Wiley Coyote and The Roadrunner

I haven't posted in over a month. Some of it is because I had allowed myself to be so consumed with relational stuff I got tired of the same questions going around and around in my head. The other part is that I've been a little depressed because of my injured knee. I'm happy to say my knee is healing well and I think I'm going to avoid surgery. Yay!!!

I got to the point of surrender with my relationship with H. I wasn't getting answers and with or without him was going to work. There wasn't a best case scenario. So I finally told God. Whatever you want... His response was a quick picture in my brain. A 3 second clip of the Warner Bros Coyote chasing the road runner. As I processed that, I started to see all the attempts Wiley made to catch the roadrunner. I immediately understood that was me and my husband. H trying anything he can to catch me. Me running, playing emotional games, never truly committing.
Then I say to God, but he left. And I heard "meep, meep" in the familiar WB Roadrunner tone and again I understood. He gets tired of the chase and I re-engage him. All it takes is for me to pop up in his face, meep at him and the chase is on.

At this point, I find myself getting a little defensive. The word "but" starts to form but before it makes it out I am shut down. It was my cue to listen. As I surrendered, I suddenly began to get more. I saw the pain I was causing him. All the fears I had expressed about not being attractive, not making it alone in the future, not feeling loved. I saw how I was and just wasn't able to see it. I saw how my fears have rules my past, present and potential future.

Then God took me to my unforgivness, resentments and bitterness. I saw how I made most of it up because of my fear. I needed him to be the bad guy so I could justify my own insecurities. True, he has hit me. True, he has controlled me. True, he has been jealous. But he has never wavered on his love for me. I always have. He hasn't laid a hand on me in years. His underlying anger has disappeared. He has been humbling himself and doing whatever he can to make things right. Nothing I've acknowledged nor supported other than my occasional meep.

There are still new boundaries on this journey. But what was most amazing about surrendering and spending time with God was the healing that has taken place. God showed me the man H is and He showed me that H can't be that man until I'm steady. H has done his time. He has repented. God is working in him and it's time for me to stop putting faith in what I think I know and start living the way I know how.

After eating crow and apologizing for the years of pain that I have caused my husband, we had a wonderful talk and an understanding. He would control and be jealous when he thought he had caught me out of fear of losing me. I calmed those fears. Showed him a heart he knew was there but has never seen and he didn't run like I was sure he would. He stood there and told me I am beautiful. Still makes me cry when I talk about it. For the first time I believed him. Oh he probably meant it before, I just couldn't hear him. But now I do.

I'm not naive enough to think from here on its going to be a bed of roses. However without the doubt and anger, we stand a much better chance and I feel better knowing I'm more clear headed about it all.

I don't know how much I'm going to be able to write. Even though I'm not working, I'm staying busy. I'm excited to say our team wants to start our own ministry at our church! It might be a lot of work but it's the good kind of work. The kind where I spend several hours a day in prayer so that God can speak and direct our steps. Its work to shut off the brain. It's peaceful and amazing to be in His presence.

In the meantime, I will daily surrender my inner Roadrunner so she and the Coyote can live happily ever after... :)

Summer Vacation

It's the last week of school and the kids are getting excited. They are bouncing off the walls eagerly awaiting the first day of summer so they can sleep in. Remember those days? I do. The rumbling through the halls with sparks of joy and anticipation as you barely focus on the task at hand to get through one more day of school. It was a fun time!

My little one isn't very proficient in math. It isn't that she doesn't try, it's that she just doesn't get it. Yet we live in a district where she is expected as a 6th grader to know 7th grade math. Because she passed with average scores, she is expected to take an extra math class next year to get her caught up to other kids in her grade...but those kids are already over-achieving. What she is looking forward to the most about summer is that she doesn't have to be constantly reminded that she isn't as good as her peers.

Why do we do that? Are we teaching our kids to compare themselves to other?. To try to compete and measure up instead of teaching them to do their best and try hard. Has it always been that way in the schools?

I never had trouble in school. I aced college; was on the deans list and carried an 3.7 GPA. In middle school and high school, I didn't have to try to do well and was in most of the advanced classes. And yet, somehow I still didn't measure up either. There was always a grade higher, there was always a better option, there was always...perfection. I even challenged myself to see how many things I could letter in during my high school career. I wanted to sport a covered letter jacket and I did. I lettered in academics, fine arts, track, gymnastics, swimming, diving, dance-line, cheerleading, volleyball, tennis, and softball. Never could pick up golf and I didn't like to compete in long races although I did like to run long distances but that was an escape from home. I could do that on week nights when I wasn't allowed to do anything else. Anyway...

Now as an adult I realize that perfection is not possible and yet I still struggle with not being good enough. If I understand that perfections isn't possible because I am a flawed human being, then why  should I be striving to live a life without mistakes? Why can't I accept that I don't have to look like others? Why do I feel guilty that I hold a PhD and yet do nothing with it? Why do I feel shame in staying home with my kids instead of pursuing a lofty career? I assume public perception is that I failed college, I wasn't smart enough to have a career, that having babies and being home with the kids is the only chance I had at having a normal life. Is that really how it is? Or am I making a mountain out of a mole hill?

Despite what society says, I still have my issues with being worthy. I am not worthy of love, I am not worthy of justice, I am not worthy of attention, I am not worthy of care. I must earn those things and if I don't earn them, I cannot expect or assume that anyone is going to care about me. Even as I type that I find myself shaking my head in disbelief. It is so ass-backwards. My thinking is so distorted. But is it? I look at my daughter struggling and wonder if it is all me. Perhaps it isn't. Perhaps the unspoken messages that are drifting around the world are that I must be better. That I need to make a bunch of money, that I need to drive fancy cars and wear lots of diamonds. Maybe the messages are that you are not worthy or good enough so you need to spend a lot more time and money on vacations, on stuff, on college and careers. Maybe the messages are that you must be within the government guidelines of height and weight to be healthy, happy.

Maybe those messages are wrong...and if they are. Then what? How does a person look beyond the stresses of the world and see their strengths? How does a person look in the mirror and feel worthy with all the ways they don't measure up? How does a person say to themselves, "I'm a mess" and still feel good about themselves?

The answer is God and yet even His grace is tough to accept at times. Yet if I can accept His grace and offer that same grace to myself...then life is going to always feel like a summer vacation.

I'm okay with that. :)