Monthly Archives: February 2011

02/28/11

I’ll Take That

I cannot even write much but I do need to write something because my mind is just spinning. The last couple days have taken all of my energy. Daniel is having a very hard time and that means several hours of not fun for anyone in the house. I will just leave it at that. I think he is having sinus problems and he doesn’t know how to tell me. He gets upset with me when I do not know what is wrong or how to help him and then he will refuse to let me help him at all. We had a pretty intense day yesterday, he was incredibly upset with me, I tried to give him medicine because I did manage to get out of him “my head hurts”, David had to come down and hold him because he would not let me give it to him.

After we got the medicine in him, David was holding him (deep pressure love) and he laid with David quietly.

They were laying on the floor watching me, Ariel and Joshua play, he said “I love you Daddy”. He said it in his sweet, soft voice and I wasn’t sure if I had heard him right. I asked him what he said again “I love you Daddy”. YES! That was the first time ever he had said that to David. The moment brought tears to our eyes. It may be rough at times and it may take a lot of energy but man I love it when he surprises us like that! He has still been kind of um…not so fun today, but he did start taking his vitamins whole for me and I no longer have to cut them into small pieces, I’ll take that. :-)

I am happy to say that even though it has been rough, I am still at peace.

I may not be able to think very well, my mind is all fuzzy, but I haven’t gone into complete overload or shut down mode. Hopefully, Daniel will feel better. We are all feeling off because we just got a warm front come in and there is pollen everywhere which causes us sinus problems. At least it’s sunny, I will be thankful for that, along with the other things. :-)


 

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02/25/11

I Found My Laugh

I hadn’t really noticed much that I lost my laugh a while ago, but in the past week I have felt myself feeling much more like the “old” Angel. The me that I was when I lived by myself , the moments when I would talk to myself or Jesus constantly with no hindrance or anxiety. I think it’s normal for people to talk to themselves, I don’t know how to describe it the right way. I have always talked to myself and made myself laugh. It could be that since I was an only child for long, I learned to entertain myself. Could be the reason. I have a loud belly laugh, sometimes a giggle, and sometimes a quiet, mouth open, body moving laugh. An occasional snort as well. A laugh that I have most times out in public is the one “HA!” busting out and then an immediate hand over my mouth because I know that I am loud.

I know this from years of people telling me.

My laugh has always been contagious though, for some reason when I start laughing others do to. The other night I was at a coffee shop with my one friend I have here, we just had a good time. We were laughing about all kinds of silliness and a man stopped by us and said something about us laughing. I can’t recall exactly what it was but he said he enjoyed watching us because the whole time he was waiting for his coffee he noticed we were just happy and laughing. He wished us good cheer and went on his way. I don’t know what it was all about but it did make me think of how hindered I have been in the past few years with my laughing.

I am a joyful person, I enjoy laughing and I find humor in a lot of things.

When I worked, at any of my jobs, I would frequently get sucked into my own world. As I worked on my tasks, I would think of something, read something, or see something that would just make me laugh. I remember at one office place I would often be sitting there working, there was about 10 of us in an open office area at our desks, it would be quiet and all of a sudden something would strike me funny and I would bust out laughing.They would say things like “There she goes again.” or asked me what I was laughing about. I couldn’t tell them most of the time because it was just random goofy thoughts. Things like a person’s name would remind me of something, I would figure out how I took something literal and it wasn’t supposed to be, I would finally get a joke that was told to me days before.

How do you tell people that without them thinking you need help?

I laugh at the wrong times and I always have. I would find myself laughing during sermons all the time because I would read some obscure scripture and think it was funny. Or the pastor would make an odd face or his hair would be sticking up in an odd place or his pants were lopsided. I wasn’t laughing at him, I was laughing at the irony of having to take him serious when he didn’t notice those things. I hope I do not sound mean that is not what I intend at all. I did this same thing with teachers, employers and people who thought pretty high of themselves. I laugh at clouds, I laugh at lizards, I laugh at my cat. These are not mean things they are things that make me have joy. Like with the pastor, I felt like in a way it was God showing me how he was not perfect, the pastor is just man and it’s ok not to be perfect. That would bring me joy and make me laugh.

I hope that makes sense.

Anyway, I lost my laugh for a while. I didn’t know it but I did. David had made comments over the past few years about how I just didn’t laugh like I used to. Or that I didn’t seem as free as I used to be. He was right but I didn’t know why or how I lost my laugh. I think writing has helped to bring it back and help me to have joy again. I am loosing my anxiety about how people will respond to me, but I do go in cycles with that. ( I could have anxiety after I post this. :-) ). I am not worried about being liked, I just don’t want to offend people. I can’t live like that, I have  to laugh. Last night I laughed so hard at a silly show but it was my laugh that I had not had in so long. I started to cover my mouth and I said sorry to David because his head hurt, he said “Don’t be sorry! I am glad you are laughing. Never stop your laugh.” He’s right, I should never stop my laugh, I am afraid I may lose it again.

Has anyone else lost their laugh or should I say themselves like this?


 


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02/25/11

What To Get Daddy

The other day was David’s birthday, I was so excited about making a gluten-free, yellow cake with chocolate ganache frosting adorned with raspberries, from scratch. I’m not bragging I am just very excited that I finally got one of my homemade cakes to look half way decent! Well compared to my others.

At least they taste good. (Pictures below for comparison.)

After the kids were in bed, David and I discussed how it came about that he received the gifts that he did. The kids explained it to him but there were some important observations about how they processed through their ideas. I asked each child what they wanted to get David for his birthday. Here is what they came up with.

Ariel: I want to get Daddy lotion. He has dry hands like me and it will help heal his hands.

Joshua: Lego’s!
Me: Daddy does not want Lego’s. You want Lego’s. What do you want to get for Daddy?
Joshua: A box, like mine for his doctor stuff. So he won’t lose them.

Side note: We got each one of them tackle boxes Joshua and Ariel are using them for their Lego’s and Daniel is using his for his “electronic toys”, so they will not lose them.

Daniel: Lord of the Rings.
Me: I am not sure I can get something LOTR but I will try.

I ended up getting David a game that the family could play together.

I could not find anything LOTR that was not too expensive, besides the day before David received the LOTR Wii game. David and I talked about how each child processed their gift giving idea differently. Ariel and Daniel both made choices about gifts the way I do. I immediately think of a need or something that I know the person likes. The problem is that a lot of people do not want to receive gifts based on their needs. On the other hand people also do not want to have large quantities of things that they like. If I discover that someone likes something I tend to error in my thinking that they would like LARGE quantities of the particular thing.

Or that they would like to be all consumed by it.

All of us in this household want to consume as much information or things that are our interests and we assume others feel the same way. Fortunately, it works for us but unfortunately not so much with others. Sometimes it works out great though, I tend to always be the one with the “odd” gift while others are giving what seems frivolous silly gifts and some people find that refreshing.

As for Joshua he made a gift choice like David would.

He first thought of what he likes, then when he realized that David did not want Lego’s, he applied a principle that he had learned. David purchased an otoscope and a lighted ear wax remover, he has a stethoscope and other “doctor” things in case we need to check things at home to determine if we need to go to the doctor. Joshua thought of those things and realized that David had no place to keep them, just like his Lego’s. Since we told him that he could lose his Lego’s if we didn’t keep them in a storage box, he thought the same thing about regarding David’s stuff.

Kids are so fascinating.
Cake comparisons. I will spare you the years before. Why do I keep making cakes? I really don’t know. It’s become a challenge now. :-)


 

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02/23/11

The New Journey

In my previous post I spoke about how David and I met and what we felt called to do in our new life together. We moved across country to start a coffee shop ministry. The vision for the ministry was to bring all Christian denominations together through the arts. We felt like it should be a place that ministered to both believers and non-believers. Through means of music, art, poetry, woodwork, sculpting, films and guest speakers, those were some of the outlets. We had to live with David’s mom and step-dad for the first several months we were there. That was an interesting time that truly brought us closer together in a very short period. We lived in a bedroom with both of my cats, his mom had two cats and three dogs, we had to keep my cats locked up because they still had claws and were not too friendly with others. :-)

That was interesting to say the least.

For a long period of time we were unable to find work, David was still working on his thesis and we were networking for the coffee shop ministry. We got connected with many great people who saw the vision and supported us, not financially because we never felt that we were supposed to receive an income from the ministry. However, the owners of several local coffee shops opened their doors to us and gave us free rein on the weekends to have people come in and share their art. It was a win-win for both parties because the coffee shop would gain new customers/business and the artists would gain exposure/business. There were times that it was very frustrating having churches tell us that they did not want it to be a mix of denominations. Then there was the business of trying to “sell” us to congregations.

One pastor of a megachurch told us that he could have his 1300 young adults there every Sat., all we had to do was join a small group.

We did not feel comfortable in that church or with the proposal so we just let it drop. It was mainly how the pastor made it clear that he could influence his people to go wherever he said. Scary. So many churches loved the idea but wanted us to be under their umbrella. We felt like it was not supposed to be a part of a specific church. Finally, we got involved with an internet ministry and became a parachurch ministry under them. They brought us on to write articles for them dealing with many different topics. We met different people and were exposed to a lot of different ministries. David eventually got an adjunct position at a Christian University and we had really warmed out our welcome at his parents house. They had their own financial burdens.

It was time for us to leave but we had no money and no place to go.

Many of the people we had met stepped up and rallied around us through prayer and funds. We were able to get a horrible apartment for $200 a month with David cleaning the grounds to help with rent. We felt like it was a palace! We didn’t care about the location or the black mold it was ours and it was huge compared to the room we had been in. :-)   We finally managed to start the coffee shop ministry and had many different artists come through. We had paintings, photography, indie Christian films that would offend a lot of Christians but the messages were great because they were painful and challenging, poets, musicians, and some speakers. It didn’t last long though, we got pregnant and I started to get very sick from the mold and the pregnancy.

David had to find more work and I was in bed the first few months of the pregnancy.

From the beginning we felt like we were supposed to start it and others were to take over. After we got pregnant I just couldn’t keep up with getting artists to come and David had to get as much work as possible. Again people rallied around us and helped us get into a much nicer apartment. We had a great experience while we did the coffee shop, we met many believers who felt like they just couldn’t step into a church building ever again and they enjoyed the freedom of being themselves. There were artists who felt like their talent was wasting away because there was no outlet for them in the Body of Christ but the ministry was giving them the outlet they longed for. There was freedom of beliefs and freedom of expression. If ever I felt the power of God it was in the moments that the artists were operating freely in their gifting and expressing themselves before man and God.

I loved when people would say things like “I never knew Christians were creative.”

Doesn’t that seem wrong? I know not everyone is a Christian but the sheer belief that we are supposed to believe in the Creator, wouldn’t it seem like we would be VERY creative? Whatever our creative outlet may be, it is not limited to the arts but what we are gifted at. Wouldn’t our inspiration come from working with the Creator and knowing Him? I am not being a snot here I am being serious. It is a question that I have thought about a lot. I digress. The owners of the coffee shop did keep it going for a while and the owners franchised to several other Christians who did keep it going in their own way. Some of the churches we met with started their own version in their buildings. I liked how for a time it brought unity to people who ordinarily would not come together, I liked how it wasn’t about one church or artist but about a community trying to express the love of Christ through their gifting and sharing it with others through love.

David and I have been church vagabonds pretty much from the beginning.

Even before I met David I would frequent various churches throughout town, I liked being exposed to different churches and people. Though I was devoted to both of my home churches while I went to them, I still was visiting friends churches as well. When we moved we never felt like we found a church home, we went to many different churches from Denominational to Pentecostal to Messianic we were all over the place. We liked it like that. After the twins were born though our life changed drastically and we ended up in seclusion for a long time. We tried to go to church on several occasions but it just didn’t work, especially since we never belonged to a church there. This would lead to the path of us going to a church here that caused so much confusion and pain.

I completely lost my identity after the kids were born, ministry had become who I was.

I really lost any sense of self trying to understand what was going on with Daniel and taking care of the babies by myself. David had to work and I had no family, no friends and no help. We lost touch with all of the connections we had before and I was starting to get very depressed. I loved being a mom but I was so tired, lonely, and would be locked up in the house all the time. Where we lived it was cold! I do not do well with cold and snow anyway but the last year we were there we had been trapped in our house several times because of blizzards. I couldn’t drive the car we had and the city we lived in kept me in constant anxiety. I had no contact with people for long periods of time. When we moved here I was desperate for any social contact.

Because of my vulnerable state, I didn’t use very good judgment.

I am naive and gullible about people’s motives anyway, but I have been especially that way in church because I thought that all Christians (actually most people) were good and nice and would never do anything mean. I still do, mostly. I felt like if there were problems than it had to be my fault. I have written about this church enough, basically I had my guard down, I was tired, lonely and desperate because of that I fell for some twisted thinking and wrong doctrine. David was trying to be as supportive as possible and had hoped that I would see for myself what was taking place.

They used scriptures to control and manipulate, not for what they are truly for.

It didn’t take long but it was long enough for me to experience spiritual abuse and to feel like I was loosing my mind. The good thing is I learned a lot, I have forgiveness and no bitterness any longer. I know that my priority in life now is to take care of my kids and just love people as best as I can. We have never been evangelists or  apologetists (I think I made that word up.) but we have always wanted to share the love of Christ and the acceptance that community is supposed to be about no matter where people are on their spiritual or non-spiritual journey. :- ) We see and experience God through the gifts and freedom to share them with others. The goodness that comes from serving one another without seeking something for ourselves, that brings us great joy. For us that is what Jesus reflects, love, acceptance and building up people to be who God intended them to be.

We do not feel obligated or guilted in sharing the message of Jesus, we just try to live it out.

(And now this movie is done, on to the next one. :-D )


 


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02/22/11

Just Me, Myself and Cats?

After having two failed marriages, I had finally decided that relationships were not for me. I devoted my time to my new church. I felt like I was perfectly happy with just me, my cats and Jesus. My goal was to go into full-time ministry. I was drawn to people who were not the “usual” church goers. I went out on the streets and to bars praying and just hanging out with people. People would ask to buy me a drink and I would tell them I only drank water, an occasional diet coke if I really wanted to get loopy. :-)   There was a group of us from church who would meet at a local bar and discuss current events. I liked to discuss spiritual matters, not convince people of things.

Alexa and Felix

The more I got involved in church leadership, the more I was convinced that I was destined to be single.

I was really settled on the matter, except I still felt this urge to pray for my future husband. There was the possibility of being reconciled with my ex, very slim but possible.  I did feel like someone was missing. I would feel led to pray and would even start out my prayer journals with “Lord I do not know why I am even praying about this but I feel like I should pray for my future husband.”  My life was full of work, leadership classes, serving, small group, small group training, prayer ministry, outreach, and my cats. I was pretty content mentally with my church life but my work life was sucking life right out of me. I think with all of the social situations between work and church it was just too much. But I would get energized by helping people. I got wired and excited from learning and training. I was exhausted and excited. I truly thought I could be a single woman pastor. Though my leaders said that it may be quite a challenge, they never hindered me.

By the time I was getting pretty settled with being alone and felt fully recovered from my failed marriages, David appeared.

The first time I saw him, I had no idea who he was but he was at his car, it was a cold winter night and I caught a glimpse of him out of  the corner of my eye. I could only see him from a distance and I felt like I was supposed to pray for him to go inside. Where? I had no idea just to go inside and so I prayed. I then went on my way to small group, within a few minutes there was a knock on the door and it was him. I didn’t like that at all, what was that all about? He was new to the group and I was not expecting anyone new. One of the girls invited him and everyone was interested in what he had to say. I didn’t have a bad feeling about him I was just confused by the whole thing and thrown because he was new. As he talked he shared about being in graduate school and how he was going to work in The Netherlands after his dissertation and I don’t know it all went “wah wah wah wah wah” in my head because I felt like I was supposed to ask him “Is that the plan God has for you?”.

There was no way I was going to ask this stranger a question like that.

Instead I rudely blurted out “What brought you to this church anyway?” Everyone looked at me funny and he just stared for a moment and then said “Well, I felt like I was supposed to go there and just wait.” He shared his story which was scarily similar to mine. By this time I was confused by him and he thought I was too aggressive I guess is a good word, he didn’t know what to think of me. But he has referred to me as “the interrogator” and tells people how I interrogated him the first night I met him. The next week the group was supposed to meet at my apartment, he called to tell me that he was going out-of-town and wouldn’t make it. We were having a good conversation and I realized that I was still talking to him, then abruptly said “Ok, I have to go, hope you have a good trip.” and I got off the phone.

While he was away I felt that I was supposed to pray for him several times.

He was visiting his mom and he had been around several different Christian places and people. It was more of a charismatic kind of feel and he was what is called “prophesied over“. One of the men prophesied about his wife to be. He gave some pretty detailed information and then later said “I think you know her already”. David didn’t have a clue to what he was talking about, I didn’t even cross his mind. When he came back I felt like I was supposed to talk to him, so after service one evening I went over, very reluctantly to talk to him. He ended up asking me to go for coffee and I said yes because I knew that I was supposed to ask him the original question that I DID NOT want to ask. I didn’t think it was a date or anything and either did he, but it was funny that I got a water instead of coffee. I had to work the next morning so I couldn’t have coffee, I confused him. :-)

Finally, we were talking and I knew that first I had to tell him that I was still married so he would not get the wrong impression.

I told him and he was confused. I had been separated for over a year but I still did not feel like I was supposed to date anyone, until the divorce was final. If I was to date at all. I never really “dated” anyway, I found someone and stuck with them. During the year of my separation, my ex had said that he was filing for divorce, then he dragged it on and messed with me, then he had no contact with me for several months. I didn’t pursue anything because I had no desire to, it didn’t matter. Anyway David was understanding and said  he didn’t know what to think so we could just be friends and see what this is all about. I finally blurted out the question “So is it God’s plan for you to go to The Netherlands?”. He facepalmed and said “I don’t know.” Apparently he had been contemplating a lot the last few months before I met him.

We continued to be friends and hang out.

Neither of us knew what “we” were all about but we just felt right together. I prayed for God to do something if David and I were truly  meant to be together. I was seriously going to stop seeing him, even as friends. After several months of no contact with my ex, he left me a message on my phone and said “Yeah, it’s been long enough let’s get this taken care of, what do we need to do?” By the end of the next week we were divorced. David and I felt like we were supposed to be together. We discovered that we only lived three minutes away from each, in the same apartment complex. We would both stare up at the sky at night talking to God and asking about the phantom space in our heart that we wanted to go away. (Not even knowing that we were right around the corner from each other.) If we were not meant to be with anyone then please take it away, was our prayer.

David finally had to make a decision about The Netherlands.

I would have gone with him but he did not feel like that was what he was supposed to do. He gave up a pretty incredible research position with a top scientist in The Netherlands. Both of us have had our moments of questioning whether or not that was the right thing to do. We always conclude that it was for him. We felt led to pack up our stuff and move to another state to start a coffee shop ministry. With in a few months we packed up, moved out across country and were married. It started us on a journey that has been exciting, scary, challenging, complete bliss, joyful, and full of all kinds of adventures ever since. We are always growing and ever learning from each other and about each other.

We really enjoy the fact that we are together all the time but we also have our own space.

There was a lot that we dealt with in the beginning of our marriage but we have always laughed. We make each other laugh and we are just plain silly a lot of the times which saves us from taking ourselves seriously. For me the biggest thing is that I genuinely enjoy David’s company. There are very rare moments when I just want to be left alone now and that says a lot for him. In past relationships I just would get to a point of wanting them to go away. The way they would eat, talk, smell, act whatever would just make me so upset but I have not had that with David. We have been honest with each other from the beginning. David is David and if there is one thing I can say about him it is that he will be brutally honest with you. You never have to question his integrity. Those are some pretty important factors to me in a relationship. We were also both in a place in our lives where we didn’t place priority on a relationship. David is divorced too and we both were not wanting to go through a bad relationship again.

I am very thankful that we found each other and I do thank God for orchestrating the events. :-)

Next I will be writing about our ministry life the good, the not so good, but mainly the good! (I have all of these posts in chronological order in my head and I have to write them because it is like a movie playing over and over that I need to get out.)

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02/20/11

Failed Relationships and Then Some II

Needless to say my second marriage was not founded on anything good. As I describe in my previous post. I prayed and prayed for God to change me. I really did, I thought I was so horrible for not liking him. But I perceived him as fake, he would change all the time right in front of my eyes. He kept things from me; twice I discovered piles of bills hidden in our second bedroom. He just wouldn’t tell me. I have no idea where the money went. All of this was going on while we served at church. We served in several areas together. He was being considered as a deacon. All the guys loved him and the ladies thought he was charming or something. There were many things going on but the final straw was actually my fault. Sometimes I am just too honest, thinking that I am helping but I make it worse. We were at a counseling session for couples because we were having problems and we were trying to get help. We were told to be completely honest.

I told him that he really needed to pray for our marriage because I had a crush on another guy at work.

Oh, yes I did. I told him that not because I was acting on my feelings but because I was seeking help in the situation. I told my pastor, who in turn told others in the name of “prayer” and the rumors started flying that I was cheating. I later found out that my ex had told some leaders as well that I was cheating. It was a mess. By that time he had already left, dumping all of my belongings out all over the house and taking whatever he could that he said belonged to him. I felt completely violated and devastated. I am admitting, I got to a point to where I couldn’t stand the sight of him. I had many meltdowns and tantrums because he was a liar and he threw my sensory issues beyond any other thing in the world. At times his presence hurt my flesh.

For a while when he was still there, I wouldn’t come home until wee hours of the morning.

I just couldn’t, I would rather sit with friends or my car alone than go home to him. I will say we both did things wrong but sometimes I feel like I did the biggest wrong by not listening to myself or God and I caused both of us to suffer needlessly. It did not help that in the beginning of our marriage I had a miscarriage, it really made things much worse. He left and caused me lingering problems for quite a while. But the story does not end there. There is the failed relationship of my church family.

I had several very hurtful things happen to me during this time.

I had some people pull me into a room and tell me that people were saying that I had cheated, I went off. I asked them who said it, why did people believe it, even if it was true who had the right to gossip about?? It was discovered the link being the pastor during a prayer meeting. I do not think it was his intention but it was hurtful. I had one of the elders wives corner me in the corridor of the church and say loudly “GOD HATES DIVORCE! You better do something to fix your marriage!” I just looked at her and said “You can’t make people change.” She then replied “Well God can change them and every marriage can be fixed.” I replied with “You cannot know what goes on in every marriage.” and I left. They had asked me to step down for a while serving, I felt they were right and I had no problem doing so.

The day was soon approaching though when I was to return to teaching the kids.

It was the day before I was to return to class, I had asked for the curriculum a week in advance and no one gave it to me or would talk to me. I got a call from the pastor (he was a new pastor than the youth interim) at work telling me to please come to church after work because he wanted to talk to me. I felt like I was in serious trouble. I went after work and the pastor and head elder sat me down and told me that the elders had voted and they decided that I could no longer teach the children. I understood and sobbed for days. They told me that they felt my character wasn’t good at that time to be around the children and that it would be too confusing for the kids. Side note here: The day before one of my friends had seen my ex with a girl going to the bank. It could have been nothing but it didn’t seem to be nothing to her when she saw them. I really don’t know, but it is interesting that my character was being judged.

No one ever talked to the kids about the situation and I was not allowed to, even though they all asked.

The very next Sunday was a final blow to me. The new pastor’s son had recently graduated seminary and was a youth pastor. He started going to the church because he had to move in with his parents. His wife had found another man and left him. That Sunday he got up talked about his divorce and then it was announced by the head elder that he would be the new youth pastor starting immediately. I still don’t even know how to take all of that. I asked why it was ok for him and not me; I was told that he was open and honest about it so that probably made a difference. I WAS OPEN AND HONEST! I told the pastor right away when things were wrong and that I needed prayer and that my marriage was failing. It still doesn’t make sense. I was never angry, I am still not but I was hurt. No one absolutely no one asked me anything except that small group of people.

I felt like I was  wearing a giant red “A” on my clothes.

I stayed for a while longer but then I felt led to go to another church. The new church helped me recover. They were very accepting and they built me up. They encouraged my challenging questions and they even let me rant about inconsistencies with the scriptures that I felt I saw. I feel like the Lord really led me to a place of healing and it also helped me to not become bitter and angry at all churches. That was my first church experience as an adult. My first church experience as a new Believer. My first church experience with groups of church people. It was not a good one and unfortunately it was not the last. It feels good to write this out. I have held on to it for so long for fear of people thinking that I am bitter or hateful. I am not, I am sad by the experience. I am sad that people can go to church their entire life and never get the message of Christ. I wish the message wouldn’t get lost in experiences like this.

I know that I am not the only one and that makes it even harder for me to bear.


 


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02/20/11

Failed Realtionship and Then Some I

I have mentioned before that I was not brought up in church, though I was influenced by Biblical teachings and ideas of Christian faith. I came to Christ on my own, through reading the entire Bible (Protestant) from beginning to end, by myself. No one told me to, except I felt very compelled to read it. When I read it I had a pretty distorted view of Jesus, I was good with an all-powerful God but Jesus? What was He all about? For some reason when I read the Bible in its entirety He made sense in my mind. I took to His teachings as literal. I looked upon Jesus as a Jewish man, who showed us how to live by the Jewish teachings and concepts. I knew I was a gentile and didn’t feel like the lifestyle of the Jewish people was what I was supposed to do, though.  I did not become confused until I started reading more Westernized Christian influenced teachings and listening to their preaching. Mainly what many “Americanized” teachings have  adopted as a philosophy and call it “religion”. (I mean no offense I am just trying to explain my mindset.)

I felt like in order for me to understand my faith that I needed to go to church.

One morning I felt led to turn on the radio, I flipped through the channels and at the end of some sermon, which I had missed completely; the preacher went into how to accept Jesus into your heart. I fell to my knees and just felt like that was what I needed to do. I sobbed for an hour, nothing in particular coming to mind, except for, I felt accepted. Accepted and at peace for the first time in my life. I became obsessive about learning the scriptures and studying all about what the Bible meant. I heard in my inner being, I guess that is the best way to describe it, to get baptized. No one told me this; I read it in the scriptures. I was baptized by my father at his church, that became mine too.

I had conflicting feelings the entire time I was there.

First of all, when I arrived the pastor of over 13 years just got removed because it was discovered that he and the secretary were having an affair. The youth pastor had just taken over as the interim and there were a lot of emotions flying that I didn’t know how to process. My dad was a church leader at the time, until my second sister got pregnant at the age of 15 years old. Everyone was forgiving, with very condemning comments when my first sister had gotten pregnant, but after my second sister did, well….it was too much. My dad stepped down. I quickly got involved and started serving in children’s ministry. My first husband would not go to church with me; he was Catholic and felt very uncomfortable in a Non-Denominational church. We had a lot more problems after I became a Christian and started studying. His family did not appreciate my history lessons about the Catholic Church and they did not like my many questions about their faith.

I wasn’t trying to be rude; I genuinely wanted to know about their faith and beliefs.

Eventually we came to terms that our marriage was not going to work no matter how much counseling we did, I was obsessed with my faith and he was not. We just couldn’t get past it. The church was very accepting of me during this time, because he was Catholic and they felt that his faith was wrong anyway. Those are not my views, that was what the church felt. I was beyond devastated. The Christian faith made it clear that divorce was wrong; I personally never wanted to get a divorce because of my family history of multiple divorces and the pain that it causes. I felt like a failure and a horrible Christian. I carried the burden of him getting a divorce because he was Catholic and no one in his family had gotten divorces, there was just a lot.

The church made it clear that it was ok because they felt that he had abandoned me.

They needed that to make it ok. The children at church never even knew I was married because I was always alone so they had no problem with me to continue serving. I then found my second husband, whom I despised from day one. I never liked him, I thought he was a fake and a phony and I told him so. A lot. I went against my gut and I listened to all of the church people tell me that he was such a great guy, “he is so spiritual”, a “real man of God” and so and so on. I knew that he lied to me while we were dating and I called him on it every time. He would ask me “How do you know this stuff?”  I wish I would have listened to my feelings that told me to get away from him. I will give you one example of how I feel God was trying to make it very clear that I was right in my judgment, but did not trust it.

It was New Years Eve weekend and he had made plans to go to his hometown.

I begged him not to go. I just knew something bad was going to happen. He told me “I have to go; it’s like the ending of my previous life. It’s symbolic.” He went and I was praying the second he got on the road. I was up all night, that New Years Eve, I wrote it all down in my prayer journal. I saw like a vision of what he was doing throughout the evening. When he came back, I told him that I knew he had cheated on me and that I saw all of the things he had done. He claimed that they did not happen and that I made it up. I described the girl. He still denied it. After a few months he did something similar and the same thing happened though I did not see him cheat but I did see him with a girl.

He finally broke down, confessed all.

I had been right about everything. I then felt like it wasn’t about me, it was about him and God. I led him into prayer and he rededicated is life to Christ. Then after that he asked me to marry him. I said I don’t know. Later that day I was working alone, my heart was broken because I had been right and I didn’t know what to do. I heard my name being called, like in the air and I looked up. I saw like a vision  and I heard, “I would not give you someone who would hurt you.”(Not audibly, it’s hard to explain) I understood what that meant because after all of my failed relationships (with the exception of my first husband), the common thread was they lied, they cheated, and they did drugs, and was abusive to some extent. I ran to my ex and told him what had happened and I told him how I felt like that meant we were not to be together.

He said “No, I think that means that before, if I did not rededicate to Christ. Now that I have changed you know I won’t hurt you.”

I was very confused, I talked to my Christian friends and they all said what he had said. I assumed that I was wrong. I thought “Well maybe it is possible that he was the wrong guy before but now that he has accepted Jesus, maybe he is the right guy.” I didn’t trust my gut with my first marriage and I didn’t with my second. In my first marriage I made the decision based on never wanting a divorce. Since he was Catholic, I really believed we would never get a divorce. The difference about him and my second ex-husband was that I genuinely liked him as a person. He is now remarried and very happy and I was so happy to discover that. My second husband I married because everyone else told that he was right for me and since I couldn’t trust my judgment on relationships, I believed them.

Our marriage was built upon distrust and my overall dislike for him as a person.

More to come….

Personal Note: When I talk of hearing voices or seeing visions, I am not really sure how to explain it properly. It could be a variety of things going on. I have intense dreams as well that have given me clear direction, so scientifically it could be my brain telling me the right thing to do. Spiritually it could be how I experience God.  I have gone over mental reasons and do not fall under the criteria for any of the mental disorders that I have read. For me I am comfortable with both the reasons being science and God.


 


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02/18/11

Out Of The Mouths Of Babes

It is lovely here today so we have been outside enjoying the nice weather. I was laying on a blanket reading as the kids jumped on the trampoline. All of the sudden Ariel shouted “Look Mom! Jesus is doing it!” Joshua said “Jesus is turning on!” Daniel asked “Why is Jesus turning the sun on and off with the clouds?” It was one of those moments that just gave a great peace in midst of all the chaos going on with the world right now. The sky was really beautiful, I had to take some pictures to capture the moment.

The pictures turned out ok but I don’t think I captured the full effect with the electrical wires in them . :-)



 

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02/18/11

My Mom Wished This On Me

My mom has always been quite annoyed with the bazillion questions I have asked her from the time I started talking even up till now. I ask a lot of questions, she has called me “snoopy” since I was a child, my snoopyness is still quite active. It’s not really being snoopy, I think I just want to be prepared. I don’t want to know other people’s business, I just need to know what is going on for my own peace of mind. I would watch neighbors, know all about people and events, I had to know what was in the mail, who was on the phone, when she was coming home, why she took so long if she wasn’t there when she said she would be and demand that she explain to me why the sky was blue. I am not surprised at all that our children are like this as well.

Usually, I am fine with the non-stop questions. (Kind of)

But the past few days, I am just tired of answering questions. Daniel has been asking me questions from the time he wakes up until he finally goes to sleep. Why is the light flickering? Why does the light blink? Why do my eyes have lights? Why is it dark outside? Why does the cart shake? Why is the road bumpy? Why is the sun gone? Why does the moon shine at night? Why can’t I eat cheese? Why did he laugh? Why did he cry? Why did the cat meow? Why does he move back and forth? Why do we move up and down? Why do we have a heart? Why don’t we have batteries? Can I have batteries? Why doesn’t the “e” make a sound in the word rope? Why can’t I play computer all day? Why can’t I have only banana and yogurt everyday?

Those are just a few.

All of the questions lead to more questions and then Ariel and Joshua add their questions too. Daniel doesn’t seem to be satisfied with the answers I give most of the time, hence the more questions. BUT he knows the answers to many of them already. ??? I get a lot of stares and strange looks in stores because Daniel will ask questions all about the conveyor belt, scanner, register etc… I have explained it to him in great detail but still he asks every time and I cannot leave any information out because he knows! Thanks to working at Target I helped set up the front end in new stores multiple times so I really do know how they are all set up and how they work. :-) Other things I have had to research, like the history of fans, what is inside of electronics, why lights make noise, I don’t know just a lot of different things.

I am not complaining but I am definitely overloaded with questions right now.

The other day Daniel had just about tapped out all of my question answering ability and then he got fixated on getting an exercise ball. I got a new one the other day and he decided that he needed one and it had to be green. I tried to convince him to wait but it was not happening, so after dinner Daniel and I set out to get his new ball. Of course Joshua and Ariel needed one too, Target only had one ball in the correct size, it was green, it was Daniel’s. I then had to take him to Wal-Mart with me, I really despise that place for the sensory overload alone. We actually made record time and I managed to answer a billion questions outside and inside the store.

At my complete exhaustive state, Daniel asks “Why did the cart shake?”

I was just too tired and said “Because it was nervous.” He looked at me like I was insane. Then he said “How was it nervous?” I tried to come up with a story about the cart being nervous and then started laughing at myself because I knew it was not going to work. I had to explain to him about the wheels, the road, what the road is made of, why the road is made of rock, why we no longer have dirt roads, how water makes mud, how cement trucks work, I don’t even remember the last thing I answered but I finally said “Does that make sense?”. He said “Yes, it does.”

And for the last two minutes of the drive home it was quiet.

It didn’t last long, we got home and he had more questions like “Why did you say that the cart was nervous?” :-/ Oh, well I have to say that I would have him ask all the questions rather than not, but sometimes….sometimes, I just need the two minutes of his quiet resolution. :-) All three of the kids ask questions and I do think of it as a good thing but there are times that it is just a lot. My mom now says sorry for wishing me to have a child like me, not in a bad way she is joking. It makes me wonder if her wish came true, did it really take three of them to make up for one of me?? Ha ha ha Just Kidding! David may agree with that though, I am a non-stop question asker and I am also a skeptic of people’s answers. I think our kids have this too. Once someone has answered my question I immediately go into “How did you get that information?” or “How do you know that?” David will laugh at my daily internet searches. He says that he can figure out my frame of mind, by checking my history of internet search for the day. I think our kids may be the same way. It’s better than no questions I guess. I secretly like that our kids challenge us.

So I guess I will be happy about that and cherish each two minutes of peace…when they come.


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02/15/11

Damaging Distractions

I mentioned in my previous post that David and I were rather disconnected during the time we were seeking answers about Daniel. One of the issues was that we were in a church that had a very dominant woman pastor who regularly spoke ill of her husband, the head pastor. They actually would make negative comments toward each other on the pulpit, in a joking way but I never found it amusing. They were constantly saying how marriages are hard work and rough. David and I didn’t feel that way but after a while of hearing it, doubt starts to trickle in.

We had miscommunication about Daniel and I consumed myself in serving at church.

I was also directly under the woman pastor’s leadership, in several ministries. I now know I was trying to escape what was going on at home. Women would call our house all hours of the day and say that we needed to pray or that “things” were going on that needed to be discussed. It would disrupt our entire household and cause chaos. Daniel and I both do not do well with ringing phones. David was trying to do work in an open room and I was spending my days full of anxiety trying to keep two, three yr olds and a 1 yr old quiet so David could work.

We really didn’t have time to talk about Daniel anyway, but then I started taking Daniel to therapy on a regular basis as well.

We didn’t really have time to discuss how either of us were feeling. I was in constant action mode. Try to do everything to keep Daniel at peace, try to do everything to keep peace in church, try to do everything to keep peace with my mom. Since we had just moved here my mom and I were trying to figure out our relationship. We had not lived near each other in about 10 years and our past experience was not a good script to go by. She also refused to believe that Daniel was on the autism spectrum at that time. Everyone in church was praying for healing and I was in the middle not knowing what to believe. Do I believe the doctors, do I believe the websites, do I believe the church people who said it wasn’t of God, do I believe David that he will grow out of it? So many questions and I was full of fear and misunderstandings.

I now know what David meant by “He will grow out of it”.

He doesn’t mean that this will all go away. He means that we help Daniel achieve success through helping him help himself. He means we need to educate ourselves and implement those things that will help Daniel. He means look into all kinds of resources and see which are the best fit and try them. Use the things that work, find Daniel’s special interests and use that as a tool. He means that Daniel will grow out of a lot of the behaviors that can hurt him or us if we understand how to help him. Not that he will grow out of autism. Had I understood what he meant then, I think I would not have felt so alone and disconnected from my husband. I would not have felt so fearful and hopeless. We actually were thinking the same things but with the outside distractions and constant chaos, we couldn’t communicate.

There were many distractions going on.

David was trying to work, we lost a lot of our income which caused a huge stress on him. The jobs he did have were extremely intense and consuming. We had additional medical bills that we had not expected. David lost work because of me being gone so much taking Daniel to therapy. The fact that our kids were so young is enough to take energy out of a relationship, no matter how wonderful they are, they take a lot of time and energy. Even though I felt that David was a great husband and father, the church atmosphere made it feel as if he was not a good spiritual leader. In prayer meetings, the women would complain about their husbands and I would always chime in how David doesn’t do that. Of course they assumed I was lying, I didn’t understand this until later. Why on earth would I lie about that? It didn’t even occur to me to lie about David. Whatever. We would end up talking me down off the ledge after every prayer meeting, not only because of what they said about their husbands but because they would bring up all of this weird theology.

I couldn’t keep mouth shut and would blurt out things, like the actual context of the scripture and the pastor would go off on me.

We spent what little energy we had on exposing the false information, how some people were bullies and the wrong understandings of the Bible teachings instead of on our marriage and kids. David has never told me what to do or think, he knows that I wouldn’t handle that well anyway, but he is not that kind of person. He does give me little bits of information and he knows that I will automatically go into research mode. That is what I did with autism, with church, with marriages, with whatever else that would pop in my head during that time to try to bring clarity and peace to our life. I should have paid attention to my kids, they never wanted to go to that church. Daniel hated it. He would have complete meltdowns before we would go and then he would have to leave class if I wasn’t in there. Many times even when I was in there. This church was a huge distraction to my faith, my marriage, my family and the focus I needed to put on learning how to help Daniel.

We decided that our marriage, unity and full support for each other had to take precedence over all other things.

I eliminated people who caused division in my marriage, we decided that the church we were in was not the best for us, we decided to discuss Daniel’s needs together. We decided that no matter what we would tell each other what we were thinking and if we did not understand one another we would find the best means of communication to help us to understand. We decided that if we were unable to have words to express ourselves then we would tell the other person and give each other the time to be able to gather the right words. David explained to me that I sound like I am yelling when we discuss things, I explained to him that I had no idea what he is talking about because I do not yell. Those kinds of things make a huge difference. I had no idea that I get louder and louder when I am discussing something. So now we know and I am more aware of it and it has become another one of our jokes.

That time was the breaking point for all of us and we knew something had to change.

When we left, I had what felt like a huge chain around me lift. While there David and I were constantly battling slides of truth, false information, and hidden agendas. The problem here was that I just wanted to help and my “help trump card” would kick in and override what I knew was going on. I can easily get sucked in if I see people in need or if church leaders make me feel like I am failing as a Christian. I do not believe this anymore, though there are times when it still comes up and I have to fight the words. We wasted precious time on nonsense and gossip and it brought division to our marriage because that is not who we are or what we do. Another form of escape for me is to obsess about people to try to figure them out. I have learned to stop that too.

Within in a couple of weeks we actually saw huge changes in Daniel.

We both believe that the constant stress and chaos that I was maintaining, Daniel was feeling and responding to. Ariel and Joshua did too but Daniel’s was much more apparent. We quickly regained our peace with each other, our kids and now after two years or so, I am finally getting some clarity with my relationship with God again. Some of our other family members have become more accepting in many ways, since I have shared and tried to bring awareness to what autism really is about. My mom has had a tremendous amount of healing for herself and understanding, she has changed a lot too.

If we had not stopped to take control of our miscommunication we would not have survived, at least not well.

We are now very protective of our time, our family, who and what we allow to be apart of it. Not in a freaky way but we are very cautious of how we do things now. We are open to new things and try but if we feel that oppressive or divisive feel, we do not stick around that place or people long. It is just not worth it to sacrifice our marriage or kids for the sake of making people feel good. The majority of time those people don’t even care if we are around or not. Besides David and I are the kind of people who usually say the wrong thing and make the situations very awkward or uncomfortable. It’s our gift. :-)


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