Heartless

Last week, I sat in a hospital room with a family I've known for years.  The mother lay in the hospital bed in her last days, actually hours, as she died two hours after I went home that night. 

 Two weeks ago, I was on vacation and got word that a missionary friend got sick and took a sudden turn for the worse and died without notice it was coming.  

Three weeks ago as I left for vacation I was missing the funeral for a friend who was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and died two months later.

If you ask me, that's a lot of death to cross my path in one month.  I am an empath, which means I feel things.  I love and hate that fact about me.  It allows me to reach out to people and be a comfort in hard times, it allows me to see both sides of issues and find common ground, but it also can overwhelm me.

 I in no way ever want to make someone else's pain about me and take attention away from their grieving, but I still feel the suffering.  The reality is, as one who works in pastoral care for a church, my business is to be there.  I love to be there for others. I want it no other way, but as I sat and looked at a woman I had conversations with, and shared life with, I realized, I need to be careful.

I can't let the grief around me swallow me whole and leave me in depression city, but on the flip side I also can't let it turn me into someone heartless.  It could be easy to flip the switch and just stop feeling, but that would help no one.

I love this song by Adrien Reju! I heard it on a Hallmark movie, searched and found the song and artist.  I learned to play it on my guitar and sung it for a voice recital several years ago.  I think her words remind us of the importance of finding that balance in life between letting the turmoil around us take us down or alternatively, harden us.

Instead I have to find the balance. It takes work.  For me the relationship I have with Jesus and time in scripture help me.  My relationships with others is also a crucial component to my mental health and lastly, all things funny, help me keep my balance.  I have to be encouraged, loved on and laugh.

Have you ever thought about the extremes you are prone to?  What helps you live in balance?  What do you need to be careful of?  Are you paying attention to those things or just ignoring them and then getting discouraged when life seems to crash and burn?  Maybe its time to find what that looks like for you.  I know finding it for me, is crucial in life! Happy Wednesday! 

Trace It Back

A few weeks ago we looked at what we were thinking.   Did you do the exercise?  One of the biggest hurdles to change is passive living.  We go about our day without thinking why something triggered a negative response or emotion, or not even paying attention to how we engage with the world around us.  

Taking internal inventory is necessary to moving forward.   Having a mind full of good thoughts means you first must evaluate the reality of your thought life as well as what you want your thought life to be. When we talk internal inventory, we have to often look at why we do what we do.

You will often hear people give an onion metaphor.  Each layer reveals a new layer.  Or let's mix it up and go with my own metaphor - the artichoke.  Its work to eat an artichoke but can be fun (if you like them).  As you eat the meat of each leaf, you get closer to the heart of the artichoke, which is my favorite part.  Its tender and delicious!

That is a lot like life.  As we engage in internal inventory, we discover new or deeper parts of how something affected us and why we do what we do.

I have always worked on tackling my own issues because I don't want them to rule over me, but as I do so I discover new layers.

A recent reality tv show I was watching shared about the term "parentified child." I immediately paused the show and began searching articles online and immediately had an emotional moment.  The concept behind the term, "parentified child" wasn't new to me, but I hadn't seen some new layers as they were reflected back at me in the articles I read.  In my younger years as I peeled away the artichokes leaves of my life, I had a hard time really looking at certain issues without it hurting me, but as I have tackled the pain and how I defined myself along life, I have been able to step back and look at it with more of a clinical perspective and make the adjustments needed.  This time it hit a nerve and I was full of emotions.  I had to start asking questions.  You can do this too.  

1. Start with Your Senses - How did you feel? What did you see? Hear? Smell? Taste? Taking a tour through each of your senses can aid you in a full understanding of how a past experience impacted you.  It doesn't have to be some massive trauma.  Each of us are shaped by the world we walk through and understanding that allows us to see the connections in our current reality.  Understanding gives us the tools to recorrect where we need to in our current lives.  

My husband makes biscuits and gravy for our church men's group every Friday morning.  He always saves me some, but typically, I get them cold or reheated and not fresh from the oven.  One morning I was up early and I grabbed a biscuit fresh from the oven and I was transported back to the early elementary years when I lived with my grandpa.  We lost him several years ago, and just eating that hot biscuit gave me a moment with him again.  We don't often know what sticks with us, until we encounter something similar.  Going through your senses helps us to know how we have attached to the memories or moments in our past.  

2. Examine the Take-Away - Delving into the "parentified child" opened my eyes to my helping ways.  I am a Helper on the Enneagram.  I love serving people, and I do it out of the kindness of my heart.  I realized that I can go to an unheathly place in helping, when I neglect myself or my family for the sake of helping others.  I saw for the first time its roots in this new term.  

My mom is a wonderful mom, but we hit some hard road along the way when I was a girl and even though she masterfully cared for us, she often leaned on my as the oldest for emotional support.  I saw how I had a gap as a result.  Its no judgement on my mom, honestly, if I faced all she did as a single mom, I don't think I could have done half as well as she did, but we are humans after all.  I saw my years helping support my mom and sister kept me from checking in on me and learning where those boundary lines should be.  

3. Find the Balance - If you are learning from your life and asking the Holy Spirit to guide you as you go, you will find that you have probably walked too far down one side of the road and you must find the balance.  Doing the examination isn't unspiritual and its not living in the past, instead its learning from the past so you can move forward without bitterness or baggage.  I think most of us have areas we are stuck and these kind of reflections can get us unstuck.  

So what does all of this look like for you?  I'd love to hear from you.  God is good and he is good to guide us through our issues, if we let him.  He created us and knows us best, so I find letting him guide is best.  Happy Wednesday! Join me next week (also next month) for a whole new theme. 

Are You A Christian?

What would you say if I told you I was a doctor, but my only credit to this title was a one hour Nursing class in college that I deem the only qualification needed to practice medicine?

Anyone lining up to get a check up?

Probably not.

One class in my undergraduate studies does not a doctor make!

What is funny is that 70.5% of the American population considers themselves a Christian and yet only 11% of that group has read the Bible in its entirety, and only 9% having read it more than once.

True, you don't have to read the Bible to be a Christian.  Christianity is not earned, its willingly received.  That trips people up though because becoming a Christian isn't an item on a checklist but a new beginning.

Christianity is an understanding that we can't do life on our own.  The standard of perfection is not attainable for us humans and we need Jesus' gift of life because of his perfect life on earth and death on the cross and resurrection to be forgiven of all the wrongs we have done.

Christianity is surrender - surrender to Jesus and his ways.  This surrender is often counter to our culture but honestly, it's also counter to our human nature.  The Bible is, simply put, a letter.  Yes, its more than that - its history, its poetry, its prophecy but at its heart its a letter, a story given to his children (that's us).  Its God way of speaking to us.  Yes, it can be intimidating but its not impossible.  It starts with a step, followed by another step.  How can you know who God is, what God wants with us and from us if you don't read the Bible?

The beauty of Christianity and the Bible is balance, and when someone goes too far one direction they lose the beauty of it all.  The teeter totter holds truth on one side and grace on the other.  When you stand in the middle of the two, you have found the sweet spot.  Sustaining that takes daily connection with God.

Religion is common place, but the relational focus of Christianity is unparalleled.  We must enter into a relationship with our Savior and daily walk with him to find the road and stay on it.

Unfortunately, this is not happening and I can't imagine what that discord must look like to God.  We are all his children and we are fighting and killing each other.  We have abandoned the hallmark of who he is - love.  We have walked away from truth in search of popularity or happiness and yet we haven't found what we thought we would.  The label of Christian is doing more harm than good in some corners of this country, because like my doctor analogy, people are claiming a faith they have no knowledge of.

When I moved to Germany my junior year, the two years that followed weren't marked with the poor choices I made that led to two decisions of regret.  No, the big problem when I arrived was one sentence that broke me.  You see when I headed to Germany, I was walking away from some bad years that left hurt inside my soul.  Not dealing with the pain I'd experienced, left me open to bitterness and bad choices.

 I uttered to God, "I don't like what you have done with my life, and I am taking over."

I abandoned God.

That was what led me to a breaking point my Freshman year of college.  Sure my wrecked virginity and subsequent abortion contributed to that pain, but when I FINALLY cried out to God, do you know what I found? It wasn't condemnation or judgement.  I heard God say, "Carrie, I have been waiting.  Waiting for you to give all of that to me, so I could fill you with my best."  That day in the basement of my dorm hall, I wept and I gave God back what was always his - control of my life.  He is a gentleman so he never forced me to follow him, but he let me see what my control led to - a mess.

At almost 39, my life is not perfect.  I am still a mess, but God is directing my path and in him I am finding all the joy, comfort, direction I need.  No one has ever loved me like God, and when I trust him with my life and seek him daily in Bible reading and prayer, I find what I need for today!  He has my life in his hands, and I can trust He knows what He is doing!!!  That is a Christian.  Are you a Christian?

When Your Best Isn't Enough

Do you ever feel like your best just isn’t good enough?  

I think most of us can answer, “yes” to that question.  

The truth is -  my best isn’t good enough.  

I can’t do it all.  

I wear a lot of hats and they can get exhausting.  I wasn't made to do all that I do.  

I was created with limitations and needs for things such as rest and relationships, both of which require a pause button from the rat race I run in daily.  

I am both a working mom and a stay-at-home mom.  I live the best and worst of both worlds.  Usually when I am rocking it in one area, I am behind or bombing in another area.  

The feminist movement has given us a lot of freedoms as women, but its also given us some unfair expectations.  We are expected to work and raise a family simultaneously, while looking good in the process!  That is a lot of pressure and as a result, we end up expecting too much out of ourselves subsequently beating ourselves up when we don’t hit the mark.  

My “to-do” list is always full and even if I go strong all day knocking items off the list, I still won’t come close to getting it all done.  Here's two things I hope will help.  

1. God Has A Plan Beyond What We See 

Today, a friend shared with me a few bumps in her road of late, but because of her time in the Bible and in prayer with God, she was prepared to view those setbacks with spiritual eyes.  It gave her the ability to see God in the midst of the issues she had encountered.  Instead of letting that pit her against her Lord, she sat in the lap of Jesus and got on board with his plan.  

2. God Takes Our Mistakes and Makes Miracles

I distinctly recall a moment when I was talking to God about my many issues as a mom.  I felt like the latest test had found me lacking and I was wallowing in self-pity and giving myself a good figurative flogging.  In the midst of my tear-filled verbal purging, I heard God say in my spirit, 

“Carrie, I know you will make mistakes as a mom, but it is in those shortcomings that your kids will get to meet with me and walk it out in our relationship.”  

It blew my mind, to think God had intention for my mistakes.  God had a plan - even for my overloaded mommy explosions.  He planned to use it for his glory as he fulfilled his word in Proverbs 27:17, when he says: 

As iron sharpens iron,

    so one person sharpens another.

We weren’t called to do it all, raise the perfect kids or aim at perfection in life at all.  We were created for relationship with God and others.   We serve a God that is big enough to do it all.  When we surrender our path to him, we can find him in each turn along the road.  We can see him work in spite of our full plate and the dropped balls along the way.  

I find each day that I start with God, I end up accomplishing exactly what I need to - nothing more, nothing less.  It doesn’t all get knocked off the list but the important things do.  

Are you struggling to find that balance between work life and mom life?  Are you drowning in a sea of to-do lists?  Time with God isn’t just about adding something else to your list - its about adjusting your list to be in alignment with his will; knowing that God breaths life into even the most devastating of days.  He’s got this - YOU can trust HIM!