Taking Care

I haven't been here in so long, I forgot this was in my drafts waiting to be finished and published. I think I'll just finish it now...

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A year and a half ago I joined Weight Watchers. I've lost 20lbs so far....but it should've been more. And I say that not to be self-depricating, but because I'm admitting that I haven't been taking it very seriously. Most of the time, I'm not really trying to follow the program. It's super-difficult for me to keep a weight-loss program up high on the priority list. Is this any surprise, really? This, in fact, is the problem: I don't take care of myself and I'm not allowed to (says me). My kids are more important. My husband and his issues are more important. Taking care of my home-- that's my identity-- that's more important.

But slowly, s l o w l y... I am learning to move myself up on that priority list, slowly I'm starting to see and believe how taking care of myself benefits my family.

But what does that even mean? Again, slowly... I'm learning... I have two friends that come to mind who have asked me how that's going, or what I'm going to do this week to take time for "me" (note to self: let them in!).

Sometimes when I am stressed, bored, overwhelmed, or whatever emotion I find painful, I start wanting to eat. It makes no sense to me: what will eating solve? Now that I'm thinking about it more I realize I'm not really even hungry...or am I? I don't know if I'd know hungry if it growled in my stomach. My brain says eat. My body says, "no thanks, I'm cool."

Years ago, my mom sent me a series of books by Geneen Roth. I finally cracked one open, and in Feeding the Hungry Heart I read this:

"Binges are purposeful acts, not demented journeys. They do not signify a lack of willpower or the inability to care for yourself. On the contrary, a binge can actually be an urgent attempt to care for yourself when you feel uncared for. Binges speak the voice of survival. They are protective mechanisms. Binges are signals that something is terribly wrong, that you are not giving yourself what you need-- either physically (with food) or emotionally (with intimacy, work, relationships). They are your last stand against deprivation."

When I read this, a lightbulb went on. I'm not sure why I couldn't admit it before, but suddenly I let myself recognize my true feelings: I feel uncared for.

Sure, as the wife of a sex addict in full swing, you are uncared for. To the extreme, you might even be flat-out abused, physically, emotionally, spiritually, etc. But right now, at this point in my life, at the space I'm in where our marriage is fairly healthy and my own issues are bubbling to the surface,  feeling uncared for happens in seemingly benign situations. If the kids are fighting and agitated when they're getting ready for school, and then we're late and I didn't have breakfast and someone's complaining about what's in their lunch and someone else forgot their jacket or shoes (yes, that has happened!) I suddenly can't get my mind off what I'm going to order when I am smiling at the barista in give-or-take 15 minutes. But I haven't had breakfast, where can I get a gluten-free pastry? Because I definitely deserve some elaborate pastry at this point. And now I'm driving half-way across town to "take care" of myself when I would've actually been better cared for by quickly going home, fixing a healthy breakfast and taking a bike ride with the baby. And doesn't my insanity sound just like a certain sex addict I know...?

So now I'm on the lookout for times when I feel uncared for. I'm not sure what to do in those moments, but I know what NOT to do. That's a start.

Infinite Possibilities...But What Is Mine?

My life experiences have taught me that every woman's pregnancy experience is different, not only from other women's experiences, but from her own different experiences. No two pregnancies or births are completely alike.

 In the same way, no two people have the same relationship with God. Now think of all the people God knows, and it's incomprehensible that He doesn't start to treat us all alike in some ways. I feel stretched to the max getting to know my husband and five kids. Not to mention all the "friends" I have on Facebook (annnnd, I'm kidding). But God has made us all so unique, that the ways in which he relates to us are infinitely unique.  Although most of us like to enjoy affinity with one another, I try to be cautious not to project my own preferences or experiences onto others.  As more grey hairs twang out of the top of my head (which I infer to mean I'm growing wiser) I opinionate less and listen more...and I am amazed at our creative God and the depth of his love for us.  I'll notice that he loves someone else in a completely different way than he is loving me, much like how I relate to my own children.  I can be jealous of how He is loving another, or maybe just glad for them, because that's not what would float my boat.  It drives me crazy to see people rolling their eyes at a mother's maternity choices, or telling someone what God wants them to do, as if in their limited frame of reference, they've become all-knowing.

Sometimes I don't want to admit it, but marriages are all different, too.  There are some basic ideas, but how that plays out for each person is infinitely unique.  I recently heard Bill Clem of Mars Hill Ballard say this:

"What I understood about marriage, before I got remarried, was that I could be a good husband by being a biblical husband.  But if you have children...you start understanding you can love them, but there really is a difference and that you can't just generically be "dad" or generically be "mom" to all [five].  That there's a way that you have to love each person in a unique way.  That becomes the assignment in marriage.  It isn't to be a generic biblical spouse, but it is to be a biblical spouse who is tailor-shaping that love to your spouse, and that they tailor themselves to express a biblical love to you and that's what makes it marriage instead of simply fellowship."

The reason I don't want to admit this is because I am married to an addict.  I want to squeeze my marriage into the boundaries of another marriage, so I can somehow extract more of the romantic ideals that other marriages seem to have more of.  I want to be experiencing what I regard as cohesive marriage where we're both equally contributing to the relationship (picture me doing the Robot here).  In our relationship it seems like we are both contributing to the healing of the addict, and a very unequal piece of care comes my way. This may or may not be true, and this may or may not be something I have control over; I haven't completely figured it out yet.  On many good days, I'm leaning hard into friends and my Redeemer Husband to keep my heart from exploding with need.

Twice this week I've heard Philippians 2--

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who,being in very nature God, didn't consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.  And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death-- even death on a cross!  (NIV)

Wow. If Jesus was equal to God and used this status to serve others with to-the-death humility, then how about this: I am unequivocally loved, accepted and provided for by God, so I have the ability to use this to serve others with to-the-death humility. Obedience....the very nature of a servant....tailor-shaping that love to your spouse.... It all fits together, and it serves me well to keep asking... how?

"Thanks a lot" and also, Thanksgiving

Just before Thanksgiving, a friend of mine called to ask if I could fill in for her capricious nanny until Christmas break, while they look for a more permanent replacement. I said sure! I always want to help a friend; I could use a paying gig.

Sunday after Thanksgiving, we made our budget for December, proud of the success of November's frugal, cash-only budgeting and laid December on the altar for the holes that paychecks won't fill, knowing God is always providing for us in crazy ways. And this doesn't even take Christmas Consumerism into consideration...just the basics. Maybe a little less than the basics, but we're alright.

Monday morning comes too early, but there I am, with my own toddler in tow, ready to serve. My friend answers the door, gaunt and slouched, eyes drooping, barely standing, barely breathing.

"Are you okay?" I quickly begin to realize something is very wrong.

No, she is not. Her husband has left her. He told her--on Thanksgiving-- that he wanted out of their almost-20-year marriage, and then sat down with their three kids to feast on the meal she'd been cooking all day, while she went to an out-of-town friend's house to crumble into a pile of rubble, a ruined city. Alone.

My friend is the heartbroken, heart of ashes, languid spirit. Mourning has it's place and I try not to bombard her with messages of hope, and I do my best to know the pain with her, share hugs and tears and to be hands and feet in her home for what seems the trivial daily grind next to remembering to breathe.

I am feeling disappointed (understatement) in yet another spouse giving up, making a conscious choice to be discontent and withdrawing from relationship, instead of playing through. NEWSFLASH: there is no perfect relationship. You will never find that person who never bugs you, whom you have everything in common with forever. REALLY-- You want your life to look like a sit-com, with strings of disposable relationships based on your own comfort and entertainment? Life is not like TV and movies, duh! This guy says he's "not leaving the kids" but what kind of dad will he be if he's just in relationship for convenience? I have a 12-year old know-it-all daughter battling to the death of wills every day and let me tell you, it's not comfortable, entertaining or convenient in the least! There are days when I look at my husband and wonder what alien has taken his place and I'm horrified that I'm set up to grow old with this dork... but I play through and things iron out. God is always moving, we are always growing, there are ups and downs. This stuff requires grace and patience and second chances over and over.

Dude: you are leaving your kids by leaving your relationship with the wife of your youth. And they will probably know it before you do.

This guy has a problem, and I feel sorry for him, too. He's totally unhappy, and has been for a while and I think it has little if anything to do with his wife. I am just sick of this magical thinking. I am sick of the struggle with it in my own brain. It's an evil lie. But I am really sick of watching my friends and their children suffer the fallout. It might be "normal" but it is not okay. STOP ABANDONING EACH OTHER. That's what I'd spray-paint on a stop sign if I could.

But this is not the only thing I wanted to write about. Off the tirade, back to our budget.

Now I don't think my friend here is walking with the Lord. I think that is a thing of the distant past for her (we met through a church group). But little does she know it, God is using her. The money she set aside to pay her nanny is now going to fill in the holes in our budget! We might be able to pay all the bills! Buy the food we need (the end of the month is always slim pickins around here)! Maybe fill some Christmas stockings! What a blessing, albeit a mixed bag of emotions...God works all things, you know? It's just weird, maybe enlightening to be on the other side of this.

The other thing is that being able to be there, present for my friend in this dark night of hers is a gift of redemption for me. It gives the dark times I've been through purpose. It wasn't all for nothing. Now I get to be, once more, Grace to the Brokenhearted. And I know this is only one small way God will redeem my own Ruined City. Like a giant oak next to a sprouting acorn, the evidence of God's grace in my life is so very apparent. It's been a while since I read the manifesto of that first year when truth and recovery began, the Year of His Favor, so I'm reading it aloud to you now. My story is in here:

Isaiah 61 (the message)

Announce Freedom to All Captives

 ^1-7 The Spirit of God, the Master, is on me because God anointed me.
He sent me to preach good news to the poor, 
   heal the heartbroken,
Announce freedom to all captives, 
   pardon all prisoners.
God sent me to announce the year of his grace— 
   a celebration of God's destruction of our enemies— 
   and to comfort all who mourn,
To care for the needs of all who mourn in Zion, 
   give them bouquets of roses instead of ashes,
Messages of joy instead of news of doom, 
   a praising heart instead of a languid spirit.
Rename them "Oaks of Righteousness" 
   planted by God to display his glory.
They'll rebuild the old ruins, 
   raise a new city out of the wreckage.
They'll start over on the ruined cities, 
   take the rubble left behind and make it new.
You'll hire outsiders to herd your flocks 
   and foreigners to work your fields,
But you'll have the title "Priests of God," 
   honored as ministers of our God.
You'll feast on the bounty of nations, 
   you'll bask in their glory.
Because you got a double dose of trouble 
   and more than your share of contempt,
Your inheritance in the land will be doubled 
   and your joy go on forever.

 ^8-9"Because I, God, love fair dealing
   and hate thievery and crime,
I'll pay your wages on time and in full,
   and establish my eternal covenant with you.
Your descendants will become well-known all over.
   Your children in foreign countries
Will be recognized at once
   as the people I have blessed."

 ^10-11I will sing for joy in God,
   explode in praise from deep in my soul!
He dressed me up in a suit of salvation,
   he outfitted me in a robe of righteousness,
As a bridegroom who puts on a tuxedo
   and a bride a jeweled tiara.
For as the earth bursts with spring wildflowers,
   and as a garden cascades with blossoms,
So the Master, God, brings righteousness into full bloom
   and puts praise on display before the nations.

On Being Attracted vs Being in Love

On Sunday we were discussing Jacob, who stole his brother's blessing and then ran into the desert to hide. His reverence to God is conditional, he brings chaos and jealous, adulterous baby-making to his unhappy wives ("What? You want me to just have sex with your servants? Gee, okay, if you insist..."). What a mess! As a husband and a servant of God, he's kind of a wuss. Jacob is not turning out to be a very attractive man in my opinion.

But still... God has a plan. Jacob's been blessed, and God is moving forward with it. As over-dramatic as his response seems, Jacob has an encounter with God and proclaims, "Surely, the Lord is in this place!" In the middle of nowhere, God meets this most undeserving man with grace and mercy.
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These lives in the bible, they are all examples of the stuff we live too, and the stories all point to Jesus and the grace and mercy he gave to the undeserving.

And I'm realizing that I don't have to always be attracted to my husband. I just have to always be in love with my ever-faithful God. He has a plan, He's doing it. And the purpose, never forget, is for my story to point to Jesus, and the immeasurable grace and mercy he demonstrated to me (undeserving) on the cross.

So my marriage? Surely God is in this place. I just need to be looking for Him.

Mix Tape :: Track One

If you are of the High Fidelity generation, you no doubt have always dreamed of your major crush making you the illustrious Mix Tape. Before we were dating, my husband was in a few garage bands, and had made a mix just for me (I think he'd had a little crush on me back then) of his band's performances, so as to include almost all the songs in their repertoire (this was per my request, but he had clearly spent quite some time on it). On the cover, he spelled out his name phonetically, in quotes, because everyone was always getting it wrong. I remember thinking, "I know how to say your name, silly!" Little did either of us know I would one day be the recipient of all the mispronounciations.

That was the closest he got to making me a true mix tape until 2006 when he ripped my heart to shreds and started his long difficult journey to recovery from addiction. This new one, he made during our 2-month separation...a compilation of songs that represented Us, and our struggle to figure out marriage in the midst of life's onerous trials. That's not how I imagined receiving my mix tape, to say the least; but I still can't listen to it without full-on crying. The songs ring truer and more deeply today than they did those long four years ago. Photo courtesy of Ani-Bee on Flikr

Track One :: Ginny Owens, If You Want Me To

The pathway is broken and the signs are unclear

And I don't know the reason why you brought me here

But just because you love me the way that you do

I'm gonna walk through the valley if you want me to

'Cause I'm not who I was when I took my first step

And I'm clinging to the promise you're not through with me yet

So if all of these trials bring me closer to you

Then I will go through the fire if you want me to

It may not be the way I would've chosen

When you lead me through a world that is not my home

But you never said it would be easy

You only said I'd never go alone

So when the whole world turns against me and I'm all by myself

And I can't hear you answer my cries for help

I'll remember the suffering your love put you through

And I will go through the valley if you want me to

I remember after that first disclosure in May of 2000 feeling so confused, angry, disgusted, alone and in such a really dark place that I longed deeply for the Light. I remember listening to the car radio and not being able to change it from the cheesy Christian station, because anything that didn't fill my ears with pictures and words of pure hope and goodness was just too, too dark for me. My emotions were extremely fragile.

This is a song that was very popular at the time and it played every day. Every time I heard this song, I chose to believe. I made it my prayer. I just want to dissect a couple of lines real quick:

Heck yeah, the pathway is broken! The signs are unclear? It's like Dr. Seuss came in and redecorated my entire existence! I no longer know the man I thought I grew up with, fell in love with, married and had babies with. Which way do I go? What do I do now? In those first months and years, choosing to believe that God loves me perfectly (and He's the only one that ever will) and that He's completely trustworthy--choosing to believe this--gave me the courage I needed to keep walking forward through this valley. There have been changes in elevation over the years, but it has been 10 years, and I'm still hiking an incline. I thank God that He has given me more and more evidence of the mountain top, like a sunrise...taking a decade to begin spreading over the peaks.

I'm not who I was when I took my first step... Thank God! But what does that mean? That now I can handle more painful things? Do I have the wisdom to deal with this pain? I didn't feel like it. At the very least, these lines spoke to how I am changing still. I am growing into the person God wants me to be, and this is an opportunity within that promise of God to myself.

When you lead me through a world that's not my own... This was a welcome reminder that this heartache is NOT okay, it is NOT what God wants for us, it is NOT normal. I wasn't meant for this world...this is a crappy waiting room. But I am not alone. This is friggin' hard, but I am never, never alone here.

The last stanza... I can relate to all of it. There have been times when I felt so utterly alone with no one who understood, and crying out to God, only to hear my own echo in a cold, dark room. I don't think God left me, but I think sometimes I wasn't ready to be moved forward, so God had me wait. In retrospect, I believe much of my pain in those early years was because of my fantasy marriage-skin being ripped off of my flesh. I didn't even realize that this needed to be done in order to understand Truth and to live in it. So selfish! I'm sure I loved myself much more than I loved my husband then. But there is nothing that I can experience that could be worse than what Jesus experienced on (and on the way to) the cross. If I believe what Jesus accomplished on Calvary at all, then I suppose I can go through a valley when I'm told to go through a valley.

In the following performance, Ginny has tweaked it a bit from the recorded version, and added a verse...I love it! She has a wonderful story, including how being blind has caused her challenges that she chose to walk through with her Creator.

Emoting Responsibly

I need to share my story. It just burns on my fingertips. Enough with the doubting and overthinking and just get on with it.

I will be sleeping on the couch tonight. And not because of the baby. The last few days have brought on a completely humbling experience and my head is taking it's sweet time to sort things out. There are so many angles to this one issue we're dealing with, I don't even want to describe it. But here is the part I own:

At times I have been so bitter about not being able to go to my husband for support and encouragement when I am discouraged, depressed or spiritually confused. I understand that he is in recovery and sometimes barely keeping his own head above water as he sorts out the life that brought him to today. But I long for him to be strong when I am weak, to hold me up when I feel like I am drowning! And maybe this is what husbands are supposed to do. I'm not even sure. But I know that to automatically expect this of him is wrong. If he does it, that's good. If I expect it, that's wrong. Because addiction or no addiction, he is still a man and could be in any sort of mood, and possibly unprepared for my need of rescue. Only God stands firm as a refuge 100% of the time. I am realizing that I have been holding out hope for the one day that my husband will be equal to God and be ever ready and waiting for my emotional tsunamis. That is not called recovery. That is called unrealistic.

Even when I am hurting and emotional, I need to be consistent in my love for others. Because I have been avoiding God in my attempt to wait patiently for my husband to reach divine status (how supportive of me!) I will fall recklessly into emotion until I cannot see past my own pain in those moments. If I am going to come to my husband for understanding, the mature thing is to make sure I'm not dragging with me things that are known triggers for him. I need to consider him, even when I am overcome with emotion. I need to remember that even when I am very emotional, I still have the capacity and responsibility to make choices that reflect love for God and others and even myself.

"Don't pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults— unless, of course, you want the same treatment. Don't condemn those who are down; that hardness can boomerang. Be easy on people; you'll find life a lot easier. Give away your life; you'll find life given back, but not merely given back—given back with bonus and blessing. Giving, not getting, is the way. Generosity begets generosity." Luke 6.37-38, The Message

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There. I can agree with that. If only you knew the tumultuous conversation that has been going on around this lesson for me! Feminism, entitlement, codependency, body image and a heaping dose of personal pride, some useless and hurtful gossip shared by the husband... there are a lot of lies swirling around in my head that we need to just lay to rest; they are so painful. And I think they are beside the point, just wind blustering around the steady words of the Father.

"We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!
"But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love." I Cor. 13.12-13, The Message