Are You Living With A Victim Mentality? I Was

Wow. I'm going through a bible study by Havilah Cunnington. What drew me to purchase the study was not because Havilah wrote it or that it was associated with Bethel or all of the other wonderful things that it is, but it was the name: I Do Hard Things. I knew it would challenge me, but, boy, I didn't think it would expose so much in me, personally.

I got the study four days late so I quickly caught up on the good content of days one through three, but then I hit day four, entitled, "What Is Stopping Me?" from getting out of the spiritual, mental, physical pit of pain, from living a Spirit-empowered life, etc.. I've read the story of the Pool of Bethesda several times as a YL kid and leader, so I wasn't't expecting anything life-altering to come about. But then Havilah focused on the mentally-victimized, spiritually disempowered man who couldn't walk for 38 years. Jesus saw him (Jesus sees you). He knew how long the man had been in that condition. After approaching the man, he asked, "'Do you wish to get well?'" or, as the Passion Translation puts it, "'Do you truly long to be healed?' (John 5:6)." The infinitive verbs translated as "to wish" and "to long" come from the Greek word "thelo" having a connotation and extension of being resolved or determined with intention to do or have something. The man answers with the excuse that, "...'I have no man to put me into the pool [that was believed to have supernatural healing powers; hence, the gathered invalids] when the water is stirred up [by an angel], but while I am coming, another steps down before me' (John 5:7)." A victim mentality, waiting on others to change his circumstance when he was a child of Abraham (most likely) and had the agency and love of Yahweh.

At this point, Havilah had us write down things that were stopping our growth in God and progression in life. I immediately put: mood disorder (Bipolar I) and side-effects of cancer surgery.

When we wrote the inhibiting factors of our lives, she responded after the blank space with: "Look at your response. If you wrote down anything other than taking personal responsibility, you may be struggling with a serious victim mentality" (p. 54). Ouch. She got me (lovingly, of course).

I say I want to be healed, to live with a sound mind and body, but I am apathetic when the thought of another failed attempt at healing comes up. Do I really want to be healed? It's much easier to be the invalid than to do the hard work of healing that, yes, could fail for the 50th time. For seven years (since 2013 when I was 18 years old), I had identified myself as the girl who had cancer or the girl with the mental illness or both, in the right company. I did this under the guise of what I thought was advocacy for awareness and ministering to people out of my pain (mostly on this blog), but I realized that it was just easier to be in pain than to live powerfully.

The study built in time for us to listen for God's voice in the midst of this hard lesson. I heard, "Do you want to be whole?" Being the linguistics-freak that I am, I immediately had to look up the etymology of the word "whole."

Origin: before 900; Middle English hole, hool (adj, and noun), Old English hal (adj,); cognate with Dutch heel, German heil, Old Norse heill; see hale, heal.

Wholeness finds its linguistic roots in healing, and the Bible is not quiet about Jesus' desire and efficacy to heal.

But is wholeness, is healing what I really want? What I "thelo?" It's easy to be the sick girl. It's easy to let others take care of you. But "greater is He who is in me than he who is in the world" (1 John 4:4)."

God didn't call me to the shadow-of-a-life that I'm living right now. He called me to live a bold, Spirit-empowered life. Where I am currently a slave to illness and fear, he desires for there to be wholeness and healing.

There was another space for listening to the voice of God and I felt informed of the small, first steps I was to take to walk out this wholeness-healing life, that, with the Holy Spirit I can definitely take. Every day I must wake up and "thelo" healing, "thelo" wholeness.

Finally, a few quotes from Day Four of the study by Havilah Cunnington:

"Acknowledgment of our condition is the first step of healing."

"God didn't send his son to die on the cross for you so you would live bound to a circumstance or a person."

"God wants to move and act in our lives in such a way that anything that is holding you or I back will be rendered powerless next to the power of Jesus."

"Once we understand that we are not powerless to receive a miracle, WE GET A MIRACLE." p. 59

I am no victim. And neither are you.

What An Epidural Taught Me About God

My friend recently bought me a book of 400(!!!) writing prompts; thanks, Alyssa. I started it and was instantly drawn in by the self-discovery that was taking place. I always used my gut-response answers and some of them were different than what I thought I would have said.

One prompt read: "Who is your rock?"

Easy answer: Jesus. But I wanted to think who my earthly rock would be. Surely it would be my dad, since he is my primary caregiver concerning everything Bipolar, but, to my surprise, I wrote, "mom."

Don't get me wrong. My mom is one of the kindest, most loving people you will ever meet. It's just that she's not a part of as much of my day-to-day life as my dad is (although she would be if she could... she lives about an hour away).

I pondered this, curious. Then, an image, a visceral feeling surfaced in me. I was a scared, young 18-year-old girl with NO clue what was to come in the next days, months, years, but the anesthesiologists had to get me ready for surgery by inserting the spinal catheter that would theoretically provide the nerve-block that would allow surgery to happen. (I say theoretically since my main anesthetist told me that sometimes this kind doesn't work, depending on how it goes in... not meaning to scare you, but IT DIDN'T WORK. But that's a story for another time).

I distinctly remember my dad pacing back and forth in the pre-op area; I think he was holding a bottle of water practically squeezing it to death.

I was very confused with several doctors/nurses working on me at the same time.

But there stood my mom like a caryatid: regal, sure, steadfast, calm.

Then, my biggest pre-op fear had to happen: the inserting of the catheter into my spine. I panicked and looked around, hoping for any escape from this fear; "Wouldn't the meds from my hand I.V. work just fine?" I said to the doctor. Then, regal, sure, steadfast, calm, came my mother. They turned me around and my mom gripped both my upper arms, steadying me; I held onto her for dear life. I whimpered to her... "It's okay; I know it's scary, but it's okay." She repeated in the special voice with which only a mother can calm her child's fear. I jumped as I felt the long needle go in and she steadied me still. Then, blessed then, they told me that it was in and I had to lie down as it was time to go to the operating room.

I was recalling this exact story to my mom on the phone tonight when I finally understood the Scripture in Hebrews about Jesus, our High Priest, having to become human and suffer our frailties and temptations in order to be able to minister to us at all, let alone save us.

The reason my mom can be compared (in limited, human terms) to the Rock that is Christ is because, being older than me and a woman of the same demographic as me, she's been through all I'm going through. In that moment that the epidural was inserted, I didn't want my dad to hold me because he had no idea what it's like. I needed someone who'd been there before, and, after having four babies, it was safe to say that my mother had.

On the phone call to my mom, I began to realize a new way that I love Jesus. He didn't just die for me; he suffered for me. Hebrews 5:7-9 (NASB) reads, "In the days of his flesh, he offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his piety. Although he was a son, he learned obedience from the things which he suffered. And having been made perfect, he became to all those who obey him the source of eternal salvation..." These verses along with Heb. 4:14-16, having to do with Jesus, the Great High Priest, who sympathizes with our weaknesses and whom we can approach freely in our time of need came to my mind.

I want nothing to do with a Celestial Dictator who has never felt what we feel (hello, Enneagram 4).

My mom and Jesus are rocks because they have already suffered what I am and will suffer and have come back in time with a postcard saying, "It will be okay."

To you, the sufferer, I say: It will be okay.

The Sanctity Of Tears

This year I learned of an ancient Hebrew practice that I've been mulling over ever since.

Just before and during the time of the Roman occupation of the Jerusalem and the surrounding vicinity, women mourned in a sacred way. When a loved one died, they collected their tears in a bottle to lay in the grave of the deceased as a last act of honor. Tears were holy.

I can think of two other places in Scripture that mention tears: a) Psalm 56:8: "You have taken account of my wanderings; put my tears in Your bottle. Are they not in Your book?" b) the 

"woman of the streets" highlighted for her reverent faith in Luke 7. She washed Jesus' feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair all the while kissing them.

Tears are holy.

I've cried a lot over my broken dreams and broken body the past seven years, but most of the time with an utterance of hatred toward God on my lips. These tears were not holy so they couldn't perform what they were designed to do: dignify and honor my grief and that which I was grieving.

Recently, I've nestled into the mystery that is God; I made a conscientious decision to dare to accept it and see what happened. And life has become lovelier.

If you read my last post, you know I've been crying a lot lately but these times, instead of being burdensome, they were my very source of relief; I haven't cried cursing God; I've cried in his lap.

But there still remains the questions: Why do there have to be tears in the first place?

This brings me 'round to the whole mystery-of-God thing. Reading On Job by founding liberation theologian, Gustavo Gutierrez, has brought great insight into this relational reality. God is a self-disclosing, loving Mystery and it is the honor of kings to search him out (Prov. 25:2). I dare you, in the midst of your grief, to practice this theology for a week and see what happens. In the introduction, "Jose Maria Arguedas poses the question, 'Is not what we know far less than the great hope that we feel?' p. xi"

This Irrational Season

This time is very strange for me. I cannot currently regulate my emotions (Bipolar I Disorder), and while usually I have a cocktail of psychoactive drugs that lessen the sometimes crippling effects of this deficiency, I asked my doctor if we could lessen the amount of medicines that I'm on. We compromised and he cut the dosage of my Effexor in half (I was at the highest dose possible). The day I began my new regimen, I cried a lot...for no reason. As the days wore on (I believe I'm on day five but nothing appears quite calculable in this irrational season), it only got worse. My two worst symptoms? Mood swings and lethargy. Unfortunate is the man or woman that has crossed me, unfortunate am I if I think of anything remotely sad, and unfortunate is the person who tries to have a conversation with me because I may very well fall asleep.

Right now, I don't live by time; I live by pathos. I can only determine space by what I am feeling. Quite irrational indeed.

In my moments of coherence, I ask the Lord why he has afflicted me with a disorder that has prevented so much in my life. I don't ever get an answer, but I figure the squeaky wheel gets the oil, right?

But perhaps there is a reason for this irrational season, for this season of feeling completely bonkers out of control. There is a passage in The Heavenly Life that reads: "Sorrow reveals unknown depths of the soul, and unknown capacities for suffering and service... Sorrow is God's tool to plow the depths of the soul, that it may yield a richer harvest... God never uses anyone to a great degree until he breaks the person completely... It takes sorrow to expand and deepen the soul." Hope, yet!

Maybe my five years of Arabic study have not been for naught! Maybe, through this irrational season, God is preparing me for some form of service among the Arab peoples: a service which I've dreamt of for six years. Maybe this irrational season is no waste at all!

Cancer and the Incarnation

I didn't do anything different today. I was just praying for someone who has cancer. And then the tears started. Having long been jaded that god is willing to perform miracles, I sobbed, "Lord, I have a mustard seed of faith; please, please perform a miracle and heal him."

Then later I replayed my Georgia mama's final, laborious, horrible breath (due to cancer). I hadn't witnessed it but was told about it in great detail and can barely bear to imagine it.

I am coming to terms with mystery, particularly divine mystery. You know the answer I got from my prayer earlier today? Nada. Zilch. Nothing. Like trying to move the Great Wall of China.

I googled the etymology of "mystery" and it surprisingly had a lot of religious influence as being some thing hidden my god.

I used to hate god for being mysterious, but now I think he might be doing the hiding for our own good. I'm slowly warming up to the idea that god might actually, in fact be good.

I don't understand, but in the spirit of exhaustion and Advent, I listened to a local church's Christmas album, well, one song in particular, that seemed to budge the Great Wall of China.

Here is the link to Earth & Stone by Alex Priore sung by TJ Lents:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ah09d1ED6Cw

I don't understand much about the harder parts of existence on planet earth, but the Christmas story, the Incarnation seems to meet me and say, "That's okay."

In loving memory of Lynette Washington 

What It's Like To Have A Manic Episode

My breathing is slow and shallow. I am trying not to have a panic attack. I forgot to take my morning meds and that's a big no-no in the world of big pharma. I didn't notice it til I dropped my last friend off. This pit in my stomach. I got home and curled up into a ball under my duvet. Oh, did I mention my new necklace got a lot of compliments today? It made me feel nice, not good, but nice. Anyways, I knew it was time for the psychosis playlist (I didn't make it explicitly for psychosis but it really helps). I entitled it Slavic with Oriental Influence because that's what it mostly is with some Debussy thrown in there;). I for sure over-romanticize Trans-Siberia, but when I listen to Russian composers I can't help but imagine myself as Anastasia Romanov escaping imperial overthrow via the Trans-Siberian Railway. It helps a little. I was just with some of my very best friends talking louder and faster than usual. Now I'm just trying to move breath between the air and my lungs. I am scared. I called my friend to pray over me. I described it like feeling like Alice in Wonderland: everything was shrinking or I was getting larger or maybe both. Tears well in my eyes but I don't let them stay there long because I know if I let one fall they will never stop.

Scars

I don't know how I had gotten to that point. The only warning sign I knew for sure was that I had wanted a beer once we got home from my friend's wisdom teeth surgery at a military facility.

I had the surgery at a military facility. As I waited and waited, the sight of surgeons confidently striding about later sent me into vivid flashbacks of getting called back by my own surgeon to go over the details of my highly-invasive Whipple procedure... the one that would change everything.

I called my dad as I waited in line to pick up my friend's meds at the pharmacy across the road. He said I sounded nervous, anxious. "Huh? I'm fine!" I chirped. Little did I know that with each passing set of fatigues, I was coming closer and closer to an encounter with my PTSD.

My dictionary app defines a scar, firstly, as: a mark left by a healed wound, sore, or burn. But it defines it, secondly, as: a lasting aftereffect of trouble, esp. a lasting psychological injury resulting from suffering or trauma. Bingo.

That night, as I spiraled into a drunken stupor to escape the pain, I did remember my scar hurting in the waiting room. A counselor once told me that our bodies hold memories, too. Maybe my body knew this was a bad situation before my brain.

I hadn't gotten drunk in months. I had my drinking firmly under control (praise God). But this, this was too much.

Physical scars fade, but they can still hurt. What if it's the same with emotional, psychological scars. We think we're better but we end up tearing open the old wound. Besides flashbacks, I get nightmares that my nine-inch scar is wide open and I feel the pain of trying to hold my stomach together.

I asked my counselor if I would ever be a fully functional, contributing member of society with all that's fucked up in me. She said she didn't know.