My Body and Physical Health

I woke up from a short nap a little while ago.  I'd been reading, and started to drift, and rather than fighting that feeling, decided to go with it today, within limits.  I slept for about an hour, not super deeply, but it was lovely.

When I woke up, I was feeling a little foggy and lethargic (that's what napping often does to me), so I decided I'd finish off my planned exercise for the day by doing one six minute circuit from Jillian Michael's Banish Fat Boost Metabolism DVD.  That's done and now I'm sitting down to write.

Wait!  Before I lose you (because a blog post where the first two paragraphs read like that would probably lose me), let me explain.  I've spent the last week and a half thinking, reading, researching, pondering and praying about the idea of health. I've read voices that range from an auyervedic yogi to Dr. Oz.  From diet books to women's health.  I even did a two-day cleanse last week with the unfortunate name of "Look Better Naked Two-Day Cleanse".  (Full confession - I totally picked this cleanse because it was the easiest one I came across, where I didn't have to eat anything really gross!  I could care less at this point what I look like naked!)

Health and I, at least physical health and my body, have not exactly got the best relationship track record.  In fact, we kind of ignore if not downright dislike each other.  And yet, as I settled in last week to do some of that reading and research, I was pretty aware of the need for that to start changing.

I weigh more than I ever have (a number that is creeping scarily close to the "obese" range on the BMI charts for my height). I'm also in a position to start changing some things.  I start my final practicum next week, the second last hurdle for me to cross before I'm officially a registered nurse.  I'm within six-eight weeks of being fully weaned off of the medication that I've been on for the last two years to manage moods and anxiety.  It's been a great medication, but I don't feel like I need the support at this point in my life, and it has contributed significantly to the weight gain challenges I've had in those two years. My schedule is about to be more consistent, and I'm removing a major obstacle.  I'm very aware that with coming off medication, I need to have a mentally and physically healthy lifestyle in place to hopefully stay off the pills.  And plus, in terms of a lot of other things in my life, I'm in a healthier place than I've been in a long time, so it's time to make some changes with my body and physical health.

So I did a lot of reading and research, because half the battle for me is convincing myself this is actually worth it.  I historically hate almost all forms of exercise, and when I get hungry I crave sweets.  You can see the problem.  I watched shows on neflix and on veria living to motivate and inform me.  I began to accumulate viewpoints and opinions that would work for me, and discard others.  For example, I watched a whole series with an auyervedic practitioner and discovered that I can definitely get on board with the holistic idea that all parts of my lifestyle (even how much stuff I own) impacts my health.  But I hated his method of talking about food, which treated food as utilitarian, not something to be done really for enjoyment or to be done in a social setting, but just as energy.  I can't get on board with that - it contradicts deeply held beliefs rooted in my faith that say that sharing a meal with people is a sacred and connecting practice - a form of communion that is beyond the body.

And all that reading and research ultimately led me to a few doable ideas to start making changes.  I can't get on board with spending twenty minutes a day focused on exercises for my abs, but I can use Dr. Oz's 7 Day Belly Workout Cheat Sheet, where I need to spend 2-5 minutes doing a different exercise each day.  I can't at this point commit to doing a whole 45 minute Jillian Michael's video, but I can commit to doing one (or sometimes two) six minute circuits 4-5 times a week.  I can't (and won't) go on a major diet, but I can use tools like the My Fitness Pal website to track what I'm eating, and set a doable calorie goal (usually the 0.5lb weight loss a week range). I can drink a glass of water with lime (I hate lemon in water and most other things) every day to help my body detox.  I can stick to a basic regimen of vitamins and probiotics. I can't always make it to the reccomended 10000 steps a day using my Fitbit tracker, but I can shoot realistically for greater that 6000 a day, and go from there. I can eat lots of fruits and veggies and limit gluten and starch in my diet.

And the reason that I think I can make these changes is that most of them are already somewhat in place in my life, while the others fit into a window of time and activity that doesn't feel like it will overwhelm me. For me, that's the key - to figure out what is doable for me, what I won't hate and immediately quit - and then build from there.  I'm working on that figuring out what's doable thing in the whole of my life right now, and it seems to be helping.

Here's hoping that figuring out doable in the realm of my body and physical health is going to improve for it!

(and p.s. also in the realm of doable - I'm going to look at an elliptical machine off of Kijiji with my dad tonight! I'm thinking my neflix sessions are going to require a bit more physical activity in the near future if all goes as planned!)

New Mercies and All Saints - 7 Years of Healing

Today is the 7th Anniversary of my experience of healing from overwhelming depression.

I wrote about it for the first time 6 years ago today.

I've written about it every year since (you can find those posts by going to November 1st in my blog archives, every year since 2006).  I think one of my favorite of those reflections is the one I wrote last year.  It's my favorite because it was a moment of recognition - of recognizing the fact that that day marked both an ending and a beginning.  It marked an ending of hopelessness.  An ending of the all encompassing spiritual darkness and oppression that had marked my days for the previous 7 or so years.  And a beginning. A beginning of another journey of healing.  A beginning of a journey to self-awareness.  A beginning of a journey to know Christ's heart more deeply and personally.

It's that ending and beginning that I find myself reflecting on again this morning.

It's hard for me to believe that I've now been without that hopelessness and overwhelming darkness for seven years now.  That I've been without it for as long as I lived with it.  It seems crazy, because the combination of those 14 years marks nearly half of my life.

Last year I wrote about my journey with the word "heal" and the ways it manifested.  As I continue to journey towards a place of wholeness, I find myself thinking about those manifestations again today.  About the blessing that an excellent therapist, medication, and the development of a number of wonderful friendships over the last year have been in that journey of wholeness.  About the ways that will look moving forward - about coming slowly to an end of that therapy journey, and beginning a journey with a spiritual director that my therapist has recommended to me.

I woke this morning with an overwhelming peace.  A recognition of the gift of these seven years since that moment of healing encounter with Jesus.

I find myself incredibly aware of the new mercies that have become part of my life in the last year.  The mercy of feeling stable and (relatively) whole.  The mercy of healthy relationships.  The mercy of people with similar hearts and temperaments.  The mercy of moving towards a profession and calling.  The mercy of sweet honorary nieces and nephews who never fail to bring a smile to my face, and the mercy of their parents willingness to include me in their lives.

This year I find myself reflecting, too, on the reality that this anniversary of healing falls on All Saints Day.  This morning I read a translation of Pope Benedict XVI's reflections on All Saints Day, and was struck by these lines, "And so this feast day helps us to think about the Church in its dual dimension: the Church journeying in time and the Church that celebrates the never-ending feast, the Heavenly Jerusalem. These two dimensions are united by the reality of the "communion of saints": a reality that begins here on earth and that reaches its fulfillment in heaven."

This reflection of the Pope's strikes home for me in a year where I have spent much time considering the "communion of saints". I am acutely aware of the presence of what the author of Hebrews refers to as "the great cloud of witnesses" both on earth and in heaven, cheering me on, moving me forward in this journey towards wholeness and towards a greater reflection of Christ in my life.  I feel their presence deeply, and find myself so encouraged by it as I go through my days. Pope Benedict put it like this in his address, "In each of them [the saints], in a very personal way, Christ was present, thanks to his Spirit which acts through the Word and the Sacraments. In fact, being united to Christ, in the Church, does not negate ones’ personality, but opens it, transforms it with the power of love, and confers on it, already here on earth, an eternal dimension."  I love this idea - that being united to Christ takes who we are already and transforms it into something eternal - that it is used deeply.  These words resonate with the journey of healing that I have traveled for the last seven years and expect to continue to travel for all my days on earth.

New mercies and the communion of saints - these are the things I find myself reflecting on today as I celebrate seven years since that moment in which God's Spirit so interrupted the course of my life.  I'm not sure I've found words that are all that profound to describe the ways these things are resonating within me right now, but they are, and I celebrate this anniversary with great joy, peace and hope, looking forward to celebrating it over and over again in years to come, and reflecting each year on the ways that Jesus has continued to work His healing and presence in my life.

Wind Down

It's Sunday night as I write this post, and I'm feeling some pressure.

Time pressure, really.  You see, I have no idea what I want to write about for this Monday post, never mind the rest of the week, and I promised my therapist last week that in an effort to better manage self-care and my ongoing struggles with anxiety in the midst of a schedule that is currently very full and in-flux, I'd re-institute a night time wind-down period.

So, I guess, given that that period is supposed to begin in a little under an hour, and is definitely NOT supposed to include televisions or computers (or anything else with a screen), I guess the wind down period is destined to be the subject of this post.

Can I tell you the truth about something? Of all of the tools I've used to manage sleep and anxiety, the wind down period is the one I like the least.

It doesn't matter that it works.  That I sleep better, with less dreams, and that because I'm more rested, I'm more able to handle the challenges of anxiety and a very full schedule.  I still kind of hate it.

I hate the limitation on screen time.  I hate having a fixed bedtime.  It grates against me to need to exercise those aspects of self-control and discipline in my life.  It feels like one more limiting factor, a problem when sometimes my anxiety flares up because of time-limiting factors.

9:30 p.m.

It's supposed to start at 9:30 p.m.

I'm not sure I can express just how hard it is for my night owl self to voluntarily turn off my laptop and/or television at 9:30 and spend the next 30 to 90 minutes reading, praying, and then self-imposing a "bed-time".  I kind of hate it.

But it works.  And I'm more committed to health than to fighting against this aspect of self-discipline.  And I remain oh so aware that my word for 2012 is "still", and that this imposes 30 to 90 minutes of stillness and quiet in my life each evening.

(But right now, I still kind of hate it.  Not to mention the fact that I continue to have an anxiety condition that makes it a necessary reality.)

It Doesn't Have to Leave a Scar

Source: theokayproject.tumblr.com via ally on Pinterest

I wasn't planning to ever write this post. To ever share this story on my blog. But I was paging through pinterest as I sat in class last week, listening to a long slightly dry lecture, and I came across the above image, and in an instant I was back in that moment, those moments.

I was standing in the train station, leaving frantic messages for my pastor and his wife, in need of advice and prayer. Leaving messages telling them that I was on the way to respond to a distress call of sorts from a friend who'd called and asked if I could meet up - it had been a bad day and my friend was considering self harm.

I was sitting on the bus, praying desperate prayers, still hoping my phone would ring with one of those messages returned, feeling very alone as I waited for my friend to arrive.

And I was sitting in the Starbucks, back in a corner, near a window, watching as the friend rolled up a pant leg, revealing a word carved into the flesh of their calf.

It read BROKEN, in jagged letters, scratched out in the most visible expression of truth speaking that I have ever experienced.

I wasn't planning to tell that story in this space, but it is one that has never left me.  It is an image, a moment, a series of moments that has burned itself permanently into my memory.

Letting it out doesn't have to leave a scar.  The image on pinterest transported me to the moment of seeing the fresh wound, a message, a cry, a desperation carved into flesh.  It transported me to the weeks of follow-up, of seeing the word slowly fade into the skin and begin to disappear.

That moment shaped me.  It cemented into my heart a calling to sit with the broken, and particularly with broken women.  It (along with some other moments from that vintage, also equally ingrained within my memory) began this journey of healing, of mental health, of being present and finding Jesus amidst the broken spaces.  It's the journey that I'm seeing expressed right now in nursing school - the journey I remind myself of on the days when I want to be anywhere BUT sitting in nursing school, or anywhere BUT sitting in a therapy appointment, making strides in my own journey of brokenness and healing.

I hadn't planned to share that story in this space, but it's a story that has shaped me, is shaping me, and will continue to shape me.  I will never forget that word, that cry, that truth carved into flesh.  But the words that go with the image from pinterest that transported me back to that moment? Those are the words that are the other half of the story, the part that has shaped my journey since then.  Letting it out, healing, finding expression of this doesn't have to leave a scar.  And that is the thing I pray for as I move forward in this journey - that for myself, and for others, we can heal so deeply that even some of the scars disappear.

Baby Steps (Continuing the Journey of Body and Food)

The conversation that took place on my last post in this series on my journey with my body and food inspired me.  It was a conversation that I was reminded of when I came across this image on pinterest this week:

Source: fightingthinspo.tumblr.com via ☮Kristyn on Pinterest

I obviously don't have a daughter right now, and maybe I never will, but this image reminded me of the comments that friends left on my last post, about their own daughters, and helped remind me of the importance of learning to love my body now, in this place of having more questions than answers.

After writing that post, I went back to my therapist and we talked about the four week experiment she'd asked me to undertake.  The experiment where I didn't count points or calories, where I didn't climb on a scale, but instead I tried to be more aware of loving my body, of caring for it.

I shared with her that I was fairly certain that over the course of the four week experiment I'd gained back nearly all of the weight I'd spent the previous twelve weeks trying to lose.  That without some sort of tracking system, I found myself eating everything in sight, and rationalizing it.  I was emotional, and craving chocolate - my body wanted chocolate - I only gave it what it wanted, right?  Not precisely a healthy or rounded way of handling things.  Her observation, after more conversation was this - that I had stopped being horrible to my body, but now I was acting indifferently, not really kindly.  She also noted that I seemed to need to some accountability.

So, we tweaked the experiment, and I'm taking baby steps forward.  I'm working on forming healthier images of beauty.  On actually appreciating my body - noticing the myriad of things it does for me each day.  I'm working on noticing the parts of my body that I genuinely like, and focusing on them.  I'm working on being kind to my body.  I'm working on eating more fruits and vegetables, and listening to what my body wants, but filtering out the voices that like immature children ask for desires rather than needs - for chocolate instead of strawberries or carrots.  And I'm counting calories again.

The counting thing works for me.  This has never been a journey solely about weight.  Yes, I'd like to lose some weight (between 15-25 pounds if I'm honest), but it's not about weight particularly.  I'm recognizing a need to love and respect myself - to really see myself as a whole being.  To not have my body be only a utilitarian accessory that I only notice when it fails.  To see my body as the temple I reflected on when I first began writing this series.

Source: emilymcdowell.posterous.com via Jen on Pinterest

I'm recognizing, too, that how I care for myself has a direct impact on my ongoing struggle with mental illness, depression, anxiety, and self-image.  That how I treat myself is a strong indicator not only my own physical health, but my social and mental health as well.

On the wholly practical note, pinterest and counting have been helpful.  I've found exercise tips and images that spoke truths I needed to hear on pinterest.  And counting, well, counting just gives me a target.  I use a website and iphone app called "Lose It!" and have found it helpful, especially as I've personalized it with the foods I eat most regularly.  As someone who has pretty much always despised exercise (with the possible exceptions of synchronized swimming and yoga), it's motivating to me that I earn extra calories through daily activities like walking and house cleaning.  Counting calories isn't an exact science for me.  I'll probably never weigh and measure everything I eat, and I'll probably never have a perfect week of food consumption, under the limit every day, saying no to everything that someone somewhere might deem unhealthy.  But I'm learning that this caring for my body thing is about moderation.  About those baby steps my counselor and I have talked about as necessary in restoring any relationship.  That the goal is to have more good days than bad days.  That sometimes the glass of wine with friends is a good thing, or the celebrating with a decadent restaurant meal is a way of thanking my body and treating my emotions.  That even if a week has more bad days than good, I get to keep trying again and again.

So, I'm counting, I'm looking for new images of beauty, I'm trying to find ways to be gentle and loving to my body.  I'm eating more strawberries (berries in general, really), and I'm hanging out on pinterest.  And I'm using Lose It! (if you happen to use it, let me know - there's a friend feature that can help add accountability).  Baby steps, folks.  The next one is going to be creating a list of all the different little things that I can do to "feel good" on a given day - body, soul, and spirit.  A sort of handy daily checklist that I can refer to.  Another way of adding a bit of accountability to this process for me.

I'd love to hear how this journey has been going for each of you.  Have you been taking baby steps? Giant steps? Are you the need accountability type?  Are there things that are unfailingly on your own "feel good" lists?  The conversation about this journey has been so helpful for me.  Don't let it stop now!

Admitting A Disorder (More Thoughts on the Body)

On Monday I started talking about a new journey I've been walking with Jesus the last few months, surrounding my relationship with my body, and my relationship with food. I wasn't planning to get this intense this quickly in sharing some of my journey with my body and food, but then I discovered that in the United States, February 26-March 3, 2012 is Eating Disorder Awareness week, and I knew it was time to tell this piece of my story.

Food and I, well, we have a conflicted, love-hate kind of relationship.  I love food, but my body has often hated it.

If you ask my family about me as a child, they might tell you the story of the time my cousin (five weeks younger than me) was crawling around the house, eating a cracker, when I spotted him.  Apparently my immediate response was to follow him, and eat any crumbs or bits he dropped.  I grew up thinking of myself as "chubby" and this fit with the family lore.  There are comments about my love of food, and my weight that were made by male members of my family burned in my memory permanently, causing an ache, and helping me define myself.

Years as a synchronized swimmer meant that I never developed the "I look horrible in a swimsuit" complex that other girls dealt with.  I knew I didn't look great, but I loved the water, and the sport, and, well, you couldn't participate without a swimsuit.  I was comfortable standing in front of a crowd in my one-piece, or teaching a class, while continually aware that my figure was far from the cultural ideal.

It didn't help that the women in my family are tiny.  In case I've never mentioned, I'm the only girl in my generation on both sides of the family, so the women I had to compare myself to were parents, aunts, and grandparents.  My mom's generation in particular is comprised of tiny women.  The fact that as I hit puberty it became clear that my body was a throwback to my grandmother's generation, with, well, curves, did not help.

But mostly, I didn't worry too much about it.  I was continually aware of those extra five or ten pounds I needed to lose, but I spent almost no time on a scale, and just chose not to focus my thoughts there.

My first bout with food problems came in eleventh grade, and it started a pattern that continued for the next fifteen years or so, off and on.  Nearly every day I'd throw most of my lunch away (this after eating minimal or no breakfast), because I felt ill.  It fluctuated, and eventually passed.  (It should be noted that somewhere in those years was the onset of my battle with severe depression, and all the spiritual questioning that came with it.)

I lost probably 10 pounds that year, without trying.  I just couldn't eat.

The weight came and went for the next few years, my ability to eat nearly almost diminishing to nothing during the more highly stressful periods of my life.  I subsisted on cookies, bread, crackers - anything and everything that was loaded with carbs and generally fit into the sweet or bland categories of consumption.  The rare times I was hungry, it was sweets that I craved, and my body wasn't satisfied unless I ate and ate a lot.

It was manageable, though, with more weight gain than loss (though never anything excessive), until I traveled to Malta about four years ago.  When I think back on that trip, and my relationship with food around it, what stands out to me is that the moment the trip became real, the night I went out for a goodbye dinner with my family, I became instantly sick.  I returned home from that meal, vomited unexpectedly, and ultimately ate almost nothing for the next five days.  The first food I consumed was on the airplane.  I also spent those five days begging God to quiet my notoriously picky stomach for the next month or so, knowing that I wouldn't make it through the trip if my stomach and its aversions acted up.  He did, and I ate comfortably (for me anyway!) until the day I boarded a plan in London to return home.

In the months following my return, my life began to fall apart - a process that altogether took more than a year.  Relationships shattered and my emotions shattered with them.  My body couldn't cope.  I spent days and weeks and months fasting, in an attempt to please people, to please God, to bargain my sacrifice for some sort of relief that never came.  Over the course of that year, I lost somewhere between 25 and 30 pounds.  I worried silently about the weight that slipped off without me ever trying, but always silently, because it was nice to have this newer body, this tinier body that people were noticing.  It was a conflicted thing the noticing.  I was sick, ill, broken all the time, emotionally shattered, but my body had never looked better.  I'm nothing if not often described as bluntly honest, and I spent a lot of time that year answering compliments and questions about my weight loss with the honest truth "no, I haven't been trying to lose weight, I've just been really sick."  Ironically, when I looked in the mirror, my body looked the same through my shattered eyes.  I didn't see my waist-line, I saw the tired and sad eyes, the soul that was always out of step.

I was afraid to say it out loud, but I began wondering if I was fighting a new battle with mental illness, this time with an eating disorder.  When someone in my life challenged me specifically on eating habits, on embracing life, I grasped at it, and immediately implemented a strict regimen of meals.  For months I used stickers on a calendar to display the fact that for maybe the first time since I was a child, I was eating three meals a day.  It worked for me, this grasping for control.  The weight loss stopped, and I even gained a little.  I still didn't have to worry about what I ate, since my emotions were still in shambles.  I never said the words "eating disorder" to anyone, though deep down I knew that this was what I was fighting to control.  I'd had years to make peace with admitting that I suffered from depression, but adding other diagnoses to the list felt overwhelming.  I carefully avoided questions from my doctor at annual physicals, skirting the issue of eating habits without ever lying - working the system just so.  And I managed it.  No more fasting, no more excuses to starve myself - just a strict three sticker a day regimen - one on the calendar for each meal I consumed.

I was proud of this success, and I shared it, celebrated it.  I didn't tell anyone about the fears that haunted me.  I didn't tell anyone about how I wondered what would happen when my body would again fail me by rejecting food.  I didn't talk about and tried to ignore the fear of waiting and expecting another of the usual onslaught of a week or so where food would just not be an option.  I just forced myself to eat those meals, and celebrated with stickers and with pride every little milestone - a day, a week, a month, three months, six months - I had this under control, or at least that was what I was telling the world.

After life finally seemed to hit bottom, I spent some time with a friend who rather forcefully (though gently) pushed through my objections to seeking professional help.  I found a therapist and began the work of piecing a life back together, but I never mentioned the challenges with food.  After all, I still had them under control.  I may not have had an appetite, but I didn't have trouble eating three small meals a day anymore.  I still craved mostly sugar (likely the calories my body simply wasn't getting), and indulged those cravings.  My weight had stabilized - I wasn't gaining, I wasn't losing.

And then, somewhere in the process of therapy, Jesus and I started talking about medication to help my ongoing battle with depression and anxiety.  I never wanted to admit that need.  I wanted to do this on my own terms, and admitting a need for medication felt like a failure.  Feeling defeated, but convinced this was something Jesus was inviting me to try, I landed myself in my doctor's office and described what I'd been dealing with.  She listened, addressed some of my fears and concerns, and then handed me  a prescription.  I started taking it about nine months ago now.

Medication in combination with ongoing therapy has made all the difference in the world in my emotional, mental and spiritual health, but it highlighted my issues with food in new ways.  When I started the meds, I spent a week in bed.  My body reacted strongly to this sudden onslaught of chemicals it had learned to live without, and the period of adjustment was rough.  I didn't eat that week, lived on 7-Up (the only thing that sounded good, and the only time in more than 10 years that I'd been able to drink a carbonated beverage), and slept for hours and hours at a time.  The next month wasn't much fun.  The nausea passed, but my appetite was gone, and I was back to forcing the issue with eating.  My fears were back in force, as I felt my carefully controlled world slipping.  And then? A month in we adjusted the dosage, and on the first day of the new dose I woke up feeling truly good for the first time in probably five years.  I didn't look back.  My appetite was back in a real way for the first time since high school.  I ate anything and everything, without considering consequences.  My body didn't seem to be changing, so I didn't worry.  I wasn't battling the nausea I so often had with emotional stress.  I was HUNGRY, and that was huge.

Except that last November I tried on a dress and it didn't fit.  A couple more incidents over the holidays landed me on a scale, and I discovered that the medication and appetite had had consequences.  I'd gained 25 pounds, because I'd never learned to manage my eating habits.  They'd been broken so long that I didn't understand the way "normal" worked.

And that has left me here.  Today I'm saying out loud that I have an eating disorder.  Not the typical kind you think of, but there is unhealth in relationship with food, and I think that this is something that's important to say out loud.

As the new year began, I came up with some goals for handling my newfound appetite, and for losing some weight, and I'll talk about those in posts to come, but today, in this week where awareness of eating disorders is being raised, I'm going to say it out loud - I suffer from a mild eating disorder.  And in the invitation to say that out loud, in the invitation of that honesty that I've felt from Jesus over the last couple months, I am finding freedom, and a renewed invitation to heal.  I am finding healing in the new ways I'm managing my diet, and I'm finding freedom in not needing to fear my body.  And I'm going to walk through some more emotional healing, starting by reading this post to my therapist the next time I meet with her, and inviting her to help me work through this part of my life as well.

So, again, I invite you to journey with me, but today I also feel Jesus smiling at each of you, offering his presence in these journeys with our bodies, and with food.  Offering healing and His delight in each of us.  Offering to let us step more fully into the light.  Won't you step into this in your own journey today?

A Temple? (Some Thoughts on the Body)

                        Source: tonedcurves.tumblr.com via Lisa on Pinterest

I have for quite some time now been staring at a tab with the above image displayed on it in my web browser.  The tab has been open for days, weeks even, as I ponder the words in the image, and ponder the way they relate to how my heart is being shaped in this season.  It has been open, and I've stared at it as I pondered how on earth to broach this topic in this space, and if I even would.  This topic feels like a risk.

It seems funny to say that talking about my relationship with my body and food seems like a risk.  In this space I've spoken openly about my journey with mental illness, spirituality and other very personal things.  Things that are in some ways nearer and dearer to my heart, more personal in many ways than the topic of my body and food.  But talking about this feels risky.

And yet, I don't believe it's an option to NOT talk about it.  This is something new, something that is being outworked in my life, something Jesus is drawing my attention to.  For a couple of months now, I've been quietly paying attention to it, noticing it, dialoging about it in select trusted circles.  And now, quietly, though I by no means have it all sorted out, I'm going to start talking about it here in this space where I share the ways my life is being shaped, moulded, and changed.  I imagine it will take more posts than just this one and that this, like mental illness and spirituality and all those other personal things I share in this space, is a journey that will be an ongoing topic of discussion.  But, for a little while, I'll probably talk about it regularly as I explore in writing these things that are surfacing within me and demanding my attention.

"The food you eat can either be the safest and most powerful form or medicine or the slowest form of poison." (Ann Wigmore)

This quote hit a raw and poignant place when I read it for the first time a month or so ago.  I was about a month into a new habit of paying very close attention to what I eat and noticing how it affects my body.

This whole thing started sometime in mid-November, when I tried on a dress I hadn't worn in a while - a  dress I was planning to wear to an engagement party being held for my brother and his fiancee.  It didn't fit.  It should have fit.  I was convinced that it had been shrunken accidentally in the laundry by the last person who wore it - a friend I'd loaned it to - one who usually wore slightly larger clothing than me.  I was frustrated that my dress didn't fit, but didn't connect it to my body.  Over the next month, a few other encounters with clothes from my closet that fit differently than I expected them to led me to dragging out the bathroom scale sometime around the beginning of the new year.

Twenty-five pounds.

Twenty-five pounds.  I'd never in my life worried about weight or what I ate, but it seemed that the combination of a medication I began taking about eight months earlier to treat anxiety and depression, and the appetite that I had for the first time in a decade as a result of the medication had taken their toll.  I'd gained twenty-five pounds.

The number registering on the scale ushered in a new season of life in my body.  Suddenly, this thing that I never acknowledged unless it somehow failed me, was demanding my attention.  It was calling for me to notice it, to notice my habits surrounding it, to be open to them, and to letting Jesus share with me how he sees me in a new way.  I've explored how Jesus sees me quite a lot the last few years, and fallen in love with him more deeply along the way, but I don't think we've ever talked about my body.  Why would we?  My body was utilitarian, and I preferred to ignore it, rather than acknowledge it.  I was afraid of it too - afraid of it failing me, afraid of acknowledging that I couldn't control it at times, afraid of acknowledging that I failed it.

Around the same time as the numbers registered on the scale began to signal that there was something I needed to pay attention to, my friend Christianne began to write about her own journey with her body.  I found in Christianne's words the comfort that comes from realizing that a journey that seemed strange and odd to me was perhaps not quite so strange and odd, and was not one that is being walked alone, but one that was and is walked out continually by people all over the face of the planet.

And so with the awareness of the scale and the comfort of knowing that this was not a journey that I was the first or only one to walk, I began to walk.  I made plans silently as the new year began, starting with setting the goal of losing those twenty-five pounds over the next six months to a year.  I explored ways and means to help me achieve that goal, and I began to listen to my body more closely.  I began to prayerfully put this new awareness in front of Jesus, and wait to see where he would guide.  I became aware of the others who were talking about caring for their body, consuming food in a mindful way, discussing the fact that our bodies are holy.

I've never had to think about weight or the food I consumed - my physical response to my emotional and mental state took care of that.  I would gain a little weight when times were good and I felt stable, but I never worried about those pounds, because the one thing I knew about my body was that it consistently failed me.  That times would get bad again thanks to the battles I fought with depression and anxiety, and those pounds would melt away along with my appetite, and sometimes my ability to keep food down.

I'm going to talk more about my relationship with food in the future, but I want to highlight this - the only thing that I trusted about my body was that it would fail me.  I had learned that this was it's one consistent behavior.  My brain chemistry would get wonky, the hard times would come, and my appetite would disappear.  I didn't notice or acknowledge my body except to berate it.  To be frustrated with it. To wonder why it continually let me down.

In Christianne's first post in her series on the body, she shared a question she asked Jesus, "Help me to learn how you view my body, and help me learn how you want me to care for it."

She posted that question about a week after I'd really begun in earnest to notice my body, to try to treat it differently, and in that question I found words for the things rolling around in my head and heart.  As I began to ask Jesus how he saw my body, and what he wanted me to know about it, the first thing that sprang to mind was a passage of scripture that talks about our bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit.

My love of all things liturgical caused that phrase to conjure up an incredible set of memories and images.  Images of beauty, of holiness.  Memories of the first Catholic mass I attended at St. Mary's Cathedral here in Calgary, and of the churches I sat and prayed in in Rome and Malta.  Thoughts of the four and a half years I spent studying to obtain a degree in church history, and the feeling of setting foot in some of those places several years later when I travelled to Europe for the first time.  Memories of being a small child, and having my first "job" helping my grandparents who worked as church custodians - cleaning bathrooms, watering plants, cleaning glass, and carefully dusting the pews each week.  Mental images from childhood of watching pilgrims prayerfully ascend the steps to St. Joseph's Oratory in Montreal, and more recent ones of the moment I stood before a priest in St. Peter's Basillica in Rome, to receive the ashes in the last mass of the day on Ash Wednesday, of the feeling of the ashes on my head as I stood in the center of that magnificent church.

I thought about temples as I read through Leviticus in my daily scripture readings, encountering the strict commands that God gave to his people about the construction of this place of worship - about the beauty and awe it should generate.  I thought about temples as I considered the churches, cathedrals, and sacred spaces that I've visited all over North America and during my time in Europe.  I thought about how these are the places that have been made sacred, set apart for God to dwell in, to meet with his people in.  And I thought about the maintenance devoted to these spaces - how their sacred nature demands care.  And then I returned again to the passage of Scripture that seemed to be Jesus' immediate answer to my question.

Eugene Peterson translates the passage like this:

Or didn't you realize that your body is a sacred place, the place of the Holy Spirit? Don't you see that you can't live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for? The physical part of you is not some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of you. God owns the whole works. So let people see God in and through your body.  (1 Corinthians 6:19-20 The Message)

As I explored the context of these verses and the passages that surround them, I came across others in the same chapter:


You know the old saying, "First you eat to live, and then you live to eat"? Well, it may be true that the body is only a temporary thing, but that's no excuse for stuffing your body with food, or indulging it with sex. Since the Master honors you with a body, honor him with your body!


God honored the Master's body by raising it from the grave. He'll treat yours with the same resurrection power. Until that time, remember that your bodies are created with the same dignity as the Master's body. You wouldn't take the Master's body off to a whorehouse, would you? I should hope not. (1 Corinthians 6:13-15 The Message)

Three things became strikingly clear to me, and are the things that I continue to ponder daily.

First, my body is a temple.  It is a sacred space, set aside for God to reside in, and for Him to meet with me.  The implications of that stun me.  I've heard the passage in context of arguments for not smoking, not consuming excessive amounts of alcohol, and even the need for regular exercise.  All of these were arguments that meant little to me.  But hearing Jesus remind me that I am his temple?  That was a different story, and I find myself pondering the implications of being a temple, given my associations of temples with sacred space, holiness and deep beauty.  I find myself pondering the fact that a temple is designed to display the glory of God, and maintained to continue that display for ages to come.  It leaves me with questions about my own display of God's glory.  Questions about the teaching I grew up with that it is the inner beauty that displays the glory of God, and the inner beauty only.  Questions about how it is that I care for this temple - how I maintain it so that it continues to display God's glory.

Second, this phrase in Peterson's rendering of these verses jumped out at me: "Since the Master honors you with a body, honor him with your body!"  My body is an honor given to me by Christ.  That's a thought that is going to require some further meditation and conversation with Jesus.

And finally, my body is created with the same dignity as Christ's body.  Hello!  Did you catch that in the passages I quoted?  It stopped me in my tracks.  Peterson's version reads, "...remember that your bodies are created with the same dignity as the Master's body. You wouldn't take the Master's body off to a whorehouse, would you? I should hope not."  It's a rather striking image, this age old question of "Would I take Jesus there or subject Him to that, and if not, why am I taking myself there, or subjecting myself to it?"  I have a thousand arguments to answer those questions and justify various things in my life or the life of others around me, but it boils down to this: when this is a personal question, when I am talking with Jesus and he is asking me if I am treating my own body and how I see it in the way I would treat and see his body, I need to stop and think a bit.


And so I'm pondering, and asking questions, and listening, and implementing new habits and practices.  And I'm going to talk about those things here.  I set out to write one post about the changing way in which I am relating to my body, and my history with my body, and as I wrote I discovered that I have stories to tell.   For the next while I will share these stories and ponderings and questions in this space, and I'd like to invite you to journey with me as I talk about food, about my body, about being a temple, about weight and eating, about health and self-image, and coming into myself more fully.  You're welcome to come along, and I'd definitely love to hear your thoughts and interact with you about this.  Feel free to leave a comment, or to email me at the address in my profile.

Rambling Thoughts

It's Monday morning and I've been awake for half an hour or so.

Usually I write these Monday posts at some point on the weekend, so they're all ready to go, long before I wake.

I was too tired last night to accomplish that.  It was the last thing on my list, and I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

So I'm writing now, propped on pillows, still semi-reclined in bed.

This is one of those Monday's when I don't have anything burning to say.  No story from the deep internal moments of my life.  No half rant, half exposition of my thoughts on something I've learned at school, and why I can't quite agree with it.  Today there's just my slightly sleepy ramblings.

I'm thinking about how much I appreciated the quiet of the weekend.  How much I enjoyed the silent spaces that I sat in, even when I filled those silent spaces with work.

I'm thinking about my body, and long-term health goals.  About the moments when I see little bits of progress towards those goals.  About the ways that I am working to change my thinking, to make these goals long term habits, and not about short term gain.

I'm thinking about the fact that life threw major bumps at me last week, all in twenty-four hours.  Major financial challenges, the emergency hospitalization of a couple people very close to me, all while I was battling illness.  I'm thinking that I'm proud of how I handled those 24 hours.  That I'm thankful for the friend who let me rant a bit in the midst of them, and the friends who hugged me and prayed with me at house church.  I'm thinking about how the way I would have weathered this a year ago would have been different, and how I see immense healing and growth in the way I handled it now.  And I'm proud of that, and thankful for it.  I'm thinking about how it reflects my word for last year "heal" and my word for this year "still" in that I see healing in my response, and I was able to hold onto that internal peace and stillness even amidst the tossing of life's waves.

I'm thinking that there is always something to think about, and that I'm thankful for a Monday ahead of me with very few scheduled commitments, and lots of space - even space from school work, since I accomplished most of the homework and reading for this week already, and don't have to devote more than an hour or two of today to it.

I'm thinking that slightly sleep thankfulness and exploring rambling thoughts feels like the perfect way to begin this day.  And so, I'm off to crawl out of bed and begin it in earnest!

Wine-Stained Hands

I've been thinking a lot this week about one of the most powerful encounters with Jesus that I've ever had.  I've shared in this space before about my story of healing (I share it every year on the anniversary, November 1st), and that is a pivotal moment.  But, there is one other pivotal moment.  One that I've carried inside my heart for quite a few years, choosing not to share it publicly, to protect it, and process it, and let it make itself truly at home within me.

This week I realized that I might not ever be fully at home with this experience.  That it is an experience that will probably shape me for the rest of my life.  And as I realized that, I discovered that I am ready to share it.

It feels risky, sharing this here.  I prefer to talk in generalities in this space about my life with Jesus - to talk in quiet tones about the ongoing dance that I do between the conservative church upbringing that shaped me, and the charismatic experiences that have defined the last ten years of my life or so.  It's easier to talk in generalities than to be specific about realities.  It's easier to talk in generalities that it is to risk judgement, confusion, or misunderstanding.  And yet, this week, as I reflect on that moment, and on things that have flowed from it in my life, I can't help but feel it demand to be expressed.  And so, I'm going to try.

It's no secret to those who know me even a little that I have an active dream life (waking, but particularly sleeping).  Dreams have been a part of my reality for as long as I can remember, from the earliest nightmares as a child, to the dark, earth-shattering dreams I experienced at the height of my battle with depression, to the dreams that are oddly close to reality.  When I first encountered the idea taught by charismatics that dreams are still a primary way that God speaks to his people, I was horrified.  At the time, in the throes of depression, I slept minimally, and what little sleep I had was marked by nightmares so vivid that I would wake and lay in the dark, wondering why my bed was shaking until it would hit me that the bed was shaking because of the trembling of my body due to residual fear and adrenaline.  With this as my primary experience of the dream world, I couldn't imagine why anyone would actually pray, asking God to cause them to dream!  (In fact, I remember  agreeing to pray that for one friend, since it was her specific desire, while at the same time only quasi-jokingly informing her that I thought this was an absolutely crazy request!)

And then, then God stepped in.  My moment of healing happened, and that night was marked by the first time in years where I managed six straight hours of sleep uninterrupted by either waking or nightmares.  I assumed that my years of dreaming were about to give way to years of peaceful sleep, free from dreams of any sort.

I assumed wrong.

By the fall of 2007, I was coming to a grudging acknowledgement (acceptance was still far away) that dreams, this time falling into four categories, were going to be a long-term part of my life.  I developed four categories, "god dreams," "bad pizza dreams," "processing dreams," and (for lack of a better descriptor) "demonic nightmares."  The vast majority of the dreams I was experiencing still fell into the latter three categories, and I was choosing to simply be thankful that the last category was rarer than it ever had been in my life.  I was definitely not asking Jesus for an increase of dreams of any sort, and I continued to be highly skeptical of those who celebrated their dreams as encounters with a living God.

And then, one night, that fall, in the midst of a season in which I was experiencing a myriad of new things in my walk with Jesus, I went to sleep.

You knew that was where this was going, right?  I mean, could it be going anywhere else?

I went to sleep, and dreamed the following:

I entered a room, set for a formal banquet with snowy white table linens, gorgeous china, and sparkling crystal.  People milled around, finding seats at the table, but I held back, shy - afraid even.  The only one in the room that I recognized was Jesus and I would have done anything to escape his notice.  Slowly it dawned on me that everyone was now seated, and the only seat left at the table was in the center, directly across from Jesus.  It was the opposite of the invisibility I craved.  But, knowing everyone was watching, and desperate to have their attention turn elsewhere, I quietly made my way to my seat, keeping my eyes down.  Once seated, I refused to look up, but again somehow knew that I was being watched.  This time, it was Jesus watching me.  He was clearly waiting for something, for a blessing of sorts, I thought.  Instinctively, still never looking up, I knew how to respond. I rested my elbows on the edge of the table, and tilted my wrists towards him, cupping my hands over the center of the table, and burying my face quietly against my wrists.  He took a carafe of red wine, and poured it over my hands, until it pooled and spilled over, contrasting against the sparking white linens.

And then I woke.

There's something else I should mention.  At that stage in my life I'd never tasted wine.  I feared alcohol, having seen it's affects on the lives of some I loved.  And knowing that my own personality tended to extremes, and to addiction, in fear I'd made a choice to abstain.  It was beyond odd that wine would be a defining characteristic in my dream.

When I woke, I felt baffled.  I was astounded to have encountered Jesus in a dream (something that has never happened before or since), but was confused by the sequence of events, by the wine.

As the day went on, I puzzled over the dream, wondering at it's meaning.  A few lines from a song recorded by Steve Bell stood out in my heart and played through my thoughts:

Come back to me

with all your heart

Don't let fear keep us apart...

long have I waited for

your coming home to me

and living deeply our new life

I puzzled over the connection of the song to what I had dreamed.  Years later I see the lyrics as a description of the invitation being offered to me as I settled into my place across from Jesus.

That same day, as was often the case, I was listening to a sermon as I walked home from the train.  On that particular day, I wasn't paying very close attention as I walked, thinking instead about the dream, and the events of the day.  It suddenly occurred to me that the pastor speaking (I think it was Rob Bell) was talking about wine!  Odd, and timely.  I started paying attention just in time to hear the pastor speak the following:  "Wine is about the shalom of God, the wholeness of God, the healing of God."

I tuned the sermon back out as I began talking to Jesus, my words spilling over each other in their haste.  "Did you pour your shalom over my hands last night?  Did you pour your wholeness and healing over me, until it overflowed?"

Years later, that is the question I'm still asking.  Months after the dream, while I was in Malta, I asked someone to pour wine over my hands in reality, needing to experience in waking what I had known in sleeping.  That moment in Malta was four years ago this week, and both the dream and that time in a Maltese field have continued to work on my heart.

A view of Maltese fields taken from the walls of Mdina

When I read this post about healing earlier this week, I found myself again pondering that dream that I've quietly held all these years, telling very few, and pondering the ways it has worked in my heart since then.  I found myself thinking again in new ways about what it means that one night, in a dream, Jesus invited me out of fear, and blessed me, pouring his shalom over my hands until they overflowed.  I still ask that question of Jesus, "what does it mean that you poured this out on me?"  And I still find different answers on a regular basis.  I find partial answers in the moments when my heart travels as I pray, and in the moments my hands begin to burn as I lay them on someone and ask for healing.  I keep walking, journeying, asking questions.  I study healing, and sometimes I despair, finding it hard to believe that it is something Jesus desires.  And yet, in those moments, I close my eyes and feel the wine in the dreaming, splashing onto my hands.  I picture the color of the wine staining my skin as it overflowed my hands in Malta, spilling onto the soft, dark dirt on which I stood.  And I am reminded that however it looks, this is a moment that changed and will continue to change me, and that Jesus is constantly pouring out his shalom, his healing, his wholeness on this earth, and simply asking me to be a vessel for that, to notice and point it out.

Some Things Worth Reading

This post at Deeper Story explores healing, and made my heart leap in recognition.  I know this story, I've lived and I live it, and reading it this weekend, well, it was timely.  It falls into the place of anniversaries and moments that are close to my heart.  I insist all of you read it, and then come back and share your thoughts about healing with me.

And then, there's this.  Duane asking the question, "Why do we shoot our wounded?"  Positing the story also near and dear to my heart, the story of mental illness, of brokenness, of causing scars.  And he challenges us to commit quietly within us to be the ones who heal scars instead of causing them.  And so, I ask you to read this, too, and share a story about scars caused or scars healed, when you come back here to comment.

Friday Reflections, February 3, 2012

On Monday, the email below was the daily reflection in the email of the Daily Texts from the Moravian church.  I found it timely as I've been praying this week for several who are ill, and noting a huge prevalence of cancer around me at the present.  And so today, I reflect with the Moravians on a God who heals.


O Lord, restore me to health and make me live. Isaiah 38:16

She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, "If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well." He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well."
Mark 5:27-28,34

God of wellness, we know fear when disease strikes us hard. We seek cures from doctors and pray for healing. Most of all, we lay our lives in your hands. Make us whole in spirit and touch our bodies. Amen.

Wrapping Up "Heal"

My one word for 2011 was "heal".

It wasn't the word I'd initially thought I would choose, but it was the one my heart landed on on December 31, 2010, as I walked and prayed on my way to and from the passport office.

I was in a good place that day, and heal didn't seem intimidating.  It seemed perfect, really.

I was expecting to hear, either within days, or within months, that I was accepted into a nursing program.  What better word for the first year of nursing studies, I thought, than heal?

I was in a good place mentally, emotionally, and spiritually - riding the high of some changes and progress I'd made, heal seemed like the natural continuation of that high, of the victory I was experiencing after many months and years of a tiring fight.

The year didn't turn out quite like I thought it would.

Heal, it turns out, is not all victory and highs.  A lot of it is hard slogging.  A lot of it is tears, and work, surrender and sacrifices.

Nursing didn't work out like I expected.  I didn't start school in January, or September, as I thought I would.  It was a full year of waiting for that part of my journey of healing to happen.  I will start school and that much desired nursing program in 2012, a year whose word has yet to be determined.  The first rejection from the program hurt.  It was a shattering of dreams and expectations.  The second one hurt less so, perhaps from experience, perhaps because of the practical reality of knowing that very few people were accepted in that second application period.

And victory?  Well, changing relationships and tears and struggling are all more apt descriptors of the year.  Uncovering, digging, surrendering.  Yoga.  Chocolate.  Loving friends. Transitions. Knowing Jesus in new ways.  Hard choices.  Hard work.

And yet, as I stop today and recall the past year, I can tell you that it has been a year of healing.

I am healthier - physically, emotionally, spiritually.  I have made choices I never thought I would make and they have changed me, they have helped me heal.  I feel emotionally and spiritually stable in ways that I haven't in more than a decade.  I have friends who I have leaned on in some pretty challenging situations, and who I know I can trust with the messy parts of myself as readily as the tidy and together bits.  I know Jesus in new ways - in ways that convince me that He loves me more than I ever could have believed.  And more than that, I am growing to understand that I, myself, am worthy.  I'm learning that caring for myself, loving who Jesus has made me, is perhaps one of the most beautiful and profound gifts of healing that this year has offered.

The year of heal didn't turn out at all like I expected, but it has been a year that has moved me, and a year that has lived up to it's name.  I can't wait to see what word reveals itself for 2012, and the journey that that word will take me on.

Introvert

I've been thinking about being an introvert over the weekend.  So much so that I cracked up when Christianne posted the following facebook status last night:

"Sometimes I hate being an introvert. But then I realized that I only feel that way when I'm in an extroverted setting that has demanded way more energy than I can muster. Other than that, I totally love introversion."

I totally get that feeling. In fact, it was one of those extroverted settings that had me thinking about this whole topic.

On the weekend I spent several hours at my brother's engagement party.  My brother and his fiancee are both extroverts.  They thrive on interaction with others, and they have more and more diverse friends than anyone I've ever met.  (I love this about them - they're wonderful at including just about anyone in their lives.)

The engagement party some of their friends threw for them reflected their personalities.  There was a huge and diverse crowd mingling, enjoying food and beverages, and eventually moving down to the basement for a dance party, complete with a rented smoke machine.  It's the kind of party that the two of them and many of their friends thrive on.

It's kind of my idea of hell.  Hours and hours of making conversation with people I don't really know, in a crowded room, over a huge assortment of background noises.  (Let me be clear in saying I greatly enjoyed many of the conversations I had at the party, and I loved the chance to celebrate my brother and his fiancee.  This was not about my preferences at all, it simply highlighted the differences in our social tendencies.)

And so, on Saturday I found myself avoiding all people.  I'd had a few tentative plans, but all of them involved more groups of people I didn't know well.  I skipped all of them and took a nap.  As I thought about why I was so tired, I realized it was because I was still drained and overwhelmed from the previous night.  It took a large portion of the weekend to recover, and highlighted my introversion for me again.

I don't draw energy from people in a group setting.  Over the last year I've learned that I do need people. That I need interaction, particularly with those who are heart friends.  But I don't find energy in a large group setting.  I find it draining.  My soul and energy are restored in time alone, reading, writing and creating, and in one on one or very small group settings with my soul friends.

Having this tendency highlighted again, especially in the midst of a season where I've had time to rest, create and be with my soul friends, reminds me that these are the things I need to make time for, even in the seasons where life is busier and demanding.  It reminds that I was made this way, and that it's not something to regret, but something that I need to honor.  That this is something important to my life.  That it is important for my mental and emotional health, but also for my spiritual life.

And for a realization like that, I'll gladly attend a party celebrating people I love, even if it drains me!

An Ending and a Beginning (6 Years of Healing)

I've spent the last month thinking about what I would write in this space today.

Today I'm celebrating six years of healing.

Six years ago today, November 1st was also a Tuesday, and I had one of the most unusual, and ultimately powerful experiences of my life.  It was a day that changed my faith and in many ways the course of my journey with Jesus.

I've written about it in past years, so I'll just briefly tell the story before moving on to the things my heart has been reflecting on in the months leading up to this anniversary.

For between seven and ten years I had been suffering from severe depression that had slowly and persistently encompassed everything in my life.  My childhood faith was in tatters - the first time I'd talked to God in months had been the previous night, when something broke inside me after a challenging evening with friends, and I'd driven home alone in the dark car and yelled at God, pouring out anger and pain.  I was suffering from severe and intense nightmares, and terrible insomnia.  I was 22 years old, and it had been at least five years since I'd last slept through a night without my rest being interrupted by either wakefulness or many nightmares.  Good Christian and pastor's kid guilt along with a healthy dose of fear kept me alive in those days - too afraid to take my own life, and too aware of what my release from pain would cost those around me.  I went to bed each night begging God to simply let me die in my sleep.  There simply wasn't a reason to get out of bed in the morning.

It was in that space that I crawled out of bed and went to university on November 1, 2005.  I began seeing and hearing unusual images in my head, and was left unsettled.  Since I'd become involved in a church that believed in the active presence of the Holy Spirit, I was aware that these seemed to be spiritual experiences, but they fell firmly in my category of "weird."  I went to the house group I attended that night, and let the friend who was my resource for all things spiritually "weird" know that I'd had an odd day, and needed to talk.  We had our meeting and went upstairs to drink iced tea and eat cookies.  It was part of the routine.  My friend was on his way out the door, standing at the bottom of landing, when he remembered I wanted to talk.  I put him off, telling him it could wait, that he should "call me tomorrow."  He insisted.

I sat on the stairs and he stood on the landing and I began to fill him in.  His reaction was strong, and he asked me to take a walk with him so we could keep talk.  I protested.  It was blizzarding outside, had snowed several inches since we'd arrived earlier in the evening.  He insisted again.  We walked for a long time, talking and praying, and then, when we were too cold and wet to keep walking, sat in his car and kept talking and praying.  I think we ended up talking for close to three hours, late into the night.

He had been patiently waiting and watching for a couple years.  I can't count the number of times he had invited me to come before Jesus with this immense thing that was plaguing me, and I had shut him down.  For whatever reason, that night, after my odd day, I was able to let down my guard, and He led me into the presence of Jesus in new and deep ways.  We never prayed for healing or deliverance that night, at least not in those words, but I walked away healed and set free.  That all encompassing hopelessness and despair has never returned.  That night I slept for six straight hours without waking or having a nightmare.

I think about that day often, and more so this year, when my One Little Word has been "heal".  Jesus met me that night, and healed some broken pieces of my heart.  Some things haven't changed - I still struggle with my mood at times (in fact, this year I've begun taking medication to help with that which has made a significant difference, and I've been seeing a therapist to continue to further that process of healing).  Sleep still isn't my special gift in life, though the overwhelming nightmares remain thankfully rare.  (God, with his crazy sense of humor has replaced the nightmares with sometimes equally vivid, though thankfully far less terrifying, spiritual dreams.)

I guess what my heart reflects on this year is that that moment six years ago was an ending, but it was also a beginning.

It was the ending of an all encompassing darkness that was tangible, spiritual, and had held me, hopeless, in its clutches since I was an early teen.  I believe with all my heart that I will never again face that (though, as more and more time passes, I'm thankful for the lessons I learned in the midst of it.)  That ending is a precious gift, and is one that I celebrate each year on this day, and that I will continue to celebrate.

But it was also the beginning.  It was the beginning of a crazy roller coaster journey of knowing God's Spirit alive and working in me.  It was the beginning of a journey that took me overseas, and brought me home again.  Of a journey marked by both gains and painful losses.  It was the beginning of an incredible process of healing and being made whole - a process that someone recently reminded me is rather like an onion, with layers.  (How did we ever explained layered things before Shrek made that analogy so common?)  This year, in my year of heal, that process has been exaggerated, unexpected, and still beautiful.

I'm here to say simply that I'm thankful - that I'm thankful for the friend who invited me to come before Jesus and be freed by His presence.  And I'm so thankful for the ongoing journey with the Jesus whom I met in new ways that night - for the ongoing work of his redemption and resurrection in my life - that He is making me new.

(I want to invite you to ask questions - this post is long and if I said everything that I would have loved to have shared about that night, or these last six years, I'd never stop writing.  So, email me at the address in my profile, or leave a comment and I'd love to dialogue either privately or in these posts about whatever you're wondering about.)

I want to close with what is probably the passage of Scripture most precious to my heart, because it cries out what I have experienced - a Lord who hears and heals and rescues and sets free.  My Bible sits on a table in my bedroom, available for easy access, and is nearly always open to this passage.

Psalm 116

I love the Lord because he hears my voice
and my prayer for mercy.
Because he bends down to listen,
I will pray as long as I have breath!
Death wrapped its ropes around me;
the terrors of the grave overtook me.
I saw only trouble and sorrow.
Then I called on the name of the Lord:
“Please, Lord, save me!”
How kind the Lord is! How good he is!
So merciful, this God of ours!
The Lord protects those of childlike faith;
I was facing death, and he saved me.
Let my soul be at rest again,
for the Lord has been good to me.
He has saved me from death,
my eyes from tears,
my feet from stumbling.
And so I walk in the Lord’s presence
as I live here on earth!
I believed in you, so I said,
“I am deeply troubled, Lord.”
In my anxiety I cried out to you,
“These people are all liars!”
What can I offer the Lord
for all he has done for me?
I will lift up the cup of salvation
and praise the Lord’s name for saving me.
I will keep my promises to the Lord
in the presence of all his people.

Dear Extraordinary Girl...

This email from Brave Girls Club showed up in my inbox late Tuesday evening, containing a message I very much needed to hear this week.  And so, since this is my space, I'm sharing it here as well:

Dear Extraordinary Girl,

The path to the best places for us sometimes must take a trip through the muck to get to the other side of it. Sometimes that truly is the only way.

When we are in the middle of it, it feels senseless and like such a complete waste of time (let alone not very comfortable)When we are in painful places in life, or even just annoyingly uncomfortable places, it's important to remember that we are headed somewhere else if we want to be.

We do not have to stay stuck there. Sometimes it takes a while to work our way out of it, and sometimes we don't know how we got there in the first place, but mucky yucky places on the path of life are always temporary if we are willing to work our way out of them.

We are not meant to stay stuck. We are not meant to be stagnant. We are not meant to be in pain for any longer than it is necessary to teach us. We are meant to shine, to fly and to have joy. Even when we are in a place where it's nearly impossible to do this, there is always a way out of that mucky place. It is always temporary.

Please believe this, beautiful friend.

If you are in a mucky spot, just keep going, keep going 'til you get to the other side of it. It will be SO worth it.

Don't you dare give up now.

You are so loved.

xoxo

A message from your friends at the Brave Girls Club - www.bravegirlsclub.com

Facing Forward

It's nearly mid-October, now, and I find myself staring at the onset of the weeks that seem to be the hardest every year, and wondering what they will hold this year.

They are the hardest weeks for many reasons, these weeks that lead up the anniversary of healing and freedom that I celebrate on November 1st.  This year will mark six years since that day, and even now, these weeks are hard.

Six years ago, they were weeks full of darkness, hopelessness, anger and despair.  They were weeks marked by the numbness of one who has been so assaulted that the blows no longer register.  In the years since, though the weeks remain hard, they are nothing in comparison to the weeks before that moment of healing in which I encountered God.

But that moment of healing is not what this post is about.  I'll talk about it, as I always do, in the days and weeks to come, but not today.  Today I'm facing forward, feeling the challenge presented by the coming weeks, and wondering what they will hold this year.

They are the weeks leading up to halloween.  Weeks that are challenging given my particular sensitivities to the spiritual realm.  Weeks where the heaviness that is invisible so much of the year seems suddenly visible, flaunted even.  Graveyards and witches and monsters abound as people decorate their yards.  Pumpkins leer and one house in my parent's neighborhood proudly displays bloody, severed, grasping hands reaching out of the soil of their flowerbeds.  Mall windows sprout spider webs and I shudder.  These are the weeks where I am tempted to hide indoors, to cocoon and avoid.

They are also the weeks full of memories of that darkness from years ago.  The weeks where I feel it try to encroach, and peace becomes just a bit harder to deeply rest in.

I feel it now, just the beginnings, and I wonder what these coming weeks that lead up to the anniversary I mark with joy and relief each year will hold.

And yet, as I pondered that earlier this week, my attention was caught by lyrics that played on my ipod as I walked:

high up on a rock

looking out at the horizon
watching as the storm rolls in
wondering if my heart will survive it


as the waves crash all around me
and can't remember what it feels like to be free

i know You're making me a mountain
making me a mountain
that cannot be shaken


oh You are making me a mountain
making me a mountain
that cannot be moved


You say, I've got you my baby
I've got you
it's quite the mess you're in
but it's nothing Love can't fix


so sit here upon my shoulders
and watch as it all unwinds


You are making me a mountain
making me a mountain
that cannot be shaken


i know You're making me a mountain
making me a mountain
that cannot be moved

And in those lyrics, in the reminder of the thing that Love fixed six years ago, and in the reminder that there is nothing that Love can't fix, I find the place I will choose (most likely daily, and even hourly) to rest for these weeks.  Facing forward, trusting, knowing that I am being made into a mountain that cannot be moved, even when shaken.
 

You Ask, I Answer, Take 4

That's right folks, it's time for another installment of You Ask, I Answer.  Today's question comes from Johanna again.  She asks:

Do you think it is important to be baptized in the Holy Spirit after you have given your life to Christ?

I'll be honest with you, and say that my answer is "I don't know."

My faith journey looks something like this:

• Raised in a fairly conservative evangelical culture, as a pastor's kid
• experienced a lot of good and a lot of bad that comes with Christianity as a result of being a pastor's kid
• introduced early to attack Christianity, at the age of 10, when the church dad was pastoring went through a brutal split, and he resigned and planted the church that he still pastors today
• struggled a lot with the feelings of pressure that came with being a pastor's kid
• transitioned into public school for jr. high after being homeschooled, and spent some pretty brutal years dealing with vicious girls in the youth group
• attended a Catholic high school, not sure at this point if I even believe in God, but compelled to defend my protestant beliefs in a myriad of intellectual lunchtime discussions, while really wanting nothing more than to escape faith and it's burdens
• got involved with Young Life in 12th grade - met a great friend in the woman who was my leader and felt seen and cared for for who I was and my own walk with God and not who my dad was and his role in the church for the first time in my life;  still totally wrestling with faith
• just before my 18th birthday, I was baptized.  It wasn't so much that I had answers, as it was that in my own logical evaluation, it would be more of a problem to drop everything I'd believed for 18 years, than it would be to simply subscribe to it.
• in the first years of University I got involved with a small church that was growing, mostly composed of students and twenty somethings and was exploring "Holy Spirit"
• I met people there who had something I'd never seen before.  These people really "knew" Jesus.
• I was struggling with severe depression, and also longing for this relationship that my new friends had with Jesus.  The combination led to some pretty rough years.
• While studying in university, I began to be fascinated by liturgical traditions of the church, studying them as part of my specialization in European church history, particularly in the Reformation and post-reformation periods.
• In my last year of university, sitting in a car, I encountered the Holy Spirit in a powerful, supernatural way, and my depression was healed.
• My life entered new kinds of turmoil and upheaval as my journey with God took some more crazy twists and turns, including a variety of experiences with prayer, dreams and visions, and other interesting encounters with the spiritual realm and it has stayed that way ever since that moment of healing almost six years ago.

So, these days I guess you could categorize me as a liturgy loving, evangelical, charismatic with a soft spot for the mystical and anything to do with prayer.

What, you ask, does that have to do with the baptism of the Holy Spirit?

Well, it's like this - my experiences and personal journey and experiences have shaped my beliefs.  I don't believe that there is something special - some unique baptism of the Spirit, per say.  I believe that the Spirit is present with all of us.  That said, if what you mean by baptism of the Holy Spirit is a particular moment or encounter when the Spirit goes from being the more traditionally evangelical silent member of the trinity, at most recognized as our conscience, to being a living and active part of our relationship and interaction with God, then yes, I do pray that all those who know Jesus will also experience this baptism of the Spirit that He sent to us as counselor, guide and comforter.  However, I don't believe that this looks the same for everyone, or that it happens at a specific time or moment.  For me, it happened the day I was healed, and it was about being in a place where I was desperate enough to surrender.  For friends of mine, it's looked totally different.  But I do pray that everyone will somehow experience, in the way unique to their own hearts and relationships with the Lord, an active relationship with the Spirit.

Thoughts?  I'm not interested in a big theological debate, but I'd love to hear your thoughts (keep them civil please), or to know if this has stirred more questions for you.  Like I keep saying, this feature will be around for as long as the questions come in, and I'm willing to talk about just about any topic you want to bring up here.

Further Thoughts on Lent

It would seem that browsing the blog world on Ash Wednesday is a guilt inducing project for someone who has boldly (if somewhat glibly and also prayerfully) declared that this year what they are giving up for Lent is, well, Lent.  I've read post after challenging post this morning, detailing the intentions of some I know and some I don't for the next 40 days or so, as they seek to draw closer to God and prepare their hearts for Easter.

The truth is, the liturgical part of me, the part of me who spent five years at university basking in the history of the church and of the faith, feels just a bit longing today, as this Lenten season begins and I read of others entering into their chosen practices.  A text message yesterday from a friend who (accurately based on past experience) assumed that I might be attending a service somewhere today, and asking if she could join me, left me in the awkward position of explaining that no, I didn't have any intentions of attending a service, or of particularly practicing Lent this year.

But the part of me that loves history and tradition feels a bit bereft today, even knowing that a minimal Lenten practice is right for my heart this year.

And the truth is, that bereft feeling is a good thing.

It answers a question I'd been asking.  A question that is part of the reason for my decision to "give up Lent for Lent."

I'd been asking if that was truly a part of me, or if it was something I created in efforts to fit my surroundings and please others these last several years.

I'd remade myself in the image of others, in an image I perceived to be one that would gain me acceptance, love, and grace, and part of that remaking was an obsessive focus on the liturgical calendar and seasons.

There is a relief in that separating realization - that this thing that I'd claimed deeply part of me, truly is.

And so, this year, though I didn't eat pancakes last night, won't attend services today, and don't have any planned practices to span the next forty days, my heart will still engage with that.

I'll read blog posts and choose to feel joy for the authors - challenged and inspired by their chosen practices and sacrifices - rather than feel guilt for my own lack of outward sacrificial choices.

Tonight I'll go to a yoga class instead of a church service, and that will be okay, because yoga has been a gift to me in the quiet, peace and rest it has brought, the time to slow down and breathe and listen.

And I'll pray with attention, with intention, with joy and with peace, knowing that by choosing to "give up Lent" I am being obedient to the urging of God for my own heart, and that in this space, I will also be shaped and formed, though differently than other years.

I am learning...

I am learning about choices and perspective and proportional response.

I'm learning that my responses become disproportionate when I haven't slept well, or eaten properly, but especially when I haven't slept.

I'm learning that I can choose whether or not something is a setback. That I can choose how I respond. That the grade that is lower than I prefer can be a day-ruining disaster, or that I can acknowledge that I probably should have studied more, and choose to do that the next time.

I'm learning that chocolate really is essential, and that being thankful for the little things really does make a difference.

I'm learning that humbling myself enough to admit the struggle is huge. That so often the internal cease fire comes when I stop to write it down or share it with a trusted friend.

I'm learning that writing or sharing it can restore proportion.

I'm learning to recognize those ever more frequent moments when my internal dialogue shifts and my heart voice begins to quiet the voices of fear and shame and guilt that have taken up residence in my head and some sort of equilibrium is restored.

I'm learning that so often that shift of voices comes when I humble myself and ask the ones I trust to pray.

I'm learning that I am held on the breath of those prayers, heard or unheard by my ears.

I'm learning that the shift of voices, the humbling, the breathy prayers, usher me onto holy ground, if I will only let them.

I'm learning to let them.

Because I'm learning to believe that it is there that healing is coming.