An Evernote audio dictation journal, I think in 12/2018:
Paperwhite was what I left on the credenza at MVR on the 11/30 after Myrna had betrayed me (though not because of that, just same timing). I had purchased them at Walmart on the way there, to convey condolences for their recent loss of loved ones, also as a sort of white flag, to show that despite Myrna behaving unprofessionally in mentioning moot points in group meetings with others, I intended to treat them all warmly. Paperwhite also expresses the anxiety of blank page I have felt for many years as a writer, plus the calm of white space I am learning, and the beautify scent the flower carries once bloomed. Also, they bloom very quickly in just a vase of water, and shoot very tall. Just light and warmth and timing, which has parallels to my own life.
Thoughts on wounds from enemies can be
trusted:
I used to think
that the worst thing in the world would be someone to inadvertently be hurt by
something that I said that I didn’t mean to hurt them. In the process I became
afraid of sharing my true self out of fear their misunderstandings would not
being able to be understood by others would hurt them. Now I am freer and I
think that I am willing to take the risk to be vulnerable and be misunderstood
than keep quiet and never feel like I’ve been connected with people at all.
I am a work in
process and I am okay with that. Speaking about the proverbs where it says the
wounds of a friend can be trusted and God showed me that even the wounds of an
enemy can be trusted because God is God over the enemy too and nothing that
comes to us doesn’t go through his fingers first. He is not the agent of evil,
but he allows it because it does work good. It works good in my life. It
refines me. Somebody intending evil can even be saying something true that I
would miss, if they didn’t say it. And I am willing to take that risk to
understand --to try to understand --another human being, even if that takes
risk.
One thing I
need to think through is… how in a fallen world, where everyone is a sinner,
has been sinned against, and is capable of wounding, even us as victims, how
can we ever get along? I don’t think there is a way apart from the power of an
outside source and I know that that is God in Jesus Christ. He is showing me
that so clearly through what happened that totally took me by surprise, but it
didn’t take him by surprise. I cannot believe how carefully I notice every
wound that was meant for evil was used for good. I am more aware of
understanding certain passages such as it is when I am weak than I am strong.
Because how can we understand God’s strength unless we know we are weak. And
when I know I am weak, I don’t trust in myself and then I go to the better
source, which is God for that strength as a Christian because the Holy Spirit
prompts me to do that and I am seeing how any, I am understanding how …there is
a third, I think we’ve talked about this before, about three births, I’ve heard
this saying with when somebody becomes a Christian, they are born into love of
God, and love of the church family and love of the Bible, or is it love of the
self? I don’t remember love of self? I don’t remember exactly how that goes.
But I also believe it..it is true, that we are born to love and to love for …I
don’t know…growth? Or pain, not to be masochistic, but…or do I mean self or
truth? There is a lot of things we are born into. I think what God finally
wants us is …to be born into (sigh), love of our imperfections in a way (?), to
beauty, and beauty can be found in imperfections, as somebody was sharing in
group today about the quilt.
Lord, there’s
so much to be learning and right now I thank you for slowing me down. [pause] I
thank you for slowing me down however you choose. It’s been in a way I didn’t
want, through the wounds of a friend
[slight laugh]…no!...through the wounds of an enemy! I think it’s also
true that the wounds of an enemy can be trusted because God made our enemies,
too. And is bigger than them.
How I Have Been Blessed
by the Triune God in the last 24 hours
I think I remembered what it was…it was the
fourth or was it third love we are born into is love of the world, even
unbelievers and I laugh because I don’t know if I could say when I was a new
Christian that I loved unbelievers? I think I pitied them, felt sorry for them
that maybe I would catch their unbelief, but I [long pause] I don’t feel that
way anymore. I think today that prophet that people quote that had been scary
to me that my sister and brother in law had included the reading from it in
their wedding ceremony, the one about Kahlil Gibran? I can’t even say it right,
I had to ask others to tell me it in group, [yeah]…it’s about love is a
two-columned thing, and I am not afraid of that prophet or quote unquote
prophet, I don’t believe he’s truly God’s messenger as others might, I don’t
know much about that, but I do believe that there’s elements of truth in many
people and I’m not saying that to equivocate or that Jesus is only on the same
level as that, but that he made those people too, the ones that I used to be
afraid of, the ones who are broken.
And I think I was afraid of them because I was
afraid of my own brokenness. I knew Jesus forgave my sins, {and wants to keep
me from sin—I am infinitely less offended/annoyed now, the Infinite one has
started to show me how} but I didn’t really believe that he could take care of
my brokenness, I guess, and now I do. Now I see that that is the only way to be before him, I don’t have a choice,
because I am broken and I now know
that my brokenness doesn’t scare God; God [light laugh] loves broken people. I
went to the meeting today [ACA] without washing my face, putting my makeup on,
brushing my…[short pause] I might have brushed my teeth. Did I? I might have
had a little breakfast. I had my pajamas on. I put my boots on and a coat
[sounding joyful and free] on, grabbed my purse and I went out the door. And
you know I’m laughing now, because maybe somebody looking at me wouldn’t even
know? Or maybe somebody else in the store might think “oh, there’s that kook!”;
I had no idea. It didn’t even cross my mind to think about it [incredulous]!
And I love that freedom, because when I’m not thinking about that, then I can
notice the checkout person and make a little small talk *{look up what the
announcer said}…talk with them about how much I liked the announcement that
went over, like it was like something about welcome smart shoppers or savvy
shoppers or frugal shoppers, it was something like that…that caught me
off-guard that I didn’t expect to hear, that was as boring as “welcome
shoppers” and in the state that I was in just delighted me.
And you know what I’m thinking is a blessing
right now? Is a device that can record me talking in my talking in my truest
self that I have and because it’s a device, I can play it back to myself. I can also …it’s can be a better listener
than family members, sometimes. And I don’t mean that to fault them, because
I’m not a good listener either, a lot of the time [and I am often so hard to
listen to and talk so much of the time; it must be hard to do that for me all
the time.
Oh, my gosh, I feel like I’ve just all of a
sudden become Mister Rogers in a female form/body [laughs quietly to myself].
[Cal: nobody loves me…Mom: son the electric
throw will keep you warm down there in the basement until these poems are born.
Son, turn that television quieter, this isn’t time to joke. If you do not I
will write that you’re a naughty little bloke].
And there’s so many thoughts that God is showing
me that are good and true and like making scripture come alive in my heart.
It’s like he the breath prayer I am praying, “Rabboni , I am listening” is
pause…it’s [oh there was something that is just about always at the…I’ll just
leave it there for now. I, I’m not depressed, I’m amazingly…I’m.. Godstruck. I
am shaken up but like it’s the right way, like the act of being shaken up has
restored me [sounding surprised] to myself. I love God that he can do that. I
think it’s so funny that I’m actually, [at least] to me I’m sounding sane right
now, when normally with my medication I can be talking too fast when I…and the
words don’t come out like as well as I want them to writing. But I feel God’s
hand on my chest as if it’s a weighted blanket they sell now to calm people and
the words are coming out like I mean them in my truest self with his help-- I’m
not saying the smarts come from me—And I feel like God is listening because
God, because I can’t talk, but now I feel like I totally could talk. I feel
like I could be a radio show host [I think I meant guest speaker]. I’m not
saying that to boast, but like it’s funny I never thought of myself as having any gift in speaking at all [and all my spoken words have seemed
to make no expanding ring at all; seem to have been too soft and impact small]
so now I’m learning that the gift of the wounds, but in Jesus hand healing me,
I’m healing myself by God’s help, I’m letting him heal me and I’m also healing
for others, I hope one day. I don’t have to just wait to write it, I may be
able to sync it all so that it’s in real time, so that my words and my heart
spot are in sync and my actions and how it comes across [at least that is a
possibility now]
[I have been] like in those movies where the
verbage isn’t coming with the actions, but today it is and for that I’m
grateful. I haven’t slept well last night, or much today, or eaten much, except
for the French toast [which I was so glad to remember I had frozen gluten free
for me], but I don’t know what this all means, I just only know the next step.
It’s not because I’m depressed and I can’t emotionally take the next step, it’s
like my body physically has been slowed down [and I said that to Calvin] and
that can really just mean it’s a grace. These are seasons of the soul or of
emotions that are healthy in a normal person to have those fluctuations and I’m
okay with that. I’m okay with being a little bit off schedule today because God
doesn’t need me to be on a schedule to be [light laugh] healed. God isn’t
thwarted by my upset schedule and what a blessing it is to be with other people
in a group some of them who are believers and some of them who say they’re not
or who may be one day (I don’t give up on people [someone else in group said
that today]. Every one of them had some truth to share and it was like
[pause] a stained glass window [or one of
those klitchy ceramic colored light Christmas trees you see on shelves this
time of year]or a glittering jewel…so…if that’s the case with this motley crew,
I can’t even imagine what it will look like in heaven when we are completely
renewed, but I want everybody on earth to know that joy, completeness, beauty,
love, acceptance, grace, belonging, thriving, and serving and it all goes
together. I don’t have the energy and the time to share it all now, but I feel
like a little pinhole --and that’s all God [ever or really] needs—of heaven has
been opened for a moment for me to sense, I don’t even say I see it, but I can
sense it in my heart and I’m grateful because it means I’m alive and I’m known
and God knows my name. And he’s there and he hasn’t forgotten me. I [don’t
really think really] I’ve ever thought God had forgotten me, I might not have
understood him, but it’s impossible for me to think about the last 24 hours and
not think an all-knowing, all-loving, all-powerful, not just powerful, but a
power that is in control, I guess the word would be sovereign, God is here.
Oh, Lord Jesus, I know you and that is
all…I…need. That is enough [pause]. I want my Christmas season to be simple.
[inner gasp or groan] as simple as a baby in a manger with straw, because a
manger is where, where animals like sheep feed. And I am a sheep, but there’s
one thing I know, and that is that Jesus leaves…would leave the ninety-nine—not
that he’s negligent, he’s gonna leave them so that [or and then] they get lost, he would [only, of
course], leave them at the right time. The sense is not that he’s left the
ninety-nine, but that he is so in love with me, with each of us, that it would
be inconceivable [voice breaking] for him and how much he loves us to die for
us and wants to care for us, how much how impossible it would be for him to not
want to go and find us when we are lost…from him.
I don’t think that when we are lost we [necessarily]
know it. We can be thinking we are anything but lost and we can be lost. And
it’s not that we are dumb, less righteous than others [although there’s truly
none righteous in his eyes, no not one] but that we are—it is impossible for us
to know our true condition apart from God revealing it to us. And the way I
know God is that [besides when I was four or five him telling me to get the
book off the cupboard shelf and open it on my bed so it could breathe…such a
quaint and quiet way to meet a girl as young as me. And I truly think I thought
that’s what it meant it was God-breathed—is that] there is nothing he would not
do to make his love for us and our condition known and do so in the gentlest
most tiny--most small, because small is big to him—one out of ninety-nine
sheep? That’s [quite] a low percentage, but my Lord, and my Savior is not about percentages, he is
about people. And because he is about
people, especially people who are lost and don’t know it, he is able to come up
with the most incredible, inconceivably brilliant plan lovingly planned from
the beginning of time for saving the world. He, knowing it could not be done
any other way, [here a ping from a text comes in and rings like a loud comet
through my ear’s sky] allowed evil to crucify him for me and for you. And I
know Christmas is often a sad time of year for me for the very reason that it
is such a contrast, it is such a lie that it automatically brings me closer to
Jesus. It usually does the opposite. But I also believe that however
messy and rushed and distracted and empty and wasted and squandered Christmas
days can be, despite best intentions, I believe that [gasp] my God is that much
bigger that that even that is not even the smallest the big? [no] -the smallest
problem for him, I should say…
He is not bounded in bondage other [or swaddled
or gagged] other than any way he chooses to be wrapped for our sakes, to the
problems of this world, he is that much bigger and yet he is that much bigger,
he is able to be big in a small insignificant [gasp and broken-voiced]
beautifully… backward… opposite… thumb-your-nose-at-the-world’s-economy…perfect
way.
He entered imperfection perfectly. I can’t even
be imperfect perfectly. Sometimes I do just good enough that I confuse myself
and forget who I am and think that I might be possibly able to do something
without God’s help. [though I’m not so much as good at that as kelp] That’s how
messed up I am. I am so messed up that I can’t even mess up perfectly. I go all
over the road. [I later learn my husband had a car spin around just in front of
him from a ten car pile up, but did not so much as get a hair split on the
road].
I have never been diagnosed with bipolar, II or
I, or anything.* At times I’ve wondered, [laugh] times like these, like four
times a year, when I feel God’s presence so clearly that it’s a clear space,
but [laugh again] despite that, [uh where was I going with that?] Despite that,
I’m not worried. I’m not worried because my security, my significance, my
future, my inheritance, my even [exhale] even my fruit doesn’t at all depend on
me. And I can promise you right now that Jen in her own strength could not say
a single whisper of what I’ve said today. It is God who has enabled me to see
this [this way]. He knows I have longed to grow in Christlikeness and I have
been waiting, often impatiently, and for whatever reason he is allowing me to
experience [breathing in through my partially blocked nose]…what’s the word?
The Holy Spirit in a thinner space three in one God and I, I would not trade it
for anything.
The person that hurt me, I don’t now know if
they did mean it. I definitely know that they are not the enemy; I’ve always
known that. And that is why I know this sounds impossible and boasting, but I
have dug down in myself and really the best that I can try to see if I harbor
bitterness against this person and I don’t, and that is only from Christ,
because I persevere perfectly [well at least perfectly as anything else I do]
that is a gift of mine. And I [know] I can persevere in bearing a grudge as
well as loving. I don’t say that proudly, but I say that as I amend to my
friend and my others that I know who aren’t yet friends. And I like what
somebody said today, that we don’t give up on anybody. That’s the way I want to
be. Not giving up on anybody.
I don’t say that to say I have to take the
intentionally or accept all the pain that others bring my way, or that I can
never protect myself. But what I’m saying is that the part of me that as a
child maybe didn’t , because my parents
were really good parents. They were messed up, in so many ways, but they were
so kind and I don’t mean spoiling kind, but just treasures. [beginning to cry].
They were a gift that I don’t think it would have been possible to realize as a
kid, but I do see that now. And that gift had a defect, if you will, of they
did not teach me, I guess, if my sister who was older, they protected me and
who just seemed to have it out for me, I have never understood why, they…they
protected me I guess in a sense, but I, I, did not learn the skills there,
because it was a safe house maybe, I don’t know maybe, to protect myself when I
am vulnerable…and I don’t need to take the blow, and actually Satan through
them would be the only explanation, because I don’t believe anyone can…can…can
believe as God made us, we are as responsible, I don’t mean to say we are not
responsible, I believe that the part of us that is most true that God …wants to
that God wants to restore[ redeem] [!] and bring into perfect love is a result
of us as much as satan, the forces of
evil. And so when I look at someone that is hurting or has hurt me, I…think
that it I think that it helps me to not believe that they…I guess, [helps me
to] forgive them for whatever it is, because I believe that, I guess that I
[tend to] believe the best about people to a fault and I am learning about
phrases like, uh…glutton for punishment…or, oh the rest are escaping me. Well,
in verses like well, like I shared before, when I am weak, then I am strong,
and I am stronger. I’ve been trying to be careful so as not to mislead people
that I’m being overly dramatic because the truth is this pain that I’ve gone
through from an unexpected experience has been worked out for good. And what
I’m feeling as I’m crying isn’t really sadness, no, well, it’s not despair in
the least, it’s like the most I
can’t…the verse about struck down and not destroyed and all that passage…which
I have a bad memory, so it’s not all coming to me, that whole…that whole
passage is clearer to me. And so because of that, I’m unbelievably grateful for
this. And I want to take whatever time I need to take so that I don’t forget
this lesson. I don’t want to punish myself to say oh, I have to take so much time, must learn this lesson so bad. I don’t
have to learn it so bad. I just thought of a word…I don’t know if it’s a word,
sometimes we use the it’s opposite, ruthlessly, like when we say ruthlessly
honest with myself, but then I thought I don’t [have to do that] but I want to
be [heal] ruthfully [truthfully]
honest with myself. I know I can drag myself ruthless through the mud more than
I drag through anyone else.
Oh my goodness, Lord. I praise you. I bless you
for your kindness and your goodness to me all the time. Especially in my
darkest feelings about Christmas when it seems the furthest thing from
Emmanuel, God with us. Yet, even then you are with us. You’ve used people.
People that have hurt me. People that are just in or sharing their own stories
and just being vulnerable enough to share, you’ve used the Jan Johnson study
online. You’ve used books you’ve prompted me to read even before I knew what
was coming. You gave me some sort of sense that I needed to prepare, even
though I didn’t know what. Even with reducing the clutter in my house, reading
a Cozy Minimalist book, seems like it’s been a prompting that you’ve given me
for this time. And I want to take this time and honor it, God. Please allow me
to value you enough …to not be afraid that if I take this time that I need
somehow you won’t take care of me, or my family or my loved ones. Lord, you
know I wouldn’t want to leave my job, and I don’t really think I’m in jeopardy
of that, but all I can say is I don’t care if I don’t have to lay it down.
I can’t remember the last time I spent 34
minutes of being able to share [thank you for making room beside your chair]
and feel accepted. And I’m not alone with myself.
O Lord, you are wise. You had me open Psalm 17
in The Message version when I was looking for Psalm 22. I’ve been listening to
those as well as our passages on John in church, but it was that passage that
version that most spoke to me in the middle of the night. You do that.
And David, when he was sad, or struck or
blindsided, he wrote poetry. [!] And you helped me write a rough draft of a
poem this morning and be able to share that at [ACA] group, even though I only
had thirty minutes (I meant to take fifteen minutes, but I got in late and was
wearing pajamas. [smiling to myself]. How amazing is that.
I love you, Lord.
Amen.
