I think I can, I think I can...maybe

I am a perfectionist(a lousy one).  It is a disease.  Don't judge me.  It isn't even that I do everything perfect, trust me I don't.  It's that I like everything to fit in my neat and tidy boxes, I want my expectations to be met, I want to orchestrate my life to avoid the unexpected and painful.  I want to finish what I start, want to be successful at what I do and let's not forget the other disease I have...the disease to please.  So 2013 was the worst, but it was only the beginning....there were still pieces to be picked up and life to be lived and 2014 continued to be a whole lot of unmanageable, messy, broken stuff.

I am not addicted to drugs or alcohol.  Not judging if you are, but I am addicted to trying to control and manage my life so that pain is minimal(not a new pastime but clearly a futile one).  I know you are thinking what is so bad about that? Nothing as long as it doesn't box the world out.  As long as it doesn't keep you from living.  The problem is when life becomes unmanageable, I don't know how to live in that.  I panic and become manic...I laugh too loud and cry too much.  I wall myself off and try to protect myself.  I hear myself say things I wouldn't normally say, think things I wouldn't normally think.

This is a crazy new world and every day I am faced with choices and quite often I fail.  It's the failing that is so hard.  It is the unexpected daily failures, the inability to overcome my flesh, the broken pieces that won't fit back together that just makes me so uncomfortable I want to crawl out of my skin.  It is the inability to be perfect that spirals me into a dark place.

In that messy brutal world I cry unexpectedly, curse on occassion, overeat, chase thoughts down in my mind that you my friends would be appalled at and hate my inability to control myself.  The self-loathing feels familiar as it cloaks itself around me.  Why can't I just be happy?  I want joy, I really do.  The perfectionist in me bereats me for being unable to overcome.  I want to beat my head against the wall until I feel "sunny and bright".  I feel somehow disloyal to my sons memory if I am happy, so I go back to the pain because it feels like it is all I have left of him.  I know this isn't correct but still it is the truth according to my emotions.

Who would want to feel sad like this, day in and day out.  That's not to say that it's all bad.  It isn't.  It is just to say that sometimes the darkness seems really, really dark.  I don't think I am a freak, I think others feel this way too.  You know where it just feels like someone flipped a switch and all the light that you were holding onto just slips right through your fingertips.  Catapulted back into the dark....dark thoughts, dark memories, dark wounds, dark everything.

So I am going to start a "Thankful journal" again, because clearly I am having a hard time holding unto perspective.  I know that I know, that there are things to be thankful for.....you people for instance.  I love you people, you authentic, messy people that let me be me.  Which works out well because I have tried to be other people and it just ends in failure.  

So, I will think more about the good memories and the bad will grow dim and love will win.  I will put on gratitude in place of loss.

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can....I believe my stinking thinking can be remade....my brain rewired to think new thoughts.  God has given me everything I need to be an overcomer.  Lot's of positioning for overcoming (hehehe got lots to overcome).  So I am a voracious reader....I have read ton's of books on grief and heaven trying to make my mind submit to the Spirit.  I read books all about love trying to push back the fear.  Reading helps me feel productive like I am doing something...I suppose it is me trying to find a perfect way out of this very unpredictable, uncontrollable circumstance.  Where my emotions can be triggered over the smallest of things and memories float around with no place to land without causing a landslide of emotions.  So I read to keep my mind focused on healing, on getting better, on having control over this storm.


It works for about five out of seven days, but then something happens and I am right back to the dark place where fear treads around in my brain leaving deep footsteps.  Where my heart races and love grows distant and I can't seem to remember who I was or even who I am.  So, I counsel myself....what would I tell someone like me in a counseling session?  Retrain your brain, I would say.

So here is my list of put off and put on(Ephesians 4) thoughts.  Remember I am a perfectionist so I need to create a list and a way to work towards my goals.I am hoping that if I have a failure I will just resort back to #3!  Please don't  point out my failures now that you know my intimate heart thoughts. I share with you because I think there is something to be learned here.  That I am suprisingly not the only one with stinking thinking and when we acknowledge it and reveal that we are all flawed it brings freedom and hope for healing and change.


#1
Put Off:  I lost dear friends, they abandoned and rejected me.  At least that is what it felt like.
Put On:  They made room for new friends, wonderful people who flip the light on for me.  I will love them all, even if I think they may hurt me.  My job is just to love. I forgive those who hurt me because I have been forgiven so much.

#2
Put Off:  I lost my son, I will feel this pain forever.
Put On:  My son is not lost, He is waiting for me in heaven and that will last forever, not this. This pain is morphing and God will continue to bring comfort in the midst of it, until one day it just isn't.

#3
Put Off:  Self-loathing for not being "all better". Self-loathing for not being stronger, for being depressed at times.
Put On:  Grace and forgiveness for myself.  There is grace for this pace.  There is no right or wrong. It's okay to be manic or panic, just breathe and work your way out of it with the Word.  Grace covers this place with His dying breath He paid the price for my flaws.

#4
Put Off:  Anger at the uncontrollable, messy, broken world that I can't manage.
Put On:  Trust in a God who is Sovereign, who know's best for me, who rescued my son from his addiction, who turns the hearts of people and brings favor into my life.  He is the same God that I have praised for twenty five years and I will continue to praise Him now.  He is still good, even if sometimes, every once in awhile I have to be convinced of that all over again.

I think this is a good starting place.  It's not a New Years resolution it's just a starting place for creating a different year.  A year where all things are made new, where hope is planted like seeds and a crop of joy will spring up.  I am going to love well because that is what Jesus taught us, He taught us to love one another.  Loving relationships are the context for changing us and healing us.  You have taught me that.

10 God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another.11 Do you have the gift of speaking? Then speak as though God himself were speaking through you. Do you have the gift of helping others? Do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies. Then everything you do will bring glory to God through Jesus Christ. All glory and power to him forever and ever! Amen.
1 Peter 4:10-11 (NLT)

And let me just say this.....THANK YOU.  If we are all one body, then we are supplied through that body with the nourishment we need through others.  You are the OTHERS.  When Paul was sad and discouraged God comforted him by sending him a friend (2 Cor 7:6).  You were those friends.  You, with the shared pain and you who could not understand the depth and just let me cry with you. Romans 12:15 says to mourn with those who mourn and you did.  You encouraged me with the word and with your presence.  I love you people.

I read in one of my books that God gives us the body of Christ to parent us, to model His love to us.  You have done that well.

I am not going to get my hopes up too high, my perfectionism causes me to self-protect so that I am not disappointed.  Does that make sense?  Whatever, still a work in progress but I am determined that this year will be filled with more forgiveness, love, hope and joy than last year and that is a good place to start.  I am letting go of the past hurts and moving forward with hope.  I am opening my heart wide to say yes Lord, yes.

So even though I was really angry at "New Years", I have forgiven it.  Now I see that it doesn't have to be a reminder of what was lost but can be a defining moment to let go of the past hurt and grab ahold of the future.  Reminds me of the monkey bars.  Ratz, I was always terrible at the monkey bars.  I couldn't bear to let go and take the risk, but this year I am braver than ever.  So come on 2015 let's do this!

How about you brave friends, what do you need to let go of?

P.S. I feel better already!