with God, people who didn’t have neat and tidy answers, people that we would feel uncomfortable having around if they showed up at our next small group meeting.

Way back when I was 11 years old, I threw two troubling questions at God, and He answered. Now I feel as if that wasn’t a lifetime ago, as if I’m still Little Me, all childish and earnest and troubled, desperate to believe and trust, desperate for answers that satisfy.

He’s the same God Who answered a crying little girl…the same God Who brought peace to a little girl who needed to cling to hope and beauty…He’s that personal, intimate God…Abba…Daddy…

It scares me. He scares me. Because I know that encountering His love never leaves me unscathed. Never. I will be undone. My heart will be broken…in the most beautiful and healing way. Who will I turn out to be, when I see myself through the loving eyes of my Creator?

I want to run…far far away from a God I cannot escape, at the same time that I want to throw myself into His everlasting arms.

So I stand on what feels like a mountain top, yelling to the Heavens, “Who am I? And You — who are You? What kind of God could possibly love me? And how will I survive Your unfathomable, wild, fierce, tender love?”