Tag: healing

Transitional Spaces

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Transitional Spaces

From July 7, 2024

Hallways and parking lots have been peculiar places for me until more recently.  These are common throughways between two places, often after sitting awhile or engaging in some kind of activity before travelling through them.  Whether on foot or by some kind of vehicle, our time in hallways and parking lots is usually fairly short.  Get in, get out, go through, get on to the next thing.  They are pretty mundane really, but it wasn’t always this way for me.

I came to understand that my difficulty with these two spaces was more symbolic of something else than a phobia per se:  bad things happened to me that made it difficult to move on through various stages of my life.  I have come to understand that trauma keeps a person stuck emotionally for a time even though the days come and go, one still has to get to work or school or some necessary appointment, eat, sleep, and repeat.  The feelings we experience sometimes don’t match up with the task at hand, minutes on a clock or demands of life pushing us forward.  (This gets even more difficult when interacting with the people in our lives!)  My emotional stuck-ness manifested itself in weird inner experiences that affected my ability to walk down a hallway in the darkness of night or to quickly get into my car and drive to the next stop on my To Do List or calendar.  Each played out differently, however.

There was a sense of spiritual darkness lurking in the hallway of any home I lived in as an adult.  A simple task of getting up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night was a big ordeal; I needed to turn on a light, never entering into a dark room lest I become overwhelmed with fear.  A night light didn’t count; that was spooky too.  It’s as if I felt the presence of another being in the hallway, there to bring me harm.  He wasn’t an intruder.  He was a sixth sense even demonic being dressed as a male figure in my mind’s eye, there to taunt and torment me with this FEAR.  I really can’t explain it to someone who doesn’t know or hasn’t experienced the spiritual realm. I can just tell you that it’s real and it’s terrifying.  So as a Christian, I’d attempt to put on my “spiritual armour” as we read in Ephesians 6 and even quote scripture such as Romans 8:38-39.  We read in the book of Matthew that the Word of God was Jesus’s defense against the lies of Satan in the desert so that became my sword of the Spirit to deal with these fears as well.  A counselor who specialized in ritual abuse suggested that I put up my hand with a stop sign as I moved through the hallway.  In the end, these methods became rituals unto themselves until I was finally freed from all of it years later. 

My point is that the transitional space of a hallway marked my difficulty moving on from one moment to the next with confidence.  It took sheer will and determination to finish a project, exhausting me in the process.  Larger projects and processes had severe consequences if realized.  The biggest example:  fibromyalgia came with completing my Master’s degree.  In all, I over attended to details and still made mistakes or left things out.  In my professional life, supervisors and my fellow Occupational Therapists and Assistants would compliment the thoroughness of my documentation then cite my poor productivity at work getting it all done.  I’d leave work and sit in my car in a severe state of “brain drain,” that continued for hours afterwards; falling asleep at night usually entailed an involuntary review of the work day once again.  Letting things go in general to rest or relax was really, really hard for me.

So there I would sit in a given parking lot, needing to drive home or somewhere else with little mental ability to do so for long while.  At times this was an hour or more.  Higher level thinking skills were there but challenging to draw upon, requiring an inordinate amount of energy to transition from one task to the next, driving from one location to another.  After my ex-husband left our marriage in 2003 it got so bad that I kept a small spiral notebook in the console of my car.  I’d write down a few lines of poetry or sentences of prose to cathart, cathect, or move past the feelings that were immobilizing me.   I made lists and kept every little detail recorded on my calendar. Eventually the Lord allowed the crafting of a new life with Steve, who I call my Intended Beloved, and the excitement of our new life together carried me through the day much better than before.  What a blessing!

Then things got bad again when I developed a severe neurological illness at the end of 2011, worsening with the onset of what would eventually be labeled as a Convulsion Disorder in 2012. Not only was I spending a lot of time in my truck between appointments, you know “checking for messages” and the like, I was dealing with the sequelae of my symptoms.  Did I pick up a perfumey scent walking through the toiletry aisle in the grocery store?  Was the building moldy and now I’m in the pre-tic phase of a convulsive episode?  Quick!  Open the windows, remove my coat, eat and drink something, or just do anything to lessen the reactivity to some offending chemical or scent if I can even think rationally to do act at all.  Many times I had to call Steve when able to do so, to rescue me.  He talked me through the situation or actually came to get me and drive me home.  What an ordeal for both of us!  Steve was usually at work, needing to figure out what to say on the phone to his wife in a crisis.  At least a couple of dozen times over these 12 years of chronic illness, he has needed to drop everything he was doing to rescue me from some situation away from our home.  Very stressful indeed.

As the Convulsion Disorder became more compartmentalized, as I came to understand and release more of the demonic trappings from abuse that occurred in my past, and as my complete dependence upon the Lord for everything including the very breath of life became my way of life, the power of the transitional spaces diminished significantly.  This took time.  Now I regularly walk through the house with no lights on as I prepare for bed.  I hardly ever even think twice about it as even the habit attached to this behavior broke down then went away.  The time I spend in my truck between destinations these days is less than ever I can remember unless I am not feeling well that day.  Further, the feeling of spaciness has shifted to the end of the day, requiring a different set of coping behaviors.  But alas it may be from me simply doing more.  Perhaps bedtime will be my next area of victory?  I hope so! 

And that will be a good thingy Gentle Reader.

The longing that does not end but changes

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Ecclesiastes 3:11 — The New International Version (NIV)

11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

Such is the stuff of this life to have so many longings remain, even for those who have found rest in Jesus Christ. It must be a function of the human condition. We can’t fathom the mysteries of our God nor what it really means to live forever in His presence. Or find the answers to a thousand questions that begin with the word WHY? There are just too many unanswered questions that at times it makes me for one, ask how then am I to live?

Experiencing a great loss revs up this engine even more. One of the worst in life is that posed by divorce. You not only lose a spouse but many of the people, places, and things associated with him/her and the life you once lived. Life drastically changes. When the divorce comes as a consequence of infidelity followed by him or her leaving your life completely, well then you simply have no choice but to slog your way through the destruction, the grief, the changes in so many relationships, and a heart left bleeding for all to see. The tearing takes years for the woundedness to heal over. Does it ever really heal over? For some, perhaps. Or somewhat. Certainly many new people, places, and things fill some of the void: our Lord can become a Heavenly Husband to the woman who earnestly seeks Him. We learn a new way of living as unto the Lord.

Thankfully, I didn’t have children in the mix. This fact is bittersweet, however, as it became a desire of my heart to not become old and have missed the joy of having a family of my own. After years of pursuing a career, I did want a family after all. I was not given this opportunity. The Lord allowed circumstances that closed that door for me and it was painful. Then there were the changes in other meaningful relationships grown through 16 years of marriage. In due time, many of them would be ripped away from me as well. I kept in touch with some of my former spouse’s family as best I could over the phone lines and hundreds of miles between us. Eventually my former spouse’s Stepmother passed away and my Sister-in-law’s gate-keeping of my relationships to other family members led to a breakdown that I simply couldn’t overcome. She was the bridge to them and she severed the bridge. The heartache of their loss was palpable for many years. There simply was no place for my love for them, for my sorrow at their loss to go.

These feelings of loss were especially hard when Sharon’s youngest son died tragically. No one bothered to tell me. I found out about his death online from a third party. No one cared that I loved him too, that I needed a place to grieve, to share in the experience of losing a loved one. And tonight I found out that her and my brother-in-law’s remaining, oldest son died tragically last year. He was hit by a drunk driver and died as a consequence of his injuries. This is just so very awful. It hurts! It hurts in a place that I cannot even explain. Why does it hurt so much when I haven’t seen any of these people for nearly 20 years? I guess that when you choose to love someone and they die, it just hurts no matter how much time has passed. And it brings up any remaining fragments associated with the whole mess of divorce too. I don’t think these types of pain ever really go away completely. Sure, it’s less and much healing has taken place for me. The scars do remain though.

So to you Nathaniel and Jeremy, I extend my own tribute to each of you. Nate: you were such a tender-hearted kid that struggled to find your own identity under the shadow of your older brother. In time you discovered your artistic talents that far exceeded his, gifted by the Lord. I don’t quite understand your drug addiction but I do understand that it is really hard to live well with the pressures that life blasts at us. I am sad that your faith did not carry you through to victory over your struggles. I am glad that you have left a legacy of incredible art work that lives on, literally, in the tattooed images of your clients near and far. And your daughter Isabella is beautiful.

Jeremy: you were a young man with clear ideals about the world, a young wife and beautiful son so early in your adulthood. I don’t quite understand why it all didn’t work out for you, that you had to run off to the opposite coast to find a place in life to finally call home. I am glad that you found it with the fellowship of your brother Nate, that you both landed in the same area, the same industry that was meaningful to you. Thank you and your brother for showing an interest in my music when I played guitar during that one visit to your childhood home. Flash forward a couple of decades and your death is rather shocking to me. Both of you are now gone! How can this be? Did each of you know the Lord before you left your earthly home? Will I get to see you again in the heavenly realm where joy and the colors of the Master Artist paint eternity with with glorious goodness, music beyond compare?

Sharon and Max: thank you. You welcomed me into your family with friendship and fun every time Craig and I got to visit your home in the mountains of West Virginia. I learned so much from each of you simply by the way you lived and worked and lived out our shared faith in the Lord, Jesus Christ. I admired your creativity, ingenuity, industriousness, and positivity Sharon. I appreciated the technical help that you gave me with my speaking business long before we all had computer and internet skills: you were on top of it all! Your home was a bed and breakfast no less and when we visited we were treated to the best hospitality in the South! Thank you. At some level I do understand why you couldn’t talk freely with me when your brother/my ex-husband Craig had to leave my marriage. I just didn’t expect you to cut me off so suddenly too.

My ex-husband’s Dad, Ken, had already passed away from abdominal cancer before Craig’s affair and our divorce. His second wife, Eleanor, died after a bad fall in her beautiful home where she too had graciously hosted many of our visits to the Pittsburgh area over the years. You became a voice of reason in my life when I needed an older, wiser woman who had also been scorned as a relatively young wife herself. Thank you for listening to me, for trying to guide me through such a confusing time for all of us. I really loved your daughters, Cindy and Laura. You probably don’t know that I asked Craig for us to be considered as their caregivers in the event of your passing but he said no. Their developmental disabilities were a lot to handle for sure. I was trained in such things as an occupational therapist. They loved life: decorating for every single holiday, visiting with everyone, church on Sunday, and working at the sheltered worship with their friends. I never got to say goodbye to them. And now Cindy is gone as well. How is Laura doing? I often wonder. I may never know this side of heaven. Gratefully, I know I will see all of you again one fine day!

We long to see a loved one for that is how Christ’s love for us manifests in this life. We love others because He first loved us; we learn about love in this life as infants from our parents, our families. IN time we come to know that God is love itself, that He has set this beautiful gift into our heart, our mind, our very soul when He created us, when we came to be. Our longing for our lost loved ones is part of our longing for our Savior Who covers all. The only way that we can deeply connect with others in this most tenderest of ways is to come to know the love of Jesus Christ. Being together with other believers in Jesus Christ fulfills this longing; being in fellowship with the Lord through His Word and prayer fulfills this longing. We come to understand that the connection to our Lord is the most perfect relationship of them all: never failing, never ending, ever present, and perfectly above them all. We are always with Him, He is always with us such that we are never alone again when we call upon Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. Our longing thus transcends our earthly relationships in ways too wonderful to explain. We can come to trust that the Lord has taken care of these mysteries of life. We come to trust as in Ecclesiastes 3:11 that He has made all things beautiful in His time.

All things beautiful. These are people that I have had the privilege to know and love. My Lord will redeem them one day for my good, for His glory. He promises. O.k., I get it now. Thank you Lord. Thank you for Nathaniel, Jeremy, Max, Sharon, Ken, Eleanor, Cindy, Laura, their brother Michael, and yes even Craig. You gave me so much through them. I see how my longing is satisfied in You. I don’t understand it. I do believe it.

Gentle Reader: maybe you too?

JJ

Steve and Julie moving on at the Groovy Plants Ranch in 2019

The 10-Minute Luna Eclipse

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If the name Luna also means moon and if yesterday was a full moon then it stands to reason that the squirreliest things would happen as we tried to rescue a German shepherd dog. Or does it? Here’s her story.

We have come to understand that there are some missing puzzle pieces to the story of this 2 year-old German shepherd named Luna. I found her on a pet rescue website and showed her to my husband, Steve. “There’s something in her eyes,” he noted and we both agreed with the ad that she is probably a “sweet dog.” But how could we know for sure? Our meeting of the owners in the parking lot of a frozen yogurt shop a 2-hour drive away from our home was largely uneventful. And cold! Luna was skiddish to meet us and the ad had already said this would be the case. D. and his wife just didn’t say much beyond the fact that she ate Pedigree dog food and sheepishly mentioned having taken her to a vet. But why wasn’t she chipped, registered, neutered, or vaccinated? All they said was that Luna was given to them around the same time as their AKC-registered GSD Lucian, a larger, black male. The pair both were described on the rescue site as “sweet dogs.”

The owners lived in the country until the landlord of their rental property had sold the house they were renting. Forced to move, the young family of five sought a new home in the city nearby that would accept their dogs. The new landlord said o.k. until his wife discovered that their insurance company considered GSDs an aggressive breed and instructed them to get rid of their dogs. This is all of the information we had until our meet-up. Then D explained before they left that “Luna just started her heat cycle.” He had told us earlier that she already had 1 litter of puppies when Luna and Lucian got together despite their best efforts to have their kids help to keep them separated. What would all of this mean for us? Steve and I would soon find out! We gave the couple our thank you gift of big chocolaty cranberry pecan cookies and parted ways with our FREE DOG . . .

Luna was shaking as she crouched down on the floor in the back seat of the truck cab. She accepted us touching her but also just stared at us. At times her nose was pressed into the door as far away from us as she could go. This is quite an accomplishment for a nearly 70-pound dog! She walked around the parking lot with us when we stopped at a pharmacy to use the rest room, albeit looking scared and hesitating to heel next to either of us. Back into the truck we all settled for the 2-hour drive home as the sun was sinking behind us. Steve and I made a plan for our first steps when we arrived home and had already prepared some things for her first night with us. What happened next was rather shocking!

Luna at her former home the morning before we met her.

Steve attempted to coax Luna out of the truck as she stared at him from the opposite side of the floor board. Once outside, she pulled this way and that on the leash then in a continued catty-wampas fashion, followed him into the darkness of the backyard. She did go to the bathroom once. Meanwhile, I cleaned up the vomit off the floor of the truck! Luna was very anxious so I offered to take her for a short walk to burn off some energy. Mistake! She pulled on her leash as I turned to face the driveway from the lawn where we were standing so I turned her in a circle to get control of the lead. By the time I had completed the circle, I lifted up the leash to shorten the slack only to find her collar dangling at the end of it . . . without Luna! She had slipped out of a snug collar without pulling on it at all! Like a bat outta hell she raced into the night and around the backside of the house. Steve tried to follow her but lost sight of her immediately in the moonlight. It all happened so fast! I headed towards the opposite side of the house in time to greet Luna racing towards me. She quickly turned around and zoomed back behind the house. Neither of us saw her after that moment. She was gone.

In just 10 minutes and before we could even get her into the house, Luna had escaped! First Steve then I slowly searched around outside in our backyard to no avail. She was hell-bent on getting away and sadly, succeeded. Where was she going to go? We live about 130 miles from her former home. More importantly, what were we going to do to try to find her? We looked at each other in shock as we continued to unload the truck from our day trip to get our supposedly “sweet dog.” We were only with her for just over 2 hours and now she was a LOST DOG. But why wasn’t she chipped, registered, neutered, or vaccinated? And how in the world do you go about finding a dog without any identification whatsoever?

Answer: you tap into social media, call the county sheriff and animal control, call the non-emergency number for the adjacent town, and start praying! We learned a lot right at the beginning from the Lost Dogs of Fort Wayne group on Facebook. We made public posts on our Facebook accounts and our local Next Door app. Then within hours the seemingly ill-fated post came through on Facebook: a young gal had driven by the scene of an accident in which a German shepherd dog was hit by a black sedan. She reported that the driver had stopped and was outside of her car with the dog; the dog was lying down then sat upright holding a front paw up in front of her. Our hero called her Mom, Lindsay, right away to check any “Lost Dog” posts on social media who in turn sent her daughter our picture of Luna. Yes, she said the GSD looked like Luna!

Immediately I contacted the authorities noted above and no one had a report of the accident yet. Within another hour I received a call from an officer who was covering for the officer who responded to the “crash” scene. The 2nd sheriff said that the dog had run off into the darkness once again. He didn’t specify into which direction she went. We later figured out that Luna was heading west and south, in exactly the direction of her former home. She had run 3 miles in that first hour before attempting to cross a 5-lane highway and got hit. Steve was already out looking for her but was unsuccessful. So was Dv, a family friend who felt a burden to find our new dog. Dv’s two kids had become friends with our former pup, Elle, and were heartbroken when we had to put her down very recently. To be honest, we were still missing her terribly as well. We love dogs! By midnight we were asking ourselves, “what have we done now? We should have known that a 2 year-old dog of the very loyal German shepherd breed could be difficult to separate from- and be relocated to another family. But what were we to do when that family passed her off to us when Luna was in heat? On the night of a full moon our GSD was a definite flight risk! Oh Luna, what is going to happen to you?

There was nothing more we could do until daylight returned. Steve came home and went off to bed while I tried to answer questions about Luna online and continue to spread the word on social media. Many folks were praying as we were too. Luna was alone and scared out in what would become a low temperature of 9 degrees by daybreak. What were the chances that our pup was going to make it? To her favor, Luna reportedly loved to be outside and evidently spent a lot of time outdoors. Perhaps she would bed down somewhere along the road in a place where we could find her the next day? What I didn’t realize until later is that there would be other people looking for her as well. There are a lot of dog lovers out there who jump into action when they find out about a lost dog. One gal in our neighborhood. Two gals in the Lost Dogs group. Our friend Dv. As soon as I got up that Sunday morning, I prepared myself to search for her myself wherever the Lord may lead me. Please Lord, which way did she go?

I decided to head to the wide open spaces of the county fairgrounds first, just west of where she was last spotted. Just as I started wolfing down some food before heading out the door, the doorbell rang. It was about 10:00 a.m. There was a county sheriff’s car in our driveway and a sheriff at the door. Oh no. What does this mean, I wondered? “We found your dog!” the officer reported. He then asked me for more identifying information as the facts seemed to line up that the GSD they found trapped in a fence about 3/4 mile from our home was indeed Luna. SHE WAS ALIVE!!! The officer expected me to jump into the squad car with him immediately but I needed to get dressed for the cold. He didn’t seem to understand this nor that my husband wasn’t home at the time and that I wasn’t feeling well. Then he said that he was the captain of the shift and called over to direct the Animal Control Officer holding Luna to bring her over to us from the scene where she had been located. Luna was discovered by someone who had seen her wedged into a fence when driving by along the same highway, albeit 2 miles north, as the night before. We are so grateful to both parties, last night and this morning, who had contacted the sheriff’s office to report these two sightings of Luna. The police got involved only because there was damage to the car that had hit her; the driver has called the police, to file a report. That report helped further link us to our anonymous, evasive, elusive, scared, and now injured GSD.

Dollar signs floated through my head much of Saturday night into Sunday. Steve even more so. This was all looking a little crazy for a FREE DOG from a RESCUE WEBSITE! By now every possible authority had our contact information and our willingness to help out the driver of the damaged vehicle as well, if needed. “The officer will call you,” said another dispatcher, if the driver needed anything more from us. Soon back at home, another squad car rolled into the courtyard in front of our home and opened the back hatch. I peered inside to find one extremely frightened Luna pup. Awwww. Oh you dear dog. “How are you puppers?” I said to the blank stare of her big brown eyes. The very young, weekend Animal Control Officer slowly coaxed Luna to come out. Luna jumped down about 2 1/2 feet without a whimper from her injuries. But when she started to walk she was limping. No blood or wounds were visible (until later after her bath) but that left back hind quarter looked exceedingly painful. “She just wanted to get warm” explained the AC officer at the scene. They didn’t have to convince her to get into the squad car and out of the freezing temperatures; “she just wants to get warm” he said again as Luna headed directly for the house. Did you catch that? She was heading directly for a house in which she had never been inside. Our house was now the refuge she was seeking. I was so very glad.

We went into the laundry room by way of the garage. I made sure to close the garage door behind us as the Officer continued walking through to the front door to leave. “God bless you!” was the most of what I could say, still emerging from more shock from the morning’s developments. Steve and I had no idea that we would ever see Luna again! Steve came home from church early and soon went off to Petsmart to purchase a proper harness for use outside. (A snout harness is on order per the recommendation of Misfit Shepherds rescue. We already had a clean and stronger leash to use.) By the afternoon Luna had gingerly agreed to a bath to check for wounds and diminish the dirt and scent of a cheap date, not to mention heavy pheromones as her heat cycle continued.

Our home wreaked of more noxious odors for the rest of the day than I could have ever tolerated in the past. Thank the Lord that for some reason I have been having fewer convulsive episodes the over the past 2 weeks! But by Sunday night I was pretty loopy and having a couple of tic attacks, albeit nothing like what I have experienced for a decade before this January. It’s pretty amazing that this change would emerge as 1) Elle passed away earlier this month and 2) I had increased a new supplement of a type that my Doctor prescribed for brain and joint health but struggled to tolerate in the past. (By the way, the new Omega 3 supp is made from the same kind of plants that I have grown in our garden!) I was able to help Steve care for Luna this past weekend and even take the road trip yesterday to go meet her, bring her home. For all of this I am amazed, exceedingly grateful. Praise the Lord!

So to our beautiful-perhaps-still-scared and precious Luna, we are beginning a new journey together. Tomorrow, Lord willing, Steve and I will take you to meet your new Vet who will get you fixed up properly and evaluate your wounds from your accident. The emergency vet hospital staff didn’t think that you broke any bones but we do think your tender spirit was damaged a bit by your unfortunate escapade. Maybe this first crazy night under a full moon will serve to bond us all together a little more? We are here to love you and care for you, our sweet fuzzy girl. More fun adventures than you can ever imagine await you if you but give us a chance. We will be patient. I already love you so.

The spot where Luna decided to camp out her first night with us. That’s an ice pack on her hip.

What do I long for?

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That night walking along the dock, arm in arm, before dinner with friends that hot July summer. I had quickly changed my clothes in the truck on our way back from the airport to the restaurant, into something I later deemed too cutesy for a woman nearing her 6th decade of life. It didn’t matter that night . . .

Perhaps it was the same night of the day when we paddled our custom, tandem Huki outrigger canoe on the great Lake Winnebago after the EAA air show: the biggest in the nation. Sometimes you get to feel cool. Riding around with a 24-foot OC-2 on your roof is definitely one of those days, anytime, anywhere . . .

OC-2, outrigger canoe, River Bear Racing, Hawaiin boat, married couple on the water, lake kayaking, lake canoeing, tandem canoe

In the crispness of the salty air waifing all the way to the east side of Tampa, I recall our relaxed stroll through the sales lot of the RV park where we were staying. Lazy Days indeed. We dreamed about upgrading our Tin Can Ranch, a dream that would be realized just a couple of years later for reasons that were more puzzling than exciting. Even so, that night was magical with you. Were we even supposed to be out there? Kind of weird in a way to pick this memory when a walk along the Sunset Beach would have held so much more charm and majesty. Well we did that too another night . . .

I’ve rarely felt smaller yet more in awe as when you showed me around Palisades Reservoir along the most southeastern corner of Idaho that one could go. After we launched, there was no one around for probably miles except for the moose you had seen the day before! Would we see them crashing into the water from the woods this afternoon too? The water was as blue as you could ever find: crisp and clear and oh so refreshing as it sprayed off our carbon paddles moving that OC-2 to parts unknown. Your confidence as a competitive paddler calmed my fear of flipping over in a place where no one would ever see or hear us. Did we have all we needed for a fabulous adventure? I think so . . .

The laughter burst forth easily as we took turns zipping along Lake Wauwasee on the jet ski we rented for your birthday. Daniel and Rebekah took turns as we all did, knowing that your other adult children Christina and Patrick would have had a blast too if they could have been with us as well. But it was our friends Ed and Kinsey that would end up joining us later at The Frog Tavern when we ran into them near the end of our outing. Imagine that! It was such a wonderful day . . .

The thrill was palpable as we zoomed in your Dad’s MG along the coast of Solana Beach and beyond. Dang that engine was loud and the clutch barely held a gear! It wasn’t too much for you my lover of all things that fly through the air whether on land, sea, and now THE SKY! Your kids were still a little weirded-out by our recent wedding then extensive travel together from Indiana to California two months later. Eventually they chilled some. Eventually I came to understand how meaningful that trip really would become in opening up the stories of your life to me as we stayed in your parents’ home. Let’s ride in a convertible along Highway 1 again sometime soon . . .

Waiting on the tarmac of the Kendallville airport that cool evening held much anticipation as you completed the FAA exam for your Private Pilot license. I wanted to be the first to congratulate you on realizing your lifelong dream to fly! The wind sock and other funky towers whose purpose I still don’t understand faded from view as the night sky filled the viewfinder of my camera phone. And then you came in for a landing: just you, pilot-in-command! What a privilege it was and continues to be for me to witness the desires of your heart taking flight. No experiences I have had in my past years compare to the calling to get behind your man when he is being blessed by the Lord. I pray that I get to be in the cockpit with you again soon my love . . .

So this night, when I can hardly travel at all with you nor fly nor paddle nor lie in your arms lest the wretchedness of illness take over, I long for another adventure with you. Is it the enduring the tumultuous trials of our times and the stretching of our souls that must suffice for the awesome view of a mountain lake, a $100 hamburger by way of a bumpy flight in the RV12, or the crisp scent of a beckoning water body virtually anywhere? Do the sometimes demonic trials that test all we know about life and love and faith and time and space earn us a better day when we can live freely in the moment, hand in hand, without a care at all? Lord willing, this side of heaven?

I do long for you my love. I long for all the more that we can wander through together without the pains of this life the Lord has allowed which sidelines them, albeit for His purposes. Will you hang in there with me? Please don’t ever stop asking me to join you in your adventures for one day I may be able to say yes! And do cherish me tenderly as you go. I am hurting from the trials of late. This too shall pass with proper care and perhaps more time than either of us would like. You are my intended beloved not just the one with whom I am somehow stuck by some vows. I do respect you. And I do love you dearly.

What do I long for? I do believe, he is already here . . .

The trials of discontent

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Perhaps the greatest challenge a follower of Jesus Christ must face in his or her walk with the Lord is how to handle the evil that is in our world. When it touches our own lives in the form of discontent, when things are not as we think they should be and we are unable to accept it, then we may be tempted to break fellowship with the Lord our God. He has ordained the length of our days, the vessel in which we live, and every detail of our lives whether good or bad. Recently it occurred to me that not accepting His will for my life is a sin that keeps me from any form of peace. And now I know from wence it came.

A particularly horrific convulsive episode about a week ago left me whimpering on our bed. The searing pain in my neck and broken frame notwithstanding, I wondered for the several thousandth time, “how can I endure this level of suffering Lord?” My Jesus had shown me many incredible things through the trials of battling serious illness; my Jesus was always right there with me when I called upon His throne of grace. But like the old song goes, “Is this all there is?” Is this all there is to my life when entire beautiful days upon days are spent suffering in bed?

The truth that we see is not all that there is to know or behold in this life. Only by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ do we come to understand what the fullness of life means. We will have both joy and sorrow. We confess our failings, surrender our will to the Lord, and receive the Holy Spirit, beginning our eternity right here in the midst of all the good and bad; He helps us endure all things for His glory. But I didn’t know all of this when I was 3 years old. All I knew is that a neighbor boy named Danny was babysitting us and molested me while I was taking a nap in my big girl bed. I knew where the pills were that my mother took. So at some point thereafter I crawled up onto the kitchen counter, opened the cabinet door, reached way up onto the top shelf, grabbed that bottle of pills and ate a bunch of them. The only other memory I have of the incident was feeling scared while lying on a gurney in a hospital. I must have been crying too because the images are unclear. I had to go to the bathroom. I asked if I could get up and go to the bathroom and a man said NO. I felt the warmth of the urine on my legs and underneath me as someone said something about pumping out my stomach. And then I was OUT.

In a single flash of a moment after that convulsive episode, I knew what the Lord was trying to tell me. Or at least I think I do! He was showing me that by taking those pills, even as a small child who knew she had been hurt badly by someone everyone trusted, I was trying to take away the pain and the life that God had allowed for me. My little mind could not bear what had happened to me. The reality that the ugliness of that scene was ordained by the same God who created me and crafted all of my days from beginning to this end was too much to understand. I would not have been old enough to say the words to my Mom or Dad describing what that boy had done to me nor felt safe doing so. My parents weren’t exactly touchy-feely type folks. Can a 3-year old feel shame? Dirty? Worthless? Overwhelmed? Traumatized? Terrorized? Surely! While I have known, grieved, and forgiven the players in this scene for a long time now, I didn’t know that my survival from that day forward in my own strength would be marred by discontent. Nothing in my life would be good enough, or so I thought, to make me truly happy or at peace EVER. The seeds of several of my character flaws were planted that afternoon. I know that it wasn’t my fault any of this happened. I was just a little kid. To survive abuse is actually a noble task and accomplishment. What IS my responsibility, however, is to figure out what to do with what happened to me, layer-by-layer as each level of understanding is revealed in my walk with the Lord over my lifetime. In due time we must all ask ourselves: Will I grow up damaged or will I heal and thrive? Fifty-seven years later, the wound from this particular scene finally healed completely.

I grew up in what you would call a “blue collar” family. My Grandfathers worked in their respective trades: my Dad’s father as an auto mechanic and my Mom’s father as a maintenance man/operator in the boiler room of an ice cream factory. My Dad got a job at the General Motors Tech Center as a non-degreed draftsman. Each of them were very skilled at their respective vocations. My Dad in particular, would end up redesigning slot car motors to make them among the fastest in the world and co-authored over 30 clutch-assembly patents with Borg Warner later in his life. Although each of them would earn a living wage to support his family such that their wives could stay home and raise the children, there was always an attitude that it was not enough. I have come to call this mindset a “scarcity” mentality. The adults in my family never seemed satisfied with the income or the lifestyle or the relationships to which they acquired. First it was my Mother’s Mom taking the last of her grocery money to purchase tickets in the Irish sweepstakes. If only she would win then she would be happy! I think she did win a time or two. I don’t think it ever changed much of anything though.

The harder part of this dynamic for me came from my parents, especially my Mom. “If only we could win the lottery” she would say, “then . . . .” fill in the blank with some material gain of some sort that she thought would solve our problems and bring happiness. Without realizing it, I adopted this mantra as well. It sure helped when my parents got divorced or when my Dad missed a visitation or when my Mom wouldn’t come home at night from her carousing adventures with Parents Without Partners. If we had a windfall of cash then it would solve all of our problems, right? This was back in the days before there was common knowledge that most people’s lives are not better when they win the lottery! Family relationships tank when relatives come calling for money and out-of-control personal spending often leaves the prize winner in debt not set for life! Sadly this mindset and experiences of abuse and trauma contributed to addictive behavior in my teenage and young adult years. What became my addiction of choice that I thought was my winning ticket out of my inner turmoil? Work-a-holism. I nearly drove myself into permanent injury working so hard at school, the early days of my career in healthcare, graduate school, and one relationship after another. By the grace of God, He showed me a better way when I learned about addictions when doing contract work at a large mental health hospital. My years continuing to seek answers ultimately led to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. A new level of healing and a less frenzied pace of life began in my thirties.

That wasn’t the end of my discontent, however. Somehow I still looked more outside of myself than to the Cross for meaning, healing, self-worth, hope. A handwriting analysis in my youth said I was a very determined person. Well, yes, and that was not necessarily a good thingy! I sought counseling and studied God’s Word which did help me in many good ways. Yet like breaking in a wild colt, it still took repeated heavy tragedies from 2003 to 2007 to soften me for the biggest gift and the biggest trial that were yet to come. I am meeting you here after both of them: 1) marrying my Intended Beloved Steve and 2) enduring a serious illness that brought thousands of seizures virtually every day over 9 the past years. I have been grateful for the former.

Steve is an amazing man of God who loves me dearly as I do him. The serious illness not-so-much. I had never accepted the Convulsive Disorder or Dysautonomia or Dystonia or Functional Movement Disorder or Non-epileptic seizures or whatever you want to call it. What I came to realize this past week is that not accepting this illness is not a form of defeat. Rather, it’s not accepting that this is the Lord’s will for my life for my best good. It is the journey for me that will bring Him glory. And how am I handling it? I am denying His will for my life when I reject the pain and suffering that goes with the numerous blessings. Instead, I must trust that like all of the trials that have happened in my past, this illness serves a greater purpose. I may or may not ever really know what that purpose is. The episodes and medical complications may never stop. If I am to succeed at letting go of my discontentment with a traumatic event in my life at age 3 years old, I must also let go of the other thing that I hate in my life. Believing otherwise is believing a lie: a lie from the author of human suffering, sin, and death himself, Satan. No magical thinking (like a lottery mentality) is going to cover or remedy this lie. I MUST DENOUNCE my discontent, leaving it for my Lord to redeem.

How about if I repeat that another way:

No happiness or peace will come if I hold onto discontent over the Lord’s will in my life.

I knew in an instant, why that memory of me as a toddler came to me while grieving after another seizure. Both sorrows were and are part of my Lord’s Divine plan for my life. He will redeem my suffering one day and it will end. He will make all things new and good, and right; I will be whole. In the meantime, I am a steward of the experiences, people, places, and things He ordains for my life. My responsibility is to accept them with no expectations, no exceptions, no deal-making (“if only this . . . then that”), no holding back. So that night I let both sorrows go and wept deeply for a good long while.

Sometime later I shared my inner story of this incident with my beloved Stevers. He is warm and tender at these times as if to be my Jesus with skin-on. I am so blessed to be loved by this man after God’s own heart. His response? He marveled at how long abuse can affect the life of an abused person. Years. Decades. That a person can carry hurt his or her entire life because of the evil actions of someone who hurt them when they were little. I agreed. Yet for me, the hurt is never the same each time I get to revisit it. Each time I get to grieve some more. I get to heal some more. It takes what it takes. I get to see how the Lord uses even the ugly stuff to give me tools for coping and a gift of compassion for others. If I had not developed work-a-holism and that health challenge of hypoglycemia then I would have become an alcoholic. How do I know? My siblings and Mother were alcoholics, my Dad was mentally ill. One brother who overcame alcoholism struggled to find meaningful work then tragically had a stroke and was never able to function independently again up until he died earlier this year. He suffered with unspeakable pain and spasms every waking hour of his life. He had traded his bottles for cigarettes. What I am trying to say is that each of us had horrific wounds to overcome. Today I am the only one still here of my immediate family to write the stories. Oh Lord, may these words yield some goodness beyond the tales of sorrow for the goodness that is there too.

Because there is much redeeming value in our stories beyond the sorrows. Nothing is wasted Gentle Reader, in God’s economy of time and space. Letting go of the sin of discontent, perhaps after grieving its root-cause, is a work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. He will bring you to it and see you through it. Healing is complicated and can take a very long time to process. Be encouraged. I tell you as in the song of Peggy Lee, the BAD is not all there is to a fire or the circus of the circumstances in our lives or a long lost love! There’s even more to life than the happiness of a fleeting moment such as in a windfall or slow dance with your beloved. Just go to the Cross. There you will find a peace that transcends all understanding. The best gift of all is waiting there for you this day, this night. He promises. On this we can rely.

Will you? JJ