Wow...

So much is going on. Thinking about it all makes my head spin. Its been a whirlwind last couple YEARS so i should be used to it by now.. it is, in fact, 2 years and 4 days from the day I found out our "baby" was "babies" The beginning of the chaos.... :-)

And I won't lie- its been a very very HARD couple years. I have gotten back in contact with my family i've been estranged from for 15 years, i've had twins, i've survived twin babyhood, i've flown to MN and left my 5 big kids with a friend (unheard of thought before i actually did it!) i travelled cross country with 2 11 month olds. I switched churches, from our long-time safe, secure, but not so right for us church, to a new, scary, God-led-us-to-it one that is bringing me JUST where i need to be (which we all know is SCARY) I've lost dreams, gained children, lost friends, gained friends, lost any sense of secrecy and shame (hence this blog) and gained a lot of uncertainty. But here I am, and the bottom line is- I trust where God is leading me. And yes, i will likely lose more friends, yes, i will probably lose close family members (that truth be told, i probably never had in the first place!) and i'm guaranteed to deal with a whole lot of rejection, pain, suffering, being lied about and to, being used, being rejected, did i mention being rejected? because i have a really hard time with that one!!!!!

But I trust HIM. And i'm doing what i have to do to make it all work- to make ME all work and become sanctified- to become the person God has called me to be. Right now, i'm preparing mentally to start the redemption group. This is a program our new church offers quarterly (I think) to minister to people who have experienced sexual assault or addictive behaviors. (yeah, for me, that would be both! Yeah, i got accepted! I'm sure i was at the top of the pathetic-ness list :-) ) And from what i've heard, its SCARY!!!! you get challenged, and yelled at, and while i'm not stranger to either, and clearly, i don't have any sense of privacy whatsoever! I am still scared. i guess part of me wonders if i'm really up to the task. If perhaps God has misplaced His confidence in me. Because sometimes, i'm a truly rotten person, and sometimes, all i can do is cry, and barely get out of bed in the morning. I don't feel like a strong person, even though common sense tells me I must be.

I don't know if i can do this- But i guess I either will or i'll die trying :-)

My latest shower revelation

So, i just got back from a LONG walk, in the POURING rain with a dear friend. Wow, how blessed Am I! i have 2 friends and a great husband who take me out walking, and talking... and what a priviledge that is!!

And how wonderful is the SHOWER when you get home, soaking wet! Showering is always the time i get my special revelations that are so refreshing and encouraging to me. And today I was blessed with one.

My life has been one long process of opening up, giving my heart to someone and getting stomped on. But somehow God has given me this resilience to get back up and give my heart to someone else. Now, don't get me wrong. SOMETIMES, my distorted self-view tends to lead me to giving my heart to the WRONG people. Not always, but sometimes. And of course, that ALWAYS ends badly. But today i realized something. This is an evil world. People are largely ruled by forces that even THEY can't always control. Its not ABOUT them! And yes, i will get hurt, i will get hurt a LOT! Sometimes i feel like i wish i was a more guarded person, that i could protect myself better that way. That comes out a LOT on my old blog. But truthfully, that's my JOB! i'm here on a mission, and it comes with hurts, but it also comes with priviledges. I can think of NO greater priviledge than to be given the opportunity to be a tiny part of God's work. That's so humbling and so amazing. I wouldn't give that up to be "safe" I wouldn't give up the opportunity for my hurt to benefit someone else. Lord knows "I" have been benefittted in such a way.

And you know what the bottom line is?? I am INVINCIBLE. Sure, you can hurt me, but do you know WHO my daddy is?? Because there is NONE more powerful. And He loves me like i'm an only child, so there! :-) :-) :-)

Fatherhood, the prodigal son, religious and rebellious people

Another great day at church and another amazing demonstration to God's outlandish grace in my life.

I spent much of the morning crying. I had a trigger yesterday that hit me late last night, and haunted me well into the morning, and left me feeling pretty hopeless. It seems that God directing us to Mars Hill has been like salve to my aching heart. And that's not an exaggeration. Don't get me wrong, i LOVE my St. Lukes peeps, i LOVE LOVE LOVE them, and yesterday at the family event, was so wonderful.

The division in our church family, Ie. us choosing to worship elsewhere has been hard on all of us, and i've felt a lot of guilt about it, being the instigator. So that was piled on to an already difficult situation. But I know that God is calling me to work on my issues and this couldn't be more obviously placed at Mars Hill. I don't know what the future holds, but i'm committed to "working the program" that is, following God's lead in allowing myself to be molded into a more effective vessel for Him. I've fought His will far too long, and here's the thing: it doesn't go away! i might as well cooperate :-)

So I went into church today knowing that every single service we've attended since January has ministered to me, personally in DEEP DEEP ways. I was honestly skeptical that today would be the same since my issues were far deeper than even God could address in a group setting, right??? (HA! yeah, exactly. Did i mention I was out of sorts today?!?) So how surprised i was when Mark started talking about the state of fatherhood in America. And i'll link the video when it gets posted. its a GOOD one, i highly recommend it to everyone, its transformational. But what struck me the most was the discussion of the prodigal son, from Luke. He identified God as being the father and us as people relating to one or the other, or rather leaning toward one of the following traits

Rebellious / Religious

nonconformist/ wants to fit in

Liberal, alternative/ Conservative

innovative/ traditional

unrighteous/ SELF-righteous

There was more but i had a tragic ipod malfunction when taking notes but you get the gist of it.

What jumped out at me was that both of these brothers, (and with them the leanings of us as fallible humans) were both pathological. Its not like one brother was right and one was wrong. Really, it would be hard even to identify which brother was MORE right. It reminds me of my conflict with politics. I can't choose a party! they are both SO VERY WRONG! Likewise with these leanings toward life. It was really really easy for me to identify myself. I am the religous brother!

So yeah, I think this is common among firstborns but it was practically my mission in life as a child to be the best at EVERYTHING, even in elementary school i was in the gifted program, in high school you'd see me in every leadership position possible, (Except of course positions that required popularity, because while i had a lot of friends, lets face it- NO one enjoys being around self righteous people. They are ANNOYING) peer counselling type programs (WHAT a JOKE!) I was a debate captain for years, i was super involved with speech and debate, and that really gave me my identity, It was the ONLY thing that allowed me to feel good about myself. Mr. Staska was like a second dad to me and honestly, i can say that he changed my life immesurably and helped me to survive life then, which was hard. I remember once, Jesse Jerger in College i think, told me that i was SO stuck up in high school! I truly was shocked that he'd say that, i was like, NO way!? I wasn't offended, i just was surprised he'd say that, because that wasn't my perception at all.

But thinking about it further, NOW, 20 years after the fact, I can TOTALLY see why he would think that. As much as i was all over the place and IN everything, I was hiding horrible scary truths about my life, largely even from myself. I was hiding behind my own percieved righteousness, desperately clinging to any kind of hope that i was, indeed OK, and in order to do that, i had to convince myself that I was AWESOME. Because Ok, wasn't going to cut it when deep down i felt like NOTHING. It takes a heck of a lot of compensating to trick yourself to that degree. Even my history of childhood sexual abuse, i'd impersonalized to a degree that i knew it happened but i'd somehow managed to make it totally unemotional. Just a statement. Not like i TOLD anyone! It wasn't until i moved out of my mom's home that the fit hit the shan and the effects of the post traumatic stress disorder i'd come to later discover I had would hit full force, nightmares, increased sleep walking and night terrors, flashbacks. I had started to discover my truth was NOT unemotional, it was horrendous.

But in that, i'd also started to begin the semblance of some sort of feeling that i was maybe, possibly worth something... Like in therapy once early on when my therapist asked me, so why do you think your stepmother hated you so badly when you were a little child. And out of the blue i practically jumped out of my chair and shouted "Because i must have been REALLY REALLY REALLY BAD!" Whoa! Where did THAT come from?? Rational thinking kicked in and i knew that a 3 or 4 year old couldn't possibly be so "bad" as to not deserve love and safety and affection, but yet, deep down, that's what was going on in my head behind the scenes.

So, I digress. basically my leaning was "religous". I'd be really really really "good" in order to convince myself that i was worth something, but every once in a while, i'd slide into "rebellious" Since really, the "smoking in the alleys" crowd was much more accepting and less judgemental and i came to find peace in smoking like a chimney, drinking whenever i could get my hands on anything alcoholic and smoking pot with Amanda's brother once and my one time boyfriend Bill frequently DESPITE my fully knowing better. I mean REALLY, i was raised with pot smokers. I knew what life was like, and how ugly the whole thing was. But a lot of things about me then (and now) don't make any sense.

I find that even now, i'm HEAVILY leaning toward the religous side, then i start to feel deeply unworthy and figure out some way to swing into the rebellious realm, and that's when i do stuff that really screws up my life. Its for no other reason than the ludicrous grace of God that i haven't badly flushed my life down the toilet. Thankfully those moments have been few and far between since i've "grown up" and have slowly been making connections and developing self awareness and figuring stuff out, and unpacking the baggage to see what and who I really am. Well, i had one of those really really devastating rebellious times about 3 yrs ago, and the effects have been far more lasting then I ever could have imagined. i can't even quantify how much i've cried, how much i've beat myself up, how much i've REFUSED to accept God's gracious comfort and insisted that I was absolutely deserving of hell and bent on ending up there. When you are a religous person and you are tied up in self-righteousness its really hard to accept your own mistakes, your own failings, your own "splat on the sidewalk" moments, because you are BETTER THAN THAT!

Now, I am a Christian. I'm not SUPPOSED to be rebellious OR religious, I'm supposed to be confidently but humbling walking in the truth that i'm SAVED! i'm not going to hell no matter HOW much I think i deserve it. I am F*O*R*G*I*V*E*N without any "Buts" or conditions of any kind. Its a gift. its a promise, and i believe it, and I embrace it, but boy, are old habits hard to break!

So here i am, grappling with my own sin, wondering how I can be forgiven, yet knowing I am. Fighting SO hard to not give in to the rebellious part of me that wants to look for love in all the WRONG places and the religious part of me that wants to condemn myself to eternal damnation for whatever wrong thought or action I have, but rather to accept love from the creator of me and everything around me, who has designed me, beautiful and precious, as his daughter. One that he'd NEVER condemn.

So how about you? anyone feeling like one side or the other? does anyone have any "aha" moments from today's sermon or otherwise that's shown you what space your mind is occupying? feel free to reply!

the NEW me!

So I decided it was time to create a new blog. I'm making a fresh start and I thought a fresh BLOG would be appropriate too! I think i'll post a couple of my facebook notes that I made recently, since they are very bloggish.

My purpose in this blog, is to paint a picture of the amazing work of the Lord in my life. I am a Christian, which means that I have accepted Jesus Christ into my heart as my Lord and Savior. The old me is dead, (as i surely would have been anyway) and the new me has come forth, like a butterfly from a chrysalis. Well, not exactly. The new me is emerging... picking at the shell that holds me captive, gradually working away at the restraining tissues, doing all the necessary things to slowly crack that shell away that I might emerge and fly away- a new person. And like a butterfly, while i am trying my hardest to COOPERATE with the maker's plan for my life, that transformation is all HIS. I have done nothing to deserve or create that transformation. The glory is all HIS! I'm just privileged to have a part in all of it.

So here it is, the story of me! Thanks for joining me on this journey!!

Rebecca