I’m angry.
God, help.
I wrote Psalm 33 on my hand today.
I can barely make it out now.
Don’t have time to check it out now.
Gotta go in 15 minutes.
Will look it up when I get back.
Bible study.
I’m hosting a bible study.
While I’m angry??
Seriously?
God, help.
You want me to read Psalm 33.
Ok. I will…
as soon as I get back
Be VERY careful what you pray for…
It wasn’t until I was brushing my teeth last night that I realized that I couldn’t find my custom made mouth guard. My dentist made it for me. I have to sleep in it because at night when my subconscious takes over I handle my stress by grinding my teeth. The teeth grinding has made the inflammation around my root canal worse and it’s why I need the mouth guard. Since I’m already on my third course of antibiotics to control the inflammation until I can have the oral surgery… I NEEDED that mouth guard. Given the stress of the past week I was going to grind my teeth to powder without it. Where the heck was it??
Jesus knew where my mouth guard was... but he wasn't telling!
Y’know that parable about the woman who loses a coin and turns over the whole house looking for it?? Well… she didn’t have anything on me when it came to thoroughly tossing a place. I looked EVERYWHERE which isn’t hard since I only have two rooms. With a sinking feeling I remembered that I had wrapped it up in a paper towel… and that paper towel must have jumped into the rubbish before I took it out earlier when I got home from work! I would have gone out to look for it right then but it was dark and the idea of rooting through the communal garbage can at night was not at the top of my hit parade.
So I made my plan. The can was empty when I’d placed my kitchen bag in it. The other two households hadn’t put anything in it, so my goal was to get to it first thing in the morning before they had a chance to because once they did you couldn’t pay me to dig through it. You should’ve seen me. I had on my black t-shirt that says, “PERSEVERE” and I donned my handyman’s yard gloves that were too big for me. I taped a garbage bag around my metal grabber that I bought to help me post op so I wouldn’t actually have to touch anything… and I left my studio at daybreak praying that there was not a mound of garbage to sift through. PRAISE GOD the only thing on top of my bag was a small cardboard box!
I retrieved my garbage and took it back to my yard. Now, the unpleasant task of sifting through my own garbage. Ew. I’ve heard that one’s man garbage is another man’s gold… but this was pretty much gonna stay garbage. And to think that I actually planned to get up at 5am to sift through garbage. It’s not like the mouth guard was made out of gold or something. It COULD be replaced. It was the combination of virtually empty can and the certainty that I knew it was in there. Besides… most of my garbage is paper towels, but still. My mouth guard was somewhere in the garbage and had been in there overnight. Again, I say, “Ew.” Since I knew that it had to be in there I wasn’t going to stop looking and after a few minutes my persistence paid off: I found it in one of my small kitchen bags wrapped up in a paper towel. It hadn’t come in contact with any of the other garbage and I wasn’t likely to die of some bizarre garbage disease.
As I walked to the dumpster to return the bag a thought struck me about the connection to all the things of this past week and various prayers that I’ve lifted up to God leading up to these past few days. Last night I looked in one of my hard cover journals and found a prayer that I’d written to God back in February of last year. I blame that prayer and prayers like it for the events of the past week. I wrote the prayer after killing a giant centipede back when they still terrified me:
As aggressive as I was killing that giant centipede last night and
the giant cane spider on Thursday, help me to confront my anger
despite my fear of it. Help me to master my fear. Help me to
completely decimate my anger.
Why do I pray stuff like that? When you ask God to help you “overcome” your fears he’s not just going to do an “I Dream of Jeanie” blink and make all your fears go away. He usually makes us face them so that we can give them to him. And anger?? Definitely something he wants us to work through with him. So is it any wonder that this past week and the last few months leading up to it have been one… big… long…slow button push?? It seemed like everything in my world was converging on me and my response to almost all of it was to get angry. The more I prayed about it the angrier I got. The big difference? I was praying. I wasn’t wallowing in the anger or thinking that it was the end of the world as we know it. The anger and the things that cause it would pass. The people who were making me angry? I still don’t like them… but I was able to cut through all of the petty stuff they were doing to pray for them. I prayed and told God that I was going to forgive them even if I thought they were being jerks.
The week long snit that I was in passed last night. I think losing my night guard was the dynamite I needed to blast me out of the rut I’d fallen into. Funny, but I actually had fun dumpster diving this morning (even if I can’t quite make myself use my mouth guard tonight. I think another day of sterilizing it should make me feel better). It did set the tone for the entire rest of my day and I had a good day taking care of things I haven’t been able to do unassisted for over a year now. My recovery is slow and I get frustrated with my circumstances and with God. Some of that frustration fuels my anger. I hate not being able to do things that I used to take for granted. At times, I’ve felt that the surgeries accomplished nothing. But seeing how he’s been answering that prayer that I forget I made back in February of last year… I know that God has heard all of my prayers (about the anger, the fear, and my healing) and is answering them in his timing and in his way.
My take home lesson: Sometimes you will have to dig through a lot of crap before you find what you’re looking for.
Lately I’ve been tiptoeing around the fact that I’ve been rather…mad. I’ve tossed in some “commercial interruptions” and a few “best of Bipolar Girl” moments… but I haven’t come out and said why I’m mad. Yes, my coworker is still standing on my last nerve. Yes, the physical pain post-op still continues to cramp my style. Yes, the dental pain has now put me on my third course of antibiotics in three months — and the mouth guard that I had professionally made is the only thing stopping me from grinding my teeth down to nubs at night.
I don’t spend a lot of time blogging about any of that because, for the most part, nothing has changed. I’m a bit over talking about it. I pray to God and nothing changes. I keep praying to God and still nothing changes. Under this much chronic pressure my inner whiner starts to come out and for all our sakes, I try to keep that part of my personality out of the blogosphere.
I prefer to look for the positive note in the challenging rock-opera that is my life. There is always a lesson to be learned behind ever dark melody. My life’s song is being played on the cello. Deep, soulful, resonating in me in rich tones I cannot ignore.
If life was all that I was dealing with, I probably wouldn’t be this angry. I’ve spent years warding off the slings and arrows of outrageous people. I’ve finally realized that whatever drama du jour that I’m dealing with now will be gone six months. The stuff that pushes my button will get pushed aside by other, more pressing challenges. So I’m not all that worried about the surface drama anymore. God’s using it to prune me and I am certain there will be fruit. I just have to wait for it.
So what’s been up my nostrils twisting my nose hairs in knots? A different kind of LIFE.
About three weeks ago I started down another path “less traveled” and I never said a word here. Living In Freedom Everyday (L.I.F.E) Ministries is a Christian group that tries to help people overcome sexual addiction. About three weeks ago I started working through their LIFE Guide for Women which, hasn’t been pushing my buttons, it’s been standing squarely in the center of all them, refusing to budge. When I did that intense prayer counseling last year I asked God to help me get to the roots of my anger. I wanted to have some full-on, surround sound flashback of the day my brother molested me so I could lay that demon to rest. I felt certain the prayer counseling would pull off a bunch of scabs but then leave me traumatized and unchanged. I felt certain that it would not fix my sexual addiction. In some ways, I was totally wrong about the prayer counseling. It did change my life. I will never be the same again. I’ve got a clarity of mind and a boldness that I never had. My faith is stronger. My hope is stronger. My ability to persevere and press on rivals the Energizer Bunny. My rage was dialed back to anger and I even came to understand that not all anger was wrong.
But I didn’t get the flashback. All I got was “wait” and “be still.” If God wanted me to remember details he’s perfectly capable of making that happen… but he didn’t. He also didn’t wave a magic wand and make my sexual addiction go away. And then I had both my surgeries and God started talking to me again about what it would take for me to recover from my sexual addiction. He led me to LIFE Ministries and I bought their Guide for Women. It’s supposed to be done in a 12 step group format… but there are evidently NO WOMEN on the entire island who struggle with sexual addiction, so the group meeting thing is out. Since I’m a moderator on HPCR (that site for Christians who struggle with porn and sexual addiction) I decided to start a cyber group there. Unfortunately, there haven’t been a lot of takers, but it’s what I feel like I need to be doing right now. So I’m on Week Four now and it hasn’t been an easy journey. Dealing with broken pieces isn’t easy.
My family broke me and there are pieces of me that still do not work properly. I want to be healed. I want to be whole. And I am not going to stop pursuing those things until God heals me. I feel like God is doing another surgery on me… but this time it’s not my teeth or my innards. It’s my soul. Soul surgery?? It seems to fit. And unlike my other surgeries, there is no anesthesia. I’m wide awake for all of this and as I deal with old issues that have been left to fester below the surface anger bubbles up like sulfur coming out of a underwater volcano. People and circumstances are reminding me of my family and how helpless, hopeless, and useless they made me feel. God is telling me not to be afraid; that the monsters of the past are dying on all sides of me. I do not have to fight this battle. I just have to be obedient to him as I walk out the precepts in this program.
I’ve had to surrender some sacred cows and distance myself from someone I love dearly. Right now I’m looking at entering a level of accountability and transparency that even has me feeling pretty skittish and I’m pretty dang open. But this is the narrow path that I have to walk if I want to be free. I does not help that I do not know a single other Christian woman in real life who is a sex addict or struggling with a sexual addiction. That kinda makes me feel like a freak of nature… and I don’t like feeling like a freak of nature. Especially when I have to go to church.
I walked into church with a heavy heart this morning. I mouthed the words during worship because I still can’t really sing since my abdominal surgeries. Then the elder gave the message. Psalm 22. Parts of it felt like God was speaking directly to me. My sexual sin? It might feel like God has forsaken me at times, but he hasn’t. It’s not news to God. It’s not even new. There are other women on this island who struggle with sexual sin even if I don’t know any personally. I’m certain that at some point in my future, God is going to ask me to be there to support other women who struggle with sexual addiction and porn because nobody is here to help me and I know how lonely and isolating that can make you feel. I really could use some help, but since there isn’t any for me, I will be that help for somebody else in the future.
After the service the worship leader sang a few songs and the congregation was dismissed. He stayed on the stage singing songs and for all the world it felt like he was singing just for me, which he pretty much was since most people were gone or hanging out talking to other people. I sang because I had to. My heart was clawing it’s way out through my throat and was being forced out by my sobs. I did not know I had all of that in there. It was cathartic or, it would have been, had he not stopped abruptly after the last song. It was not like God to take me to that kind of emotional precipice and then leave me there. I felt raw and exposed and all I could think of was this line from a song: I’m forgiven because you were forsaken….
He had to sing that song.
I was all set to ask him before he exited the stage, but he whizzed by me and started talking to other people. I wiped the tears off my face and followed him. I was not going to let him leave without playing that song. When I finally found him I asked how was he at transposing songs in to different keys without any notice whatsoever. He didn’t even blink. He grabbed his guitar and we eventually ended up in the area outside the nursery. I was embarrassed to sing where people could hear me. My post-op voice has sounded really bad and I am really self-conscious, but today I felt a deep need to sing that song and he was going to help me.
I made him turn around as I started to sing. I wouldn’t have been able to sing with him looking at me. As I started to sing he found my key and he played. It was amazing. I could actually sing. I mean REALLY SING. I am one who belts out music. You will not find a dainty soprano in me. I don’t even know what range I am… but I am the human equivalent of a cello – deep, soulful, and my voice resonates with everything I feel for Jesus when I sing. I did not realize that all that resonating would attract an audience or that he would expect me to keep singing. But he did, so I did. And it was incredible. I feel like God released my song today. Nothing in any of my circumstances changed, but God transformed something in me today.
I was telling one of my accountability partners this and how the only thing that changed was my attitude. God may or may not deliver me from all that is ailing me, but even if he doesn’t… he is still my LORD and I will continue to worship and praise him. It doesn’t matter what my family did to me. All my anger and my sexual addictions and all the other fruits of that poisonous tree? God is going to redeem those things so that I can use them to reach out to other people in his name. That doesn’t mean that tomorrow I’m going to wake up anger free or addiction free, but it does mean that my God, the one I love, can use even bad fruit for his glory.
With all the emotional drama of Wednesday night, it’s a wonder I didn’t have horrible nightmares. I believe without doubt that it was because God answers all the fervent prayers lifted up for me by friends. God gave me such clarity that I knew exactly what I needed to do because God used a lesson that I hadn’t learned in the past.
One of the biggest, unresolved conflicts in my life is with a Christian leader. She hurt me pretty badly and if you were to hear just my side of the story you’d think she was a really horrible person. Oh, I knew she wasn’t horrible. She was actually quite a good person but I hated her. The wound that often hurt the most are the ones caused by “good” people. To this day she does not think that she did anything wrong and, in my eyes, that was worse than the original offense. There I was emotionally scarred and spiritually battered and she had no clue. And even when I brought the matter to her attention, she still maintained that she hadn’t done anything wrong. That response ignited a burning wall of rage and resentment in me that I’ve been nursing ever since. I know that forgiveness is an event and a process. I have forgiven her, but the healing is taking a long time. I keep wondering when I’m going to get to the end of this process and not feel the pain.
In the wee hours of the morning, God used the current drama with this co-worker to shed light on that old wound. When my co-worker left the room we both thought everything was ok. She asked if we were good and I said that we were. I had no idea that meltdown was right below the surface. I didn’t lie to her. I think I lied to myself first and God only let me see the truth once she was gone. I wasn’t angry. I was afraid. Anger is a secondary emotion. As this pushy co-worker kept demanding more of my time, resources, and thoughts I could feel the boundaries of my mental health being transgressed. I’d been struggling for the past month with work triggered nightmares and the stress of trying to hold it all together. Thoughts of quitting my job had crossed my mind. Mental health is the answer to nearly two decades of prayer and over three decades of searching. As far as I was concerned, I would not surrender it passively.
This woman was a threat to my mental health and I was afraid.
Good Christian people will tell me that I shouldn’t fear this. And I would tell God Christian people to shut up and speak not about what they know not. I spent the last twenty-five years in a deep dark pit fighting for my life against an enemy that wore my own face. I wouldn’t wish that on any of the people who have left emotional, mental, or spiritual scars on me. Imagine the worst day you’ve ever had and intensify it by a hundred and then live it every day for twenty-five years. Come May it will be two years since I last battled with the depression and the suicidal ideation. I praise God every day for that no matter what is happening in my life. But there has always been this fear at the back of my mind… that something might trigger the depression and God will let me fall back into the pit. And before all those well meaning Christians chime in to tell me not to fear that… if people whose cancer has been in remission can get it again… what makes me think I’m so immune? Bipolar can kill just as surely as cancer. And now that I’ve tasted and seen that the Lord IS good… I want to live. Rational or not, the fear is there and God used this conflict with the co-worker to reveal it to me.
It would have been easy to learn that part of the lesson then try to put the whole incident behind me. Lord KNOWS I hate the clean up that comes after a meltdown. I’m not embarrassed that I have a mental illness… but I tend to get embarrassed when I act like I have one. I didn’t have my meltdown at work, but I was embarrassed about crying in front of this woman. I didn’t want to talk to her about it. I considered putting on the “I’m OK mask” and faking like things were ok and that’s when God reminded me of that other woman who hurt me in the past. That particular drama was epic and because I believe that conflict is inevitable and that God gives us biblical ways to handle it, she and I had one of those cathartic talks where we cleared the air. We even hugged in the end. The only thing missing was us sitting in a campfire braiding each others hair, singing “Kumbaya.” When I left her she thought we were ok. I did too.
I didn’t count on having a meltdown afterwards. I didn’t count on having a really intense negative reaction to her the next time I encountered her. It was like I was having a delayed reaction and I was embarrassed by it. What kind of Christian was it that I couldn’t just forgive her and get over it?? She was ok. Why couldn’t I be ok???
Because she wasn’t the one who’d gotten hurt and was carrying the wounds. Without help to deal with the spiritual wounding I retreated deeper into the Bipolar Bubble. I also couldn’t understand why she couldn’t see that I wasn’t ok… especially since there were still some current issues that had been left unresolved. It was only when I did that intense prayer counseling that I was able to really address that wounding.
But it wasn’t until the other morning that God showed me that some of that wounding came at my own hands. I should have told her that I wasn’t ok. It would have involved more talking and more prayer. It might have taken a lot more talking and a lot more prayer… but the pain wasn’t going to go away if I shoved it under a dirty band aid and hoped it didn’t fester. Well, it did fester. It turned into a ball of rage wrapped in resentment and bitterness. I couldn’t even look at her without being consumed by rage. It would have been difficult to tell her that I wasn’t ok, but if I’d said what I should have said, things might have turned out differently. That conflict changed the entire course of my life, which God actually did use for my good… but there is still this unresolved conflict that I don’t think will ever be resolved.
That altered how I viewed this current conflict. As much as I just wanted to avoid her, I needed to let her know that I was not ok. I had a whole speech planned. That morning I went in and talked to our supervisor and told her the whole sorry mess. I also told her that I didn’t want her to try to fix it — that I needed to do the godly thing. I told her how I’d gotten prayer and how I’d sought God’s counsel and I knew that I needed to talk to the co-worker. It was more than “SWYNTS.” It was “say what you have to say.”
In the end, she came to talk to me and asked how I was feeling. I looked her in the eyes and told her the truth. Short and to the point (minus the speech) but I let her know that I wasn’t ok. We talked more and cleared more air. We would need to continue communicating if things were to stay resolved. I knew that it I had done the right thing. I still don’t like her… but I am able to work with her without fearing for my sanity. God used the present pain to help heal a wound of the past. All this time I’ve been blaming that original woman, playing the role of “Victim”… not knowing or trusting that speaking up again could have made a difference.
Things are still pretty chaotic at work, but I’m handling the stress better than I would have thought possible. God has been comforting me more than I deserve and I am forever grateful. There was more… but I’m way past my 1300 word limit. I guess I’ll end with: When you seek comfort in prayer, don’t be surprised when God answers. That’s what he does.
Yesterday I wasn’t sure what I’d include as “Comfort #2. I also wasn’t sure how far I wanted to take this particular train of thought. For now I think I’ll go for the Top Five comforts for the “neurotic in all of us.” And it wasn’t until 4:05pm today that I knew what that comfort would be.
It was the end of a rather busy day. I’m still trying to find my feet with the new program we’re doing. I no longer have a TA to do my administrative paper work so it’s falling on me and I’m falling behind. All of this will pass — I know it will (it always does). And I love my job enough that I’m willing to go above and beyond while I wait it out. But the stress is still there and if enough of my buttons get pushed I react. Another co-worker came into my classroom and 4:05 and pushed the one button guaranteed to make me implode. I won’t bore you with the details. Things got heated for a while. I cried. We talked. We tried to get the other to see our side of the situation. The entire conversation was tense but after an hour we finally resolved things enough and agreed to meet on Monday.
When she left my entire body was tingling. The whole fight or flight response had been triggered. Generally, when I cry it’s because I’m mad. That’s just the first way I express my anger. I have never liked it because it makes me feel weak, but I can accept it for what it is. I wasn’t crying because I was sad or depressed or wounded. I was pissed. Rather than give vent to what I was feeling and thinking, I kept trying to breathe. I wish I could say that I prayed… but I didn’t. I was too mad to pray but at least I didn’t just erupt into anger. In the end, we were able to talk… but I still had all that pent up residual anger.
It was already after five. School was over the building was quiet but I didn’t want to leave. I knew that if I came home that angry it would not be a good scene. I was still crying as I wrote on my board. I asked God why he was allowing this particular co-worker to continually push my buttons. For the last four weeks she’s been tap dancing on my buttons and all I’ve wanted to do was choke her neck. Not the poster child for Christianity, am I?? I wish that I was all warm and fuzzy… but I have come to grips with the fact that when God was handing out all the warm fuzzies, I didn’t get many. So there I was, standing there crying at my board all cold and fuzzy-less. Going home would lead to bitterness, resentment, binge eating, and wrestling with my sexual addiction…. all of which would open the door to rage… and left too long unchecked, rage turns to depression for me.
Clearly, I was in need of some comfort. I needed to talk to a Christian friend who would just pray. One reason I don’t like sharing my problems with people is because they assume I’m asking for advice when all I really want is prayer. They start trying to fix me or my problem and that just makes me more mad. If I want advice I will ask for advice. And when I actually do ask for advice, I’m going to go to people whose lives demonstrate that they are walking in faith, wisdom, and righteousness. When I ask somebody for prayer I need them to intercede for me with God. Just listening to their words for me takes me out of my own head for a moment. When my soul is taking a bashing just knowing that somebody is willing to help me carry my burden, even if only for that moment, makes all the difference. But I couldn’t think of anybody to call… I just stood there trying to fight back tears.
“Lord, I need somebody who will just pray for me.”
It wasn’t even a long prayer but it was the only thing on my heart to ask. I didn’t want God to smite this person or even make the person go away. I, for one, think conflicts are learning opportunities. They are chances to learn how to honor God in the conflicts that inevitably come with life. Seconds after I uttered that prayer aloud, I hear a loud voice coming up the stairs. The audible voice of God?? Nope… but it was the one person in the building I know to be a Christian. I thought I was alone in the building, but God had a different plan. I motioned her into my room without uttering a word because I was too overcome by tears to speak. She came in and just prayed for me. I felt instantly better because it got me out of my own head. I was able to calm down and go home where I stood outside my door and prayed. I was not going to allow the anger to come in with me. Sounds stupid but I felt it necessary.
Guess I should have stayed out there longer because anger piggy backed in with me. I was blogging about the importance of reaching out to others for prayer when my internet connection died. I tried to reset it with no luck. My “outlet” was effectively fried. I called their Customer Dis-Service Department and got no help whatsoever. I could feel the angst rise up in me. I needed to get this stuff out of me. The emotion was so thick it was clogging my pores. I don’t even remember what happened after I got off the phone with her but something else happened and I just gave way to another wall of tears.
“In your anger do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.” Ephesians. 4:26-27
Anger in and of itself is not sin. It’s what I do with that anger that turns around and bites me in the butt. I should have got somebody else to pray for me when I got home. I should have reached out and got somebody to pray for me when I lost the internet connection… but I didn’t want to. How’s that for hypocrisy?? I’m writing about the importance of reaching out for prayer and I didn’t want to. It’s hard to ask for prayer when you are in a dark place. As I felt the anger spinning out of control to rage I knew I needed to call somebody. Actually, I knew I needed to call somebody when I called the 1-888 tech support number and somehow got a sex line. I can’t prove it, but I think Satan’s messing with me because I gave him a foothold big enough to scale Everest. An accidental sex line call for a sex addict whose biggest trigger is anger/rage??
I called a friend but she was busy. When I hung up I got mad at God, “SEE?!!! Reaching out to people doesn’t help.”
That’s a lie from the pit that I used to believe back in the early days of my struggle with Bipolar. I used to think that it was pointless to try to reach out to people and if I tried and they were too busy that just seemed to confirm it. Tonight I only bought into that life for a second. She promised to pray and I know she will. I know she wasn’t blowing me off. The point wasn’t whether or not she could drop everything to pray for me. The point was… was I willing to put down my hypocrisy long enough to ask for prayer.
In the end, I posted on facebook that I needed prayer. I emailed my prayer group and asked for prayer. I posted on the website where I moderate for Christians who struggle with sexual addiction… I put out as many prayer flares as I felt were necessary to help me calm down and be still. And you know what, I’m glad God showed me where m hypocrisy was showing. I can’t put stuff here that I’m not willing to do in my own life. So while I needed the outlet and I needed the prayer… I need to make sure I really have learned my own lessons before I try to pedal them to you. I am exhausted now and concerned about acting out tonight and having nightmares…. but there was still comfort to be found tonight. I am being pressed in on more sides than I thought I had and I am not breaking. The house might be shaking, but the foundations are standing firm.
I’m too exhausted to go back and edit this… so I’ll end on a “Good night and God bless.”
Waking up at 4am in the grips of a nightmare is not new to me. When I actively struggled with Bipolar I used to wake up from the nightmares, in a cold sweat having been haunted by images that would not be exorcised. My nightmares started in childhood and they were recurring. At their worst, I’d be awakened hourly sometimes crying always traumatized. It got so bad over the years I used to be afraid to sleep. It took years of counseling to even vaguely understand some the demons that rose up from my subconscious at night. As big a fan of therapy and psychotropic medication that I am... I believe that secular cures cannot fix everything.
We are mind, body, soul, and spirit… thus, the antidote for my nightmares would not be found in a little pink pill. As as much of a believer as I am, I’d love to say that I became a Christian and Jesus worked a mojo and my dreams disappeared. That did not happen. It was a combination of the therapy, the meds, my faith, and countless prayers that have given me a measure of peace at night. I now understand how daily anxieties can seep into my dreams, but the bible already told me that: As a dream comes when there are many cares, so the speech of a fool when there are many words. (Ecclesiastes 5:3) It’s not those kinds of dreams that attacked last night.
All is currently right with my world, which I don’t take that lightly because two weeks ago I was a crazed nut job trying to balance all the stress in my life. I got lots of prayer and I took my concerns to God. I also did what I needed to do rather than letting the stress slow me down or procrastinating until the problems got worse. By last night I was in a grand old mood. I took a friend and her family out for her birthday. Fondue. What’s not to love about a meal that consisted melted cheese, meat, and melted chocolate?? We laughed so hard my molars ached. When I floated home on Cloud 9 I was really ready to enjoy my sleep.
Only one thing marred my peace. Her daughter’s hair almost ended up in the chocolate fondue which made me think of that obnoxious Willow Smith video, “I Whip My Hair Back and Forth.” I told them about the Alvin and the Chipmunks/Chippette parody (I Whip My Tail Back and Forth)… and thought it was hysterically funny to change the lyrics to “I Dip My Hair Back and Forth.”
Of COURSE, I had to come home and watch the original video on YouTube and this Chipette parody…
Yeah. Try watching THAT over and over again before going to bed. I don’t struggle with the Bipolar but I still have a tendency towards being compulsive. Why watch something once when you can watch it ten times?? Bed time came and went. Would’ve served me right if I’d dreamed about being attacked by a giant chipmunk. This was the worst thing that happened to me all weekend. Despite all the changes at work today, I was ready. I was more than ready. PLUS I was filled up with cheese and meat. What more can you ask for??
I went to sleep expecting to awaken for my usual 3am bathroom break. Post-surgery, I still have a bladder the size of a pea and never make it a whole night without having to get up at least once. What I didn’t expect was to be trapped in a nightmare that wouldn’t stop. I was having bad dreams a couple a weeks ago, but nothing like the full fledged nightmare that assaulted me last night. It was horrible. People being massacred and hunted…revenge killings… I would roll over and briefly wake up, but not enough to break free of the red hot grip of the dream.
I knew I was dreaming. I just couldn’t fully wake up. It was only when 3:50 rolled around and my bladder couldn’t take much more that I broke free. It was horrible. My body was flushed, but my mind felt chilled. In a daze I walked to the bathroom and the fear that gripped me was so real I could feel it on my skin. I am the only 43 year old woman I know who sleeps with a stuffed animal and has a night light. The toy is because I need to not feel alone. The light because I’m afraid of what’s in the dark. I can never walk into a dark room because I am terrified.
When I got back in bed I just sat there. I knew that if I went back to sleep I’d fall back into the black hole of my nightmare. That thought was unbearable. Fear?? Had all my talk of fear resurrected my nightmares?? Not hardly. I think it was spiritual. “This kind can come out only by prayer.” (Mark 9:29). Not one to see a “demon behind every bush,” I do not leap to label every bad act or the things that go “bump” in the night as “demonic.” Is there a devil? Only a fool says that there’s no God or there’s no Satan. My nightmares last night had the hallmarks of evil on it, so I prayed. Even if it wasn’t evil… what harm can praying ever do?? Unless, of course, I prayed and asked God to smite somebody. If it actually happened, that would kinda suck for them. But in this instance, I reminded myself that the evil wasn’t real. That nobody was going to kill me and even if they did, I probably wouldn’t be killed in such horrible ways.
I went back to sleep for an hour. One bloomin hour during which I fell back into a very dark place. Prayer did not stop the dreams from coming back. But the dreams did not stop me from waking up. I took the hottest shower I could stand and gathered the tools of my profession. I also put on make up (which I never do for work) and launched myself out into the world to meet my day. Despite the dreams I was ready. I thought about what I’d posted last and how I’d been confronted by a fear that I couldn’t control. It was an irrational fear of something that is not even real… something that could never happen… and even if I was killed, I’d end up in heaven with Jesus. So basically, it’d be a win/win situation.
The attack on my spirit was real. If the spirit is thought to be the mind, the will, and the emotions… then all three of those had been attacked last night. And Bipolar Girl of old would have been nearly catatonic after a night like that. Instead, I prayed some more and put my trust in Jesus. I also prayed for a friend who I believed to be experiencing some pretty heavy stuff.
And what was God’s response?? Work today was great! The dreams did not stop me. I didn’t even let the possibility of spiders in my house or car or any other fears cause me to miss a beat. Which reminds me of a repeating song we used to sing at camp:
Going on a treasure hunt!
(repeat each line)
I’m not afraid
Got my trusty boots
And my sword at my sideOh No! What do I see??
Big, big (Insert obstacle — ie. a mountain)
Can’t go around it.
Can’t go over it.
Gotta go through it!
My fears, real or imagined, are sometimes like that song. I can’t go around them. Can’t get over them… but by God’s grace, I can go through them because God is my treasure.
If you’ve been following my latest series of posts (before all the commercials)… you know I’ve been on a “Say What You Need to Say” kick. Tons of stuff has been pushing my buttons and I think God’s been telling me to communicate for my own good as well as the good of the other person. I think all those years of stuffing my feelings added “crazy” on top of mentally ill.
God gave us emotions and they are meant to be felt and, when appropriate, expressed. But we don’t express them. We bottle them up and think we’re being “good Christians” when nothing could be further from the truth. I know in my own life I’ve put on a mask and tried to act like I was okay… when what I really needed to do was open my mouth and speak up. God’s been telling me to “speak the truth in love” but remaining silent just seemed easier. Now I feel the need to sing like a canary. The only problem is, if I just go running off at the mouth when I’m mad I’m likely to say stuff that should NEVER be said. That’s when I need to speak to the One who counts most.
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about prayer. I think praying to Jesus is the first step on the “SWYNTS train.” Before a single word leaves the building, I need to check it with God. With all the stressors that have been pushing my buttons lately, I’ve been doing a lot of prayer. I’ve also been praying a lot with other people. Me — The “Girl in the Plastic Bipolar Bubble” is actually reaching out to even more people to pray about something other than myself. *Gasp*
After praying with somebody the other day I was surprised when the she told me that she struggled with prayer going as far as to actually resisting it. Since I wake up talking to Jesus and keep up a steady stream of conversation all day long I can’t imagine NOT wanting to talk to him. He’s the only person in the world obligated to love me and listen to everything I say. Jesus reads my blog every day and always has a comment. Why wouldn’t I want to talk to him?? Jesus also knows how I feel all the time. She said that she felt like she was always grumbling and complaining to God. That surprised me too… because many (most) of my prayers to Jesus are loaded with grumbling and complaining. If I can’t unload to him, who should I go to when I’m heavy laden with worry or when the guy in the minivan just cut me off. “Yes, Jesus, I did just call him a @!#??”
I told her my theories on King David, writer of lots of the Psalms. If ever there was a biblical figure who had Bipolar Polar, I put my money on that guy. Many of his psalms start out all depressed and overwhelmed. He might even ask God to smite somebody who was pissing him off… everything looked bleak for a few versus… and the TA DA! He’s all rejoicing in God’s majorly divine goodness… like a ball outta left field or… right field. I don’t play sports, so his joy seemed to come out of whichever field is the really weird one. But his bipolar psalms make my point for me.
David laid it on the line. He didn’t hold anything back from God whether he was being wronged or in the wrong. He was transparent which, I think, explains in part why he’s called a “man after God’s own heart.” It’s not like he was sinless. If CNN had been around when King David ruled, there would have been a Bill Clintonesque scandal involving a young intern named Bathsheba. David, like me, had issues. He screwed up, made bad choices, and often got mad at people. When he was down he cried out to the Lord who was faithful to lift him up. God didn’t always make all of David’s problems go away, but he always gave David perspective enough to keep moving forward in faith.
Before I talk to anybody I have to talk to Jesus about that person, the situation, and whatever’s going on in my heart. I have to be transparent because the God who made me is also the God who knows me. If I’m harboring dark thoughts about somebody… he knows it before I do. I know some people think you should never complain to God. I think you should never complain about God. BIG DIFFERENCE. When I complain to God I admit that I’m wrong to complain, but I’m not going to make things worse by denying my feelings. He knows what I feel and forgives me for being such a pessimistic whiner. Once I get all of that garbage out of the way and repent… then I can be still enough to hear him. Complaining about God makes it seem like you can do the job better than he can. The Old Testament has some gnarly stories about what happened when people complained about God. People who think that they’d make a better god than God... and who presume to tell God that he’s wrong are stupid. I might be many things, but I’m not stupid. I learned my lesson about complaining about God.
Another thought I’ve had on prayer?? Some people think that God only speaks King James English and like to pepper their prayers with lots of “Thees” and “Thous” as if Jesus talked like that when he walked the Earth. If that’s how they want to talk to their Father, their friend, their Counselor… to each his own. Me? I’m more informal. That’s not to say that there aren’t times that I offer reverent, almost formal, prayers, because I do… but, in general, I think about how Jesus walked and talked with his 12 disciples. He spent three years with the guys 24/7. You can’t keep up the thee and thou stuff that long. It had to be very real, present, and personal. That’s how I talk to Jesus — as if he’s real, present, and personal.
So it was with much joy that I had my prayer group tonight. Honestly, I wanted to cancel it. I was exhausted from a busy week and I just wanted to eat my pork chops and rice then go to bed. It was 5:59 and I could barely keep my eyes open. But when the others got here at 6:00 and we were all sitting around my kitchen table, I entered in to a place that only happens when I’m with other people who talk to Jesus like he’s real, present, and personal. My fatigue rolled away like drop of water on a hot skillet. Our prayers bounced off each others as we sought God. It was amazing. It always IS amazing. Now more than ever I am convinced that the body of Christ needs to take off the masks so that they can pray in spirit and in truth.
Before we speak …before I speak…any truths “in love” to other people, we need… I need… to be speaking the truth to the One who loves us most. If I could only pray one thing for the people who have been pushing my buttons lately, it would be this, “Help me forgive them as you have forgiven me.”
People first.
That sounds great… but what does it look like??
I wondered about it since God had told me that that’s what I was supposed to be doin’ and all…
but I really couldn’t figure out what it meant.
I knew immediately what it didn’t look like:
So much of life is a competition where people are trying to win. They’re looking out for number one; trying to be better than everybody else; jostling for their 15 minutes in the spotlight. I used to live like that. Before Bipolar took over my life I was a Type A overachiever. From every indications I was destined to succeed in school and go on to make a name for myself doing whatever it is that Type A overachievers do. Growing up “gifted” I got used to hearing teachers tell me that I was going to do something amazing. I didn’t count on mental illness. I guess you can say that struggling with depression and suicidal ideation for over two decades and coming out on the other side alive and normal is amazing…. but I’m pretty sure that that’s not what they meant. Mental illness is something you pretty much cannot outrun. It takes you outta the race.
For years my life looked a lot like this:
Me standing alone at the starting line. I wasn’t racing against other people trying to win. It was just me running around in circles trying to stay alive.
People first?? Great commercial slogan… but what did it really mean??
I asked God what that meant, so shouldn’t have been surprised when he started showing me. He had a friend call me yesterday. Even though I hate talking on the phone with an intense passion, this friend and I talked for nearly 2 hours. It was wonderful to reconnect with him and just hear to hear his voice. He needed to talk to me and he needed me to listen and to understand. When I put me first the phone stays off and I return calls when I feel like it. Eventually people stop calling because they know I won’t pick up. God had another friend call today. Again… the fact that my phone was even on was an act of God. She and I haven’t spoken in months and it was good to talk to her. Her life has undergone some major upheavals and because I wasn’t putting people first, I had no idea. I wasn’t there when she really needed me… but I was there today because God wanted me to put people first. Again, we talked for nearly an hour and I’m glad.
Then another friend came over today. She facebooked me and asked could she come over for prayer. We had an awesome time of prayer and then we just talked. Could putting people first be as simple as that??? Being accessible to people when they need an ear or a prayer?? Well damn. That seems so simple. Why hadn’t I ever thought of that??? It didn’t involve me needing to be lobotomized. I didn’t have to sprout warm fuzzies. I just had to be there and listen… and since I have two ears, that’s not so much of a stretch. I had another friend come over for our Friday Night Prayer group. It’s usually anywhere from 2-4 people. Tonight God wanted me to just be there for her. She needed to unburden herself and that kind of stuff usually works better without spectators. It was good. It was intense. It was a lot of things… none of which involved us racing against each other trying to get ahead. There wasn’t anything to be won and being “first” didn’t even apply.
Tonight I feel more alive than I have felt in years. Sure, when you engage with people there is a very real possibility that you might get hurt. People are people and as long as they are people… the potential for getting hurt is always going to exist. For years I had to put me first because I couldn’t handle more hurts from people….but I’m finding that if I engage with people now there is the very real possibility that something wonderful might happen. Putting people first??
Maybe it looks something like this:
People taking time to help other people get where they’re going…
The last two days have taught me that we’re in this together.
People keep asking me how I’m doing. Makes sense considering that this is my second surgery in a month. The problem is how do I answer them and still be telling the truth? Because I’m up, walking around, smiling and even driving… people want to assume that I’m feeling great. I generally let them assume that. I’d decided I wasn’t going to really answer with the truth unless the people who asked really needed to know the answer. I realized this morning that I’ve done the very thing that I’ve complained about for years!
I put on a mask.
Y’know… the “I’m ok. Everything’s ok” mask that people want you to don so that they don’t have to feel bad. Only thing is, nobody has been forcing me to do that, I chose to do it myself. I’ve blogged about “the mask” many times in the past. I had to wear the mask growing up. I had to fake like nothing was wrong. When my mental illness started to leak out like a toxic spill, I had to put on a mask just to get through the day. Zany college girls are cool. Crazy ones are not.
I guess I didn’t really start getting angry about the mask until I became a Christian. There I was — the manically depressed girl who sucked into the happy-happy joy-joy religion. I always felt like I had to keep my mouth shut because I’d been told that Christians weren’t supposed to grumble and complain… that we were supposed to “rejoice in every situation.” Since I had absolutely no idea how to do that and live at the same time, it just seemed easier to bottle everything up, put on the mask, and fake like I was ok. And when I’d see happy-happy joy-joy people actually rejoicing in their trials I’d feel guilty just before I got bitter.
As you can tell, I’ve yet to find the secret recipe for happy-happy joy-joy. The kind that comes out of a bottle doesn’t count. But I have finally realized that God does not really expect me to fake like I’m ok when I’m not. Don’t believe me?? Read Psalms. God never asked me to wear a mask. Sure, there are people who can get their arm chewed off by sharks and move on without missing a beat. I am not one of those people. I’m prone to whining, self-pity, and depression. It’s a daily temptation to give in to those things.
So this morning when I woke up at 3am, it didn’t surprise me that I could feel the mask tugging at my face. Yesterday was a pretty good day, but it ended with me sitting at home feeling self-pity. I’d blogged about the good stuff because I have learned that focusing on the good can chase away whatever imps trying to stifle all that happy-happy joy juice from flowing. I would much rather think about all the ways that God has blessed me and all the ways my life has changed because, if you think about it, what good does focusing on the bad ever really do?? Yet, I’ve also learned that I can’t put on mauve colored sunglasses and completely ignore the bad. Denial is just as unhealthy as wallowing. If we did ignore all the bad… we could end up saying that after having a light snack with some friends, Jesus went out for a time of meditation in a garden and then spent his last day in town hanging out on a hillside! Bad stuff happens.
Stating the facts is not dwelling on the bad. It’s speaking the truth. It’s also letting people know how they can pray for you. Yesterday and for the last several days I’ve been wondering if the surgery did any good. I’m still in pain. Not the “I just had surgery” pain that required me to take Oxycodone four times a day. I’m having the constant/chronic nagging pain that had completely limited my life before the surgery. I know without doubt that the doctor removed all of the adhesions. I advocated for myself so that he used this stuff called an “adhesion barrier” that can reduce the likelihood of new adhesions forming so that I have a 56% less chance of them forming again. So why does it feel like they are still there? I used to try to express to my doctor that it felt like my innards were sticking together… now I know that they were. It wasn’t all in my head. Bipolar Girl was not just imagining things. A year and a half of my life since my hysterectomy…which had been preceded by nearly two years of pain… and this surgery was supposed to end it.
The fact that I still feel it has had me questioning whether or not God has total healing for me. I’ve been afraid that every little thing I do or don’t do is going to contribute to the formation of new adhesions even thought I know that that’s not how they are formed. If they’re related to surgery, they generally form within the first 7 days. I was in the hospital for the first six. There is nothing I could have done to create new ones. But I had adhesions before my first surgery. I fall into a small percentage of people who can form adhesions spontaneously.
TMI ALERT: (Too much information)
Before my hysterectomy, my bowels had fused (adhered) to my uterus and the only way they could perform my hysterectomy was to cut out three inches of my intestines. Evidently, I’ve got sticky innards and my body is just wired to stick to itself. The surgeon said that if I continued to have problems that my OB/GYN should consider removing my ovaries. I am so tired of being cut open and having people take pieces out of me. I feel like that guy from the game “Operation.” I am so done having people cut me open.
On top of the chronic pain, my left leg now hurts as a result of the epidural that they used. Again, not the 10/10 level pain, but it’s pain and discomfort that I didn’t feel before the surgery and I don’t know how to talk about it without seeming like I’m grumbling and complaining… so I generally say nothing. I don’t want people trying to tell me that I should be thankful that I can walk or that I should feel any number of things that I’m not feeling. I am thankful that I can walk. I am thankful that I had the surgery but I’m not thankful for the continued pain, numb leg, or my inability to sleep on my side without hurting myself. Sleeping sitting up sucks.
Yet I decided this morning at 3am that I believe, by faith, that God could heal me. He can. I do not doubt that. I also know that healing might not be his plan for me. Hence the fact that some people do get their arms chewed off by sharks or have to cut their arms off with pocket knives. Stuff happens and it would be really naive of me to think that I’m exempt from suffering. Years of battling a mental illness tell me that I’m not. I’ve actually been pondering whether I’d trade this physical “illness” for my mental illness… and I wouldn’t. Mental illness can feel like a life sentence. I can and will persevere through this. Which made me think of those three guys in scripture(Hananiah (חֲנַנְיָה), Mishael (מִישָׁאֵל) and Azariah (עֲזַרְיָה) ) just before they were thrown in the fiery furnace:
O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods… ~Daniel 3:16-20
My 3am revelation? If the God, whom I love and serve, does not choose to heal me, he will give me the grace sufficient enough to live my life fully without all the whining and self-pity. No matter what the next few months hold for me or how this turns out, I will continue to love and serve the Lord to the very best of my ability. I’m blogging this now because I’m tired of forcing myself to wear a mask. People are going to keep asking me how I’m feeling and I’m tired of half-truths. I can speak the truth; trust the Lord; and let people know how to pray for me — so if and when we see the answers, we can praise the God who heals all the more. Now if this is you, in pain…wearing a mask because you don’t want to let people know how you feel… stop.
What good has wearing a mask ever done for you? Take off the mask, trust the Lord, and let people in. That way, even if healing never comes… you’re closer to other people and you’re closer to God. I count that as a win.
Anger was not the first emotion I expected to feel when I woke up from surgery. Actually, if I’m honest, it wasn’t. When I first woke up in the recovery ward I was just so flippin happy to have the surgery over that nothing would have bothered me. It didn’t even really bother me that I couldn’t feel my legs. I know. I couldn’t feel my legs… I could move my feet, but I couldn’t feel them. The recovery floor nurses were just so nice that the warm fuzzy post-op afterglow continued as I was wheeled to my room. I only vaguely remember being wheeled to my room but that afterglow followed us through the maze-like hallways all the way up the elevator.
And that’s where the glow started to fizzle. My room was already occupied. “Occupy.” What an emotionally charged word.
I was all set to close my eyes and coast back to sleep on residual epidural fumes when jarring noise cut through my subconscious. The woman in the other bed had guests. I don’t even know how many, but they were loud. How rude! That was my first thought. That’s when anger caused the hazy glow to evaporate like a drop of water on a hot griddle. “LORD! How am I going to rest with all that racket going on over there??” It didn’t seem to matter to them that they’d just wheeled me in from surgery and that people who’d recently had their guts cut open needed rest… because they just kept talking and laughing. With each laugh my anger level jumped a few more points on the scale.
They’d brought me to the room around noon. My roommate had guests all the way up ’til 8pm — visiting hours are over at 8pm. I know. I checked. I was counting the minutes…only thing is – her guests didn’t leave! I was livid. The idea of trying to recuperate in such a noisy room was disturbing. Noise disturbs me. I live alone and I wear ear plugs most of the time because noise disturbs me.
That first day after surgery I’d had three guests all of whom kept their volume at a respectable level. That only fueled my anger. Why was I bothering to be quiet and respectful when the person on the other side of the iron curtain wasn’t caring about me?? My inner evil was coming out.
What disappointed me most wasn’t my roommate and her noisy guests. I was disappointed with me and my response to it. I felt certain that God was going to do something amazing in that surgery. He has changed me so much since my hysterectomy that I just knew that he was going to remove those “spiritual adhesions” he’d been talking to me about. I’d worked so hard during the prayer counseling to get to the roots of my rage and anger. Surely God would do something akin to a lobotomy and make me a kinder gentler person. I was supposed to come out of the surgery different. The numb legs didn’t count. He was supposed to change me. But there I was… the same old angry me. That just made me even more angry.
I sent my friend a text: Roommate and her guests really noisy! Pray for my attitude.
Then I pressed the epidural button and tried to go to sleep. Trying to sleep with all that noise was impossible. I think I sent her two more texts like that before God finally intercepted one. The nurse came in around 9pm and asked her what was her pain level. They ask that every time they come in because it helps them manage your care. On a scale of 1 to 10 what is your pain? 1 being not at all; 10 being unbearable. I clearly heard my roommate say, “9″ and in that instant my attitude changed. I felt a compassion that only God could give. The last of her guests had finally just left (45 minutes after visiting hours were over)… and she was all alone with her pain. My pain (thanks to the epidural) had hovered around a 2 or a 3 all afternoon. I wasn’t really in any pain but if I was I would have wanted people there with me taking away the loneliness if not the pain.
God delivered the attitude adjustment my friend had prayed about. How could I be angry at this person? I didn’t even know her. Yes, I’d been annoyed by her guests and all the noise, but I felt an immediate compassion for her that I hadn’t felt before. The anger was gone. I wasn’t even mad at myself. I just needed to pray for her and I continued to pray for her every hour when the nurse came to check on our vital signs. Before going to bed I felt like God wanted me to introduce myself to her and tell her that I was praying for her… but I didn’t want to. There was an iron curtain dividing us and it just seemed weird. I didn’t want her to think that I was one of those holy-roller- bible-thumper Christians who always trying to evangelize you at every turn. Plus, if I’m honest, all of my anger wasn’t quite gone yet . Petty woman that I am… I whispered it. I kid you not, I introduced myself to her in a whisper that only I could hear. Not what God had in mind but it was all I could scrounge up. It took the night long intercession session to make my anger evaporate completely.
When I woke up just after 6am, however, I was angered again! Visiting hours started at 6am and she already had a guest! Was that how my recovery was going to go?? Noisy guests all day long? I was contemplating asking for a room change when an older lady poked her head around the curtain. Great. Now they’re going to start bothering me.
“What church do you go to?”
That was her first question to me! How guilty did I feel?? Turns out she had seen my bible on my tray table and once she knew what church I attended it turned out she was friends with my Friday Night Prayer Partner! She starts going on and on about how God put me there for her niece and would I pray for her. I was able to tell her that I’d spent most of the night praying for her… leaving out that God had used my anger to prompt me to pray.
But I think that’s when it hit me. No matter how much I might want it, God wasn’t going to do a lobotomy and change my personality. When they took out my girlie parts last year he was gracious enough to let the Bipolar go with it… but I think that was a one shot deal. If he removed body parts every time I asked him to deal with a personality flaw, people would end up calling me “Stumpy.” God’s going to help me overcome the fleshy parts of me. I may have anger issues til the day that I die, but anger does not have to control me.
I thought about the anger class I’d attended and all the stuff I’d learned in it. The number one point being that anger is a healthy signal that your boundaries have been transgressed and that you need to communicate. Anger, in and of itself, is not bad. If there is a legitimate trigger (and there was in this case) I have to step back and ask is my response legitimate (which, in this case, I thought it was)… but instead of communicating with her I communicated with a friend (the text) and then I communicated with God.
The conversation with the aunt led to the wall being removed. She pulled back the curtain and introduced me to her niece. I told her that I’d been praying for her all night and that I would pray for her if she wanted. I told her that I wasn’t one of those people who would try to cram Christianity down her throat and that I didn’t want her to think I was one of those creepy Christians. If she wanted prayer or anything else all she had to do was ask. Ironically, she wanted to know who had braided my hair. Since it took me all of the four day Thanksgiving holiday to braid it, I was rather proud of how it had turned out. Her son in bi-racial and she has no idea how to do his hair. I offered to do his hair for her since I’d be off work for a month and a half and I then I gave her my phone number. Yeah. Me. I gave her my number. If that wasn’t God I don’t know what was. Guess God wanted her to have my number so I didn’t delay or whisper my digits to her.
Good thing because they discharged her that day even though she was still in a lot of pain. I felt a compassion for her that I couldn’t have had the day before. Just before she left I prayed with her and I really meant it. Only God could have changed my heart so completely. Only God could have cut through that particular spiritual adhesion with the precision of a surgeon. Anger goes way back with me. All the way back to being ignored and teased in my noisy home growing up. I hated growing up in such a noisy family. Seven sisters and two brothers and all of them were rowdy and noisy. I spent so much of my childhood angry because of my noisy siblings. The roots of my anger go deep. That God chose to handle it this way was WAY cooler than if I’d come out of surgery wearing rose colored sunglasses. Anger used to control me. God helped me see that I do have control over it. So what if anger is my natural first response to negative triggers. It’s the last response that really counts. My roommate will never know that I wanted to take a bedpan and club her like a seal on the beach because I communicated with God and trusted him. I needed to recognize my anger for what it was, give it to Jesus, and then be willing to communicate with her if necessary. This also makes for a way cooler story than “My roommate made me mad so I hit her with a bed pan!”
My heart is in there and it’s getting softer… God’s just got to remove more of the roots of my anger… and I need to be patient (a patient??) while he does it.
