The Good, The Bad and the Dirty

I have begun to think that I have a great book inside of me, just waiting to crystalize and get out.

I want to call it The Good, The Bad  and The Ugly.

It would be all about the perception of cleanliess in our lives, both physical and spiritual, possibly mental and emotional.

What got me started on this title was the fact that I returned to work last week and realized that some of my clients really really missed me. So much, in fact, that they didn't do any dusting or cleaning behind the toilet. It was like a reset button was pushed and all the good I did over the last year was erased in two months. Game starts from the beginning, no extra lives for you!

In a way, it's very flattering to me that they love my work so much that they save it all for me. And boy, does their house look good when I leave! It also makes me wonder hypothetically: do they know it was dirty or not?

No five year old boy wants a bath. They don't mind the dirt. It's their mother that does.

Sometimes, we don't mind the dirt in our lives. The mean comments. The extra ten pounds. That annoying mother at school we hate. We just choose to ignore it, and we are sometimes surprised it doesn't go away.

After awhile, we can start to feel dirty, and I know that most times, I don't even know where the dirt pile begins.

This Fall, I am challenging myself to sweep out the little stuff sooner. Forgive sooner. Really be honest about dirt in my life.

A dirty toilet never killed anyone....but a dirty heart?

"Out of the fullness of his heart, a man (Anne) speaks" Proverbs

I know I've got to clean behind the toilet that my mouth sometimes is......

Bring The Rain

I recently brought home an orphaned peace lily baby for Lauren to love. Since I am the black thumb in the family, I leave the real plant care to her....she has tomatoes on the vine as we speak and manages to keep my Mother's Day planter from withering and crumbling.
With this baby, we potted it, plant spiked it, and then trotted off to the Dollarama to purchase a set of Aquaglobes to keep it watered. If you've never suffered through an infomercial on the amazing powers of an Aquaglobe, let me refresh your memory: they are 10 cents worth of mixed glass melted into a hollow bulb with a long thin tube that you fill with water, spike upside down into a plant's roots, thus providing slow release of water on demand. For all you fellow black thumbs/busy moms, this means unsupervised watering of a plant that will most likely otherwise die once you place it in a neglected corner of your house.

After a few weeks of watching this miracle of gardening (percoset and whiplash will do that to you, especially if you hurt too much to go outside and watch the grass grow) I realized that this object is a perfect lesson on the importance of daily bible reading!

 Seriously, let's all join hands and sing "Read Your Bible, Pray Every Day"! (I hope you know the chorus..if not, youtube it!)

Okay, no more percoset for you.

Anyways, I realized that these days there are so many ways to get a daily dose of God's word.....you can sign up for a verse a day with mainstream Bible Ministries, you can download reading plans, you can listen to the Bible on your phone.....this list goes on. I myself look forward to listening to our Sunday morning reading assignment over breakfast with Craig....the dude reading is hilarious but somehow manages to impart a serious tone to the Word...I may mock his accent but his reading of the crucifixion brought tears to my eyes when we listened.

"Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path" Pslm 115:105

I need a daily washing in the Word, especially if I want to get as far away from the car wreck mentality that I have been graciously delivered from.....I need the Word every day, whether my spiritual temperature is hot, cold, dry, wet, tense, indifferent, drugged, in pain, pushing up the hill or rolling down the incline....God's Word reminds my every day that God is in control, He is loving, He thinks I'm awesome, and He can't wait to show me how HUGE He is going to be in my day!

I am responsible to ask God every day: Bring The Rain!!!!

The Right Total

 I drove slowly along tenth avenue south this afternoon, slowing to see if there were skid marks at the 21 st south mark. There weren't. Apparently, even though I stood on my brakes, there was no time for them to engage before I rammed the stopped car, going about 50 km/hr......

My airbags exploded, burning and bruising me. I noticed the pregnant, stroller pushing pedestrian that the car in front of me had stopped for. People began driving around me almost immediately.

Some nice man walked over and told me to roll down all my windows. He prompted me to drive around the corner and park. I called my husband. I hung up on him and called 911.

I got the full meal deal-ambulance, EMTs, spinal board, xrays, bedpans, percoset, prescriptions, ticket.

Everyone was way too nice. I was one of those assholes who drives distracted and munches a new car in front of a pedestrian.....I keep waiting for a spanking or something. I deserved the $400 ticket, the $200 one, the $115 one.

Instead, I got a free consultation on my scoliosis, free percosets, and a lot of genuine care and sympathy.

Funny thing is.....this weekend God was speaking to my heart about the root of the anger and depression that I have working out with him while reading Healing Life's Hurts. I dove in and have been swimming around the truths told in the book, diving down into the deep dark well of my own heart to try and find that plug to pull.....to let out the deep hurts.

This weekend God showed me the car wreck that I have been living in.
Because of what happened to me when I was young, and some significant events throughout my upbringing.....I have been living in a car wreck mentality. And I do things that keep me in there! I don't reach out, I don't travel far from home, I don't talk back to my parents and family, I don't ask for things that I really want, and I certainly only trust on my own terms. My ability to love has been twisted around a door frame that rarely opens properly.

On Monday I was removed from my Dodge Journey. On Monday I was removed from my inner car wreck by a Great and Loving God.

I did not receive what I deserved, but instead was showered with what I needed most.

There are no words to say how humbled and blessed and loved I feel this week.

People have prayed for me and looked after me....God has struck the match that has lit the fire in my heart to walk fully away from the twisted mass of my past and into more freedom with Him.....I am praying for a new Spirit, a new Heart, a new Mind.

In the end, God makes the right totalling of my life-a life filled with forgiveness and grace and love that is meant to come through me and into others rather that get poured into the tank of a car wreck that goes nowhere.

This girl is going somewhere.......

Hopefully in a Ferrari?!?!?

The Narrow Door Part 1

Have you ever watched Lord of the Rings? Who hasn't? Seriously, who hasn't.......even my kids have. There is a part in the  movie when Frodo and Sam are on a hill watching the giant gates of Mordor open...disgorging thousands of freakish auks to march into battle. Against that gate, the humanoids look like ants.

I heard somewhere that Tolkein was a Christian. Which brings me to my point: what is he demonstrating with the visualization of huge old gates opening wide to allow a massive stream of creatures pass through?

In my heart, Christ has been whispering about the Narrow Gate. He talks about it in the Bible when he talks about what it takes to follow him.

So what is the Narrow Gate?

The Narrow Gate is the one that you pass through as a individual, accepting Christ first as saviour. There is only room for you and Christ to pass through. None of your friends or family or wealth or good deeds or brainpower or beauty can get you through that gate. It opens for Christ and the one that He loves and who loves Him. (John 3:16)

Obviously, that means that the wide gate will take anyone. With anything that they want to bring. As many as want to pass through at a time.

The Narrow Gate is intimate, personal, reverent. It's like the gate in the Secret Garden that is hidden under growth but holds so much meaning. The wide gate is impersonal, exposing, brazen. There are masses going in and you are just another body.

So what does the Narrow Gate ask of me today?

Today, it means that I need to be a Seeker, someone who is looking for that little gate amongst the huge ones in today's world. It means that I am meditating on the verse that encourages me to "Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you..." (Luke 12:31) Seeking the narrow gate means first and foremost that I seek the Kingdom, in the Bible, in my prayers, in the conversations that I have with other believers. I take time to read the Word every day, to meditate on it, to ask for it's truth to light up my life and the lives of those that I love.

"I love those who love me, and those who seek me find me" says the Lord in Proverbs 8:17

I want to find God.......this means that I need to determine that I am going to seek Him..........and keep looking for the Narrow Gate.

My search is continuing.....what is keeping you going?

Depression and the Door

I was brave enough to post recently that I have begun taking antidepressants again. For some people, it is like they just saw me with my boobs hanging out; they don't know what to say and have trouble looking at me. They just want me to go away. Others have been cheering....commenting....supporting....praying.

Five years ago when this problem took over my life and destroyed as much of my old self as it could....I never shared much with anyone. And those that i did share with fell into two camps-Camp A says Do what you need to do to have a life that is worth living. Camp B says you caused it, you need to work it out on your own.

Camp B has the tendency to utter things like "You know you haven't been on those pills long enough unless you want to kill yourself" or "Man, everyone thinks they need a drug to get by!" or my favorite "Yeah, I know what depression is, it's the Great Tiredness. I read it described really well in a book..."

Comments like this have held me back from getting help sooner.

Shame on those people.

Depression is very dark. It is hard to describe. It is hard to share. It is hard to endure.

Let me share with you what depression is like for me.

It's like there is a wall between me and the world, and when I am healthy, there is a great big door in the wall where the door stands open and I can pass in and out at will, from my personal life to my pubic life. There are people on the other side, and I can go out and meet with them....no problem. In my depression, the door has shrunk to Alice In Wonderland size.....tiny. The will to go through is gone. The actual going through is painful, destructive, life sapping. On my side of the wall are the voices of a thousand demons shouting at me to go through Right Now Right Now Right Now. If I manage to pass through the door, when I return, those same demons are waiting to literally pick the stuffing out of me slowly and agonizingly, to pic apart my decisions and my words and my life  - me.....I can hear my husband and my children and my friends and my life on the other side of the wall calling to me and wondering what the problem is.

My body hurts all the time. I always have either a headache, a back ache, or my skin hurts. This pain intensifies when I am in a social situation with certain people that I know do not support me. It is almost unbearable.

Now lets talk about drugs......
Today is day 10. My back ache is finally gone, my mind is quiet and focused. The door in my personal wall is expanding to a normal size. My life and my friends and my work are calling to me and my heart is responding....with joy.

I have been praying for healing for so long, but now I can feel it. I am so thankful to God.
I have been fasting and looking for direction, now I feel like I have it.
I have been waking up to an empty heart. My heart is at peace today.
When my husband tells me that I look good, I smile, and the smile comes from my heart.
When I go to work to clean toilets and bless people, I am happy....
I feel like I don't need to tell people I am struggling every time I meet someone.
I don't hear those demons anymore.

Let's give it up for pharmacology!

I believe that this is part of the answer that God has for me in regards to my depression........and with this reprieve....I intend to push into His presence more and renew my efforts to learn all I can about how to be healthy mentally, spiritually, physically, emotionally.
I am going to need friends, and my husband, and rest, and work, and prayer, and most of all, God.

Meds are keeping me going today. What is keeping you going?