Window of Hopelessness

Last night I watched an old episode of House in which Dr. Cuddy had to negotiate a deal with an insurance company. She asked for a 12% increase in the amount the company paid.

Throughout the episode, several things went horribly wrong. An employee was caught stealing meds. She was late for the insurance meeting. Her baby was sick and she couldn’t reach the sitter. The day was a disaster. And on top of that, the insurance company refused her offer. Several times.

Dr. Cuddy made several bold moves, with the intention of trying to get the insurance company to agree to her offer. They flat out refused. She interrupted an insurance rep’s lunch to offer an ultimatum which earned her an increase.

But it wasn’t enough.

She told them her hospital wasn’t going to accept their insurance anymore, effective at 3:00 pm.

And the whole hospital was in chaos over it.

For the next two hours, Dr. Cuddy put out fires related to the stealing employee and the insurance company and she was so discouraged by 4:45 that she told people she was going to turn in her letter of resignation.

She turned around….

And ran into the insurance company rep who handed her an envelope and said “congratulations. You got your 12%.”

Sometimes our miracles come when we are at the end of our rope and well past the deadline. Sometimes we have to get to the end of all of our options and then wait a little while longer before that one last detail falls into place.

Don’t give up. Yet. Because sometimes, it takes just a little bit longer than we have. Sometimes, when it feels like it’s a lost cause, that is when Jesus can step forward and move the last piece into place.

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

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It’s the waiting.

The waiting is what hurts our hearts.

We try.

We do our part.

We give it everything we have.

And then we wait.

We wait while discouragement settles in and becomes a faithful companion. We wait while every last option floats away and we are left clinging to hope for something that could have been.

And after hope is gone, we wait those two hours that sometimes stretches into two decades and we struggle with discouragement and fear and wondering what our next option will be — and if there will be any next option.

And if hospital dramas are any indication, at that last possible second…. just as we’re about to slam the door on our dreams, something changes. Our vision becomes clear. And we finally find victory.

Don’t get discouraged during the two hour window after all hope is gone. That is where Jesus is. That is where grace lingers and where hope dwells just around the corner.

I was given a thorn in my flesh,
a messenger of Satan, to torment me.
Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.
But he said to me,
“My grace is sufficient for you,
for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses,
so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
II Corinthians 12:7-9

Give glory and honor to Jesus, even in the two-hour window of hopelessness. Because His grace is enough. His power is unending. And your victory is near.

 

The Least of These

My church talked about what worship means today. And that got me to thinking about the different ways churches I’ve been part of have viewed it.

There are many ways to look at worship. People who teach primarily from the Old Testament talk about worship as a series of postures, attitudes and sounds. David danced naked before the Lord in worship. You’re supposed to raise your hands. Kneel. Clap your hands. Dance, shout, and if you’re a little Charismatic too, shout or sing in tongues.

The Old Testament is all about the rules and having a theology of worship based on the Old Testament will give you a legalistic, rule-based worship model that can feel very chaotic at times.

I attended a church like that for a while. When I attended this church, there were several times when revelers took me aside and scolded me for not being “worshipful” enough. One particular incident occurred when a woman pulled me aside — actually taking me outside the building — to talk to me about how I was sinning because I wasn’t dancing and she wondered if I was “really saved” since I was living in such rebellion. I am a contemplative person. Worship aerobics is not my thing. Running around like a chicken with its head cut off does not bring me closer to the heart of God. It just doesn’t.

John 4:24 says  “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” I don’t claim to be a great theologian, but my understanding of that verse is that God is saying that He wants our worship to be honest. If we want something to touch the deepest part of the Spirit of God, it needs to come out of the deepest part of our hearts. Wild gyrations and screaming at the top of my lungs isn’t in the deepest part of my heart and my behaving that way in worship does nothing to sway Him because He hasn’t put those things in me. If I did those things, I would be allowing myself to be manipulated into being something someone else wanted me to be instead of being who God created me to be. I don’t think God responds to or cares for manipulation or worship birthed out of manipulation. Most of the time, I was adamant about not participating in this ritual because it did not feel genuine to me.

I moved to my current location 7 years ago and the culture here is so different. No one cares what I do in church. For the longest time, I would find myself bawling in church because I had the freedom to be who I am. No one cared if I raised my hands. No one cared if I clapped my hands. It was pretty normal to not dance or gyrate or holler in church, although sometimes it happened. But no one expected it and no one cared one way or the other. It was a very liberating experience for me because I was finally allowed to be myself in church. It was a beautiful thing.

If those things are your thing, then by all means, knock yourself out. Not literally. But, if God made you a dancer or a shouter or a tongue-speaking screamer, then by all means, you just do you. No judgement from me. I love to see how people are different. Everyone is unique and no one’s personal worship style is wrong or bad, unless it contains things like murdering children or seducing or raping people. I draw the line right there. Treat yourself and everyone else with respect and you’re good.

But, as I was talking with a couple of friends about this today, one of them asked me what I think worship is. If screaming and jumping around isn’t your thing, then what does it really look like?

And I said, “I have no clue.”

I mean, I probably could have thought of something if I had had more time. But in that moment, I wasn’t coming up with anything. This is what I came up with later:

One of the verses discussed in the sermon follows:

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Romans 12:1 (NIV)

True and proper worship involves offering your bodies as a living sacrifice. Once again, I am no great theologian. The original scripts are Greek to me (and probably everyone else too, since I think that verse was actually originally in Greek) and I can only draw my conclusions from English translations. That’s the best I can do. To me, offering yourself as a living sacrifice involves sacrificially loving and serving those around you. It means going without something you might want so you can provide for someone else’s need. It means taking two minutes to sit with a blind person and describing the sunset so they can experience it too. It means taking a minute to tell a child who can’t talk that they are so very important and so very loved. It means sitting with an elderly woman who lives with dementia and is terrified because she can’t remember. It means buying lunch for a homeless person or sitting in silence with a mama who has just lost her unborn baby and doesn’t have words to describe her grief and hopelessness. It means sometimes taking a minute away from those needs to attend to your own needs so that you can be a truly living sacrifice because if you run yourself into the ground, you might be sacrificing, but you’re not truly living in the process. Self care is actually a service to God. Taking care of yourself is worship.

I got to thinking about my work. I truly have the best job in the world. I get to sit with a sweet little boy all day and play and read and have dance parties and sometimes we just work really hard at breathing, because sometimes that is a very hard thing to do. A lot of times we snuggle and share lots of love and stories and music. Sometimes we talk about all the things that matter most, like life and love and happiness although his part of the conversation is hard to understand sometimes since his language is smiles and giggles and grunts and moans and moving his arms and legs. But we talk, and everything he says matters. Everything he does is noticed. We giggle together. We talk. We sing and we just have fun.

And all of it. All of it. Everything I do with him is worship.

I was reminded of this passage:

Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’
“Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’ Matthew 25:34-40 (NKJV)

And the awesome thing about it? None of it is hard. It comes out from the deepest part of my heart and it blesses my little guy. It blesses his family. And it blesses the Father, who put that kind of worship within me with the intention of seeing it flow out of me from morning until night, every day of my life. He didn’t put crazy, boisterous stuff in me because “the least of these” that I am around every day don’t need boisterousness as much as they need gentleness and kindness and attention and love.

True worship….It’s being who you are and loving those around you.

Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.
James 1:27 (NKJV)

 

 

Significance

In the span of two days, I had two conversations with people about how and why I’m not going to get married.

The first conversation took place after someone introduced me to an eligible bachelor. Several hours later, she asked why I didn’t talk about him after he left.

There comes a point in life when you know that no matter what you do, nothing is going to change and you just don’t try anymore because every effort you put into it just breaks your heart a little more.

I’m reminded of a time when my friend called me and said “My car won’t start! Can you fix it?”

It was so cold that day. I gave it my best shot and tears froze on my cheeks as I banged around trying to get that dang car going. By the time I gave up in frustration, I couldn’t feel my fingers or toes anymore. I cussed out her worthless husband who had more important things to do than to be tied down by his wife and children and their needs. I told her to tell him to get his good-for-nothin derrière over there and fix it. I took my tools and went home.

I sat there and shivered and cried and God said, “Some things are not meant for you. Fixing cars is one of those things.”

It was such a freeing moment for me. I wanted to help but nothing I could do would make a difference. And God said, “It’s ok. This trial is not meant for you.” I took a few minutes to brainstorm with my friend to develop a plan for next time — because there will be a next time. And fixing cars will never be a task that is meant for me. But that was the last time I worried about somebody else’ car — because that stuff isn’t meant for me and we have a plan for next time.

Marriage is another of those things. I will never be married. I’ve known this since I was 3 years old. Sometimes you just know these things.

I told my friend that I have no reason to think this will ever change because there was the guy who just wanted a place to live without having to put any money into it. She laughed and said he wasn’t worth my time anyway. Unequivocally.

Then there was the guy who told me I was hot while he was drunk, in front of the girl who had had a crush on him for years and years and she destroyed my life because of it. (Because it’s my fault he was more interested in me than he was in her?)

There was the other one who never showed up for most of the dates he scheduled with me because he slept through them.

My friend chuckled at these anecdotes.

There was the guy that my “friends” tried to hook me up with but I said no because I didn’t much feel like being a nice little doormat for him to wipe his shoes on for the rest of my life and when I asked why they were so convinced that he and I should be a thing, they said, “Because if you were together, he’d talk to you instead of bugging us all the time.”

Dang.

There was the guy who monopolized my time for 8 months and then I found out that he had a girlfriend in another state the whole time.

My friend had stopped laughing by this time.

The guy who kept giving vague promises of “maybe….. Someday…..” and ended up breaking up with me 4 times in the same restaurant over the course of about a year. Two of the breakups happened in the same booth at that restaurant.

The guy who hadn’t been employed for 4 years and was content to not talk about it until after I confronted him with the evidence I found 2 days before he came to meet me in person. It turned out that he looked like he was at least 25 years older than he said he was and he was looking for someone to be his mother or nurse or something. He was very disappointed when I told him that his dishonesty was a deal-breaker for me. Maybe I was a jerk, but I thought it should go without saying that no girl wants to be stuck with an old man who won’t work.

The guy who asked me to commit to seeing him not less than 4 times before deciding for sure about him. He emotionally and mentally checked out about halfway through the second date and although he was physically present for the other two, he never emotionally or mentally returned. He was shocked when I told him I knew half-way through the second date that he wasn’t into it and I had seriously contemplated telling him he didn’t need to come for #3 or #4. (Oh, why did I waste my time on that one?)

With a history like that, what reason do I have to think anything will ever be different?

Her response was “You need therapy.”

(I’m getting used to being told that I need therapy. It happens approximately 3 times a week these days.)

What reason do I have to dream of ever being something more than a pile of garbage to anyone? It just doesn’t seem worth it to make an effort toward this anymore.

A few days later, I talked to my grandma. My grandma is amazing. I love her so much.

Grandma was telling me about gifts she had made for my cousins and brothers for their weddings and I said in a dry, sarcastic tone, “I’m not going to get married so I guess I don’t get any.”

Grandma knows my heart. She knows I wasn’t asking for anything. I was just stating a fact. We’ve talked about the state of my life before and she understands better than anyone.

The next day, I drove the 3+ hours to her home. Last year, she and I and several other family members had gone on a genealogical expedition in which we had visited dead relatives in several cemeteries. My family likes studying genealogy and whenever we get together, Grandma tells me about the latest pieces of information she has found. It’s really fascinating and I love hearing stories about my people.

But it’s also really, really heartbreaking. There will come a day when no one is going to care about whether I had ever existed. No one will care where my grave is. No one is ever going to say “And this was my great, great grandmother Mari…..”

I cry about this sometimes.

Actually, I cry every time I think about it.

Some of my family members think I need to be part of the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Mayflower Society or some such thing that I really don’t care about. Those things are for people who have children and people who have the possibility of having children. That will never be me. I wish they would stop asking me. It’s just another reminder of how insignificant I am.

Grandma told me a story about when someone wanted to get me into those clubs and I reiterated that I don’t see a point in it because I’m never going to have children.

We went about our business. You know, playing cards, fixing the stapler, and failing miserably at trying to fix the showerhead — apparently staplers aren’t the right tool for that. And, showerhead fixing isn’t meant for me either, apparently.

A little while later, Grandma brought in a soft, patchwork baby blanket she had started making. She said, “Would you like this to put in your hope chest for when you get to adopt a baby? I can finish it for you if you want it.”

I almost cried.

Yes! Yes, I want it!

I want it because it’s a symbol that someone believes there is hope, even when I just can’t.

 

Grace For Even This

A long time ago, I loved to write.

As a child and teen, I had no outlet except for the blank page, and I filled many hundreds of pages with scribblings. Letters. A story now and again. Pain. Trauma. Loneliness. Desperation. Longing.

For a period of time, every single day, I wrote
God, give me patience!
in big letters on every single page, many times on each page.
I also wrote it in small letters, backhand letters, right slant letters, drunk-like scribbles, chicken scratch, beautiful swirly letters, block letters, angry letters, desperate letters. Broken letters.

I was going through some of the most difficult days I’d ever had.

God, grant me the serenity….
Ah, serenity. I could use some of that.
To accept the things I cannot change….
To accept… everything?
Courage to change the things I can….
Is there really anything I can change?
And the wisdom to know the difference.
Is there a difference?

When I got to be about 17 years old, my life was a mess. I don’t remember much from that time, except that I delivered newspapers twice a week and I made my first attempt at writing, editing and publishing. Those things were the…. happy times.

There were dark times. Many, many dark times. Times when I was paralyzed by fear. Anxiety rolled me up into a little ball and I’d spend most of my time curled up on the floor behind my bed or just laying on my bed, thinking. Depression gripped me. The two — anxiety and depression — gathered me up in their icy fingers and pulled me behind a translucent curtain that allowed me to see only grey shadows of all the wonderful things everybody else was experiencing while the voices of desperation and panic and fear eerily whispered in my ear.

That was then.

I didn’t know how bad it could get.

As days turned to weeks and weeks into years, experience piled on top of experience. Pain upon pain. Sadness upon pain and worry and loneliness. Desperation on top of sadness and depression on top of disappointment.

Hope deferred makes the heart sick.
Every hope was deferred.

Tears upon tears, wounds wound with bandages that served only to keep the pain in and the outside out.

A decade turned into two.
Heart-sick and broken.
Words came no more.
What had once been delightful ideas, hopeful thoughts and beautiful pictures turned into two word sentences, repeated over and over again.

Help me.

Help me, in backhand. Help me! in curly-qs and swirly letters. Help me! in desperation, in brokenness, in pain. Help me! because there were no other words that my brain could put together.

Just.
HELP.
ME!

Hope deferred.
It makes the heart sick.
It makes the mind sick.
It makes the body sick.

I have a mental illness.

Looking at my history, it makes sense that I would.
My other grandma was crazy enough that I was scared of her.Childhood trauma often leads to mental illness of one kind or another.
And, of course, hope deferred makes the heart sick.

Five years ago, I had it all together. I worked. I paid my bills. I budgeted and paid off thousands in loans. I went to church. I was involved in ministry at church. I sang, I prayed, I served, I loved.

And then my world collapsed.
When my world collapsed, my already fragile psyche teetered one more time before one by one, the support beams came crashing down.

I was so “down” that I was down and out.
I was down in the dumps and out of commission.

But I tried. Oh, how I tried.
I did well enough that only two people suspected that something was off. One was a man I knew very briefly and the other was my best friend. The man was the first one to confront me. He told me to go get help. I saw a psychologist who referred me to a medical doctor for a prescription.

I was terrified to take it. Because demons. Because spiritual sickness. Because it was all my fault. Because addiction? Because unknowns.

The day I filled the prescription, I prayed that it would work. I took the first capsule, drifted off to sleep and the next morning, I woke up and noticed that the sun was shining and the fact that the sun was shining made me happy.

I couldn’t remember the last time something actually made me happy.

I lay in bed for several minutes with a goofy grin on my face, then I got up and went about my day like being happy and having a peaceful mind were something I did every day.

It worked for a while.

Then stress. Then desperation. Then pain.

Everything I had experienced before was magnified by 10.

Then more stress. More pain. More unknowns.
(Another magnification by 10)
Medication change, additional medication, an as needed medication added.

Every change helped — for a while. But eventually, I’d revert back to where I had been before. Many times, I’d hit an uncontrollable downward spiral.

That is where I am right now.
I had the most recent medication change in April, and by August, it isn’t working so well anymore.
True, I can at least put words together again. That’s a comfort. It means that in some ways I’m better.
But….
But- the sadness and fear linger.

I worry.

I worry that no man will ever want to love me.
Should I even entertain the idea of hoping for romance?
I worry that something will happen at work and I won’t know what to do.
Should I even be a nurse at all?
I worry that I won’t be able to pay my bills.
I should never have bought a house.
I worry that if by some fluke I get married and get pregnant, I’ll go off the deep end.
Maybe I could just give up that idea.
I worry that people will hate me because I’m scared.
Is isolation a better choice?
I worry that my car will break down, my food will make me sick, I won’t be able to afford lunch, my doctor won’t know how to help me, pastors might exploit my willing and generous spirit. I worry about the kids I love, about bird flu and cancer and the possibility of having a horrendous winter.
Oh, how I worry.

This is my life. This is what mental illness is like. It’s hard. It’s awful. It’s terrifying.

The past few days, I’ve been thinking specifically about romance and babies and laughter and happiness.
It all seems so elusive to me.
It’s really not fair to ask a man to love me. Not with all the cray-cray in my brain.
It’s not fair to ask him to choose between living with an unstable and moody woman for 9-10 months while she gestates a baby or giving up the possibility of having biological children. How would you even make that decision?
It wouldn’t be fair to the child if I were to take medication while pregnant — because birth defects.

Who would even want to love somebody like that????

I stewed over this for a couple of days. I thought about possibilities for alternative treatments. I thought about lots of things. I studied gene mutations to see if maybe that could be “it.”
Because I want to be better.
Oh, what I wouldn’t give to have a peaceful mind!

After work today, I sat down to read a few scriptures before going on to the next task. I thought about all the things I’ve looked into and all the problems and issues I have and how happiness is so far out of my league. I thought about a lot of things.

And then I felt the Holy Spirit whisper to me….
But you try.
I do.
You know what it is and you are learning what your triggers are.
I hope so!
You are always trying to find answers and you’re willing to do whatever it talks to get better.
Yes! I don’t want to be another version of the other grandma!
You aren’t simply giving in to it like so many others do.
Gosh, I hope not!
It’s ok.
Oh, how I hope so!
Grace covers even this.

 

And After You Have Done Everything

The past few days, I’ve kind of felt like I couldn’t take any more. And after I decided that I couldn’t take any more, I found out that I could take a lot more than I thought I could.

I hate it when that happens.

But, I also love it.

Because when I can’t take any more, that’s when I stop trying so hard.

In a way, I give up.

But I don’t give up in order to wallow in hopelessness.

I give up on having it my way.

I give up so I can wallow in God.

Because sometimes, you just need to rest.

I like Ephesians 6:13. Therefore, put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.

I like that verse because it talks about practicalities. Yes, prepare. Yes, protect yourself. Yes, do what you need to do to stand up for yourself. But, after you have done everything, you can stop doing. Your job is to just stand. Don’t give up — but take some time to just be. Rest. Gather yourself together. Just stand.

I had a situation today where I had to decide when to stop “doing” and when to start “standing.” I was so tempted to just give up. I was sick of all the drama and all the backstabbing. But then I was reminded that after I had done everything I could do, I still needed to stand. I still needed to be me, and I still needed to do what I’ve always done, because I do what I do out of love, not out of a desire for recognition. Regardless of how I feel about what’s going on, there are people who need me. So right now, my job is to stand. My job is to not let discouragement get the best of me. My job is to keep on keeping on.