Mom Had Her Surgery

It’s been a while since my last post and I am sorry. Things have been hectic around here but I am on vacation now for 10 days so I can spend time with mom as she is recovering and help her get back on her feet. Mom is doing well. Her surgery went off with out a hitch, that is once they got her into surgery. . . Her surgery was delayed 5.5hrs. She had surgery on Wed 1/9 and was home by Friday night. She was in quite a bit of pain and had several set backs but she is doing great now. She still has to take it easy and not push herself but she is off the heavy pain meds and is now just taking Ibuprofen. Her spirits are good for the most part but she is getting stir crazy and has caused a couple set backs by pushing herself to hard and getting out and going shopping and things like that. But over all she is doing wonderfully considering all she has gone through and I thank God for providing strength and healing for her.

I am also very thankful for everyone that has been there for the family. I was nervous that I was going to be overwhelmed because I couldn’t take the first week off so I was going to be working all day then coming home and cooking and cleaning and taking care of everything around the house. Thankfully though, friends and family have pulled together and have been great. I have only had to cook 1 meal since mom came home because everyone has been bringing us food and supporting us. The house is beautiful because of all the cards and flowers she has been getting and Misty came and helped clean. There is still a lot of things I need to do but I am on vacation now so I have plenty of time to do it. So all in all things are going well and I am thankful for all the support and provision from God friends and family. Not to mention how wonderful and supportive my boyfriend has been. Yes, I said boyfriend but that’s a whole other post

I’m so NOT OK

I have realised something this week. Awhile back I posted that I’m OK, meaning I am OK being single. I am OK with my life the way it is. But I have come to realise that I am not OK. The reason I thought I was OK was simply my fear. My fear of loving and loosing again. The people who say it is better to have love and loss then to have never loved at all obviously have not loved and loss a part of themselves.

I have this great guy that is interested in me. He is sweet and kind and caring and wants to be with me. Me of all people! Did I mention he is crazy Anyway he has been showering me with romantic cards and poetry and is planning to leave his whole life behind and come here to have the chance to be with me. Knowing that there is a good chance that he could get here and I wouldn’t want anything to do with him. I know I should be thrilled but I am terrified. I can’t bring myself to trust, to allow my heart to wake up and feel. I have tried a couple times with him but it just hurts so much that I retreat deeper inside. I am so terrified that I will open up to him and love him and he will crush me like all the others have.

As a result of this fear I am lashing out at him and pushing him away. I have just ignored a bunch of his phone calles after spending at least 30 min saying the most hurtful things I could think of to him on messenger. I don’t know what has gotten into me. I don’t know how to get through this. I don’t even know if I want to. But the bottom line is I am SO NOT OK.

Christmas

Everyone has been asking how my Christmas was and I find myself tempted to lie and say everything was great rather than get into it. Truth be told I was miserable. Most people look at me with a shocked look on their face like I am crazy. Their expression says “how can you not enjoy Christmas!”. Well I’ll tell you how. First off I have not been in the “Christmas spirit” this year or last. I am not sure why though I do have some speculation. I have found it hard to even wish people a Merry Christmas so I have gone to just saying “you to” when people say it to me. And all my festive jewelry and cloths have been left in their boxes this year.

Usually shopping for and buying the perfect gift for everyone on my list is my most favorite thing in the world but this year I wanted so badly to just say, you don’t buy for me and I wont buy for you and we can just forget this holiday. Unfortunately I knew no one would go for that so I just sucked it up and got the best gifts I could muster up. Which brought me no joy and I just kept wishing it would be over with.

Christmas Eve wasn’t great but it wasn’t nearly as bad as Christmas day. We went to my Grandma’s house in Loveland like we always do. Me, mom, dad, my brother, sister-in-law and their daughter, her brother and father and my aunt uncle and 2 cousins were there. It is an interesting dynamic my aunt and uncle have with their children. They have little control over them and they bicker all the time. The oldest of which is in the army because he got into some trouble at home and that is their solution. Anyway, he was able to be there that night and he was more rude and disrespectful then ever which made the night more stressful. As if having to be around all those people and pretend to be happy wasn’t bad enough! We didn’t get home until almost midnight that night and we had people coming over the next morning.

Christmas day started around 9am for me with people arriving at my house about 10:30-11. There was the chaos of bringing in food and gifts and then preparing food. Jacob’s breakfast lasagna was amazing like usual. We had barley finished eating and begun reading the Christmas story and lighting the advent candles when my dad’s dad and his wife and mother-in-law showed up so we had to stop what we were doing to get them and their stuff settled in. This and the IMO excessively long time it took irritated me. We finally got them settled in and got back to advent. Then we started opening their gifts first so they could leave and no sooner had we started then we had to stop to eat. Which I still don’t understand because we had just eaten like 2 hrs earlier. Plus most the food was snack stuff people could have just gotten up and filled a plate. There was no reason for every one to stop. So anyway we stop having not even finished opening up their gifts and eat. Then we finish opening their gifts and pack them up and they leave. So here it is 5 hours later and we are no closer to being done then when we started. The day continued to drag on like that with my emotions on a roller coaster of frustrated, irritable, depressed and fighting back tears. At one point I had to go down stairs and get away from everyone so I could just cry. So no I didn’t enjoy my Christmas. By the time the night was over which was 10:30-11pm I was so emotionally exhausted from fighting my emotions and trying to be happy for everyone that I couldn’t even think straight. All I could do was take a hot shower and go to bed. Thankfully I didn’t have to work till 2pm today because I was still feeling so overwhelmed today I couldn’t get out of bed.

I Had Fogotten

Tonight we got together at my grandmas house for our Christmas eve gathering and I got to see my cousin for the first time since he enlisted in the army last summer. He is stationed in town for a few weeks and was able to join us. When I was leaving, not to see him for Lord knows how long, he gave me a great big hug and I have to say I forgot how good it feels to be totally engulfed in strong caring arms. And no I’m not being grouse, yes I know he is my cousin and it is nothing like that. It just felt good to be embraced, truely embraced. Not one of those half hugs where both people are counting the secounds until they can let go, but a real hug that makes nothing else matter, one that makes you wish you didn’t have to let go. It has been years since I have gotten a hug like that and I have to say I miss it. It was strong and loving and protecting. Even though he is younger than me and I can remember changing his diaper he has always been protective of me. And now he is serving our nation to protect not only me but millions of others that he will never even meet. Thank you Drew for your sacrifice!

I’m OK

I discovered something about myself today. When I came home from work today my mom and I were talking and she started telling me about one of her regular customers trying to set me up with his son. She went on to tell me he was “religous”, liked animals, finantially stable (aka rich, from both family and his own accomplishments) and good looking. Now usually I would be thinking this guy sounds great and I want to meet him, while teasing mom about trying to set me up cuz I was to shy to ask her to. Well this time was different. My first reaction was to roll my eyes. Then I thought “Great just want I need more drama and hurt in my life. I am finally getting my life together and now she wants me to get involved with some guy that will just mess things up”.

Now I know you are thinking, “man, someone has really messed her up”. And you may be right but to me this is a big step. You see, to me this means I am happy being single. And that makes me even happier! No, my life is not great and yes, I do have a lot of things I need to work on and get straight but I am ok being single. That may be the only thing in my life I am ok with but I’m ok with it and that makes me happy

Another update on mom

Sorry this is late coming things have been crazy. Mom got her biopsy results a week ago friday and there is no cancer Praise God! The Dr. is still concerned with the abnormal cells they found and the pain and other symptoms she has been having though so he is still recommending a hysterectomy. They also did some other tests and found out she has a dropped bladder so when they do they hysterectomy they are also going to fix that.

As you can imagine Mom is very nervous about the thought of surgery and them taking “her parts” so please continue to pray for comfort and peace for her. Please pray also for financial support as she will be out of work for at least 6 weeks without pay. Dad has been picking up some more hours at work to try and cover this but he will not be able to make it all up.

Her surgery is scheduled for Jan 9th and she will have to go in for pre OP stuff on the 7th. She will be in the hospital for 2-3 days, then on strict restrictions for at least 2 weeks and not expected to be fully recovered for at least 6 weeks. Dad and I are both going to take a week off of work so one of us will always be with her during those first 2 weeks, and I will be taking on all the household chores like cooking and cleaning and laundry for at least 6 weeks. Please pray for me as I will be stressed and trying to do all this stuff myself while taking care of her and working full time.

We all greatly appreciate the prays and support we have already received and ask for continued support and prayer.

Spiritual Adolesence

I was reading Nakedpastor today trying to get caught up on my blog subscriptions (which I finally did) and as usual God used him to speak to me. He was talking about how his “community” is in the middle of spiritual adolescence which he defines as trying, “to be special, to just do things to be popular, rebel against anything that you don’t want to be, to fight for the you who stands where you are.”

As I read that I realised that is exactly what I have been doing in this crisis of faith. So many times I have told people “I don’t want to believe just because that is what I am supposed to do” and “I don’t want to fall back into the way things always were”. And part of this is because I truly believe that the way things were (the way I was taught and used to believe) isn’t right. I feel it is in the neighborhood but it is missing the mark. But if I am totally honest with myself I will admit that part of it to is rebelling against what is expected. I got tired of being who everyone expected me to be so I started acting out just like every teenager does.

He goes on to explain; “all this is necessary on the way to maturity, but a sign of maturity is moving out of your uniqueness which you have discovered and embodied to help and serve others. “I got to be me at all costs,” is not the end. It is on the way. Compassionate love is the end. . .”

“Generally, adolescents don’t give a damn about the needs of others, especially if it encroaches on theirs. A mature person does care and will do something about it when presented with the opportunity. A mature person serves even when it costs something precious. To adolescents, the biblical and Jesus-like idea of pouring yourself out for others feels suicidal. For a mature person, an adult, this is the meaning of life.”

Right now I feel like I am still trying to find myself so the thought of giving that up to serve others seems crazy. I don’t understand why I have to go through this phase because before I started trying to find myself I was content being and doing what others wanted. So why do I have to spend all this time and energy finding myself just to give it up again? See what I mean by crazy?

In another post he talks about why most people never make it to spiritual maturity. . .

“. . . one of the major complaints of people who have been in church for years and years… is that they don’t feel they were allowed to grow into adults, that the only stage that was acceptable and that was nurtured was childhood. I think this is true. As soon as people start acting like adolescents spiritually and practically, it causes many leaders serious concern. People are discouraged from thinking outside the box, experimenting with new ideas, and making mistakes. Adolescent attitudes and behavior are frowned upon. No wonder most people in church never make it to spiritual adulthood! They aren’t allowed to be adolescents first.”

I totally agree with this and am in the middle of it. When I was a baby Christian, just like when I was a child, things were simple and happy. Everything made sence and seemed easy. But now I have questions. Just like a young child that has to ask you why a hundred times until you finally get frustrate and tell them to go ask someone else. That is me right now. Combined with the teenage rebellion against anything conventional and expected has led to this crisis. And as I have expressed in past posts I feel like I am being criticized and looked down upon and even punished because of these questions. I feel like I have no support, like I am in the middle of the ocean in a raft with a hole in it and I am bailing like crazy but without someone else to help me I am going to sink at any moment.

Just because I don’t fit into the box that they think I should they freak out and either cram their thoughts and beliefs down my throat or they cut me loose as a lost cause. This response has led me to stop asking for help and telling those that I do ask that I don’t want bible answers. But that doesn’t work either because I don’t have the answers so I have to ask others and if I limit them to non-bible answers how are they supposed to help me? There is no spiritually correct answer that doesn’t at least sound biblical because the bible is the foundation of the faith. So here I sit going through spiritual puberty which sucks just as much as physical puberty did. 

I’m Being Punished

I feel like I am being punished. Why? Because I finally met a great guy that is not in a relationship and is interested in me. Now I know that doesn’t sound like punishment, most of you would be happy to find that right? Well, so would I, but here is the problem. . . This guy being available and interested in me perfectly coincides with my recent crisis of faith. Big deal right? Well actually it is. You see last night I found out that the girl he is interested in is not me (which I pretty much already knew) and the reason he isn’t interested in me anymore is because of my crisis of faith. See he is a strong Christian and wants a strong Christian woman to do life with. Which I can’t really blame him for because I felt the same way before all these questions. But talk about kicking a girl when she is down. I have felt so alone and confused during this and now I find out that it has gotten in the way of a potentially beautiful relationship. This guy is everything I have ever wanted and I don’t have a chance with him because I have questions. I just want to SCREAM! I have been searching for a man like him my whole life and now that I finally found him I am to messed up. Why couldn’t he have been interested in my before this all happened? Why did he have to break up with his girlfriend and start looking at me now that I am such a wreck? Why is life’s timing so upside down? Now he is interested in another girl that I am sure is beautiful and kind and has it all together. I would have had a hard time competing with that before this crisis let alone smack in the middle of it.

I want so badly to just tell him I will believe what ever he wants me to but I know that wont solve anything. I know that isn’t what he wants and even if I wanted to I can’t just believe. That is what I was doing, believing just because I was told that was what I was supposed to believe. Well, I can’t do that anymore, I need to find answers, real answers. So no matter how much I want to just believe what he wants me to so we can be together I can’t. It’s not that simple. I really wish it was but it’s not. So now I am stuck not knowing what to do. I feel like I have lost the best thing that, well, never happened to me. *sigh* This stinks!

My Friend

I have this friend that I have known most of my life. We were inseparable as kids until my family moved to Alaska when I was 6. When we moved back when I was 11 we started hanging out again and that lasted for a little while until I realized I had grown up and she hadn’t. We lost touch for several years until earlier this year when she contacted me through MySpace. At first I was excited to hear from her until I started reading her profile and talking to her a bit. I soon realized she has grown into just the person I was afraid she would, the kind of person I hate.

Now I know that sounds harsh but it’s true. This type of person literally makes me angry and it takes a LOT to make me angry. She keeps wanting to hang out but I just can’t do it. I know that if I was around her for even 5 min it would make me physically sick. Part of the reason for that is because I would feel so inferior. You see she is the type of person that has it ALL. Even growing up she had it all. Her family is well off, she is extremely beautiful (I’m talking model gorgeous) and talented, she plays the piano and has the voice of an angel, not to mention she is bilingual in at least 2 languages. All things I have wanted to do/be but never could. And on top of all that she drives a BMW! She is my age and drives a BMW that just isn’t right!

I know I shouldn’t feel this way, that I should be happy for her. But I just can’t. She has never had to fight for anything, it has all been handed to her on a silver platter with a golden spoon. And here I am living in my parents basement working 2 jobs just to make the ends meet. Not to mention the fact that I have NO talent and guys wont even give me the time of day. I am getting so tired of having to fight for every little thing I get. Nothing ever comes easy, nothing is ever free. Like I said I know I shouldn’t feel this way I just don’t know what to do about it. She just gets under my skin and drives me crazy!

Creativity

While reading some blogs on lunch today I came across this one by NakedPastor. While I didn’t have time to watch the video I was struck by something the writer said. He was talking about a presentation by Ken Robinson about how education kills creativity because we are taught that we can’t be wrong and Ken Robinson said it this way,

“Unless you are prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original.”     How true is that!

NakedPastor went on to say:

“I believe this to be true in religion as well. Creativity is not allowed because mistakes are not allowed. We are urged to become new creations, while the religious cultures we are a part of add on: “As long as you look like something we’ve seen before!” “

I have felt this oppression a lot lately. When I first started to question things I had been taught about Christianity I felt like an awful person because I was questioning the “unquestionable”. As I started to express these questions to fellow believers I thought I could trust and would have answers for me I found out that most of them had never questioned. They simply believed because they were supposed to believe so they didn’t have any answers except to say that’s just how it is and you just have to have faith and believe. And on top of that they thought I was a terrible person for questioning.

NakedPastor then shared a verse from “Selling Advertising“ by Davis Bazan:

“I know it’s hard to be original.
In fact, nothing scares me more.
Because Jesus only lets me do
what has been done before!”

When I read this I was shocked! How can anyone look at Jesus life and say he only lets you do what has been done before. His whole life was about breaking rules and recreating ideas and ways of doing things. Jesus went against the religious leaders of the day and told them they were wrong and refused to do what they said. If Jesus was sent as an example of how we are to live our lives then we to should be rethinking and recreating things not just settling with what others tell us because that’s what they think is right. We need to question we need to explore. It is time to stop being armchair Christians as they say and get out and rediscover things!

I have recently started reading several books (Letters From A Skeptic and Velvet Elvis to name a couple) that have helped me to realise that these questions are good and healthy and help you to develop a deeper understanding and closer relationships. From what I have seen people who are open to questions and to striking out on their own to find the answers and blaze new paths are much more confident and have much better relationships then those who simply believe to believe. Those people only have skin deep “faith” and when hard times come and things don’t go exactly the way they think it should their weak foundation is tested and often crumbles. Those people are the ones that wined up looking like hypocrites to the outside world because they appear to be happy and have it all together when life is good but as soon as things get a little tough they fall apart.

I don’t want to be that kind of Christian. I’m not even sure I want to be a Christian. Not to say I don’t want to believe in the bible or Christ I just don’t like the way that “religion” looks and how “Christians” have given it a bad name. I was one of those Christians and I am tired of it so I am in the middle of recreating my religious beliefs and I am being looked at much like a scientist or discoverer is. I’m being told not to question because this is just the way it is. Many people have even told me to stop messing with it cuz it’s not broken but I beg to differ! I’m not happy and I don’t have things all together so I’m not going to pretend I am and do just so you can feel better about yourself and your religion.