Archive for the Confessional Category

A New Adventure

I wanted to be a rock star when I grew up. There were a few other more attainable career goals I had which changed as I pursued them. For instance, I began college as a pre-pharmacy major. Then I took zoology and realized I could not handle dissections. Then I took college chemistry and realized I didn’t really like it. Well, I didn’t like learning the theory at the time. Of course, getting a concussion the first full week of my first fall semester didn’t help with anything. So, I fell back to my previous desire to be a programmer and changed my major to Computer Science. Assembly language and discrete math happened, so I switched majors again to Industrial Technology concentrating in manufacturing. After graduation, I joined the Air Force and built a career in another IT – Information Technology. After getting my master’s in IT, I decided that when I thought I wanted to be a programmer, I really just wanted to play games.

A few years ago I decided I was going to change career fields. I got an associates in Human Services and absolutely LOVED it. But I kept doing IT. And then I got back into debt and felt stuck. But after 28 years I took a leap and sold my house to move back to my childhood home and start all over.

Where the house was. Now overgrown with kudzu at its summer peak.

The plan was to get the kids in a rental house or apartment and get a job to pay bills while building a woodworking business and turning my 40 acres into a self-sustaining farm. But things haven’t gone according to the plan.

It took me 2 months to find a job making less than half what I was making. I at least like this job much better. It took my youngest 4 months to find a job. So by that point all the savings was gone, all the money from selling the house was gone, and the credit cards were maxed out again. I got most of the material bought for building a woodworking shed, but circumstances happened so that my cousin wasn’t able to work on it with me – one of those being the ridiculous heat.

This whole adventure has been unbelievably hard and humbling. I don’t want to have to rely on anyone for help, but while I have a job, I don’t make enough to cover the debt and expenses even while living off grid. So I’ve had to ask for money, for supplies, and for food. I think about getting a second job and then remember that’s what the business is supposed to be. Now that it’s getting cold, I have to get more hardened shelters up for us and can’t work on a temporary shop. One of my cousins brought over his camper the other night before the rain hit so we wouldn’t freeze. That was an absolute Godsend.

I’ve had quite a bit of help from family and friends. All I have to do is ask. But that is the really hard part. Because running alongside my need for help is the narrative my dad gave me as I was growing up in which I can hear him saying, “See, I told you that you are stupid and irresponsible.” What I actually am is ADHD with a TON of trauma and probably some autism. (Comorbidity is a bitch for sorting out why you are the way you are and do the things you do.) When you’ve been given an identity by a primary caregiver since birth, it is deeply embedded and takes a lot more than positivity and self-talk to overcome. Heck, it’s taken a ton of 12 Step work and therapy just to identify. The thing is, when you’ve heard it from a parent, you are going to automatically assume everyone else thinks the same thing – “You’re stupid and irresponsible.” – and when you are raised in a culture of Social Darwinists, you believe you deserve all the bad/negative consequences of your bad choices because “You made your bed, now lie in it.” So, I keep my fears and pain to myself, and try to dig out by myself, but the hole just keeps getting deeper, and the shame piles on higher making it even harder to dig.

I’ll never be the rock star I wanted to be growing up, and that’s fine. I’m doing IT work in a factory so I’m finally working in my undergraduate field. I chuckle about it, but I think my undergrad advisor was on to something when he advised me to concentrate in manufacturing. I like to make stuff and build stuff and I feel almost at home as I walk through the plant to work on an issue. That’s why I’m still going to work toward my other dream of woodworking. I’m still going to work toward a dream of a self-sufficient farm – a farm that pays for itself so that I am less reliant on store-bought food. It’s frustrating that it’s going to take much longer than I thought and with a lot more outside help to get going.

I didn’t set out to share quite as much as I did in this first post in months, but the words were ready to flow so I let them. Perhaps that vulnerability will help me social media beg for supplies and money later. Haha! (Laughing like I’m not serious.)

If you made it through that mess, thanks for stopping by and reading. I’ll add links somewhere at some point for help with expenses and necessities. Peace to you!

New England Trip

The trip was originally planned for my 50th birthday back in 2019. Not only did I turn 50, but I had just finished all my courses for my 2nd Associates. I felt I needed to celebrate graduating with a 4.0 after working full time and college full time while also going through a divorce and a significant job change. I should note that is why I fell into a deep depressive burnout which was exacerbated by the pandemic. But I digress. I never went on the trip because my bank account told me no.

I’d been sitting here unemployed since mid-January. I wasn’t actually sitting as I finished and started a lot of projects. I decluttered, I cleaned, I cussed a blue streak every time I worked on cleaning out the shed. I knew when my kids and all the pets started annoying me that I needed a break, and so I planned and executed last minute the trip I originally planned over 2 years ago.

The original plan was to travel to Stamford, CT where my 8th great grandfather Rev John Bishop is buried. He was the first of the Bishops to come to the colonies. His burial site is unknown, but it is in Stamford along with his 2 wives. The original memorial made by his sons was replaced in 1865 by one made by a great grandson and sits in the cemetery behind St Andrew’s Episcopal in Stamford.

Rev. John Bishop came to Stamford from Massachusetts Bay in 1644 and officiated as minister of the congregational church in this place to the time of his death 1694
St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church

I had decided since I was that far north, I might as well make a trek through the remaining northeastern states I’ve never been to. Thanks to genealogy research, I knew 8th great grandfather Rev John first settled in Taunton, MA. I used that as a stop on my northeast circuit traveling from Stamford to Taunton through Rhode Island, stopping in RI long enough to pee. (This won’t be the last reference to bathroom stops.)

Taunton, MA

From Taunton, MA, I traveled through Boston (and downtown Boston thanks to Google rerouting me around traffic) up to Kittery, ME.

Fort McClary State Historical Site, Kittery, ME

From there I drove in the rain to Hillsboro, NH to stop at President Franklin Pierce’s Homestead. I ended up in Hillsboro town center where I lost signal to my phone and hence my gps and panicked. Thank GOD I can memorize maps and knew where to backtrack to so I could at least continue to Vermont. (I did make it to Pierce’s place before dark though it was closed.)

Pierce Homestead, Hillsboro, NH

I managed to finally get signal as it got dark and got guided in the pouring rain to eventually arrive at a rest stop just south of Brattlesboro, VT 10 min before it closed. I was in Vermont just long enough to pee.

Rest stop just south of Brattlesboro, VT

On my way home I stopped in Pluckemin, NJ where my 6th great Eoff grandparents are buried. Hans’ grave is either unmarked or eroded beyond reading (as most of the stones are), but Maria’s headstone is partially readable. They were the first Eoffs (German Öff) to come to the colonies. I went to the wrong cemetery first, though there are Eoffs buried there as well.

Pluckemin Presbyterian Church Cemetery, NJ

I did a drive-by through Philadelphia by the Liberty Bell before heading home without going through DC again. I took no pictures, but I did check in to the Liberty Bell on Facebook as I sat at a red light.

.With the rundown of the trip out of the way, 3 days of all day driving gave me a lot of time to think. Granted, I got caught up on my podcasts and listened to 2.5 audiobooks, but my mind wanders. There were a couple of things I kept mulling over.

1. I have undergone a great deal of change in my lifetime. Granted this is how life works, but when you grow up in religious and cultural fundamentalism, any changes in your way of thinking could be the slippery slope to backsliding or hell or worse, ostracization for no longer conforming to whatever the dominant culture mandates for inclusion.

Anyway, old me would never have just gone on that kind of trip spur of the moment and by myself. Old me certainly wouldn’t have admired the beauty of New England even in the dead of winter and pouring rain and fog. But also, old me would have been afraid of ending up in “the bad part of town” and would have been paying extra attention to the “feriners” (pronounce it like I spelled it) who “want to kill us because we are free and Christian.” (I’m still a bit angry that I fell for the right-wing propaganda and held it as truth for so long.) Lots of change.

2. I am extremely privileged to be able to trace my family ancestry back to Europe through multiple branches. I have visited every place the Bishops settled since leaving England AND was able to visit the village of Cattistock where Rev John was baptized and his parents are buried when I was stationed in the UK. I’ve visited most of the places the Eoffs settled after coming from Germany. I can also trace back the Hills, the Polks, the Vanhooks, and I think the Allens. That’s privilege. Almost all were colonists. Many of my colonist ancestors were slave holders which throws in a big old batch of conflicted feelings. That is not a legacy I can take pride in, but it is one to which I am still heir nonetheless. I believe American slavery was an evil practice. Period.

Yet I carry perpetrator DNA. Both sides.

I know I am not responsible for the actions of my forebears. Lord knows I’ve dealt with carrying other’s sins as if I was responsible for theirs enough in therapy over my dad. However, to refuse to acknowledge it for the evil it was, or to excuse it away as being a “product of their time,” is to support it after the fact. It was just as evil then as it is today because it required dehumanization of a group of people made in the same image of God as the slaveholders. That dehumanization required Christians reject the reconciling work of Jesus. The refusal to rectify the wrong done is also to reject the reconciling work of Jesus. I am just one person, but I refuse to excuse away the evil of my ancestors because I have my “get out of Hell free card.” Because as I once heard from a Black Baptist pastor (and I’m paraphrasing), if your heart and life doesn’t change after believing Jesus, you haven’t really believed.

Sexual abuse is not a joke

I kept sitting and looking at my screen wondering how I was going to start this. There is just no good way to start a post that’s going to expose a family skeleton. But I cannot sit silently by while otherwise good people excuse and normalize Donald Trump’s lewd and crass statements, which weren’t surprising to me given the totality of his reprehensible character which he has displayed since early in the primaries. It is a testimony to the condition of his heart, and not a good testimony.

And for the record, my rejection of Trump is NOT an endorsement of Hillary.

Shortly after I turned 15, my dad was caught engaging in beastiality. He would go to our church on Saturdays and clean the building, and as if it wasn’t bad enough what he did, it happened on church grounds. I heard the original phone call. I heard the plea not to tell anyone. But the membership of our church was told, and that was the end of Daddy’s membership there, and also his service as a deacon. This prompted a hasty move which would have me transfer to a new school and thereby give me some protection from any trickle-down effects of that news reaching the ears of other kids.

No one outside of my parents ever spoke of that incident around me, so I have no idea who outside of that church and the reporter of the incident knew about it. I’m not entirely sure who in the family knows besides those who also went to church there. To be honest, I could have largely convinced myself that nothing ever happened had my dad not brought it up from time to time. He never truly acknowledged the deviancy of his behavior, but never failed to paint himself as the victim.

Nearly 5 years later, he was arrested for rape of two 12-year-old boys. I was 19. This was not an incident that was covered up. His arrest was announced on the local radio station’s news. It was reported on the front page of the local newspaper. I still remember like it was yesterday when my best friend called me because she had heard about it from someone who heard it on the radio. She could not believe it, and was ready to set the record straight. I had to tell her, “Yes, the report is true.” Meanwhile, my mom was beside me saying “No, it’s not true.” I was confirming that Daddy really had been arrested for rape. She was denying rape had occurred.

But I would later read his written statement. Written by his own hand, he gave his account, and he was guilty. Yet he maintained for years and years that what he did wasn’t wrong. My mom stood beside him and supported him. A friend of theirs came to offer support and called those boys “just trash.”

Daddy plead guilty to avoid what would have been an ugly trial. The judge gave him the minimum sentence, but that was still 7 years. It would be another year after sentencing before there was a bed available in one of the state penitentiaries. He went to prison shortly after I turned 21, and served 5 years before being granted parole.

To give a little more perspective to this, the beastiality event occurred when he was 61 years old. The rape incident shortly before his 66th birthday. He was by no means a young man. We were Landmark Missionary Baptists – a sect that considered (and probably still does, to an extent) Southern Baptists too liberal.

I listened to him as time went on from the arrest, conviction, and incarceration make himself out to be the victim. He claimed he was “set up” because he was speaking out about the drugs in our neighborhood. By “speaking out” I mean talking loudly. He never assumed full responsibility for his actions, and absolutely never repented. Once I had children, especially a son, I had to watch him like a hawk because I knew he could not be trusted not to molest him.

Because I read the statement and listened to him make himself the victim instead of the perpetrator.

I have looked back at his behavior in the years leading up to the rape, and I can see the predatory signs in retrospect. The grooming. I have often wondered how many more victims there are. I carried guilt and shame that I was unable to stop him. Unable to protect those boys. Unable to protect any of them. I didn’t know how to recognize the signs beforehand. But to be honest, at that age, particularly given the fear I had of my dad’s wrath, I was powerless. Because I had been beaten and berated into submission my whole life. “Honor thy father…” And with the skewed view of sex I was raised with, it is no wonder that I have always been able to sexualize anything.

dirtymind

Aside from being collateral damage from my dad’s sexual deviancy and abuse, I have been the recipient of unwanted and unwelcome lewd comments, touching, kissing, and propositions. As a married woman, I have had married men who not only knew I was married but also knew I knew were married try to pursue sex with me. I remember hearing a group of guys I was stationed with talking about Faith Hill. “She has legs all the way up to her ass!” I knew what that meant. And I also knew that as a tall, slim woman with long legs, that I also had “legs all the way up to my ass.”

“Locker room talk” is demeaning, degrading, and disrespectful. It shows at best a seared conscience and at worst a lack of conscience to treat another human being in this manner. It is not simply a “potty mouth.” I have a potty mouth (which I learned primarily at home growing up), and there is a big difference between dropping the s-bomb, d-bomb, or even f-bomb as an expletive and bragging about or fantasizing aloud about forcing yourself onto another person. Sexual abuse is not a joke. Sexual abuse is evil. To dismiss it as less than that is to condone and enable evil – no matter which wing you identify with.

The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil; for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart. Luke 6:45 NASB

How did you learn respect

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I’ve always bucked against authority, but not necessarily for the sake of being a rebel. I’ve been repeatedly labeled an instigator, and I do not (because I cannot) deny it. I’ve even been called a honey badger. Honey badger don’t care. She does what she wants! Of course, she often gets “stung” by the cobra and then has to take a nap.

As much as I bucked against and resent(ed) my strict, legalistic religious upbringing, it kept me out of so much trouble I could have gotten in given all the vices I flirted with. I absolutely do not recommend legalism to combat vice because if it really worked, I might not have flirted.

Because I was under such strict authority, I developed an unhealthy fear of authority figures. Compliance was almost always out of fear rather than respect, at least initially. As I got older I learned to distinguish between dictatorial authority and leader/teacher/mentor authority, but I had a big learning curve.

IMG_4410

I’ve been seeing a lot of posts on Facebook that state they learned respect by getting good ass whippings as a kid. I know they are just resharing a meme, and I can’t speak for anyone else’s raising. But I know for a fact that I did not learn respect of any kind from any whipping I got as a kid. I learned from those whippings to fear punishment when I do wrong from those giving me the whipping, and nothing more.

I want to note, I am not anti-corporate punishment. I can’t say it’s never necessary, and I also cannot say that it was always given to me inappropriately. It was the berating from my dad that accompanied the whippings that did the greatest damage. Therefore, any spanking/paddling from anyone else was taken in the same manner – as punishment for not being smart enough to be good enough.

Therein lies a big problem when we try to project a meme as a cure-all when we don’t know any backstory. For all the discipline and instruction to respect elders and authority, I still carried around an unhealthy and disrespectful view of authority just waiting to spew out. A1C Nemec still gave a 2Lt the stink eye and a snotty answer over the way he asked her who gave the all clear after a simulated attack. SSgt Nemec was still openly and belligerently disrespectful to a Chief Petty Officer on multiple occasions.

Respect that is borne out of fear of punishment is not respect. It is self-preservation, and doesn’t place value on other people. Healthy respect places high value on another person regardless of that person’s position of authority.

We actually learn respect by watching others model what respect looks like. A quick glance through political posts on Facebook gives a clue as to where today’s children get their lack of respect from. “Democrats/Liberals are idiots!” “Republicans/Conservatives are stupid!” We disparage those with whom we disagree politically/ideologically/religiously and wonder why our kids are disrespectful.

I listened to my dad exalt himself above everyone my whole life and picked it right up and ran with it. It was my normal. I think this is the kind of attitude that fuels the perpetual outrage that manifests itself on Facebook through self-righteous political/religious posts demonizing, devaluing, and ultimately dehumanizing whatever group/culture/ideology/class/ethnicity/religion we disagree with. After all, we believe we have figured out what’s wrong with the world. “If only people would just listen to me…”

Most events are not clear-cut with a black-and-white clear cause and effect. People who hold different beliefs or belong to a different culture than you are not beneath you with nothing to teach you. We are all struggling with junk. When we have to tear someone else down in order to show our superiority, we are actually showing the ugliness of our own attitudes and beliefs. And that in no way exalts us above others except in our own minds.

It’s that lack of respect for other human beings that is what is wrong with our society today. And as long as we continue to perpetrate, the worse our society is going to get because where there is no respect, there is certainly no love.

So think about how you really learned respect and whether or nor you really show it.

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#medicatedandmighty – It’s complicated

This is it people. Two prescriptions to maintain this crazy. Wish me luck.

A photo posted by @muthalovinautism on

That is my friend Erin Jones. Her story has just blown up over the last few weeks. It’s a story about hitting bottom, and getting help back up. I encourage you to follow her on Facebook and/or check out her blog at Mutha Lovin’ Autism. Her story is shedding light on mental health, and seeks to break the stigma associated with mental illness.

I’m standing with her.

#medicatedandmighty Standing with my friend Erin @muthalovinautism and sharing my story of needing help, and before and after pics. I might have been running regularly in 2012 and looking ok on the outside, but I was trapped in a cycle of self-medication and denial. Midway through 2013, I hit a bottom, and started getting help. 5 months after I started taking an antidepressant, I stopped drinking. 17 months later, I stopped smoking (again). 18 months later, I put on makeup and a skirt, and told my story to a room full of people. 20 months later, I weaned off the antidepressant because it gave me the emotional reset I needed along with my program to feel my feelings without fear of them and without being consumed by them and work through the pain if the issues I stuffed, suppressed, and numbed for most of my life. #throwbackthursday #tbt

A photo posted by Martha Nemec (@dragonlady42) on

The last time I posted, I mentioned wrestling over sharing my unsanitized story. Since then, I have added My Story to the menu above (below on mobile). Because I have reached the point that I am ready to share it. Because one thing I have learned in recovery is that I am not alone and someone else has done or experienced something I have. Which means, there is someone out there who thinks that no one can possibly understand what he or she has been through.

It’s what my Manifesto is about. It’s about letting just one other person know they are not alone. And someone cares.

And there is hope.

I may or may not be on the autism spectrum. I don’t have a diagnosis, but I show a lot of signs. I’m still not convinced that I developed symptoms that would be considered on the spectrum due to trying to cope and survive the abuse as a child. Regardless, I have never felt “normal” and came up with my own coping skills which work well for a child, but not so much as an adult. I am certain that the abuse and all the methods I used to cope contributed to my own mental illness – namely depression and anxiety.

Y’all, you can’t function “normally” when you are bouncing between the 2. Self-medicating will prolong the inevitable breakdown. Stuffing and suppressing will only last for so long before you blow up. And the isolation will slowly wear you down until you want to die. Whether by your own hand – quickly or slowly – or through recklessness, without professional help, you will find yourself in such a depressive state that death looks like the only viable option.

And I know firsthand, you can’t just pray that away.

No, you need people who have been there and back and will walk with you or just sit with you without blaming you or trying to fix you. If you have been struggling with depression and/or anxiety, you probably do have a chemical imbalance which will require medication. Years and years of stress will throw the chemical balance off because your body has been on alert for so long it doesn’t know how to not be on alert.

It absolutely is a physical, mental, and spiritual sickness. You can’t just treat one area and expect the other areas to recover also.

And you absolutely cannot fix yourself.

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The pain of letting go

Marsh-WM

I made the decision. I didn’t like it. I don’t like it. I knew I wouldn’t be “happy” with either option. I also know that keeping things status quo is not healthy for anyone involved.

I feel like I ripped out a big chunk of my heart and punted it.

I told that to my therapist and also that I felt kind of numb. Also that I felt like I needed a meltdown but that it would probably wait until the most inopportune time to strike. You know, like at work, because no one wants that. By “no one” I mean me.

I continually find myself wondering if I am doing the right thing. Did I make the right decision? And thus goes the rationalization process. Slogans fall flat as trite cliche. The doctrine of my youth fails from one-sidedness and does nothing but cover me in guilt and shame.

There comes a point when you realize you are the only one that is even remotely providing accountability to your husband. You can see that he is avoiding everyone but the friends who enable his behavior. You can see that he is not being honest with himself let alone anyone else. You see him walking around in that same facade you yourself used to walk in while keeping your addictions securely hidden away from view of anyone who might call you out on them.

You know that as long as nothing changes, nothing is going to change because that is what has been happening for years.

As I have been recovering, I have been seeing that I had few boundaries, and didn’t enforce the few I had. It was easy to overlook because I was numbing/escaping myself so as not to have to deal with much of anything. It has been something like coming out of unconsciousness into consciousness and seeing how things really are and realizing this is not the lifestyle I want to continue in. So I tried setting boundaries, but they were not respected. I tried pointing out what was really going on, and was dismissed and told I am the one with the issues.

But I’m not the only one with issues. I’m just the only one working on mine. And I have had enough of the insanity of addiction in my life.

So after the latest incident of craziness, I retained an attorney and am filing separation in a way to enforce separation. There is no violence or threat thereof, so I can’t get a restraining order. But since I am the only one working consistently and have been the only one paying the mortgage and utilities, I’m not the one who is going to leave the house.

And our children have dealt with the dysfunction long enough.

I’ve been told that he’s never going to hit bottom as long as I’m cushioning it. To be true, my lack of boundaries and lack of enforcing boundaries has certainly been enabling. But I finally had enough. So I took the opportunity while I had it to put up a legally enforceable boundary.

And it freaking hurts.

I feel like the pain is going to consume me in an implosion. As if my soul is collapsing in on itself.

But I am not going to cave in. I will not continue to live with the insanity of active addiction. I will not continue to subject my children to continued dysfunction.

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Starting Over #DoSummer2015 #DoOver

“It’s always best to start at the beginning.” – Glinda, the Good Witch of the North

I have realized something really scary. I am the most emotionally and mentally healthy person in my household, and the most mature.

15yo-wm

Right. I’m the mature one.

But while perhaps I live according to the mantra that Ouiser Boudreaux calls “A dirty mind is a terrible thing to waste” far too much, there is, unfortunately, a reason why I am the most emotionally and mentally healthy and mature person in my household.

I realized my life was unmanageable and would remain that way unless I got help.

I made the decision to do whatever I had to do to change.

Sometimes I still fight it tooth and nail because I am still afraid. I spent my childhood living in fear, and it is deeply ingrained in me. What I am slowly learning, and much more slowly than I like, is that it’s ok to be afraid, and push through it anyway. Just like when I run, I’m ready to quit a quarter mile into it. But I keep putting one foot in front of the other because when I finish, I won’t remember how bad that first and/or second mile sucked. I will feel great because I kept going and finished.

I had a sit-down, face-to-face meeting with my sponsor last week. I was in a huge funk, and I needed help getting to the root of what was going on. Plus, I find it is a lot harder to hold stuff back when she’s looking at me. Through the course of processing and reprocessing what was discussed, I decided I need to get back in Al-Anon. I was going to go back to my home group Friday night, but I ended up going to an A.A. meeting instead. As I was adjusting my Friday night plans in my head, and planning out when I could hit the next Al-Anon meeting, I had a thought.

I can have an Al-Anon #DoOver.

I decided I could go to the same Saturday morning beginner’s meeting that I started in, and this time do it right. You know, because I never really worked an Al-Anon program the first time around. I went determined to speak also, but I didn’t really get a chance. However, I recognized someone whom I had met nearly 2 years ago in that room when I first started, and I went and spoke to her after the meeting.

I connected.

2 years ago, I spoke to no one, and tried to quickly get out of there. I was overwhelmed. I had been crying and fighting crying the whole meeting, and I needed to get out where I could. This time, I could tell by remembering how I felt the last time that I have grown quite a bit. I teared up a little, but while it is still automatic to fight it, I didn’t put all my effort into it. But I was also able to laugh and nod my head in understanding with other shares.

I might be a beginner again, but I am no longer a newcomer.

I’m glad to have the chance to start over.

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Let it flow

I never had a clear understanding of the Holy Spirit. I believed there is one, and I believed the doctrine of the Trinity of which the Holy Spirit is a member. But functionally, I believed in the Father, the Son, and personal effort.

To be perfectly honest, I still can’t grasp the concept of the Trinity. I don’t understand the three in one. I choose to believe anyway. It would appear on the surface to be blind faith. But it’s not, even though I can’t point to anything visibly to “prove” it. In my personal experience it has all been internal.

My daughter went to a birthday party a few years ago for one of her friends. I went and hung out with her friend’s mom and another lady while the kids hung out together without moms hovering over them. At the time, we weren’t going to church. But I saw something in Jamie’s friend’s mom when she talked about Jesus. There was such unabashed joy and gratitude that she got a little emotionally overwhelmed and had to sit down. I had never seen anything like that in person.

I wanted that.

I prayed for that.

And nothing much happened — for 6 years.

It didn’t seem like anything was happening. I went to church, I read my bible, I read Christian books, and I read Christian blogs. I looked at my theology and doctrine with “grown up” eyes challenging what I believed to make sure I really believed what I believed because I believed it was true according to scripture or because I was told it was true. Most of my beliefs remain intact, and what changed was all secondary and tertiary doctrine that have no bearing on the foundation of the Gospel.

All those years, my faith was evolving, and growing. God would give me a little taste, and I would want more. I learned to be thankful and grateful for trials because He opened my eyes finally to the truth that we grow through trials, even though it is painful growth. The trials strip away our self-sufficiency, and teach us that we can trust God. I finally reached the point that I trust enough to stop taking my anti-depressant. Just like my childhood coping skills, it served it’s purpose, but I need to let it go.

I need to feel.

I talked to my sponsor about it, and my therapist. I talked a lot more about it with my therapist than I cared to. I have a program now to help me deal with life on life’s terms. I do not wish to continue numbing, even with a prescription. I have to feel my full range of emotions if I want to be emotional healthy.

That thing I prayed for 6 years ago? About halfway through the second song this morning at church, I felt the tears start to well up as I had my hand raised and trying to belt out the song louder than Stacey as she led. The dam broke during the 3rd song and I had to get a Kleenex. The hubby looked at me and asked, “Are you crying?” I laughed and answered, “Yes. I’m off my meds.” I was destroyed before the sermon even started, but as Pastor Nate ended the sermon with prayer, it hit me.

God answered my prayer.

For the first time today, I realized that I was responding emotionally with appropriate emotion. There was a lot of crying (a lot for me), but it was the right kind of tears each time they fell.

It felt cleansing.

Things like this are why I believe the Holy Spirit is the one who does the changing in us, and not our own efforts to change. The Spirit was given to us as followers of Jesus, children of God the Father to guide and comfort us. The Spirit took me on a path I never would have chosen to have my prayer answered. Left to my own, I would still be self-medicating and wondering why nothing was changing,

John 3:8 NIV

The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

You can’t put God in a box. You can’t neatly package him up. All you can really do is say like Job,

Job 42:2-3 NIV

“I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted. You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.”

Let it flow.

What makes a whitewashed tomb? Part 2

I remember the 80s quite well. I was a teenager for most of the 80s and was completely enamored with the 80s culture of music, fashion, and television. There is still a special place in my heart for shoulder pads despite the fact that I have shoulders that do not need any padding. My favorite running shirts are neon yellow which hearken back to the florescent colors of the mid-80s. I don’t miss the big hair, though. That’s just too much work now.

I loved Ronald Reagan. He was entertaining, and he was strong. He had a great sense of humor, but he wasn’t going to back down from the Soviet threat. Being a cold war kid, and a good old southern girl, communism was the ultimate enemy, and the Soviet Union was it’s preeminent face. God Bless the USA was the ultimate patriotic theme song, and I fully believed that we were the favored nation of God (second but equal to Israel) which is why we were the greatest nation on earth.

There is a lot more to my hard-core conservatism, but I will attempt to sum it up since it’s not particularly exciting. I dabbled in politics a bit as a kid in the 80s, escaped from reality during the early 90s & gave birth in the late 90s (and therefore have a lot of blank areas), and became a news and political junkie in the 00s when I started blogging. I went all in with conservative politics in the mid to late 00s, and looking back, I was a self-righteous ass. Something happened to me just before the 2008 presidential election that I can’t explain. I knew Barack Obama was going to win the election. I had no doubt. I realized that I was okay with that, and I still am. I disagree with him politically about nearly everything, and so I didn’t vote for him either time. But I have just never had this feeling of certain doom with him as president.

Something changed in me. I can’t take credit for it because I had no intention of changing. I was on the right side (pun mostly intentional); why would I need to change? Now that I look back on it, I can see that my focus was on the wrong thing. My patriotism defined me to a large extent and was driven by a narrowly focused mindset that understood valued freedom only as a means for my own personal prosperity and comfort. The poor and the homeless needed to stop spending their money on drugs and alcohol and get a job in order to stop leeching off the government thereby wasting my tax money. Women (and girls) just needed to keep their legs closed. Illegal aliens needed to be shipped back to their country of origin, and by God speak English! One nation under God! ‘Murica!

That attitude reduces individual people who are (just as I am) created in the image of God to an abstract group without faces or names broad-brushed with caricatures and absent of feelings, dreams, and purpose. It is an attitude absent of empathy. It is an attitude that does not love people. It is an attitude that thinks God needs us, and not the other way around. It is an attitude that does not believe “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” It is an attitude of fear. It is an attitude that demands treasure now because I said the sinner’s prayer and was baptized and “America is a Christian nation.” It’s us versus them, and we are right.

It’s another type of whitewashed tomb. There is little compassion for the poor, and none for the addict. There are no gray areas, and no nuance. Right is right. Liberals are wrong. We are reaping what they sowed. “God hates fags!” Westboro is the visual and vocal extreme, but while many conservative Christians would never picket funerals nor say it out loud, they believe it. They will say “Sodom and Gomorrah” whenever gay marriage is passed or a ban is overturned because they are afraid of the same. But really, if you read the account of Sodom and Gomorrah, it wasn’t homosexuality that was the problem, it was the rape culture.

If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. (James 2:8-10 ESV)

Love is action, not a feeling. Real love is messy. It’s so messy because it isn’t self-serving. It isn’t about getting paid back. It sees a need, does it’s best to meet that need, and does not seek out recognition for what it’s done. Whitewashed tombs cannot love because they are just rocks on the outside and dead on the inside. Raising the stars and stripes over it doesn’t bring it to life. Only Jesus can raise the dead and turn a heart of stone to flesh.

Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. (Romans 13:8-10 ESV)

Wrapping up

This has been quite a year. I did not even accomplish half of my goals for the year. Life got crazy! For most of the year I was not only the only one in this house with a job, but the only one with a driver’s license. That wore me out and sucked up a large amount of vacation/sick time. But Jamie finally got her driver’s license, so the pressure is off to be everyone’s chauffeur. Oh, and we also only had 1 vehicle for much of the year, so I was still on the hook until we got another car.

I got my nose pierced. And I want to get my eyebrow pierced now. I also want a couple of tattoos, but that won’t happen until Petra gets inked.

My mom had a mini stroke. Adding that into the Alzheimer’s mix, she now has 3 distinct personalities. 1, she is still Mom, but has trouble saying the right words. She knows who you are, but can’t say your name. That’s the stroke effect. 2, she is still Mom, but she has no idea who people are. Thanksgiving, she would forget who the kids were, and thought I was Aunt Pearl. That’s the Alzheimer’s. It’s sad, but expected and fairly easy to deal with because she retains that same kind and loving personality of my Mom. But then there is that 3rd one – the paranoid delusional one. This one knows who I am, but thinks people are out to get her. This one infuriates me because she is nothing like my mom. Intellectually I know this is another aspect of the Alzheimer’s, but emotional detachment is not so easy.

The contract I worked on ended, and we switched to a new one with a new company. I got a 4 week paid staycation out of it which was great for the first 2 weeks. Those last 2 weeks, I was calling the security office nearly every day asking if my stuff had transferred so I could go back to work. And the first week back, I filled in as site lead while the site lead was on vacation. 4 weeks of nothing and then a week of everything because I was the only one left with working accounts. I still don’t want to be site lead. Oh, and I took a 10% pay cut. It hurts. But I love my co-workers.

I was forced to admit that I’m an alcoholic. By forced, I mean I was told I needed to quit for a while and I couldn’t. For those who don’t already know. Assuming more than 3 or 4 people read this blog anymore. Once I did the 3rd step, I realized I essentially rededicated my life to Jesus, and decided to get rebaptized as a matter of owning my faith as my own. And I am 11 months sober. One day at a time.

Throughout the year while working on my recovery through therapy, and through a 12-step program (which a LOT of people could really use), I have learned a lot about myself, and have come to terms and dealt with issues that I had never dealt with. I have grieved, and I have forgiven. I have learned to accept responsibility for my actions and reactions, and how to ask for forgiveness. And I’ve learned a few things along the way.

1. Life is more peaceful when you cease to be a victim/martyr.

2. Other people are responsible for their own choices and therefore their own consequences.

3. Life isn’t meant to be lived in isolation.

4. Trying to live up to a manufactured facade of other people’s expectations (real or perceived) will drive you insane.

5. It is okay to feel. Emotions are God-given. But let them be indicators and means of healing rather than living by them. Life isn’t sunshine and roses. You take the good, you take the bad.