Category Archives: Recovery journey

The Fabric of My Life

28 Thursday May 2020

Posted by in Death of a parent, Pandemic, Recovery journey, sickness

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This past week I found a home for most of my fabric. A friend is making lots of masks and other items healthcare workers can use, and I have good material she can have.

This is actually a big deal for me. One of the first things I started exploring when I began going to Celebrate Recovery and did my first Step Study was a two-part issue I’ve had as long as I can remember.

Saving things I’m not currently using or needing, and procrastinating.

About the time I began digging into these issues five years ago, my mom’s health was declining, and that fall she moved into a nursing home and we had to sell her house.

It became crystal clear to me that I came by both of those faults I was exploring honestly.

I spent several weeks that fall trying to pack up and sort through Mom’s belongings. Both she and Dad had kept records of our church that they were involved in from early on, Dad’s radio shows, and everything else.

Everything.

Clothes, toys from our childhood, tools, Christmas decorations, furniture, you name it, she kept it all, long after Dad had died.

And fabric. Actually she had made baby quilts for several of the grandkids and shorts and shirts to pack in her Operation Christmas Child boxes, so there were good reasons for some of her cloth. The rest she had accumulated over decades.

That was a stressful time. We were under a deadline hoping to preserve some of the value of Mom’s house by selling quickly, and we had just a few weeks to get it auction ready.

Several nights a week I would go and fill garbage bags to put in the alley, and box after box to take home to my house.

For the last couple of years Mom lived in her house I knew the day would come when we’d have to go through all her stuff. In my mental scenario it would have been after she had died peacefully in her sleep at home, and we would have taken our time and put the house on the market after plenty of discussion to decide how to handle her things.

I’d been through this with my in-laws, and for the most part it wasn’t too difficult.

For a couple of years I had tried to go through some of her things when the kids and I would come visit or take her grocery shopping. I’d carry an interesting box up from the basement and hand her things to look at and decide if it could go in the garbage.

We never got very far. Mom got talking about the memories the items brought back to her. Since she was starting into dementia I felt that was more important at the time than emptying out her basement.

So when the day came to tell Mom we were getting her house ready to sell, she wanted to go home one more time.

We spent time in every room. I asked her to tell me which items of furniture and keepsakes she wanted someone in the family to keep, and we put post-its on them. We had a list of things she hoped we’d want to keep for good, and others she just wanted to be able to see again if she had the desire before she died.

We prayed before we left to get dinner before going back to the nursing home, thanking God for her years in the house and for whoever would come to own it. She prayed for all of her kids.

At the restaurant, her favorite, she forgot that she liked iced tea to drink.

I think that was the day I knew Mom wouldn’t be with us completely any more.

So each night I came home with a van loaded with Mom’s stuff, I felt a weight of responsibility to keep some of her memories.That fall and winter my family room had a double row of boxes stacked as high as the couches running around two walls, and underneath a large, square coffee table. Also under and on top of Mom’s dining room table she had given me a few year’s before.

There I was, with plenty of my own clutter, and Mom’s added in to the mix. And being faced with a need to start digging into why I kept my own things, it was nearly impossible to figure out why Mom had kept all of hers.

That winter and spring I went through box after box, at first trying to organize, and then just trying to minimize the space it took up when I got overwhelmed.

I’m not an organizer by nature.

It was the next fall, after Mom had died in the summer, when I went through things a second time. I cleaned out a large closet in my family room and transferred the boxes into it.

This time I threw more things away, though there is still plenty I should let go. That will come another day.

Because in the past few years I’ve faced a lot about myself and learned much along the way.

I don’t know how I never recognized how much I rely on my senses for my memory. I’m known as having the best memory in the family, which is true. And I’ve learned my memories are sparked by my senses. Like Mom I start looking through a box of my own things and I want to tell someone the stories of times long ago, friends I’ve lost touch with, what my life was like back in the day.

It was no different this past week as I washed up decades of saved fabric, ironed it smooth and folded it neatly to send off to it’s new home.

I was amazed at the memories running through my mind as I straightened and pressed pieces of cloth that I’d used to make clothes for my family.

There were many more large lengths I’d bought because they were so pretty, but I got out of the sewing mood and never used them.

Those were hard to part with.

So I didn’t, entirely.

There were some smaller pieces, leftovers from projects I’d made, that I washed and ironed and folded up for me.

And one bigger one I’d always meant to make dresses out of for my girls and I. As I finished ironing the eight yards of purple flowers I asked Baby Girl to come look and see material I thought was really “me”.

She gave me a great idea. Wouldn’t that be a pretty backing on a quilt?

The smaller pieces I’d been setting aside, I had told her someday I’d like to make myself a quilt and include these pieces of my memories in it. In all the things I’ve made for other people, I haven’t made many things just for me.

It had been many years since I’d looked through so many scraps and lengths of fabric, and the memories are still clear. So I’m okay not keeping it all. I have small bits of many of them, and I have a purpose and a plan for them.

And someday I’ll wake up leisurely and my hand will play over the feel of the stitches and the segments, and as I focus on a random square a memory will surface.

Of the time when I made pajamas for my kids, a vest for my son and a dress for my daughter, or presents for extended family.

And also of the time that came when I was okay with letting most of it go.

Lifelines

21 Thursday May 2020

Posted by in Pandemic, Recovery journey, Relationships

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I don’t think I’m alone in feeling adrift while sheltering at home. I look at my phone to see the date, my calendar to be sure of where I am in the week. And since my out of the home job has dried up for now, I have nowhere pressing to go.

When we were first urged to stay home, so many things changed at once. Jobs let us know everything would be on hold indefinitely. Stores were chaotic and shopping trips had to be opportunistic, basing what we would eat on what was left on the shelves. Kids were sent home from college.

Our church suspended all activities and services, and it took a couple of weeks before they came up with a game plan to post recorded services online. Celebrate Recovery meetings at a different church were also put on hold, though they were able to get a Friday live broadcast up the first week.

Suddenly all my normal activities, all the people I’m used to spending certain days and lengths of time with, stopped.

My biggest outings have become driving across town to get samples of the new asthma inhaler I need every couple of weeks combined with a stop at a bakery we like for bread.

Exciting stuff here.

And then there’s the shopping days. We spend a couple hours making up the list.

Before this pandemic I was in our local store probably five days a week, picking up fresh meat and produce as we needed it and stocking up on staples as they were on sale.

Now we try to go at least two weeks between trips, and it’s exhausting to my blowing-in-the-wind personality to have to plot out meals and make sure I’m putting all the ingredients on the list.

Baby Girl has been doing the bulk of the shopping so far, with me running a cart full at a time home to put away, while she fills another cart.

It takes two to three hours, and we are worn out when we get home.

All my normal lifelines have disappeared.

That’s how it seemed in the beginning. All those people that I would stand and chat with throughout the store, or at the bank, or in the library. My friends at church and in our care group, the hugs and smiles and quick conversations, or the deeper ones at Bible studies and group meetings. My every Friday night Celebrate Recovery times of fellowship, teaching, and sharing.

These connections were suddenly inaccessible.

When I got over the initial shock, I realized that if I didn’t do something purposeful I would drown in all this uncertainty and change around me.

So I finally got back into something I hadn’t done for a couple of years. I started doing a Bible study with my Celebrate Recovery Bible that will have me reading the whole Bible in a year, along with slowly going back through the 12 steps and 8 principles of recovery.

I cannot tell you how much this has meant to me. When everything in the world seems like it’s spinning off into space, God’s word grounds me in his love. It has been my strongest lifeline, the thing that has given me strength to at least look like I’m unfazed by all the changes. And I’m getting insight into how I can take one day at a time and handle whatever we are faced with.

For several weeks before the pandemic I had missed my CR meetings because of other commitments, including Dear Husband’s hip replacement and my bout with pneumonia. So March 13 was going to be my first Friday back. Instead I tried to watch a live broadcast put out by the church on my laptop, but without headphones I couldn’t hear it over the other noises in the house.

So I didn’t attempt to tune in, even when they announced the broadcasts would be more organized, and they were setting up Zoom meetings for our open share groups to follow the broadcasts.

Then our little local computer store opened back up, my “b” key went haywire, and I needed to break down and buy a new laptop. And it didn’t occur to me until a week later that I could just buy myself headphones so I could “go” to CR!

We had already been watching our pastor’s sermons and designing our own worship sets with YouTube videos, but that we did as a family on the tv. For CR I really need to be able to keep the other participants safe and anonymous, and be in a room alone.

When you first stop doing something you are used to doing, you miss it at first but it can soon become easier and easier to sit it out. I was shocked to see, once I got out my calendar, that I had missed 13 weeks, a full 3 months of CR! No wonder I was getting pithy!

For those who have never been to Celebrate Recovery it’s hard to describe the benefits. But I’m going to try.

I think when I tell people that it’s a place where you can talk about whatever issues you are dealing with, there is a stereotypical idea of what that means. It includes complaining or whining, maybe looking for sympathy and wanting others to tell you how justified you are to feel the way you do.

Maybe people think it’s a place to reinvent yourself, to convince others that you really have it together, you can control your life, you just need to vent a little.

Let me tell you what it’s really like.

We all have things that bother us, things we don’t really like to take out and examine in our day-to-day lives. Things we know we need to name, examine, and figure out how to deal with them.

I have found that the sooner I can turn those things over to God, the sooner he helps me work through them. And that’s the only way he can heal me of my hurts, hang-ups and habits.

So the process of speaking out loud about those deep hurts and what they’ve led us to do to protect and defend ourselves and those we love is an important step. Saying out loud what we are struggling with takes away the power they’ve had over us, the control they’ve wielded.

It isn’t about boosting our egos, or making ourselves look good. It’s 3-5 minutes at a time to share whatever we need to speak out loud, and begin the battle to vanquish it from our lives.

And it’s a solitary thing done in the company of people who promise to keep our struggles private, to encourage us as we allow them, and to cheer us on as we meet week after week and watch each other grow stronger and more confident in our ability to let God be Lord over everything.

I’m so glad I’ve reconnected with another lifeline.

If you are struggling to get through these days, I would encourage you to seek out a Celebrate Recovery group near you by going to celebraterecovery.com. You can look for a group and call the contact to find out if they are doing online meetings. And every night of the week at 9pm(E) Celebrate Recovery national leaders are doing a half-hour live Facebook session I would encourage you to catch.

Because we all need something outside ourselves to help us get through this uncertain time. And I for one prefer to hang onto a lifeline I know will hold me safely through the storm.

Making all things right

12 Thursday Mar 2020

Posted by in Asthma, Recovery journey, sickness, Tragedies

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I don’t have any Y2K water left.

My three youngest kids have no memories at all of 1999 and the mass hysteria that eclipsed a lot of people’s time and joy, especially in the last few months of that year when the entire world waited to see which if any of multiple disaster scenarios might come true.

In case you don’t know, none of them did.

But people certainly let the doomsayers steal their contentment.

The worry, if I remember correctly, was about computers mistaking 1-1-00 as 1900 instead of 2000 and shutting down systems controlled by machines.

Midnight came and went, the electricity and gas didn’t go off, we still had running water, gas pumps still worked.

And many people’s garages and basements were filled with gas-powered generators, water filtration systems, canned goods of all kinds, dried and powdered survival foods, camping gear to cook on open fires if needed, extra blankets, toilet paper and paper products of all kinds, shelf stable groceries and cleaning and other dry products of every imaginable kind.

And Y2K water.

I hope whoever thought of the term Y2K (year two thousand) patented it.

While there was some fear that all of a sudden at 12:01am 1-1-2000 hospitals would go black and health care would be severely affected, those fears didn’t come to pass.

I happened to be nine months pregnant with a baby whose due date was 12-31-99. Fortunately he was born over three weeks late. When things were back to normal.

In the current worldwide climate we are facing a new fear that is all about the health and welfare of us all.

I don’t claim to know much about coronavirus (COVID-19), other than what I read in the many daily updates, hear in any newscast, see on the faces of the people around me. Even what is being reported changes throughout the day, so that the conversations I overhear in public are full of speculation and misinformation as often as not.

I am not making light of this pandemic. People far smarter than me have decided we need to take this disease seriously, so I am.

But I will not let it steal my hope.

This afternoon, the day after Middle Son was sent home from his university, the day before my weekly Celebrate Recovery will be indefinitely postponed for the foreseeable Fridays, Dear Husband and I trekked out to the store.

Yes, we actually needed to get some toilet paper. And basic groceries.

DH is now two weeks out from his total hip replacement, and we felt a short walk would be good exercise.

The parking lot wasn’t overly busy, and it didn’t seem that crowded, but after 40 minutes of increasingly hectic shopping where we were surprised to actually find only a few packages of some items still on the shelves, we waited another 40 minutes in line to check out and pay.

Dear Husband had to take a sit break after taking a few pictures of the chaos. We reminisced about the Y2K days, the uncertainty, the panic even. It seemed very familiar, but in a whole new category.

As we had made our way to the areas we needed to shop, others had intense looks on their faces. Frowns, scowls, wide-eyed surprise and consternation. Bent on a purpose, or maybe trying to calm a rising anxiety about why there were so many people in the store.

Depleted items were somewhat predictable: toilet paper, tissues, disinfectant wipes, bleach. We’ve all seen Facebook jokes about selling cars for a few rolls of toilet paper. It’s one of those things that doesn’t really make sense – it isn’t an intestinal virus – yet those of us whose parents lived through the depression still understand the sense of calm you get from knowing you’re prepared. Just in case.

Others, not so much: flour, butter, bananas. Although baking from scratch can be very therapeutic.

As we continued around I felt myself wondering if I didn’t need more groceries than I had planned on getting, you know in case things weren’t available to restock soon.

Then I started thinking about the Serenity Prayer that I’ve been missing the last few weeks as life has kept me from attending Celebrate Recovery.

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change…”

This midafternoon trip was supposed to be a quick in and out. Running errands.

But when we turned the corner and saw that not only were most of the available 25 regular lines in use as well as all the self check-outs, but the lines jammed the whole front aisle of the store, we had no choice but to go with the flow.

There was no reason to get mad or frustrated or anxious.

“…the courage to change the things I can…”

The whole spirit in the store was frantic. And I hated that. I couldn’t change the way anyone else was seeing this from their own viewpoint, but I could show that I wasn’t letting it get me down.

We saw people we knew and we chatted easily, catching up, poking a little fun at the craziness.

Yes, I was tempted to start piling ALL the remaining whatevers in my cart, but I chose restraint. I fully expect the trucks to bring more items, the nighttime stockers will replenish the shelves, and I will return to shop another day.

“…and the wisdom to know the difference.”

My real desire was to change the way some of the people seemed to be seeing this. I saw the fear on their faces, the concern, the anger. I wanted to look them in the eye and tell them that they would be ok.

But that isn’t up to me. It’s up to each one of us to choose hope over fear.

So I did what I could.

I smiled. Big and genuine. Full of the peace and calm I was able to feel in the middle of the madness.

“Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time; Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace; Taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is; not as I would have it;”

If you’ve read my blog over the last year you know I’ve struggled a lot this past year with respiratory issues. Asthma, allergies, hospital admissions and emergency room trips. In just the past couple of months the respiratory flu and in the past couple of weeks now, pneumonia.

I know that I am in a higher risk category than many people. But I am not afraid of these things that can kill the body, and I will not live my daily life in fear of the what ifs. (And yes, my kids are scolding me about staying home and letting them do the running.)

I choose to look for the familiar faces and offer a normal conversation and a reassuring smile. We’re in a little time of hardship. Let it draw us all to a greater peace that only comes from trusting that God is not surprised by the nightly news reports, the canceling of public gatherings, even the deaths of those who have and will succumb to this new threat.

“Trusting that You will make all things right if I surrender to Your will; So that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with You forever in the next. Amen.”

Make all things right.

Looking around the store today, that was my desire. To make all things right for all these people. If I had the power…

But I do. Because I intimately know the source of all power. And I know that Jesus is trustworthy, honest when he says he can meet all my needs.

My need for calm in any stormy situation, for peace when there is nothing but chaos in the world around me. Knowing I am loved and cherished when very real threats to my health, my life, may be coming, no matter what happens.

These are my needs. Not toilet paper or Y2K water.

And if you are feeling panic, anxiety, anger, take a moment and consider.

What is your source of hope?

And if you’ve never given God a second thought, now might be a good time to start.

We all can use a little serenity.

Not My GPS

23 Thursday Jan 2020

Posted by in Recovery journey, Relationships

≈ 1 Comment

control – noun – the power to influence or direct people’s behavior or the course of events.

control – verb – determine the behavior or supervise the running of.

Yes, please.

Who wouldn’t want to be in control? I know this has been one of the biggest things I’ve struggled with practically my whole life. And it wasn’t until just a couple of years ago I was told that specifically my issue is safety-seeking control.

“safety behaviors (also known as safety-seeking behaviors) are coping behaviors used to reduce anxiety and fear when the user feels threatened. “

Thank you wikipedia, you’ve summed it up well.

From the outside maybe you wouldn’t be able to tell it, but I have spent my whole life running through scenarios of all the bad things I think could ever happen and figuring out how I would respond in those situations.

Up until just the past few years, I would have told you I like to be prepared for anything that might happen so that I have a game plan to put into action when the time comes.

Only the time never really came.

One of the big things my time with my mentor taught me was that I actually do have anxieties and fears. In itself that was a huge thing for me to own.

Another was that of all the numberless tragedies I’ve imagined happening in my lifetime almost none of them ever came true.

And those that did played out in a much different way than the stories in my head.

Even though I have learned many lessons about myself and the futility of living in anticipation of the next emergency, that doesn’t mean that I’ve totally conquered it. In fact, how could me controlling giving up my controlling behaviors show my ability to give up control?

I actually read Catch-22 many years ago, and this is one of those situations. I can’t make myself give up control once and for all and be done with it. If I could, then I would be totally in control of my lack of control. And my head is already spinning just thinking about it.

So how does a control freak stop?

In my case I can honestly say it hasn’t been because I decided I would give up running one thing after another and then followed a plan and checked things off a list.

In fact, I’m much more likely to discover that I only thought I’ve stopped trying to influence or direct someone’s behavior, or that I stepped back from trying to run the whole world.

What I’m less likely to take notice of are the times when I have no argument, nothing to add, no advice to give. But they are happening more and more.

In the past couple of months our family has been digesting Dad’s health issues. We honestly never knew he had so many! And as he puts it, “It is what it is.”

But…

Okay, I can’t argue with that. But I want to. Because in all my “choose your own ending” stories I never came up with the specific set of circumstances we find ourselves in.

And I can’t do anything to change what is.

So many things we don’t get until we look at it from where it ends up. And we’ve only begun this path, so we don’t know where it’s going to lead. But I can say with great relief that I’m so glad God has had me on the journey I’ve been on through my recovery from all kinds of things, because though I always said I trusted him with my life, I’ve been learning how to actually do it.

It’s like an experience we had last weekend. We took an impromptu trip down to see Middle Son and Third Daughter (Dad’s new name for our son’s girlfriend). Our plan was to not have a plan. We had agreed on a couple places for dinners, and we already have a favorite breakfast hang-out, so little planning was necessary. Just games, talk, relaxing, physically being in each other’s presence was what we needed.

At dinner time one day we headed out to find the restaurant. My Australian Siri-man called out the twists and turns getting us from point A to point B. And in the hilly, circuitous roads surrounding the college town, it seems he doesn’t take us the same way twice.

We found the directions telling us to take an uphill switchback on a narrow road headed into a forest. It was twilight and raining. Third Daughter remembered her GPS once taking her this route, so she told us what to expect.

The road was still climbing when we saw our first herd of deer. Slow and easy we drove by them, careful to look for more crossing from the other side.

Then a couple of young, skittish yearlings that made me, the driver, slow even more. In our hometown there are lots of deer/car meet-ups that don’t have good results for either one, so I was taking no chances.

Everyone but me was counting, and they estimated about 20 deer were in a very short stretch of road. All I knew was that I was NOT going to follow that same route back in pitch blackness after we ate!

Then we came to a 90 degree turn in the road, onto a one-lane covered bridge. Truly covered, painted red, taking us over what I assume was a creek. I couldn’t see it through the bridge walls. But the bridge itself was beautiful.

Eventually we got back out to a main road that took us to our destination.

In my life I have been able to look back at a lot of hard things I’ve gone through. Sometimes the only thing I can think about are the losses, the hurts, the unfairness. At least I used to think more about the tragic circumstances.

As we travel this current road, I want to be looking for the unexpected deer, the beautiful covered bridge on a path few people ever travel. I don’t want to miss the sweetness of just being together, savoring our life and our family, even with who knows what looming in the future.

In my intricate plan of how I thought life would go, I want God to be the one to call out the twists and turns for me.

Because there are things he wants me to see that I would never know if everything went my way.

Gathered to My People

09 Thursday Jan 2020

Posted by in Death of a child, Death of a parent, Parenting, Recovery journey, Relationships, Tragedies

≈ 1 Comment

We’ve had a challenging week in our family.

I’m still debating, as I write, if I even want to get into this yet. It’s so fresh.

Someone out there needs to hear that it is possible to have impractical, unbelievable peace in the middle of emotional chaos.

Because I’m feeling it.

And at the same time, I’ve had bone-crushing uncertainty and stress.

A couple of weeks ago I thought this blog would be about my husband’s hip replacement surgery.

It was scheduled for yesterday.

We planned it more than a month ahead. We made changes in our house and prepared to possibly be without income for a few weeks, getting the kids used to the idea and spreading the word to friends and family.

The surgeon’s office was less thorough, so we found ourselves at a pre-op visit to the hospital the day after Christmas, as well as an impromptu stop at the surgeon’s to communicate some of our concerns.

And quite unexpectedly there was another visit last Friday to the primary care office to be released for surgery.

The call my husband got at the end of a long work day led to a weekend of contemplating his mortality. Surgery was put on hold because of high white blood cell counts, and after more tests early Friday, a couple types of cancer were mentioned.

Just enough to make your imagination go round the bend.

So of course we both did what we know to never do.

We googled the ugly words.

After thirty-four years of marriage with this man, I was not surprised by his “it is what it is” attitude. Or the silent funeral planning behind his brooding eyes. Questions followed about life insurance and his desire that all our kids be able to have college paid for out of it.

Covering all the bases.

Having all that time to think could have been devastating if it weren’t for this.

Jesus. And hope.

At first I didn’t want to tell anyone.

I was headed to Celebrate Recovery an hour after we heard the news. In the safety and support of my open share small group, I began processing my own thoughts and feelings before telling any of the kids.

My CR women freely put aside their own hard things to hug and love on and support me that night. And I found clarity that comes from seeing what really matters.

Over the next day all of our children heard personally about this new development, and we counted down the hours to Monday morning when we could make more appointments.

Our care group met Saturday so my husband and I both were surrounded by men and women who love and care deeply for us.

Our kids each took in the information in their own ways, and I’m sure are going through many different stages of understanding and processing. Those first couple of days were hard for all of us. They will ease up in time.

Uncertainty stinks.

By Sunday my husband and I had thought all the thoughts we could stand. And talked about many of them with each other. And each of us had expressed that we were okay with wherever God takes us in this, whatever lies ahead.

Because we know where we’re headed.

Even knowing, I still cried a lot of tears and held even more back. Who can understand God’s plans?

But in all fairness, do we ever question why we have good times, when everything is going right? Do we ever wonder why God thinks we deserve easy?

We’ve learned in our life together, this man and I, that God is in control. And that it is always better to obey and follow him, no matter how hard the path looks to us.

So we went to church and answered questions about the surgery and why was it canceled and what does this mean.

We heard about friends with those same scary conditions and how unlifechanging they actually are.

And we breathed a little easier by day’s end.

But not before I had an unexpected moment.

It was during the final song. I was choked up. So I just bowed my head and said the only words I could put together.

“Jesus, help!”

And immediately an image came into my mind. That even if … it’s all good.

Fourteen years ago our pastor was killed in a car accident. In the hours and days and now years since I’ve seen God provide for his wife and young daughters in intimate, personal, miraculous ways. It was hard. But there was hope.

I thought a lot about that time over the weekend, the strength that was given to my friend as she navigated the unthinkable task of telling her girls that their daddy was with Jesus in heaven.

She didn’t get that strength until the moment she needed it.

And as I cried out to Jesus to ease my own fears for my husband, standing next to him in our church, a picture came into my mind.

Even if my husband were to leave this life way sooner than any of us would want, there would be a beautiful result.

He would meet our baby first in heaven.

Monday came and God quite directly provided an appointment with the hematologist/oncologist for that same day – a sudden cancelation that was no big deal for God to arrange. And oodles of blood tests and orders for an ultrasound.

And the very positive opinion of the doctor that after all our worrying, this wasn’t going to be a big deal. Even the hip surgery will get rescheduled after a solid diagnosis and some monitoring of his blood counts.

Numb from the whole thing I decided to go to Monday night Bible study, and I read words that have always been a comfort to me.

“He was gathered to his people.”

An Old Testament saying I had always loved to read, as it gave even my little girl imagination a picture of people I knew had died greeting someone else at the time of their death, gathering them in to a family, welcoming them home.

I had always pictured grandmas and grandpas in the mix, but now I added babies.

I have no fear of death. For me or my husband.

I want it to be a long way off, when our children are all grown and settled into their own families, raising our grandchildren and teaching them the things that matter.

Because when they go through scary, uncertain times like the one we are navigating right now, I want them to know the bottom line.

That God is not just a nice thought, but a real and powerful being. That he created us because the idea of eternity with us pleased him. That when we choose to follow him we will have bad things happen, but we have the absolute certainty that when they do he is bigger and stronger than anything that comes against us.

And he WILL work EVERYTHING for our good.

So as we live the next day and week and month with no guarantees, we can know many things for certain.

God is real. His love is unstoppable. His peace is unexplainable. He has made a people for himself from all of us who believe.

And no matter when any of us who follow this amazing God die in this body, we will be gathered in to our people.

And living life with so many of them now is just a bonus.

Out with the old (or rights, wrongs, and lefts)

02 Thursday Jan 2020

Posted by in faceliftbook journey, Recovery journey

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This past year I have grown by leaps and bounds as a person.

I’m going to spend a few minutes letting you in on some of my reflections of where I began 2019 and the much different place I find myself at its end.

As a homeschooling mom, I’ve always enjoyed watching my kids grow into who they are becoming. They don’t stay the same, just like I don’t, and we were happy to see another one focusing on their future just before 2019 began.

Middle Son waited after high school until he was ready to pursue a higher education, and as he showed more interest in a particular college we encouraged it, even though the costs were projected to be higher than we thought we could afford.

My husband and I were beginning to discuss the feasibility of helping this child with college expenses like we had with the older ones. We knew this was going to be a bigger investment, so we did first what we have learned by hard experience to do: we took it to God and waited for his answer.

I was very thankful I had started meeting with a Christian mentor, another woman who helped pull me back down to earth week after week. I had written down what my biggest concerns were, what I struggled with and where I thought I needed the most help.

Even in the couple of weeks between filling out the form and our first mentoring session I forgot one of my main issues. I recorded it in a journal as “not being able to give up control”. That WAS a big issue with me, but it wasn’t what I had written down. At our 3-month review my mentor reminded me what my issue REALLY was: admitting when I do something wrong.

So I was headed into the new year actively asking God to help me see when I do something wrong so that I can correct it and make amends right away. And I was also digging in and asking him to show me why I have struggled so much with this my whole life.

Just before the end of 2018 I wanted to learn how to set better goals, so I started doing Boundaries by Cloud and Townsend, and I was finding that I didn’t really have a clue about my own personal limits, much less how to set any meaningful boundaries.

I was just beginning to get a grasp on the concept that I can’t change the past and I can’t change any other person. These are obvious, and I knew them in my head, but I hadn’t taken them into my heart.

I was learning, finally, that my responsibilities, needs, condition of my heart, health of my emotions, and God-led decision-making are the things I needed to focus on.

So, how did I do over this past year?

My husband and I, after praying and both getting a clear green light, have trusted God to provide the funds needed to help our son realize his goal of going to college at a school we all love, where he feels called to be.

And God has come through exceedingly, abundantly beyond all we asked or imagined!

He received more than half his costs in scholarships, and we were able to make both his first and second semester payments in full! God is faithful, and we are in awe at how eager he is to bless us.

As I plunged into my mentoring sessions, I often talked about my safety-seeking control issues. It has plagued me all my life, this need to keep everyone around me safe. I have done many things that secluded or separated my family and me from the world around us thinking that if I had knowledge and the ability to get in between evil and my kids I could single-handedly keep everyone safe.

I’ve spent a lot of time and prayer this year wrestling this out with God, and I’ve found that every time I set myself up as being in control, I kicked God out of his rightful place. I’ve had to give up my right to control any part of my life so that I can experience truly following God. I’m glad to say I’m controlling less, though it may take the rest of my life to get where I’d like to be!

And my other issue of admitting when I’m wrong? I figured out why I have so much trouble with that. In my mind, the people who abused me as a child were deserving of punishment. They were wrong. They did bad things.

And I never wanted to be compared to them: to hurt anyone else, be responsible for causing harm to anyone.

So I could never be wrong.

I’m a work in progress on this one. Baby Girl patiently tells me when I overstep while lecturing a sales rep over the phone, or speak abruptly to a cashier at the grocery store. Out of all my children, this youngest daughter is in tune with my moods and is helping me see when I let my frustrations get in front of my better intentions.

And now I can stop and admit I blew it.

And my world doesn’t fall apart when I do.

Working my way slowly but surely through Boundaries has been a tremendous help in all of my issues this year, many more than I’m talking about here.

I began by finding that I never learned what good boundaries were as a child. God revealed to me many truths about how my parents didn’t either. So it’s like I’ve had revelation after revelation poured over me by God about what Mom and Dad’s lives were like as kids, why they struggled to set and keep boundaries with their kids, and how I’ve carried that forward into my life.

And I’ve been able to forgive.

That’s probably the most remarkable thing that has ever happened to me, this release from the need to see justice done, no more desire to have someone else suffer for what they’ve done to me or others.

As I write this I am seeing that there’s another side to the command Jesus gives us to forgive others as we have been forgiven.

I’m finally starting to FEEL forgiven. Because I’m finally able to give forgiveness to others.

Because no matter how far I’ve come in the past year, I’m not done, there’s more left to face and dig deep into and give back over to God.

And as a new year begins, I feel like God really does have a reason why he forgave me.

Because this is just the beginning.

The Common Denominator

24 Thursday Oct 2019

Posted by in Recovery journey

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All my friends are sinners.

Which is a relief, because so am I.

It isn’t something we get to choose. It is in our nature to want what we can’t have, and to have the audacity to think we deserve it anyways.

Way back in the beginning, Adam and Eve could eat from everything in the Garden of Eden except one tree. So what do you suppose they ended up doing? You bet. They decided, with some well-placed rationalizations by Satan in a serpent disguise, that they deserved to be like God, and they ate the fruit they believed would give them god-like qualities.

That didn’t work out so well for them. Or for us as a result.

Yet don’t we keep doing the same thing?

People don’t use the word sin as much as they used to. I think it’s a perfectly fine word, a sobering one that tells it like it is.

One that affects every single person who ever lived.

I used to have no mercy towards people who I saw reaping the consequences of the way they chose to live their lives. After all, don’t we all freely choose to do good or bad? It was as simple as that in my mind. And I felt my superior attitude was fine, because of course I wasn’t doing those things I found so objectionable in others.

That was back when I was still hiding so much of my own past, even from myself. It was easy to excuse my sins, but not those of others.

Then I walked into my first Celebrate Recovery meeting, and I met people who were sinners and weren’t afraid to admit it. Most of them openly admitted that they had all kinds of things they were struggling with.

You might think at a recovery meeting that most of those there would be dealing with an addiction of some kind, but I found then and know now that only about three out of ten people at a CR meeting have struggled with an addiction.

At my first few meetings I listened as others shared about all kinds of hurts, habits and hang-ups they were facing and finding healing from, and it gave me the courage to start facing my own issues.

My own sins.

I’m a person who has some really strong spiritual gifts. Over the last twenty years or so I’ve taken spiritual gifts inventories and consistently score very high in several areas.

And very low in one.

Yep, mercy.

One of the last times I took an inventory we discussed how the different spiritual gifts look in action, and we were challenged to develop the ones we were weak in, to ask God to help us become stronger in the qualities he’d like us to have.

I really didn’t want to improve my mercy score. I felt fine in my smugness.

Not only did I start attending CR, I also joined a Step Study right away. Like four days later.

And within a couple of weeks I was ruined for regular Bible studies.

I know it’s important and necessary to read and study the Bible, but after the experience of reaching down inside myself and pulling out wrong attitudes and actions I’d engaged in, as well as revealing the things done to me as the result of other people’s sin, I can’t stick to the surface and not go deep any more.

Life is too short to just smooth over the things God wants me to wrestle with and conquer.

In the nine months that Step Study took, everyone heard my junk and I heard everyone else’s.

And against the old me’s better judgment, I loved those sisters more than I could have imagined, even knowing their faults and failings.

Because, well, mercy blossomed. Like it was just waiting for the right conditions to grow.

We are none of us perfect, but we are being perfected by this process of recovery.

By the time my first Step Study was finished I realized I wasn’t the same person anymore. I was more real, more honest, and because of the things I’d had to face, humbled.

And I looked at other people differently. When I walked in to CR the first night, my thinking may have gone something like, “Man, these are a bunch of messed up people! I’m glad I’m not as bad as any of them. They must have really weak character to have gotten themselves into so many bad situations.”

But somewhere in the process, God did something miraculous in me. He replaced my heart of stone with a heart of flesh, and I found that I no longer thought of people as what they had done, but as how much I wanted them to fall in love with God so he could heal their hurts and give them hope that they could change with his strength.

So week after week you will find me at CR on Friday nights, because I’m a sinner and I need God’s help to place his nature in me more and more so that I no longer have any desire to try to have what I can’t. Because I am letting him show me what I need.

I want to be clear that I’m not excusing the bad things I chose to do as if they can be made right. They can’t be.

But they have been forgiven.

By God, and by me. And hopefully by those I’ve hurt.

And so now when I see the sin in others, I look at them in a different way.

I no longer see only the expected consequences of their bad choices. I see so much potential for healing. I see people who have tried to treat their own hurts by doing everything but going to the only one who can help them.

And I know that if they spend some time around people who are actively letting Jesus take the lead, they will be on their way to getting what they really need.

Which is so much better than getting what you want.

The beauty of CR is that I’m not going through this alone. I am surrounded by my forever family, people who I love deeply, who I admire and am constantly awed by, who I learn from every time I’m with them.

Because of all the ways they are letting God change them, they are some of the genuinely best people I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing.

Yes, I’m a sinner. But I’m no longer stuck in my sin.

Constricted

17 Thursday Oct 2019

Posted by in Asthma, Gratefulness journal, Recovery journey

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So to give a little more information about my adventures with asthma (or what I did this summer!), let me take you back to July. I was finishing up my first clinical trial, and for some reason right at the tail end of it I had a pretty bad attack.

For me an attack usually starts with coughing, the coughing is productive and doesn’t let up, and it progresses to wheezing as my lungs get congested with mucus and at the same time the air passages swell, making the space for air to move smaller and smaller.

I lose the ability to talk.

So I have several hours of time spent focusing on my breathing.

I can’t read, play games, even concentrating on tv is too much to expect. I recline or lie down and try to slowly bring air in and out.

The place my mind goes during an attack is a new landscape for me. I’m aware of things immediately around me, but I can’t focus on any of them. Sometimes other people’s voices come through clearly, but I can’t respond.

I’m thinking about how I can’t think too deeply about anything, and I get distracted by my own wheezing, losing even that pitiful train of thought.

I know I’m getting better when the fuzziness of the world around me starts to clear, a sharpness returns like a camera lens that was a little out of adjustment. Only I thought it was clear.

I’ve had mild asthma for years, and never had to do more than use my rescue inhaler once every few months, usually after exercise or going out in very cold or humid air. My “normal” triggers.

But last November I got what I thought was a cold that I couldn’t shake. It settled in my sinuses and nothing I did seemed to help. Meanwhile I lost my sense of smell and taste, started each morning blowing my nose and using a dozen tissues, and lost my voice quite often.

In January I began my adventures with asthma attacks. It wasn’t until after the first one was over that it occurred to me what it was.

I have a really high pain tolerance, and so I was determined to just get back to normal breathing. Even though that took 2 1/2 hours with the first attack, I stubbornly didn’t consider it to be serious.

In February I had a second one. Then in March and April I got help at urgent care, finally getting two courses of antibiotics, which helped not only my sinuses to clear, but also started getting rid of junk in my lungs!

I felt so much better! I had high hopes of spending lots of time piddling in my garden areas this summer.

Then in May I had my third attack. It was on a hot day, humid air, and I had stopped at my daughter’s to plant some flowers I’d gotten her for Mother’s Day.

So much for spending time gardening.

I was very cautious in June, staying inside in air conditioning as much as possible, very aware of my activity and surroundings.

My first clinical trial began in June and it seemed to go well. I was using a better drug than my usual, and I was ready to switch when the trial ended.

But right before my last office visit in early July I had my fourth attack.

This was not part of my plans. I was set to finish the trial that Monday, and leave for five days in Nashville at CR’s Summit East on Tuesday. I had the good meds packed and ready to travel, and I was determined to not let myself get too stressed or tired, hoping to avoid more attacks.

Then a long car ride from Ohio to Tennessee, walking on hills, temps in the upper 90’s, and humidity of about 90%.

And lots of walking at Summit.

I found myself experiencing pain deep in my calves and had a toe swollen and discolored. And a strange feeling of constriction in the middle of my chest.

Despite my physical ailments, I was having a great time. I settled in that first night and started adding to my list I’m keeping of one thousand gifts from God that I can be thankful for. Over the next four days I wrote down 103 different blessings.

I was feeling such thankfulness to God for getting me to Summit, where I was immersed in an atmosphere of pure gratitude and awe of all God has done in all of our lives, me and the 3,000+ others attending, that I couldn’t do anything but give praise.

Yes, my friends were concerned. We discussed whether I should get checked out at a hospital. The words pulmonary embolism were thought and spoken, as were deep vein thrombosis and concern about the chest feeling being one of those odd woman signs of a heart attack.

I prayed about it and really felt I was going to be ok. My breathing was not bad. I carried all my meds with me and used them as needed. I let the rest of our group go off without me and stayed put close to my workshops.

It made for a lot of time with God and it was all good.

On the ride home I got a call from my husband. He and two of our kids had been in a car accident in a parking lot. They were a little banged up from being t-boned, and the van had probably received a death blow.

So no stress for the last four hours of the drive!

When I got home we headed out to get some dinner.

And even on the way there I was starting to cough.

By the time our food came I had progressed to wheezing. And nausea. My husband and I left then to head home, where the attack continued and was worse than any other, adding in vomiting and sweating and shaking.

And when my husband asked if I needed to go to the emergency room, I shook my head no. Because I couldn’t imagine being able to make the effort to walk out to the car to drive there. So I toughed it out. Again.

The next morning, Sunday, I made it until the last of three points in our pastor’s sermon before the constriction in my chest and my shallow breathing made me sure that I was headed to the hospital after service.

I got the lecture about how people actually die during asthma attacks. How the pain in my legs and chest could be the things I’d already thought of.

And I got my first nebulizer treatment.

Truly sweet relief.

Lots of really good things happened that day and into the next, as I was admitted to the hospital and they ran several different tests.

I found out I have great veins in my legs. My heart is perfect. My lungs had no nodes or nodules that would be symptomatic of lung cancer, and no embolism.

The only thing wrong was that asthma had filled my lungs with thick, sticky mucus that I needed to be able to get rid of.

Just like I’d been saying for years.

So a course of steroids and antibiotics, the nebulizer sent home with me, and otherwise a clean bill of health.

I will tell you another time how that knowledge has affected me.

Three attacks total in July, and three more in September brought the total to nine over nine months, the most serious one I wrote about a couple weeks ago.

And then a breakthrough. While brainstorming with my asthma doctor we figured out the culprit. Aleve. Which I’d taken for pain before most of my worst attacks.

So now I’m hoping to only talk about asthma attacks in retrospect.

Because I never want to feel that constricted ever again.

Not Finished with Me Yet

03 Thursday Oct 2019

Posted by in Asthma, Childhood, Recovery journey, Tragedies

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Last Thursday I almost died.

Literally.

I’m still gathering all the pieces of why I didn’t, and I want to capture for you my perspective on what I hope is a one-time occurrence.

(For some background you could check out my post “Inspiration” from August 8, 2019.)

I’m really big on gaining knowledge and understanding. So when my asthma and allergies (still unnamed) started ramping up and causing attacks, I went into research mode. I made an appointment with a pulmonologist, but it was almost two months away. So I responded to a Facebook post about an asthma clinical trial, and found my asthma and allergy doctors instead.

Since then I’ve participated in two clinical trials designed to test generics of an effective asthma drug that makes it more affordable to do what should come naturally.

Breathe.

So in a two week time I had already had two serious asthma attacks: one after visiting a very musty used-book store, another that woke me up coughing and choking in the wee hours of the morning.

That second one got me thinking that I needed a better strategy of how to communicate that I was having trouble. I was alone in the family room to use my nebulizer for an albuterol treatment at 4am, taking my phone in case the distress didn’t let up. But my husband’s phone charges overnight in that room, so it would be down to my teenagers or 911 if I couldn’t walk and breathe at the same time to get help.

I freely admit I have control issues. Four and a half years of Celebrate Recovery have gotten me to the point where I can clearly see my problems, but I still don’t want to admit that I need help.

I don’t want to be powerless.

Seriously, I have been in places where I had no control over what was being done to me, and as a girl I decided I would do my best to control everything I could to make sure nothing bad happened to me again.

Yet Thursday night I had almost no control over what was happening to me.

Just the day before my third attack in two weeks, I met with my mentor, who I hadn’t seen for a month, and we talked about my need to have a written and easily communicated way to let my family know what I needed. So while working Thursday, my mind was on doing this, making a list from the most drastic to least invasive things to do for me or ask me about.

In my controlling mind I never wanted to entertain the idea of needing to call 911. That was for people who couldn’t analyze their own situation and be proactive about doing for themselves all they could.

Joke’s on me.

My niece, a firefighter and EMT, will give me a look next time I see her, but on my list was to ask her what to expect if I ever needed to call for emergency help. Because I like to work it out in my head before it ever happens.

Someone else was doing the working out, way better than I ever could.

Simple things like me feeling inspired to clean the garage. Okay, boss the teenagers around to get the garage cleaned. This happened a few weeks ago after moving Middle Son into college, when I was feeling the need to clear out the staging area in the house, and do the every-ten-year garage purging. It wasn’t completely cleared, but in organized piles at least.

I just want to park inside it this winter.

And getting stocked up on my regular asthma meds for when the current trial ended, something I would normally wait to spend the money on.

Way farther back, two and half years ago, Baby Girl had taken the classes and gotten certified for adult and infant CPR training. Though she had never had occasion to use it, she wanted the knowledge and confidence it gave her to work with young children in many areas of her life.

Let’s go farther, to 8-year old me, who was learning to use a riding mower and wanted to hear herself sing over the noise. And who was almost drowned by a neighbor boy in our pool, so I decided to learn to breathe deeply and be able to hold my breath for long periods calmly. Who loved to be onstage and belt out lines or songs, no cheating with microphones. Who toughed out labor every time with no help from drugs.

Just breathing deeply.

So when very suddenly Thursday evening I went from laughing over pictures of a cake I’d had delivered to Middle Son at school, to not feeling right, to labored breathing, sweating, feeling a little nauseated, all the pieces (much more than I could ever list) from my whole life’s story came together in some of the hardest words I’ve ever said.

I need help. Call an ambulance.

I guess I’m not shocked this didn’t register. After all, I’m the one who handles these kinds of things. Because nobody else can (Ha! My deluded mind talking again.)

But as I stumbled back into the chair by my nebulizer and with shaking hands broke open a vial and poured it in, I heard my husband making the call.

My ears quit working. I couldn’t make out all the words. I could see my younger daughter trying to catch my eye, saying something I couldn’t understand. I barked out a few one-word orders on the exhales, but I couldn’t stand not having the little push of air helping with my feeble inspirations.

I was hardly breathing. In only a couple of minutes.

And several more passing while the ambulance rushed from five miles straight up the road.

There was no white light at the end of a tunnel. My whole life didn’t “flash before my eyes”. I don’t think I was that close to death. But then again, what do I know? Why do I try to minimize the seriousness of those moments?

The reality is, if the EMT’s hadn’t gotten there quickly, I probably wouldn’t be writing this.

There was a lot of activity going on around me. Kids rushing out to make sure the garage was wide open and shoving those piles farther out of the way. Moving one of the cars so vehicles could pull close to the house. Clearing laundry baskets and shoes out of the floor and away from the door so there was clear access.

Me begging wordlessly for another vial of albuterol, frustrated at how long it took me to communicate what I needed. (Should have gotten that plan down in writing.)

And the overriding need to breathe.

Out is possible. It’s a relaxing, a release, as little as it may be it didn’t take much effort.

But inspiration…

I didn’t fully understand what I was talking about until Thursday night, when every thought, every bit of my will was focused on moving that magnificent muscle, my well-developed diaphragm, and feeling a pitifully small whiff of air making it’s way into my wheezing, mucus-filled, inflamed, closed-up lungs.

There were suddenly strangers, one kneeling beside my chair talking in my ear, others carrying things, holding things up, putting things on my face and in my veins, asking questions I couldn’t answer.

The voice by my ear telling me to hold just a quick second before breathing out, to get the medicine in.

I’m just as sure as I can be that it’s like Luke described it: “Suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God…”

Not the people, don’t misunderstand me. There was a battle going on in that room that was far beyond the working of my labored lungs. There was an eternal question that was being answered:

Who is in control here?

It wasn’t me.

In fact, I fought some of the things they wanted to do. I couldn’t stand the mask (they said it was like a CPAP, so that’s out for me in the future), but I wanted the oxygen and aerosol drugs it was providing so they let me hold it as close as I could. When they couldn’t get a clear oxygen reading, I heard something like 84%, they talked about intubating, and I motioned the kids to leave the room for a bit. Thankfully they didn’t need to do that.

The hardest part was hearing them ask questions I knew the answers to, but couldn’t speak.

Yet within an hour and a half of getting to the hospital I was talking to everyone and walking out on my own two feet.

Two days later Baby Girl (who is 16 and my hero right now) shared what she had been trying to tell me. She had her CPR manual out and was preparing herself mentally to be able to break her mother’s ribs if I went unconscious before the ambulance arrived and she needed to keep my heart beating. Because she is the only one in the house trained to do that.

And in the emergency room I learned that the EMT who took charge of me is also a nurse at the hospital we wanted to go to. He knew exactly what they would do, and did all he could ahead to avoid any delays in my care.

My family rushed madly to gather things I might need if I were admitted, let our grown kids know the situation, reached out to our church, got there quickly to be with me, though I was pretty unaware of my surroundings for a while.

The next day I canceled work and appointments, let myself be chauffeured to get more meds and run necessary errands, and was able to go to Celebrate Recovery.

I got there late because I’d run off without my phone and had to turn back. Got caught by a train, and after arriving during worship had three people I needed to talk to before I paid attention to the song.

And then I looked up to the screen and I got my answer.

“From life’s first cry, til final breath, Jesus commands my destiny.”

Thank you, Jesus, that you have not yet let me reach my final breath!

Getting Justice

26 Thursday Sep 2019

Posted by in Childhood, Recovery journey, Redemption, Relationships

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I’m a person who really likes justice.

Seeing someone who has been wronged restored, and the person responsible held accountable for their harmful actions.

Someone working hard all their life and finally receiving recognition and gratitude for their efforts.

I like it when good triumphs over evil.

Especially when I’m the one receiving justice.

It was a sweet day a few months ago when Words with Friends started giving recognition for all kinds of achievements. Milestones based on numbers of times doing all kinds of things.

All of a sudden the 7 years of otherwise wasted time I had invested in playing Words with Friends were vindicated by my sudden designation as “achievement level 8” with more obscure statistics racked up than a baseball player!

Who knew someone was keeping records?

All those little victories were being counted up, kept track of, and finally revealed for the whole world to see. Well, ok, probably just the handful of people I play. If they had absolutely nothing better to do with their time than look up my achievements.

I guess if I want to someday look through them all…then at least one person will know how great I am at spelling words.

Back to justice.

Statistics are impersonal. They count quantity, but don’t define quality.

Before I got into recovery I wanted certain people to pay for what they had done to me. I wanted to help identify them as abusers, lead the investigation into who else they may have victimized, round them up and let us all have our day in court to testify or defend, and let the facts be heard and acknowledged and above all else, let justice be done.

For little girl me who didn’t have a voice or words to tell.

Because wouldn’t me getting justice make up for all those years of denial and shame and guilt and self-protection?

I considered becoming a lawyer for several years so that I could bring about justice for others. And in doing so I know I would have been trying to somehow bring restitution to myself.

But do I apply that same zeal to the people I have wronged? When I realize I’ve done something that hurt someone else in some way, am I eager to apologize and make amends as quickly as possible?

And what about those long ago sins against others that I would rather forget, but that maybe they have never been able to? How could I ever bring the same justice to each of them?

Do I want the same brand of justice that I would measure out to others applied to me?

Because if you were to number the things I’ve done wrong, keep the statistics of the nasty attitudes, the condescension, the biting words, betrayals and lies and manipulations, that would be a list I wouldn’t want anyone to ever see.

But the thing is, God knows all of it. All of me. The tiny bit of good that makes it through the selfish and evil parts. And amongst the good he knows the secret delight of the occasional selfless, loving act.

Mercy undoes me. When I started to face my own guilt, truly deserved guilt, and saw the mercy God has shown me, it changed me.

One of the hardest things I’ve ever done was to forgive my abusers.

And there is no way I could have fully done that on my own. Because in my mind, I would never get the justice I deserved if I gave them forgiveness they never admitted they needed.

There’s a verse that undoes me every time I really take it in.

Romans 5:8: 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Where is the justice in that? That even when I had no clue that I needed to be rescued, that I needed forgiveness, Jesus paid for my sin.

If God pursues me like this, if he forgives me and decides that because of Jesus’ death on the cross, I don’t have to make restitution, I don’t have to pay for my crimes, then what does that mean for me?

How can I demand justice from other people?

Because when I look only at the cold hard facts, my abusers may deserve to suffer the consequences of their sins against me. But when I turn it around on myself, I would want mercy.

I came to a place a year or so into recovery where not only had I been able to forgive them, God gave me the desire to pray for their healing and salvation.

It had been impossible for me to take that step on my own. I had genuinely forgiven, which to me meant that I no longer wanted to see them suffer for what they had done to me. But was I willing for them to ever feel the same joy and peace I have in my relationship with Jesus?

Could I really, truly, let them off the hook?

Not long after that I had occasion to see several of my abusers all together. They were, each and every one of them, broken, depressed, anxious, hopeless.

And I realized that was the justice I had dreamed of for all those years.

I no longer felt the need to pursue it. Not for me. Because of how much they seemed to have paid for it throughout their lives.

I was so thankful God had replaced my heart of stone with a heart of flesh that could feel compassion for these people.

Just the other day a dear friend, a brother to me truly, gave me the gift of a few minutes conversation, just catching up. Warm hugs, true love felt and expressed.

The thing is, he knew me when. When I was not interested in God’s plans for my life. When I was living for my own pleasure and plans, selfishly pursuing what I wanted.

And he’s known me ever since. And he still loves me.

If a friend can choose to forget and move beyond the bad they know we are capable of, how much more gracious is God when he throws our sins as far as the east is from the west?

So I do love justice. But not my kind. God’s kind.

Someday in heaven I may meet my abusers.

Because God doesn’t want anyone to perish. He’d rather everyone came to repentance.

And that’s the justice I pray for them now.