Boxed up emotions

Do you have no access spaces? You know those areas inside that you know about but pretend you don't? Like the relative no-one sees at Christmas, you kinda pretend they don't exist until one year they show up drunk and you remember why you pretended they didn't exist but have no choice but to deal with them.. That sounds horrible but you get the point. Back to the no access areas, do you have them? If so what are they for you?

Mine generally relate to past relationships, they are possibly my biggest no go to zones. My theory is they ended for a reason put them away and move on but unfortunately it's not that simple. Unfortunately the drug addict, the affair, the friend, the high school sweetheart each of them left an imprint, each in their own way whether good or bad or both, they shape who you are and how you interact with members of the opposite sex. I would rather forget about them, look for the lesson in them, be thankful for the lessons and then move forward but lately I've been realising that you can't move forward while you are still tripping over your past and that until you will keep tripping over the same emotions until you let them heal.

You see I am one of those annoying life goes on people, the pick yourself up, dust yourself off and keep moving kind. I am generally so busy moving forward that I neglect to feel the full emotion of all that has happened and end up putting it in a box and labelling it "junk - do not open". Lately, I find myself in situations where these emotions or the relationships that they stemmed from are re-surfacing and after years of locking them away I am looking at them with fresh eyes. Eyes of love and not of hate. Eyes of healing not of hurt. I am amazed at what I am seeing... besides seeing how one little decision made in a moment of heart-ache can result in years of poor relationship choices I have seen the power that fear gives a situation.

You see when you are afraid of feeling the hurt of a break-up and you quickly put those emotions in a box and lock them away, you give the emotions a strange power over you. Something happens when you don't even look at them, when you just go "wow this hurts" and lock them away, it's like you are so busy being afraid of getting hurt that you don't take time to see how big the hurt really is. Now I find myself opening up the boxes after all these years and the main thing I am discovering is that the hurt I was afraid of isn't even that big. For years I have been locking away these emotions, too afraid to see them because the hurt would be too much to bare but all this time it was a lie. The hurt wasn't what was big, the fear was.

All this time and it was the fear because the emotions themselves, the relationships that ended, when I look at it instead of hiding it, when I stop being afraid and I lay it all out in front of me.. well it all seems so much smaller. So I've decided to keep taking the lids of the boxes, I am reaching in and taking out the relationships and the emotion and I am looking at them and letting them be healed.  

We all have no go areas, spaces inside that we don't access, each of us have these little storage compartments deep inside where we store all the stuff that we don't want to think about but the longer we store them there the bigger they get and the more afraid of them we become. So my prayer is that this week we will have the courage to take the lid of at least one box, that we carefully and lovingly lay it's contents on the floor and then we look at the contents with eyes of love and allow God to heal the pain that only he can heal. Be blessed and let your emotions free xo

How much can life change?

How much can life change in a week? In a month? How quickly can we be catapulted from one season to the next? How quickly can we awake from our holidays into the harsh reality of life? How quickly can the world as you know it change?

I wasn't going to post about the floods. I specifically recall thinking earlier today how I was going to make some time to get here tonight but that I wasn't going to talk about the floods.. yet now I am here and I don't know how not to talk about them so I will break the deal I have with myself and talk about them, maybe less them and more how I feel about right now but nevertheless the floods will get a mention.

Today was our first day back at work. After almost a week of being shut down Brisbane city resumed operation as the commercial hub of our State. It was extraordinary and surreal. I don't quite know how to explain it but something is different, our city has grown up a little, a shift has happened and you can feel it in the air. Maybe it's like the water washed the crap off.. the pretty, perfect, polished facade that was fast growing up over this beautiful, big country town we call home has been washed away and what is left is magnificent. There is this earthly beauty to our city, a unity, we have resurfaced stronger, together. Wait! I can't quite capture this and I kind of don't want to.

I'm not sure why I find this difficult to write about.. maybe it's too soon, maybe it's because if I write about it then it becomes very real, maybe because writing about it makes it sound like it is over and it's not. It's almost like writing about it makes it yesterdays story but in reality it is very much our today and will be for many days to come. I guess I feel uncomfortable about going back to work. It seems kinda wrong to be going along with my life while so much of our city is in ruin. I feel like it's insulting to be resuming our normal lives while thousands of peoples homes remain unlivable and their lives are so insane.

I guess the biggest issue for me today was that there was no meaning in my work, I looked around my office and at the day ahead of me and it was empty and unfortunately this feeling was a little too familiar. After spending 2 days at church actually making a difference sitting in my office was more difficult than I imagined. Deep inside me burns a desire to use the skills God has given me to help the people who are suffering. It just seems like a waste to use my brain and hands in the office when they could be used to help, I could have been helping to mobilise and support our volunteers or even better I could have been out in the field but I wasn't. I was at work and for me that was hard. It was coming home from Cambodia all over again and suddenly the emotions of that time in my life came flooding back...

I can still feel them now as they simmer under the surface, they come from a pure place, from a desire for more, a desire that my life have meaning, a desire to live a life of purpose, from a heart that is breaking for the things that God's heart breaks for but I know the destructive power of these thoughts and emotions. I know how if left in the wrong hands they turn from healthy desires to a seed a bitterness.. I know how quickly I can go from enjoying my life to seeing it as empty, how quickly I can despise the choices I have made to date. How quickly thoughts like I chose an empty career, I chose to pour myself into the lie, I am a waste of air can grow, the list of them goes on and on and I can get so lost in them that I begin to hate my life and myself until I self-destruct.. Somewhere deep inside the pure thoughts were still alive but last time I got so lost in them, the truly consumed me, it was like they were twisted and manipulated until I drowned in the swirling pain of a life with no meaning. It sounds dramatic but at the time it was.

How much and how quickly my life has changed. A little over 12 months has passed and in the wake of the greatest tragedy to face my country during my lifetime the same thoughts and emotions have surfaced. The desire for more, the desire for a life with meaning, the desire to live for a purpose.. all of these desires burn brightly inside but this time the swirling pain has been calmed and the deep throbbing to do more simply fans the flame. This time I see the choices I have made that have made a difference, I see how God used my poor choices to shape me, how the things that made me feel empty now inspire me to keep walking on this path.  It's amazing how the same thoughts and emotions will result in a completely different life when they are placed in the hands of God. My heart is still broken but this time I have hope.

So today I am thankful. I am thankful that the fact that life appears to be returning to normal disturbs me. I am thankful that my heart is broken but my spirit is alive. I am thankful that I have enough faith to know that my returning to work will ultimately help our economy which in turn will help those who are suffering the most. I am also thankful that the desire to live a life of purpose and meaning gets stronger everyday but most importantly I am thankful that this time my thoughts and desires are in the hands of my God and I am thankful for this journey xo

faith bigger than fear

I am a woman of faith. I believe in God. My God is merciful and kind, loving and generous, my God is a God of life and not of death. I have been afraid before, afraid of giving up my career, afraid of the unknown, afraid of the future, I've even been afraid of myself but no matter what my faith has always been bigger than my fear. In the last few years my faith has been tested, I feel like I have indeed walked in dark places only to find God there willing me to come home, to believe in him but right now it is facing it's greatest test yet. My father is sick, not just the mental issues that he was having earlier in the year (which were devastating) but he is now physically sick, not the chronic pain or side-effects of medication sick that the doctors talk about but emergency room, fast track tests sick.

My father has been sick like this before years ago so we have walked this path as a family. Last time he came away better than the doctors expected - not himself, not whole but better than expected. I guess perhaps on some level this should bring comfort, we've done this before we can do it again.. except it doesn't because this time we know what the words "we've found something in your blood and want to do an MRI" mean, after annual MRI's for almost 14 years we know how hard it is to get an MRI, these concepts that were once foreign are now familiar. I know the look of fear in my father's eyes, the need to have us close, the frailty in his shoulders, the colour of his skin, I've seen these things before.. From experience I know that everything before my eyes points towards a tumor. Then there is the fact that he is not walking into this as a healthy man in his early 30's with a young family to fight for, he is walking into this as a man in his mid 40's who has survived on a cocktail of prescription drugs, chronic pain and virtually no sleep for the last 14 years, a man who feels like he's aged 10 years in 2 days (more words which are familiar). The fear inside me is big, I feel it bubble to the surface as the tears begin to stream down my face.

Is it too soon to cry? Too soon to let the fear stain my cheeks with lines of black mascara? Too soon to sniffle as I write? Am I giving into fear when there is still hope? And there is hope.

I feel like a little girl again, 13 and afraid. I feel uncertain, unsure, powerless and sad. Maybe even a little bit alone or at least scared of being alone. I love my father more than I love myself, he is an amazing man, a kind and loving father with a gentle spirit and a fight in him like I have never seen. An overcomer as the scriptures call it, one not content to listen to the word of the world he walks when they said he wouldn't, he is determined to live a normal life rarely limited by the pain. He is a gift and inspiration. Just the thought of him makes me smile.

I guess that's why this hurts so much and why the fear is so great but the question now is, is my fear greater than my faith? I hope not. I hope my faith is bigger. Is my fear bigger than my God? I know it is not. Can I look beyond my fear to the hope promised in the scriptures? Can I see the light of my God in the darkness? Are the promises of my God enough to get me through? In this dark hour can I say "I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the Land of the living (Psalm 27:13)"? Can I say that I will "wait for the Lord: be strong take heart and wait for the Lord (Psalm 27:14)"? Can I allow my faith to be bigger than my fear?

My prayer is that I will be able to look beyond my fear in the coming weeks to see my God. May my faith be bigger than the fear xo

Reflections: reading my words back

I am about to sit down and do something I have never done before and I'm kinda nervous about it. This week will be my 12 month anniversary of being home. It will see the curtains close on what I would call a gap year, a year dedicated to God, to laying down my life and placing it in his hands in an effort to reconnect to myself and my purpose. Overall it has been a year of tuning into the small quiet voice that lives deep inside and following it. 

A lot has changed in my world this year, I have worked through a lot of messy emotions, revisited some of the ideas I had about myself and my life and reevaluated a lot of my dreams. It has been a hard year but a great year and I have documented every second of it..

As I sit here there are 9 journals by my side - 4 of them are bursting with words written by me, they are documentation of my daily life; one is a visual journal half filled of images of hopes and dreams for the future; one is my emergency journal kept in the overnight bag in my car just in case something happened and I had to spend a night at mum & dad's - it contains a few entries written in the spare bedroom of my parents house late at night after watching my father be tormented by the voices in his head; one is dedicated to visions of the future; one contains my reflections as I slowly work through the gospel of Matthew and the final one is a baby journal that I picked up last week to document the end of this transition phase. Between them they capture the bulk of my year.

There are also a few books from evening college that document the weekly classes that really pushed me along on my journey with God. I also have access to my online spaces, this public blog and two private blogs which document specific parts of my journey and healing plus there are the brief moments captured on twitter and facebook. Every moment of this year will be captured somewhere which both scares and fascinates me and I am both terrified and excited by the thought of reading them..

The person I am today, the peace and joy I feel, the foundations on which I have built my life, the decisions I make.. all of it is soooooooooo very different from what my life looked like as I nervously packed to come home.. for the first time ever I feel happy and free perhaps it's because I actually feel like I know myself. I feel like the hopes and the dreams I have for my future come from a place that is in me and not from the outside world. I guess I am curious to discover how I got to here so I am going to read the words I wrote, the things I went through to get to here.

For the first time in my life I am going to take some time out to reflect. I am a person who reflects and processes as I go, scribbling notes, cutting out images, having conversations in the moment but rarely (if ever) do I go back and read what I previously wrote. The idea of it makes me a little afraid but at the same time it seems like the perfect way the end my gap year, so over the next few days that is what I am going to do...

I am going to be still and examine the last year of my life. I am going to take time out to remember the things that God has brought me through, to remember the wounds that have been healed, to remember the people that allowed me to get to here.. the friends who sat back and watched as I stumbled into myself loving the me that lived under the baggage, those who guided my steps, those who held my hands, those who encouraged but most importantly those who allowed me to love them and in doing so taught me to love the world again.

I am afraid of what I will find but I am also excited. Much of my reflection will be offline, in my baby journal or in my private spaces but I will share some moments here because this space was one of the biggest leaps of faith that I took this year.

So my prayer today is simple and somewhat selfish, I pray for the courage to revisit my year and to honestly reflect on the moments that have changed my life xx

genuine inloveness

Excerpt from A Sever Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken

What was happening was happening to us both.

I believe it is always so, mutual and, at least at first, equally intense, if it is genuine inloveness.

The actual thing - inloveness - requires something like a spark leaping back and forth from one to the other becoming more intense every moment, love building up like voltage in a coil.

Here there is no sound of one hand clapping. unreciprocated love is something else, not genuine inloveness, I think: perhaps it is infatuation and passion or, perhaps, potential inloveness.

I believe that genuine inloveness is less common that the romantic novelists suggest. 

One who has never been in love might mistake either infatuation or a mixture of affection and sexual attraction for being in love.

But when the "real thing" happens, there is no doubt.

A man in the jungle at night, as someone said, may suppose a hyena's growl to be a lion's; but when he hears the lion's growl, he knows damn' well it's a lion. So with genuine inloveness...

... A sudden glory.

For my 50th post I thought I would share a beautiful piece of writing that has touched my heart xo



praising through the pain

As I drove away from my mother a single tear welled in my left eye and trickled slowly down my cheek, I blinked and looked ahead at the traffic as another tear fell softly onto my lap. Why was I crying today, was today really so different from any of the other days.. Dad has been like this before, I have seen the torment in his eyes, the inability to concentrate, I've listened as the paranoia rises from his mouth mid-conversation and watched as suddenly he disappears, lost in a world that we can't see or understand. This has been our life for months now, we have watched him get worse then improve slightly then get worse again, he is trapped by his own mind and out of our reach.

You see when it takes over we can't quite get to him, he disappears into this place that lives inside his mind, a place where our love can't reach him. It's like he doesn't hear our words or if he does then it is like we are speaking a language that he can't understand. Sometimes it feels like I've lost the ability to talk to my dad but worse than that I've lost the ability to do life with him. He comes along to things, he tries to join in but he is only half there, he will be looking over his shoulder, ever alert to the impending danger in his mind. Peace, security, joy and understanding are no longer a part of his life because torment, danger, fear and frustration have taken over. The worse part is that for him this world in his mind is real and he lives with it every moment of every day and so do we..

Most days we accept the reality, we muddle along loving each other despite the circumstances thankful that we are all alive but some days, like today, for no reason at all a sadness washes over me as I leave them. Sadness and a deep despair at the situation cloud my mind, my bones ache with the pain of this reality and I am paralysed by the pain, unable to move I cry until I don't know how to cry anymore.

Yet in the midst of all of this pain I feel a hope stirring deep inside, a hope that this is temporary, that this is merely a season, a hope that there will be a time in the future when I will look into my father's eyes and see the joy that used to live there, that one day he will know the pleasure of life and that my family will be whole again. I let the hope rise to the surface where it is joined by my faith, faith in my God who loves me, my God of health and life, my God of love, my God who specialises in miracles. Suddenly his peace washes over my body and comforts my soul. The tears stop and I can breathe again, I can live again and I realise that here in the shelter of his love I can love and give and grow through this pain.

Tonight I praise my God for all he is and I pray that his love and peace and blessing will wash over my family and yours xo

But I'm not ready to see

Confession time: I have been avoiding this space. Not overtly going out of my way to avoid it but passively avoiding it. I could use the excuse that I have been busy but I am always busy and when I want to I can always find the time to get here. Why you might ask have I been avoiding a space that I myself lovingly created, a place where I feel safe to empty my mind and evaluate my journey? A place that I look forward to being in.

Well that right there is why I have been avoiding this place.. you see for me this is a safe and empty space waiting to be filled with the strange thoughts and emotions that hide deep in the back of my mind and as soon as I get here those thoughts come rushing forward before I can stop them and to be honest I wasn't ready for that. I wanted to hide from myself for a moment, I wanted to lounge around enjoying my life wrapped up in the cosy warm blanket of busyness that is this time of year. If I am really, really honest I wanted to just avoid the fear that has crept quietly into my world unnoticed... a part of me would like to stay wrapped up a little longer but summer has arrived (albeit with some serious rain) and it's time to throw off the blanket and face this fear!

So you might be wondering what I'm afraid of. Well I would say that I am afraid of life as a butterfly. Let me explain.. most of you would know that last year after much turmoil and prayer I decided to return home to Brisbane to once again discover who I was and to work out what exactly I wanted to do with my life and that is what this year has been. In essence for me the journey home for me has been like when a caterpillar crawls into a cocoon to become a butterfly. For me this year was my cocoon, I have squirmed and stretched and grew in ways I didn't even know I could grow all in the safety of my warm cosy cocoon but now it is time to leave my cocoon and I am afraid.

I am afraid because I know who I am, I know my life's purpose, I know where I'm going and now it is time to have the courage to step into that. And yes I am excited but it is so cosy here in the land of dreams where my future is nothing more than some sketchy visions in my mind and to put it quite simply I don't know if I'm ready to look closer at those visions. I don't know if I have the courage and the strength to really look at them and to see what is required of me and to then let that happen, to take the day dream and turn it into my life. To fly.. I just don't know if I am ready to be a butterfly!

I guess in part it is because if I allow myself to be a butterfly then this is real and there is no going back but it's more than that, it's the fact that I simply don't trust myself to map out the path I need to take to make my dream a reality. You see this year has been all about me and my journey and I have simply stumbled along letting life happen but surely this next season will require a little more from me than that. This next season is bigger than me, bigger than what I can dream and I'm afraid that if I make a decision about bible college or where I will serve or how I will make time to fit in A, B & C, if I allow that dream that has been simmering to come true then it will be wrong and I will have failed at the one thing that I want more than anything in this world - wow when I avoid this space for long enough all of the craziness comes out in one big neurotic moment and then once it's out I realise the fear was all because I was relying on me and then I take a breath as I realise..

.. it wasn't me who got me here, it was God. It wasn't me who planted these dreams in my heart and mind, it was God. It wasn't me who decided that it was time for me to go into my cocoon, it was God so it makes perfect sense that it's not me who wants to get out of the cocoon but God. Right now in this moment I realise that of course this next season is bigger than me but it's not bigger than God. Of course I can't dream big enough to dream this dream because it's God's dream and I trust God. I also realise that these decisions I face are not in fact my decisions but are indeed a part of his perfect plan and that as long as I listen to his voice he will lovingly guide me along the path which he has laid before me.. and suddenly in the shade of my big God the fear becomes very small and the desire to fly grows stronger as I peer out of my cocoon to see what it might mean to fly.

I pray that this week we will take the time to sit quietly under the big tree that is God, to pull out our fears and to sit them on the grass beside us and to then look up and stare at the wonder and beauty that is God. I pray that we take a moment to see how little our fears are in the shade of God's greatness and that this perspective will give us the courage to fly!