Category Archives: Invitations to Leave Lies Behind

A Need to Need

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A Need to Need

Reflections – week 7b

Welcome to week seven (part two) of reflections inspired by my current small groups. Together with some of my favorite women, I’m exploring these books: Father’s House: The Path That Leads Home, and The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness. Next Wednesday’s post for week 8 will conclude this series.

I’m finding joy here, and I’m pleased you’re with me on this journey.

Father’s House. Lesson seven. Myth #41: God turns His back on me when I have needs—especially needs that are annoying or ongoing.

Having needs is a no-go for me, for many reasons. Needing is vulnerable. If I need, I’m giving another person the opportunity to help or ignore me, and that’s way too far out of my control. Needing is weak; it happens because I didn’t plan right, or I made a mistake. In short, needing is never safe. Never. If I’m not strong, I’m worthless. Needs are more likely to create distance than bring connection. I don’t feel safe within my own self to have a need; heaven forbid I need something from my husband or friends, or from God Himself.

Father’s House points out that, “Everywhere Jesus went we encounter His immeasurable goodness—healing ALL who came to Him, delivering people from demonic torment, raising the dead, forgiving sinners, loving the unlovely and dining with the disreputable.”2 Yes, but this is all about doing, and I get hung up there. It sounds like Jesus went around fixing things, but my spiritual experience tells me that’s a mis-read. God hasn’t been much into fixing me. I think the Bible, the way people talk about the Bible, and the way I understand Jesus have given me the wrong idea of Father.

There is a God I know and trust, a Father I have encountered in my anger and fear and self-loathing; in music and friends and words and quietness. I have found His abiding presence in my knotted heartstrings, and in the cadence of my day. But there is also a Father who isn’t going to help me live my life, who is okay with me running on empty and doing only what I can do in my humanness. I am terrified to approach Him with deeply felt needs. Does God actually respond to a person’s real, tangible needs? What about the intangible needs I don’t even have words for? How often will God “meet” my needs, whatever that means? If it’s one time out of ten, I’d rather not ask.

I want a loving Father’s help, but the stakes feel high. I always end up angry at Him, at me, or at both of us—probably because I have expectations. I want a contract. In fact, a prenuptial agreement would be nice. I’d like to know what I get out of this when God stops showing up.

But I also want to know what it’s like to be cared for. I want to trust, to settle into what is better than a contract.

Father’s House. Day Two. Page 125: “Now climb up in [Papa’s] lap in His big chair and tell Him what you need from Him. Lay it all out.”3 I’m terrified to admit that I need to be lavishly loved, that I want to be celebrated. But I know I will settle for less if I keep clutching my needs, unwilling to hold them out, to allow someone else to see them. So I follow directions. I make a list of what I need from Papa.

I need You to bless me.
I need You to see me.
I need Your seeing to precipitate action on my behalf.
I need You to remind me it’s okay not to be useful.
I need You to move toward me with interest and intention.
I need You to want to hear from me as much when I’m doing poorly as when I’m doing well.
I need You to like being with me.
I need You to behave extravagantly toward me.
I need to be wedded to You—a forever kind of togetherness.
I need “enough” to be out of the equation—no evaluating.
I need to order takeout and waste time with You, in my pajamas.
I need to hold hands with You.
I need You to ask how I’m doing and listen without an agenda.

My list surprises me. It seems I’m more interested in being seen and loved than being served or dealt a fair hand. I’m not sure how I feel about this. I know relationship is better than rules, but sometimes I want God to follow the rules. Sometimes predictable feels safe.

Maybe predicting is rather like weather forecasting. You end up with a mix of everything, undefined no matter how hard you try to define it. But, every day we know there will be weather. I don’t know how God is going to show up today, but I know He’s going to show up. It might not be the sunshine I prayed for, but I need never fear I’ll wake up to a day with no weather at all. God is alive and I am alive, and there are days when all that aliveness is unpredictable, stormy, maybe even disastrous. But no one will wonder if anything happened that day. We’ll know. So I don’t need God to run my life, or predict my life, or change the forecast to be in my favor. I just need Him to like me and see me and bless me, and keep showing up.

It is safe to have needs in Papa’s house.

Gregory Boyle writes that when we are “held by a no-matter-what-ness” we can “reidentify and accept [ourselves] with a mystical wholeness. You can then discard all those things that previously you held back. The places where you used to get stuck. … After that, it’s not so much smooth sailing as it is resilient and integrated enough to deepen the sense of your own truth.”4 My truth is that God’s Spirit joins with my mine to affirm that I am His child (Romans 8:16). I hear His affirmation, and I make another list.

God says,
I’m so glad you’re here.
I love holding you.
I love being with you.
I am and I have all that you need.
Together, let’s rest in what is finished. Let’s rest for a long time.
Let’s be together with no distractions. Let’s have fun together.
Let’s go for a walk, get ice cream, love every person we see.
Let’s enjoy and create.
Let’s take everything that burdens and stresses you and put it on my docket. You’re free.
Let’s do relationships together. Let’s parent together.
Let me spoil you. Let me do more than you “deserve.”
Let me warm you and feed you and provide a feast of beauty for your eyes.
Let’s be alive together. I release you from the identity of responsible servant-child and name you sparkling heiress. I’m your Daddy. I made this world and the people in it. You can’t break anything or anyone in a way that I can’t re-make.
I always have your back (and your front and sides).
I know you. You don’t ever need to hide, or explain yourself to me. You make perfect sense.
You’re exactly where you need to be. Every moment.
You are not bound or caged. You are wild and free and alive.
You cannot lose my favor. I would never think to say that, because it seems silly to me, so thank you for letting me know what you need to hear.
“I’ll love you forever. I’ll like you for always. As long as I’m living [which will be a long time], my [daughter] you’ll be.”5

I have believed I am worthy of having what God perceives as my needs met, but not worthy of having what I perceive as my needs met. Now I’m less sure that’s an important distinction. God is listening and loving. He is not measuring and monitoring. That’s about as safe as it gets. So I will practice bringing my needs to the table, and I will take comfort in being “held by a no-matter-what-ness.” In Papa’s house, needs are a point of connection. They are a meeting place for intimate friends. They are safe.

Endnotes:
1See Father’s House, page 120
2Father’s House,page 127
3Father’s House,page 125
4The Whole Language, page 110
5Love You Forever, by Robert Munsch

Brain Be Quiet, Let The Heart Speak

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Brain Be Quiet, Let The Heart Speak

Reflections – week 7a

Welcome to week seven of reflections inspired by my current small groups. Together with some of my favorite women, I’m exploring these books: Father’s House: The Path That Leads Home, and The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness. I’ll be referencing material from Session Seven for two weeks (7a and 7b). And then Session Eight will conclude this series.
I’m finding joy here, and I’m pleased you’re with me on this journey.

Mostly I have believed that my head should rule my heart. Doesn’t information come to me via my head? Then what I know will inform my feelings and impulses, my way of being in the world. There’s just a tiny little problem. This trickle-down effect hasn’t happened. When I first noticed, I figured it must be a matter of management—I need to take a strong hand. My heart may or may not agree with what’s in my head, but my God-given will allows me to choose how I behave in the world, based on what I know to be true. Except this never worked either. So how the hell does my software work?

Karen McAdams, in this week’s Father’s House video, says, “If there’s a battle between your head and your heart, your heart is gonna win every time.”1 So I’ve had it backward the whole time?! This clears up a litany of questions I’ve had over the years: Why do I pray for patience and then try hard to be patient? What makes it so difficult to truly love another person, especially when I’m spread thin and they’re a hundred pounds of trouble? When will my beliefs about God start impacting the way I interact with Him and with people? Why am I always at war with myself, exhausted by listening to the arguing factions and trying to reach a conclusion?

Answer: “If there’s a battle between your head and your heart, your heart is gonna win every time.”

Karen McAdams suggests it’s critical that I give my heart permission to speak.2 So I opened my heart room and started picking things up and asking questions. I spent a long time learning how my heart pictures God. I refused the right answers, and listened for the felt answers. The honest truth is shocking, sometimes sacrilegious, always insightful.

God,
I don’t trust You. I want to be in charge of my own self, my day, my time, my family.
You don’t want me to be kind to myself because that would be selfish and sinful. I was made to think of others and do for others.
I’m angry at You for not changing me the way You said you would.
You’d rather be with me when I’m in a good mood.
You’d prefer I figure things out on my own; and also, get them right the first time.
You want me to be dependent so You can control me.
No matter what I do, You’re gonna be volatile, unpredictable. I never know if you’re gonna show up.
When I get lost in myself, You look the other way and wait for me to find myself again.
You like to watch me fail because it reminds me that I need You.
No matter how hard I try, I will fall short. The standards are always changing, just enough to keep me ashamed and aware of my sinfulness.
Your so-called perfection is made perfect in apathy. You are neither warm nor cold, loving nor angry, approachable nor distant, kind nor harsh. This middle ground protects You from criticism, and also from getting too close to me.
I’m furious at You for promising abundance and then giving me stale trail mix.
You’ve really fucked me up by promising You love me and then forgetting to hug me, ever.
The only reason I still believe in You is that my daft head tells me to, and keeps cramming stuff at me until I can’t breathe.
When things get hard, it’s my fault, so I ought not to expect a handout from You.
You’re actually an alcoholic because looking at me and the rest of this world is so damn overwhelming You need to numb it however You can.
You’re so sick and tired of my slow transformation that You can’t stand to look at me, and You’d rather not talk again until I get my act together.
I’m supposed to just let You do whatever the heck You feel like and be okay with it because You’re God.
I’m invisible to You unless I’m useful.

Lonely heart, I hear your pain.

My heart was at capacity, but I didn’t know it. It was full, full, full. Whatever my head sent to my heart, my heart sent right back, unopened. Return to sender. I foolishly thought my heart had unlimited capacity. It never occurred to me I might need to do a good old-fashioned purge and let a couple of boxes go to the second-hand store.

Oh my heart, I’m sorry I have rendered you voiceless, and therefore powerless. But now that you have some room again, and we’re talking, what do you think about some new things? Not too heavy, not too many things. Pick a few. Leave space to breathe.

God,
You don’t mind that I curse at You more than anyone else.
I have Your undivided attention and unmetered affection.
You want to give to me more than you want to take from me.
You see how often I run on empty, and You notice my weary body.
You don’t expect me to change because You love me.
You are more interested in being present with me than You are in molding my character.
You favor me and bless me when I reject You.
You don’t expect me to figure things out on my own, but neither do You expect me to rely on Your advice.
You like to laugh and joke with me, read books together, write together, sit together and look out the window.
You feel the pain I feel, and You bless it.
I am important to You. When You’re dancing with me, You don’t let anyone cut in.
You like to hug me, and You’re always up for a celebration.
You are such a God that I cannot permanently mess even one thing up.
You are not politely neutral toward me. This is a love story, not an agreement to shake hands and keep the peace.
You come find me when I’m curled up in fear and self-loathing, holding a sign that says, “Fuck Off.” You are not fooled, and You’re not offended. You come close enough to feel the tension and see my eyes flashing, and You stay, gently.
You always see the real me, the truest me, the me You made in Your image, unshakably good. You are disinterested in my performance or mistakes and fully aware of who I am as Your daughter.

“Homegirl Inez says, ‘At Homeboy, we don’t check boxes, we check pulses.’ And if one of our trainees misses, we don’t ask, ‘Where you been at?’ but ‘How ya doin’?’”3 Imagine a God who doesn’t ask, “Where have you been?” but “How are you doing?” That’s the God we actually have. The too-good-to-be-true Father, who can witness everything in our hearts and still want to hold hands.

Homeboy Ricky said, “I’ve come to realize that I never need to drown in the shallow end of my own beliefs ever again. Been standin’ up ever since.”4 After living in the fetal position so long, standing up is like becoming a whole new person, unfurled, alive, looking around in wonder at all the beauty.

I will keep giving my heart a voice. I will engage with hope by letting God encourage me. Boyle writes, “… we are meant to both feel encouraged by God and be a source of endless, hopeful encouragement for the downhearted.”5 Dialoging with my own heart will teach me how to dialogue with other beautiful hearts. And I will keep the conversation open. I will be tender with myself when I find more pain in my heart, and I will pray:

Okay Father, I’m gonna talk directly to You. I have a hard time picturing a Father who delights in me, whose countenance toward me does not change based on my performance. But I know that being kind to myself is a way to remember Your kindness, and that remembering Your kindness is a way to be kind to myself. We are in this together. Your authority is my authority—not standing over me, but always backing me up. You like to have fun with me. You always have time for me. You do not hand me a to-do list in the morning and check it over in the evening. You invite me to be with You, creating or enjoying. Just by being You and being my Dad, You remind me who I am when I forget. I belong in Your house. I receive You as my Father, Jesus as my brother, and Spirit as my truest self, my center. Thank You for hearing my heart, and for giving me courage to hear it too.

Endnotes:
1Father’s House, Session Seven video teaching
2Father’s House, Session Seven video teaching
3The Whole Language, page 103
4The Whole Language, page 118
5The Whole Language, page 116

Mess to Meadow

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Mess to Meadow

Reflections – week 6

Welcome to week six of reflections inspired by my current small groups. Together with some of my favorite women, I’m exploring these books: Father’s House: The Path That Leads Home, and The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness. This is week six of eight.
I’m finding joy here, and I’m pleased you’re with me on this journey.

“Messy.” This word resonated with me as a descriptor of my inner world for most of the past ten years. Also, “Complicated” and “Untrustworthy.” Being at home with a newborn baby introduced me to my inner world, and brought to light a toxic relationship with myself that had been flying under the radar most of my life. Twenty-one months after quitting work to stay at home, my second daughter was born, and in between cuddling warm, squishy babies and washing loads of laundry that left only pink lint in the dryer screen, I learned to hate myself.

Self-hate is like having the world’s worst roommate, and reading only bad news in the paper. On some level it feels normal, but there is always the hope that things will improve. I had no idea what would be involved in learning kindness to myself. Mercifully, it was not a journey I took alone, but in the company of my husband, favorite authors, music, and God.

I didn’t know it, but I needed to learn what parts of my inner world are truest. What parts can influence or control other parts? Why did I feel powerless so much of the time, and why did I increasingly try to control myself, my children, and my husband to combat those feelings of powerlessness?

One aspect of learning to be friends with myself was practicing acceptance of all the parts. This has been a vital key in finding peace. But I still want to know, when different parts are at war, what is the most real part? In a broader sense, who am I?

Gregory Boyle writes, “When the homies arrive, they have not been properly introduced to themselves.”1 I can relate. While caring for two little ones, I was introduced to myself, but it wasn’t a proper introduction. I got acquainted with what Father’s House calls my soul—made up of mind, will and emotions.2 These always seemed at war with one another. I thought my will was the control center, the part of me that could call the shots for everything else. But it didn’t work. My emotions jumped into control, my mind spent most of its time cowering in fear, and my will unceremoniously shoved me through the duties of each day. After a few years of getting to know myself, I was thoroughly done with being me, and I was madder than hell at whoever said my will was supposed to control my mind and emotions. I was also angry with myself. So angry, from trying to control my emotions with my will, and my will with my mind, and failing. Always failing. Defeated, lying on the ground, exhausted, dirty.

In the video teaching for Father’s House Session Six, Rachel Faulkner Brown introduces the idea of a spirit center.3 The soul (mind, will, emotions) is around the spirit center, and is informed by the spirit center. In other words, everything moves outward from my spirit center. This means I don’t rule myself with willpower. I cannot tell you what a relief this is. Willpower is an unfaithful partner, an accident waiting to happen. I either wield it to the detriment of the soft parts of myself and my children, or I don’t use it, also to the detriment of our most tender parts.

A spirit center changes everything. There is a whole and holy part of me, a quiet place, a finished place. After being properly introduced to myself, the haggling between my will, mind, and emotions took its proper place outside my spirit. The authors of Father’s House write, “In the Kingdom, who you are releases what you do. The enemy tries to convince you what you do determines who you are. That’s why Satan attacks what you believe about yourself the hardest.”4 I have been caught in a vortex of doing, not knowing that being comes first. Spirit is my center, and my center is Spirit. I don’t need to control my spirit.

So, the truest—by which I mean the most unwavering—part of me is my spirit center, around which all the other parts find their places, and the whole becomes a residence of freedom and meaning.

Rachel Faulkner Brown suggests that I ask God, “What do You call me?”5 This is Papa’s response: “Meadow. You are now a place of beauty, stillness, rest, wonder, creative activity. Seasons may change the blooms or the flow of water, but you will always be these things.”

Mess to Meadow.

Wrestling to resting.

Despicable to divine.

The coming hours of this day are not a treacherous trudge over land mines, but an adventurous afternoon in a meadow.

Endnotes:
1The Whole Language, page 94
2Father’s House, page 100
3Father’s House, Session Six video teaching
4Father’s House, page 99
5Father’s House, Session Six video teaching

“Holiness is a contact sport”

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“Holiness is a contact sport”

Reflections – week 5a

Welcome to week five of reflections inspired by my current small groups. Together with some of my favorite women, I’m exploring these books: Father’s House: The Path That Leads Home, and The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness. This is week five of eight. (Next week’s post will also be based on material from week 5—hence, this is 5a and next week will be 5b).
I’m finding joy here, and I’m pleased you’re with me on this journey.

As a good Millennial, I’m not much for limits. Limits feel like judgements. They make life smaller; make me smaller. Any good proponent of limits would tell you that healthy limits actually open up possibilities. Could be. I’m not there yet. I’m still shedding layers of limits that have gripped me too tight. When I come across this question in Father’s House, it triggers my limit-aversion: “Do you think you can ‘fall from Grace’? Read Galatians 5:1-4.”1 Falling from grace definitely does not fit in my paradigm of an expansive God, a Love big enough to hold everything. But okay, I’ll read Galatians 5:1-4.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.

“Falling from grace” makes it sound like there’s a limit on grace. I look for a different angle, a way forward that’s not triggering. I have trouble finding an analogy I like. What if grace is air and not-grace is water? I’m breathing air naturally and it sustains me. But if I stick my nose in water and breath in, things go haywire. Breathing in water compromises the flow of air. In the same way, grace is abundantly available and sustaining, but if I stick my nose in performance and good behavior, I’ll no longer be breathing in grace.

Perhaps I’m not able to partake of grace at the same time I am trying to be good enough, get it right, obey the rules. This “fall from grace” is actually a loss of intimacy, a feeling of disconnect that is inevitable when I try to be good.

Oddly, I’m often “good” in order to connect, not realizing it has the opposite effect. I have settled for false, transactional “intimacy.” When I show up as a performer, it’s the wrong currency for connection. No experience has taught me this more than marriage. There is no way to “get it right.” The only way to connect is to show up as me. Damn, I hate that. The curated, filtered, controlled version of me seems so much better than actual me.

Father’s House puts it this way: “Jesus and Father God only relate to you based on the Covenant that you are in, and that is the New Covenant based on His matchless grace and mercy.”2 I can perform all I want, but when I do I’m not occupying relational space with God. Also, “Grace is not a superpower to fulfill the old covenant.”3 Say what? I thought that was the whole point. Faith and grace and Spirit enable me to do what I’m not able to do on my own, and that is to be good! Or not.

I’m not super clear on what I’m supposed to do, if not try to be “good.” But Gregory Boyle seems to have an idea:

What if holiness is a contact sport and we are meant to bump into things?

If we allow ourselves to “bump into things,” then we quit measuring. We cease to Bubble-Wrap ourselves against reality. We stop trying to “homeschool” our way through the world so that the world won’t touch us.

A homie told me once, “It’s taken me all these years to see the real world. And once ya see it—there’s only God there.”

With any luck, we don’t protectively encase ourselves from surprising tenderness. We announce to each other that we are alive and kicking, ready to be bumped into.

We don’t want to distance the secular but always bring it closer. It’s only then that ordinary things and moments become epiphanies of God’s presence.

God holds out wholeness to us. Let’s not settle for just spiritual. We are sacramental to our core when we think that everything is holy. The holy not just found in the supernatural but in the Incarnational here and now.

– The Whole Language, excerpts from pages 81-82

This view of life is about as limitless as it gets. Bump into things. See God everywhere, including in me, sacramental to the core.

So don’t you see that we don’t owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There’s nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God’s Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go!

– Romans 8:12-14, MSG

Okay Papa God, I’m ready to shake hands on this. I’ll accept Your deal that self-righteousness and good behavior are a no-connection zone, but everything else is on the table: bad behavior, the moment I’m in, my body, the life of each person I know, the tree outside my window.

Maybe “they” are right after all—a healthy limit is freedom.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

– Galatians 5:1

Endnotes:
1Father’s House, page 89
2Father’s House, page 83
3Father’s House, Session Five video teaching

Fierce Presence

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I’m beyond excited to be across the country at a writing conference, so I won’t write this week on Father’s House and The Whole Language. Instead I’m sharing an invitation to spiritual intimacy.

Fierce Presence

I have separation anxiety with God. I’m sure He’s in this for the long haul, but faith in my ability to mess up often outpaces faith in Him to keep showing up. Somehow I got the idea that Jesus’s faithfulness is contingent on mine. Or at the very least, my salvation is contingent on my faithfulness.

It’s possible I reversed good news and heard bad news. I got gravel in my filter. When “Perfect love casts out fear” goes through my filter, it comes out, “If you fear, God is not in you.” When “You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you” goes through my filter, I hear, “If you could only master an awareness of God, you’d have perfect peace.” Verse after verse mocks me, standing sentry to the heart of God, announcing that if I have fear or discontent I don’t belong there.

Who spread the lie that God is available only in goodness? That He is best found in happy marriages and productive members of society? If that is true, then every time I have a bad day—or worse, a week or a month or a year—I am no longer a vessel. I’m on the naughty list. I sleep in the attic with the others who don’t get it.

Love that heals is weaponized against me, suggesting that when I am not healing it is because I am not in Love. Rather than an invitation to healing, I hear condemnation for not being good enough at getting healed.

But what if I don’t have to faithfully choose Love? Maybe it chooses me. Maybe it gives me the room with an ocean view, extra fuzzy blankets, and a hot tub. It includes breakfast in bed and free parking, pool access and complimentary snacks. Love always embraces first. And second. And third. It is welcoming, and it is gentle with my insecurities.

Yet Love is as fierce as it is gentle. It knows how to walk through death and divorce, addiction and abuse, scarcity and loneliness, depression and anxiety. This Love that has tenderly pried my white-knuckled hands free and taught me to rest is the same Love that hung naked on a cross. It is not afraid of anything, yet it is not offended or repelled by the presence of fear.

I’m beginning to be persuaded, along with Paul, that nothing can separate me from the love of God.

“For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Romans 8:38-39 NKJV

Powerful words. But I get thrown off when I realize I don’t know what a principality is, and I’m not sure how height or depth are interfering with Love. I’ve also not had a lot of angels trying to come between me and God. Rather, I get jumpy when I make mistakes or feel depressed or snap too much at the people I love. So I wrote a personalized version of Romans 8:38-39:

I am persuaded that neither anxiety nor depression, nor anger nor arrogance nor mistakes, nor ignorance nor knowledge, nor tantrums nor passivity, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus my Lord.

The voice whispering that anxiety or fear will separate me from Love is the voice of a specter, of that which seemed real to me before I became real. Maybe Love sees fear and anxiety and depression and says, “I embrace you in this,” and it says, “This isn’t the final word.” Maybe that’s what the verses are for. Love is not afraid to hold the tension of hope—the space between what is and what will be—and it holds that tension both peacefully and fiercely.

This fierce presence provides the faithfulness I thought I had to come up with on my own. God’s ability to show up always outpaces my ability to mess up. I am faithfully and fiercely loved, separation anxiety and all.

Photo by Josh Willink: https://www.pexels.com/photo/man-carrying-a-baby-286625/

It’s Me! Run!

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It’s Me! Run!

Reflections – week 2

Welcome to the second week of reflections inspired by my current small groups. Together with some of my favorite women, I’m exploring these books: Father’s House: The Path That Leads Home, and The Whole Language.

This is week two of eight. I’m finding joy here, and I’m pleased you’re with me on this journey.

The Paddle

When I was a child, a wooden spatula was the “paddle” at our house—used for spankings. I chuckle now, remembering the occasional days when my mother would carry the paddle in her back pocket. How well I know those kinds of days now that I have kids of my own.

I have two specific memories of spankings, one of which must have happened when I was quite young, I’m guessing preschool age. I don’t know what brought it on, but I had a meltdown of epic proportions, involving kicking, screaming, and the works. My parents put me on my bed to spank me, but I was kicking so violently they couldn’t paddle me. To solve this conundrum, one of them sat on my legs and the other spanked me.

As this memory accompanied my growth and development, it grew into a belief: the proper way to handle big feelings is to punish myself for them. Or better yet, try not to have them at all. I’m certain that’s not the lesson my parents intended. They probably figured they were enabling me to grow up and behave like an adult. (No one appreciates a 30-year-old who still throws epic tantrums.)

Fear of Self

Week two in Father’s House is about being lavishly loved. The authors write, “To live as a fully loved and accepted daughter in your Father’s House, He’s inviting you to let go of your former identity. You are no longer bound to your past, what anyone else has spoken over you or even what you say about yourself. As you journey Home, saturate yourself in who your Father says you are.”1 (emphasis added)

As I read and wrote through each day of the study last week, fear of myself emerged as a common theme. Starting as a young child I learned to fear myself, to fear my emotions and desires, my imperfections, my capacity to make mistakes. The religious community further intensified this fear by teaching me that I was sinful and needed constant spiritual supervision to avoid indulging the unforgivable person that I was. I became afraid of turning away from God. I figured He’s pretty nice—you know, amazing grace and all that—but if I intentionally, or unintentionally, turn my back on Him, He will be pissed off.

So there I was, internalizing my parents’ responses to me, into a belief that my emotional experiences are unacceptable; internalizing the religious community’s sin-message into the belief that I am a walking liability; and what did all that do? For twenty years, nothing. I was so good at being good that these fears lay dormant. It was unnecessary to face them when I managed myself exceptionally and performed well for every person in my life who expected something from me.

If you’re familiar with my story, you know when the upheaval began: stay-at-home momming. Suddenly, with loss of sleep and the demands of parenting, I was reacquainted with my emotional self in the most savage way. My best efforts to control and punish myself weren’t working. Anger, frustration, fear, and emptiness consumed me, and—given my beliefs about emotions and mistakes—it’s not surprising that a dark shame enveloped me.

Temper Tantrum

A few months ago when I went through Father’s House for the first time, during the activation exercise (meditative visualizing and listening), I had a (visualized) temper tantrum. It was just as I remember from childhood, heels hitting the floor so hard it hurt, as I lay on the ground screaming and sobbing out of control. Papa God lay beside me. I was so overwhelmed I couldn’t engage with Him. I could not receive comfort or accept reason or respond to reprimand. Mercifully, He didn’t expect anything from me. When the waves of emotion began to subside, I rolled into Papa’s arms. I was ready to receive comfort, and He was waiting to comfort me.

Papa God suggests there is no distance between Him and me. He is not cooled by the things that chill the people in my life: turning away, having needs, being impolite, tired, sick, stressed, confused, emotional, forgetful. God is warmly present with me when I am out of control. All of me and my experiences are folded right in, received without question or critique or hesitation. No part of me is a liability.

Holy Imagination

“Visualizing your future as a lavishly loved daughter is critical to your life,” I read in Father’s House. “In fact, it helps engage your heart with your head when you involve your divine imagination. Describe what that life would look like in as much detail as possible. What would you be doing, thinking, or feeling?”2 Here’s what comes to mind:

  • My insides will be still (not agitated). I will be at peace with myself, not warring against myself.
  • I will have energy to create and to love (not compulsion).
  • I will take more risks.
  • Forgiveness will come as naturally as breathing.
  • Suffering will fall into my embrace rather than being held at arms length. It may hurt like hell, but it won’t be fragmenting.
  • Pain, anxiety, depression, fear and anger will be experienced with God, rather than as separating or isolating experiences.
  • I will be whole, not fragmented, not always looking for parts that have been forgotten.

Not As Scary As I Thought

I assumed God was in on the idea that I cannot be trusted with myself. I am shocked to discover God trusts me with me. The shame is lifting. The fear is shrinking.

Lie: I am loved and accepted if I reject myself so I can be what I “ought” to be.

Truth: I couldn’t be better. I am loved entirely independent of my level of responsibility and emotional control. Papa received me first, to clear the way for me to receive myself. He invites me to love myself as He loves me. Now that’s crazy!

Gregory Boyle writes, “Ensuring, then, that we are never strangers to ourselves will give us access to our deepest longing.” I have been a stranger to myself, but I am learning to roll out the welcome mat, receive myself with open arms, and explore my deepest longings.

Endnotes:
1Father’s House, page 29
2Father’s House, page 34
3The Whole Language, page 18

The Evolution of Good News

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The Evolution of Good News

Reflections – week 1

I’m a small-group junkie. I recently started three new small groups, which brings my current participation to a total of six small groups. Some meet monthly, others weekly. Some are ongoing, while others cover specific content and will dissolve when that is completed. In one of these groups, we are studying Father’s House: The Path That Leads Home. This is my second time through this eight-session study, and I will be writing a post relating to the study for eight weeks, beginning today. I am also reading The Whole Language with a small group of ladies, and finding connections with the content of Father’s House. The following reflections are inspired by these two small groups, and in some cases I directly quote the resources.

I’m finding joy here, and I’m pleased you’re with me on this journey.

A Gospel That Speaks

“If it feels too good to be true, you’re on the right track.” This is my favorite descriptive phrase about the gospel of Jesus Christ. Each time I hear it I pause for a moment as my spirit affirms what I hear. Yes. What better way to describe the news of an extravagant God.

I’ve always had a tenuous relationship with the sinners-prayer gospel: I am a sinner deserving of death, God sent His Son to take my penalty for sin, and when I repent I receive Him into my life. I’ve given myself permission to move outward from this version of the gospel. I am curious, open to discovery.

Perhaps the gospel is personal. We call it “good news,” and news may well fit the descriptor “one man’s tea is another man’s poison.” What is pleasant, joyful, or affirming to me may be offensive to someone else. So, at the risk of veering off the beaten path and getting lost in the weeds, I’m on the outlook for a gospel that speaks to me. And I begin to find it—in books, podcasts, quiet time.

Good News

God has returned me to myself, unharmed. I was a house divided against myself, that could not stand. Now I am discovering wholeness and unity, within me and around me.

God did not send His Son into the world—into me—to condemn me, but to rescue me, heal me, and make me whole.

I am perfectly created to relate to God. My heart is wired to connect with Him. My ears are designed to hear His voice. I am made to experience His glory and His extravagant love for me.1

God is not fixing me. He is showing me that I am alive, that what I longed for was not far off, but right here.

I am right where I am supposed to be. I’m not behind. I am open to receive from the fullness of God’s grace.2 His Spirit touches mine and affirms who I really am: His daughter.

It is finished. Jesus completed all the heavy lifting. I begin where He left off, victorious, resurrected, glorious. There is nothing left to do but live together in this finished space They created.

Expanding

I expect my gospel collection to grow and change over the course of my life, as I listen for news that is too good to be true.

My understanding of gospel will be a lifetime hobby, and may well continue into the hereafter. Gregory Boyle repeatedly describes this pursuit in the first chapter of his book The Whole Language:

“At one time or another, we all had a version of God that was rigid. But the depth of our own experience tells us that our idea of God wants to be fluid and evolving. As we grow, we learn to steer clear of the wrong God.”

“We search always to find the deeper current that can finally change our innermost way of seeing.”

“It is our lifelong task, then, to refine our view of God.”

Unlearning

Equally as exciting as the learning, is the unlearning. I unlearn an exacting God, a vindictive, displeased, embarrassed God, tripping over Himself to save me so He can save face.

As Mirabai Starr said, “Once you know the God of Love, you fire all the other gods.”3

Endnotes:
1See Father’s House, page 23
2See Father’s House, pages 14, 22
3As quoted in The Whole Language, page 7

On Being Dead (Part 2)

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June 20, 2022

God, I am so tired of thinking I am bigger than You, and my ability to mess things up is bigger than You. That is a lie and I am choking in its grip. Please show me how big You are. Please, uproot the lie. Show me how small I am. I cling to Your feet. I don’t need You to be what I think You are. Lord, please make me willing to be inhabited by Your Spirit and to release control. The story of Jacob’s wrestle in the night comes to mind. (see Genesis 32:24-30)

I’m asking for a miracle. I’m asking because I know that thinking I’m bigger than You is a fabrication. A sleight of hand. Please take me out from under the spell. Show me how the trick works so that I am no longer captured by it. Take me back to the garden, to the lie, and reverse the damage. You have crushed the serpent’s head, and along with it crushed the lie that You are holding out on me; that You have limited me and excluded me from Your fullness. “The kingdom of heaven is at hand,” You say.

I’m so sorry that we wanted “to know good and evil.” I am drawn to that tree, that struggle. You remind me of another tree, another struggle, “On a hill far away.” Lord, I receive Your death in me. I receive the silence of the tomb. It’s a long silence, really. The silence of a world in awe at what they have seen. A silence void of struggle, void of taunting, certainly void of trying. It is the moment of silence after a stunning victory before the crowd comes to life and erupts with noise and elation.

The tomb is a quiet place, a place of mystery, a place we respectfully allow darkness and silence. A place where stillness is not a practice, but the truest reality. I lie dead. I have gone from confused delirium to perfect, unruffled peace. Every muscle that was trying so hard to hold me together has now relaxed. Resurrection is not on my mind, because nothing is on my mind. That’s the beauty of being dead. The rushing is suddenly and decisively irrelevant. Not even snoring disturbs this silence. A dead person doesn’t sin, doesn’t worry, doesn’t know anything.

Lord here I am, passed out in the tomb with You, knowing nothing. I can do nothing. My senses have stopped signaling my brain. There is no input, no output. Only silence and stillness. Even breathing has ceased. I am in a holy place of waiting, a sleep of death that will feel the same whether it is one minute or one hundred years. This is the only way to wait without fretting—in death. Death is also where decay occurs—the return of life to the soil, from which new life will arise. Dust I am. This is how I know silence. Death silences the endless chatter, and it is God’s gift to me, though my heart still beats.

“I am crucified with Christ; therefore I no longer live.” (Galatians 2:20) It seems I have tried to be born again without dying. I have wanted to skip over death to resurrection, not realizing how I long for death. Quiet. No expectations. I might have known that in God’s hands even death is a gift. As I permit myself to engage with death, I find treasure: grace, humor, peace.

Nobody expects anything of a dead person. I am gloriously, peacefully dead. Dead people aren’t really good at anything, except maybe lying still. I suppose if their eyelids were open they could win any staring contest.

Also, the band name “Grateful Dead” has taken on a whole new meaning.

The nice thing about being the dead person is that there is no sense of loss. I cannot grieve, because I cannot do anything. I need not try to be still, nor try to move. I need not expect perfection, nor hope for predictability. I cannot hold onto life. It is behind me and beyond me and it animates me only when I am not in this passageway of death.

Trust. Humility. These things I have longed for are here in the tomb.

Perhaps Jesus called death “sleep” because He knew it was the only way for humans to Rest In Peace. Death is not a fitful slumber. It is the child who has fallen asleep in his mother’s arms in a waiting room, every muscle relaxed, dead to the passage of time and to the noise of a coffee machine and crying children and ringing phones.

Like Barbara Brown Tayler, I love the question, “What is saving you right now?” Death is saving me right now. Today I am in the grave. Neither crucifixion nor resurrection are on my mind. Maybe “grave circumstances” aren’t so bad. “Grave” and “grace” are closer than I thought. My tired heart has stopped beating and it lies still in the mystery of death.

Only Jesus. Always Jesus. Beautifully Jesus. Safely Jesus. I will Rest In Peace with You, the only one who can lay down Your life and take it up again.

On Being Dead (Part 1)

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I’ve noticed there are people who catch on to what Jesus is up to more quickly and completely than me. They get the death-to-life thing, the rebirth, the salvation. They speak with confidence about their wholeness and joy, about Jesus and His ways, about life. Meanwhile, I mainly have a lot of questions, I don’t know what to tell my kids about God, and I’m still wondering what in heaven’s name brings about transformation and the fruit of the Spirit in a person’s life.

Over the last year, death has been a recurring theme in my journal. Not the stop-breathing kind of death, but the spiritual one. An awful lot of verses in the New Testament use death as an analogy for … well, I’m not sure what. Something spiritual. In the book of James, which I zealously underlined the entirety of as a teen, there’s this sin-leads-to-death verse: “But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.” (James 1:14, 15) As I read this poetic life-cycle illustration—conception, birth, growth, death—I wondered, Do I have desires that “draw me away”? Two came to mind: my desire to appear without fault to everyone (including, and maybe especially, myself); and my desire for life to be happy (or at least predictable). Have these desires conceived and given birth to sin? Heck, it sure feels like giving birth. Conceiving is the easy part. Giving birth is brutal. But, once conception happens, birth is inevitable.

I have enjoyed too much time in bed with a lot of lies, allowing my desire to be without fault to lead me to conceive and birth a child who reminds me every day of my indiscretion. This child is Judgement, Idolatry, Pride (defensiveness), Angry Outbursts at those who inconvenience me, and, well … a bit of Death.

Late last summer I noticed I had a pallor of death. I was seduced by my desires, blind to the fact they fed the lies I tried to stamp out. I made an effort to imprison the lie that my (and everyone’s) value is in productivity and performance, all the while tossing bread crusts into the prison cell. I fought with the sin-child I had conceived—who was growing rapidly—while still getting back in bed with desire.

The thing about dying is that it’s painful and we’d rather not look directly into it. It’s hard to watch death claim anything or anyone—especially when you have carried that thing in your very center for nine months and given birth to it. But when death does take place, there is a sense of finality. When I realize my desires are dead and I have been in bed with a zombie, when I stop tossing bread crusts to the skeletons in the prison cell, then Life leaps to my side almost as if it had been waiting. Words like “spring” and “abundance” move from Biblical vocabulary into experience.

“There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.” Romans 8:1-2

My desire to be without fault has held me in constant condemnation. I have been in bondage to the “law of sin and death,” seeing myself as one giant aberration from righteousness. I have been living always in weakness, meditating continually on all the ways I fall short. I have made life-giving Jesus a sick joke. Hey, you know why Jesus died? Uh, for my sins? No, because God couldn’t legally kill you, so He killed His own Son. That is the voice of condemnation, of damning. Constant meditation on how I fall short siphons Life out of me, leaving me empty and dry. Jesus invites me to Love—a life unadulterated by the habit of constantly looking behind me, keeping tabs on my “progress” and the impression I leave behind.

Living with my mind preoccupied by circumstances—my physical and emotional experience (the desire for life to be smooth), worries about all my interactions with people (the desire to be without fault), and trying to get things right and be in control—is death. And when I say that, I don’t feel I have somehow been naughty for choosing death, but more a sense of relief at having a proper diagnosis. I have felt dead, going through days shackled and gray, a slave to my desires and impulses. I want to be alive.

One evening my husband, Michael, and I read together from Dr. Tim Kimmel’s book, Grace Based Parenting (pro tip: don’t read parenting books). The chapter was about the importance of secure love for children, and what secure love looks like. The next morning I wrote in my journal, “Not only am I a lot dead, I am also blind. I realize I let my kids get away with selfishness and meanness, but come down hard on them for normal kid (human) stuff like making messes or forgetting, because I am blind. If I saw clearly I would act differently.”

Every autumn we have an influx of flies in the house. They start out perky but gradually slow down until you can easily pick them up with your fingers. (I don’t recommend this. I picked one up thinking it was dead, and was scared half to death when it started buzzing in my fingers.) Often I’ll see flies lying upside down, randomly twitching. One morning as I sat praying, I noticed a fly on the windowsill, lying on its back, letting out a spastic buzzing every once in a while. And I thought, My life has been like this fly on the windowsill, alive … but not really. There is no shame in this; instead there is understanding, because that is exactly how I have felt. And just as I have authentically experienced being half-dead, I may authentically experience being fully alive. I was made for this.

“For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be fleshly minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life und peace.” (Romans 8:5-6)

Fear of Parenting, Part 2

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As I explored in my previous post – Fear of Parenting, Part 1 – parenting has undone me in many ways. The truth is, I was already selfish and overwhelmed and angry, I just didn’t see it until I became a parent. This wide revelation of my inner self often leaves me feeling naked and ashamed. Yet I am confident this is not where God intends me to remain, because He says things like “So now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1)

When I state in plain words the things I am thinking and believing (the lies listed in my previous post), it gets really clear how far my head and heart are from the truth. This provides the opportunity to explore with the Holy Spirit what the truth is. As I have done that, these truths have emerged:

  • There is not one right answer. Perfect parenting is not the goal. It’s ok. Jesus is here with us.
  • God’s power to redeem is much greater than my power to destroy.
  • Enough faith to come to Jesus is enough faith to be healed by Jesus.
  • I CAN change. But where I’m going is God’s work in me. I am neither a slave to bad behavior or good behavior. I am free in grace.
  • The only thing that recommends me to Jesus is my great need.
  • Mistakes are not preventable. They are normal. They are evidence of showing up and living life.
  • The goal of parenting is to love my children (imperfectly) and model trusting Jesus (also imperfectly).
  • God gave me the full range of emotions. None of them are bad. He experiences them all too. I am made in His image.
  • I am exactly where I need to be. I can rest now (NOT after I become a “better” parent). Jesus’ fullness is the perfect match for my emptiness.
  • I don’t have to be ashamed. His mercies are new every morning. There is grace, grace, and more grace.
  • I can give myself permission to be calm and centered after a difficult day or experience (i.e. parenting fail). I don’t have to wallow in the bad (God has no desire to punish me). I can move on, grateful for grace and the newness of the moment.
  • There will always be problems and unresolved issues in parenting. I can welcome them, knowing 1) they are normal, 2) there is not one right answer, and 3) Jesus is walking me through them.
  • My children are not disrespecting me and acting like brainless wild creatures on purpose. They are weak, desiring my love and guidance.

Isn’t it nice that Jesus doesn’t think I’m acting like a brainless wild creature on purpose, but instead moves closer to me to love and guide me? Every now and then he reminds me not to take myself too seriously. Perfectionism has a way of turning every moment of life into an opportunity to be “right.” That much pressure is bound to make even the best of us into the worst versions of ourselves. When I feel overwhelmed, it helps to imagine my Savior smiling at me and reminding me, “Don’t take yourself too seriously.” No condemnation.

I still struggle with feeling that I am ruining my children. I joke that we have a therapy fund for the hours of therapy they will one day need in order to recover from growing up in our home. But somehow softening the edges of my struggle is the truth that it’s not about me, and it’s not about perfection. Someone Bigger is in charge, and He is God, which means I don’t have to be. He is Big and I am small. He is Creator, I am created. He is Redeemer, I am redeemed. He is Perfect, I am flawed. He is Potter, I am clay. And He is all this to my children as well. I cannot mess anything up so badly that He cannot redeem it. This is truth, this is freedom.