Letters to My Family

I challenged myself to write a letter a day, for 40 consecutive days, to my husband, my son, and my daughter. That came to 120 letters. In a word-exhausting.

What I learned:

• that this was more a learning experience for me, than a sharing experience with my family because I don't think they were impressed with the letters,
• that trying to stay positive when I was having down days proved almost impossible,
• that letter-writing is overrated,
• that I don't have as much to say as I thought.

All in all, I'm glad that I've hit my goal, but I'm more glad that it's over. I know that my children will probably be relieved that they won't need to accept any more letters.

It was an interesting...experiment--one that I don't think I'll try again, at least not to this extent. Not along with writing multiple blog posts and a poem everyday. Too much is too much. I'd like to have enough time to say something, if not insightful, then at least practical. Some days I know I only blathered because time ran short.

I guess there's another lesson in there somewhere... I encourage everyone to lose their minds in this experience--and then find it again at the end.*

*I don't necessarily guarantee that your mind will be found again.

Eternal Love

What I've been learning this month: to love each person I come across in an eternal way. Not just for what he or she is worth to me here and now, but for what that person is worth to God in eternity.

Hard lesson.

Spring Cleaning

So I'm cleaning out my house, from top to bottom. All very gross. I've hit the outside and now I just have...well, my bedroom left. Every time I have something that I don't know what to do with, I just dump it in my room. Now there's stacks of boxes everywhere in here, and I have no idea what I will do with them. I asked my husband to get me a shelf, but that probably won't help that much.

Honestly, my mind could use a little cleaning, too. I'm okay where I'm at--though I'm not satisfied. The question is: am I striving for complete satisfaction? Isn't that an impossibility?

I'm trying to fill my head with positives and truths so that there is less and less room for negativity and lies. I think this is a legitimate strategy...I'll know soon enough.

Having critical, judgmental, ugly, vulgar thoughts jump in my head at all hours is wearing me down. I hate not being in control of what's going on in my mind. No matter how much I try to control my thoughts, I can't get them in hand. Not even to decrease them.

Therefore, I will be trying out this new strategy (better than doing nothing about it, I'm thinking). Positive thinking with a sprinkling of reality for groundedness is just what I need to keep my inner self from being a wellspring of bitter anger that I've picked up from the world.

Dear Enemy

I pray that you never get 

what you deserve.

Instead I hope that 

God blesses you

and keeps you,

opens your eyes and

your heart--

fills your life with

joy and truth.

I forgive the harm

and the hurt

that you've burdened on me.

For your sake, I pray

you accept the One

who can bring you

salvation.

I want for you

an eternity in happiness

by my side, laughing together,

dear enemy.

New Adventure

I've been wrestling with something lately (well, something new), and I think I've been worn down enough to accept what I need to do.

The only problem is this seems like a lead thing, rather than a follow thing. I don't do so good with leading. No one wants to follow me, for one. And I actually want this cause to be furthered, for two. I don't think I'd make much progress by myself. And the thing is I think I'll be by myself for much of this. That's a big part of why this is a problem I feel I've been led to tackle.

I'm so scared. Mostly that nothing will come of this, and I'll know that nothing can be done about the problem even though there are solutions. Easy ones.

An adventure...and a long road ahead.

My Heaven, Your Hell.

After the bright lights subside
there you stand, in the midst
of tall grasses and sweet air.

Humming reaches your ears
and you turn your head
in anticipation and eagerness.

Up there! What do you see?
Choirs of angels swaying in song...
But you frown at the noise.

They swing their shoulders
as they utter their praises
scats and beatboxing and rapping.

You cringe and pull your head
back in confusion and contempt.
Surely angels would sing hymns?

This isn't the reverent spirituals
befitting a great King. Would a Holy
God accept music such as this?

Before you can question further--
Over a hill women and men spill
to greet you with joyful smiles.

Your blood runs cold and your
own smile falls. Not very many
of them look very much like you.

Some have turbans. Others robes.
A few wear colored braids and
wild hairstyles you have never seen before.

Where are the familiar faces that you
expected? Surely this place would be
filled with the people you held dear.

In a sudden flash, you contemplate
the possibility that you have gotten
it all wrong; that this beautiful place

that you thought was full of angels
and saints was ridden with demons and
lost souls. Not Heaven, but Hell.

Why Peace Is So Stressful

Everyone wants more peace in their lives, right? Well, no. I don't think so. Peace is gained through struggle and sacrifice, not comfort and contentment. How can I be freed from worries and distractions and distress if I've never experienced them in the first place? Yet who wants more strife? Who wants to let go? Even when it's of something painful, we don't like to let go. That means losing--no one wants to be a loser.

So, we leave ourselves unchallenged. We settle, thinking we're satisfied. And we hold on to what we don't need and never empty our hands so that we have a chance to grab on to something of substance.

The hardest thing about peace is recognizing what it truly is.

Family Meeting

I wonder if the kids will throw the times that I call 'family meetings' back into my face, telling me that they were the most excruciating times of their lives. I wanted to tell them the changes that were coming up in our lives and that we might be facing tough times. Therefore we'd need to pray more than ever.

Any questions? Yes, my daughter had a few. Their father announced upcoming changes in his job schedule. Any more questions? Right. Handled those.

Then I made the mistake of asking them if they had anything to announce. Why, yes. My daughter proceeds to unload every last minute thing she's been holding back for the last month. And now we're trying to figure out the logistics of this, that, and the other. Why didn't she come to us before?

Blegh.

Not Himself

In the struggle to give my son an opportunity that he wouldn't otherwise have, I have shut the door on his potential.

When he was small, he was a typical boy with autism. He screamed and had tantrums and didn't smile so much and didn't like contact. I could barely keep him in school. None of the teachers wanted him in their classes.

I decided that I had to teach my son how to hide his symptoms so that he would be better accepted and so that he could survive in this life. I taught him how to make and keep eye contact. I taught him how to sit still for longer and longer periods of time. I taught him to seek out hugs. I taught him how to suppress his tantrums most of the time.

I taught him how to not be himself.

Only now am I realizing how stupid I've been. At school, when my son is feeling bad and doesn't want to deal with school, do you know what he does? He acts like himself. He screams and throws tantrums.

The teachers throw up their hands and give up on him and send him home. They supposedly specialize in children with autism, but they can't handle my son on the very few days out of the school term when he acts out. "He's not acting like the student I know." Well, you never knew him. Then they simply throw him away; they reject who he really is.

I can no longer abide by this. Why am I teaching my son to act like someone else to make them comfortable when they don't appreciate that? They think I'm lucky to have my son. They're ignorant of all the hard work my son, family, and I have put into his behavior. They think that he's a happy little mistake. They're blind to the truth.

He's not my mistake; he's my blessing.

The Slow Work of Understanding

The sermon I heard today was challenging. Not because I found it convicting or condemning, but because I barely understood it. I haven't heard one of those in a while.

I am working through it and trying to digest it and praying and hoping that it all comes together for me during the week. The Bible passages that were given with the message have been enlightening; however, the message itself still eludes me. I wouldn't have thought a message about the Holy Spirit would do me in. Irony?

Zoning out was a difficult thing not to do. I had to fight against that for the majority for the sermon so I just had to record everything said, though it I felt like I was making a mess of it.

Will it come to me later what was being communicated? I don't know. Usually, when I'm unsure about something, it's just one small part, not a majority of it. Also, often I won't even know I didn't get something until the Lord brings to my attention something I miss when I re-read the Bible verses at home.

It wasn't that I disagreed with what was being said or anything; I was just confused. Yet I know the remedy for that is prayer. Understanding might not come quickly so I must be patient while I wait for God to work and reveal in me what I might need to deal with to see more clearly.

The Fear of Hope

How many are living half-hearted lives, never fully expecting the best to come out of what they do or plan? Or what God does or plans. How is that hope?

I can no longer live in that cynical place of holding back and expecting the worst or only hoping just enough that my feelings don't get hurt if things don't pan out. I've made some of the worst decisions of my life because I became hopeless and gave up. I stop expecting better, stopped looking forward to good things happening to me, couldn't fathom a good future. I hurt the people that I love and I hurt myself. We are still hurting and healing. That is somewhere that no one should be.

I say, recklessly throw yourself in hope. Not in fragile things, of course. I'm not advising that anyone put all their hopes in things that are meaningless or that are unfulfilling or that don't last. Put your hope in what will be there tomorrow, in what has been proven time and time again. You'll never go wrong in that.

So then, when things in life go wrong, you still have your hope. And your promises will still come through.

Migraines Update

Still fighting migraines, but now they are manageable. Thank God. They don't happen every day and when they do happen, they only last a couple minutes, twenty at the most.

I got an allergy test and now I know that I'm allergic to milk (Boo!). Still no word on gluten. Been on an elimination diet since January. I hope to be off by Easter. At that time I will start re-introducing foods to my diet to see about food intolerance. Right now, mangoes, broccoli, and paprika is on that particular list.

My life is much more livable than it has been, that's for sure. I'm doing Lent this year and since I don't have much to give up, I'm adding a whole bunch of things to start doing. Like blogging. ;)

I'll be praying three times a day. Writing letters to my family every day. Reading the same book of the Bible every day (Colossians). Writing every day. Blogging every day. And writing a poem every day.

When I put it all in one paragraph. This seems like a lot...

Digression: It's raining tonight like it's Mississippi. Lightning flashing--almost the whole works. No thunder though... Oops. There it is.

Forgiving without Forgetting

I'm called to not only forgive, but to intercede for those who have wronged me. They are people, worthy of eternity. This is so easy to forget.

However, their past deeds do not fade from my mind. These things leave scars that never heal. I'm left with the seams that I trail my thoughts over, hating the feel but unable to help the obsession. How do I get past it? I'm stuck here in this circular pattern. I want out of this trap.

I am a network of ridges, dimples, and scabs. Infections lay underneath, waiting to boil up and fester. Is this the result of forgiveness or un-forgiveness? I think I'm asking the wrong questions. It's the outcome of unmended relationships that have trickled down to every arena of my life. I absolved my betrayers' responsibilities, while believing that I must take them over. No.

I must let them go. I cannot carry them for they are too heavy and too painful to hold. The scars are unsurprising.

Yet even as I move on from the hurts, the memory of them follows. Can I outrun them? No, that would be an unnecessary effort. I am to use them, empower myself. They are evidence of bestowed strength, and I would be foolish to escape that.

I must never forget that, although at times my focus skews inward and I wallow in my pain because I am thinking small. The meanness of my perceptions pushes out everyone who stands beside me until I convince myself that I am alone. My vision then grows smaller and smaller until I can no longer see. I've blinded myself.

Now when I try to open my eyes, I am still in the dark. Even if light comes near, I turn away. It hurts my eyes. But the deepness of my void scares me, and I begin searching for that light. It's a futile exercise with sightless eyes.

I want out so I finally decide to find help. By this point I'm broken and ashamed--all because someone wronged me. I'm led back into the world and startled to find people waiting for me. But I forget that I'm not helped yet. I'm still holding onto something, my hands spasming.

Somewhere down the road I get used to keeping my hands closed. But I slam against a wall and to protect myself I open my hands. I drop those debts that don't belong to me, still unpaid. Then, I ask for them to be taken away. The burden that lifts amazes me.

What do I do know? I move on and use those ghosts that don't quite recede to build myself up and to keep my eyes open for those who are in the same position I once was. But what about the betrayer in my life. I forgave, but do I have a right to demand change?

That I don't know.

The Problem with Rap

"As long as it's not rap."

Then there's the awkwardness of people trying to look at me or my husband from the sides of their eyes. Trying to gauge our reactions without us noticing. But of course we notice. We see the false preoccupation with lint on shirts or pants or hair. We feel every scrape and creak of the chairs we sit in. All around us bodies make to go places, but are confined, going nowhere and everywhere at the same time.

We are black and so we must like rap. Are we offended? Not in the way one would assume. Rap is not my favorite genre of music, for one. Yet when people sneer at the thought of it, I become a target of that disdain, whether or not that was the intention (and sometimes that is the intention). At that point, I wonder what else this person is intolerant of. What else is presumed of me that they'd rather not exist?