Faith: Friend or Foe

Most of us go through so many storms in our lives that were we to question God's love or existence at each one we would be faithless and rootless in the middle of the ocean. 

I have been faking it for some time now. Certainly I felt the slow slide to the land of unbelief when I left my volunteer activities at my last church over three years ago. Soon my attendance at Sunday services became spotty and because eventually I knew we would be moving to another city, I knew pulling away would be inevitable, and so chalked it up as necessary. No matter, I continued my daily devotionals and Bible readings and still do, though mostly it is along the order of taking my vitamins, wearing a seatbelt and not eating expired food.

As a year and then two went by, I picked up just one book about how I could learn to become more positive, change my ways and succeed in life, minus the word of God. And then it was two, and three. At first I told myself I was challenging myself to find God in the midst of words that never proclaimed the importance of Christ in one's life. After a while I stopped working at it entirely.

As my life before me feels more and more out of my control I am relying less and less, OK, not at all, on  God. I feel him there like some distant uncle who I never talk to but perhaps, if I need something, he will answer. But mostly I am not counting on it.

The saying that if God feels distant it's not him that moved, it's you, has never been more true. I don't doubt that God hasn't moved but I keep inching further away and now I am sure, should I be fortunate to face God some day he will look me in the eyes and say "I know you not."

When I first began volunteering with secular organizations I waited for someone to start and end the meeting in prayer, out of habit, because that is what I had become accustomed to. And then I just felt relieved that no one was going to call on me, the suckiest prayer of all time, to pray. Most meetings that I spent at church I struggled to even be fully present since I was sure at some point I was going to be called onto pray or called onto bring God more relevantly into my words or called onto remember a Bible verse that I did not have memorized. Maybe I brought this judgement on myself, but the stress that has been relieved at not having this expectation in the meetings and volunteer activities I am involved in now, is enormous. 

People have told me I need to practice if I am to become a better prayer. So I did practice and I did offer to pray and I did do it in the privacy of my own home. Nope, I have not become better and I still suck at it and I am still uncomfortable at it. And now I just feel like a failure and if I can't learn to pray, regardless of how often I read the Bible or practice, then I just plain suck. You can tell me that God doesn't care, but never, sitting in a meeting at church, have I ever heard someone say, "No thanks, I am not comfortable praying aloud, and have the whole team say, "hey, no worries." 

In attempting to work this through for myself over the years I have read books about prayers; I have used acronyms to help me cover the essentials of prayers; and I have asked people I know who do pray with beauty and heartfelt words how they do it. I have never come away with an answer. Because people who do pray well, don't have the answers. I just see them as better Christians or closer to God or whatever. And me as someone who will never be good enough.

Further, the more I draw away from God, the angrier I become and the more I dislike myself because angry people breed hate, and bitter words and resentment and who really wants to be around that? I know I don't so I don't even want to be around myself. But I am stuck with me. Now when I get stuck in traffic or my computer crashes for the fourth time in a week and I am stuck in one more line at Best Buy waiting for an appointment with a person who doesn't even have my name spelled right,  or my seventh psychiatrist leaves and I will never find another, or my new dog comes to me with ringworm and giardia and nasal infections and just plain pisses me off, I am useless to anyone.

And though I wish I could, I can't help thinking that this all began the day I wanted to belong to the kingdom of God and to His people and to be loved for who I am: a human being whose sins were forgiven by a man on a cross who gave his life so I could live mine.  But mostly I just feel inadequate  with my fellow believers and so if you find I'm avoiding you, this is why. 

So today my prayer is simply this: Dear God, I am not mad at you and I have not lost faith. But I am mad at your people and I am mad at this world. If you were able to soften your heart and love us enough to let yourself hang on a cross with nails through your body, maybe, just maybe, I will soften enough someday to stop being mad at your people and forget that I am imperfect in my words for you. Until that time, I am crawling, one inch at a time, back to you.

Is this helping?

This is a short talk I gave as the voice of "Lived Experience" on the Zero Suicide Community Coalition that is currently underway in the Fox Valley. Part of my reason for being there is to help others remember why we are doing what we are doing.

I am, by nature, a planner. I take notes, make lists, write down challenges for myself and keep a rambling journal filled with random notes from books and columns and blogs.

This year I ramped it up a bit by making a list of books I wanted to read at the beginning of the year. Presently I have already finished six books, opted to skip another three that don't fit the plan for myself, and added another dozen because I shot too low and decided to aim higher.

Since I made it through this past Christmas without a relapsing depression for the first time in so many years I dare not even guess the date, I have, as one can imagine, been flying higher than a jet just reaching cruising altitude.

"I rock," I told myself as I sent out an encouraging note to a friend, led a book study and taught my new dog to shake and spin all in one day. And then my rock became a boulder and grew roots and became immovable and when I fell and hit my head on its' pointy top I backed up, shocked and angered by its' sudden appearance in my happy life

Living with mental illness means dimes become tops and changes become storms that threaten to tear apart the calm blue seas that have previously been holding steady a small rowboat paddling at an even cadence down a narrow channel.

I have felt hopeless that my rage, which nearly always accompanies my recurring depressions, can ever be controlled. I can't seem to communicate well with my psychiatrist for while I think he means well, who, ever, just wanted a psychiatrist who means well?

I wanted him to stand up and slam his leather-soled foot on the ground and dare the world in the small space of his sterile-walled office to give him a challenge as small as mine.  He would pull out his prescription pad and write down new dosages of new meds that promsie to bring new miracles; he would pick up his phone and call one of the dozens of qualified therapists that could deliver a strong dose of CBT or DBT or whatever letters I need delivered in weekly sessions on plaid, cotton-covered couches that will walk me back off my crumbly ledge. I wanted him to ask the questions that I did not provide answers to. That is not what happened.

After my last appointment, I scheduled a return visit for a month out. A couple of weeks later I received a phone call that my psychiatarist needed to re-schedule due to a conflict. This is the third time this has happened in the last 6-8 visits. My appointments with him have become like scheuling a coffee date with a fickle friend. Now it is one more month out before I see him again.  When the receptionist told me when his first available appointment was I mentioned how I felt that it was an awfully long time for me to wait when I am still dabbling with a medication change to calm a fire in my head. I was to see him in one month, now it is two. The receptionist informed me, in her "duly noted" voice, that she would let the doctor know.

   

By the time I see him next the emergency will either be over or there will be a trail of relational debris strewn through my  yard, down the block and 20 miles in either direction. My husband will be behind me with broom and dustpan. Oftentimes it takes a vacuum cleaner with attached jet pack securely mounted on his back.

 I am currently in the uneviable position of having to find psychiatric care in the Wausau area. Which, to my  understanding, is only available through one's primary care practitioner. If I happen to see a nurse care practitioner, she has typically not even heard of the mediction I take. If I see a doctor, he has maybe heard of it, but does not know anyone who takes it. These are the hands that are to hold  my care. My husband, who often advocate for me, has even given up.

I probably sound angry to you, and I am. I have a friend who lost consciousness while driving. Her team of doctors have stopped at nothing to find out why she passed out while driving. She had to check into the hospital for testing. And when she left the hospital there were more tests and procedures and doctors called in. She has been angry at all of this and she is tired of more tests and doctor's visits but told me that the doctor's will keep looking until they find an answer. But if someone wants to die,  or to have their depression treated, even just adequately, one has to become her own advocate with super powers to find someone who will stop at nothing.

The Things that Make Us Who We Are

When we put our 10-year-old home on the market close to a year ago, I boxed up all of our family photos, favorite pictures of barns and hearts and all of the little things that made our house a home of our own. At the time I thought our house, which I dearly love and always have, would sell quickly. I am a fastidious house cleaner and my contemporary home was built with my preferences for a long life lived right here, forever.

Things are not supposed to be what make us happy, but now that I have been living without my things, decorating my walls, occupying my counters and lined up along the windows that are open to the woods beyond our backyard for many months, I am thinking differently.

Who doesn’t make judgements based upon the way a person’s house looks the minute they step foot in their (used to be) adorned front door? In my house, family photos (used to) line the wall going up the stairs that lead to my two boys’ bedrooms.  From newborn babies to graduating men in caps and gowns to artwork whimsically colored in a third-grader’s hand, my life (used to be) laid out in neatly measured rows of varied sized frames that ascended the wall to the second floor. Now bare.

Barns made of stone-colored dove gray with a hint of blue cast against a clear sky and framed in maple wood (used to be) lined along my walls in the entry and down the hall to the back door. Now bare.

The green walls and Corian counters to match that people (used to) say we were brave to decorate our house with, but that I meticulously coordinated from kitchen towels to place mats to dishes and throws and pillows and rugs were torn out months ago and replaced with a double kitchen sink that is “practical” and quartz countertops that are neutral.

Well-worn wooden floors that (used to) hold the scratches from my last three German shepherds, all gone way too soon, are now smoothed over and covered with rugs to protect them and pulled up in a hurry when showings are scheduled.

My bedroom is blue, my bathroom is gray and my towels are boring. My books are boxed up and my encouragement printed on scrap paper and stuck to my mirror and attached with magnets on strips in the kitchen are now inside drawers or tossed into the trash.

Most days I struggle enough to figure out who I am and where I’m going. With nothing around to remind me of the person I was (mom to babies and boys, wife, baker, lover of hearts and owner of German shepherds named Koryo, Nitro, Echo and Otto) and am (mom to men, and dogs Zoey and Cisco, and still a wife and a baker and a lover of hearts), it is extra hard sometimes to feel comfortable in this place I’m at presently.

Blessedly, I am in the midst of watching all of it take shape somewhere new, where soon I will hang our family photos on newly-painted walls; and freshly-laid floors await sharp doggy nails; brand new double ovens, the crumbs of hand-mixed cookies; and finally, new memories, that will help me to remember that really, it is all tucked inside, safe and sound.