Living Life Limitlessly!

Over the weekend I learned that my youngest daughter is not living with her dad right now. I would give anything to be able to be with her and now she isn't with me and she isn't at home with them! They sent her to a place that could help her because she was doing things that my youngest son said, “You wouldn't even believe it because nobody ever would have thought that she would ever be doing things like that.” He didn't go into detail and I didn't ask because I will never put him in the middle of having to share with me anything that he doesn't freely want to. We spoke for nearly an hour and a half! I don't think we have spoken like that for longer than I'd like to admit! I am so proud of him after all that he has had to endure and overcome!

I feel so helpless because my little girl needs me in her life and there is nothing I can do legally since I don't have custody of her. Today I wept, overwhelmed by all of the amazing things that continue unfolding into my life. My little angel is in so much pain and emotion and now not even with her dad. Her dad's girlfriend is nearly 6 months pregnant now and when I found out that she was pregnant I truly was so happy for them! I am hopeful that this time around he will be able to do for her during her pregnancy what he didn't during mine. Its been nearly 4 years since either my ex husband or his girlfriend have been willing to speak to me and I don't know why so I continue to keep them in my prayers, believing that every day we are one day closer to resolution.

Even though they won't speak to me and won't let me see my children, I have found great  peace in knowing that the God who made me, the maker of all life and the one who gave my children to me in the first place, is their true Father...and I know beyond any doubt that no matter what it looks like and no matter how painful it is for things to be the way they are right now that He has everything all under control. I know that it won't always be this way and so I continue doing everything I have been created to do right here, right now with all of my heart and soul because I know that in His time, everything will be restored just as He always intended it to be. 

It is tempting to wonder how much of my daughters outcry and acting out has been because my ex husband's girlfriend, no matter how good she is to my children, she is not me. Add her pregnancy on top of everything and my daughter not being able to be watched 24 hours a day its not hard to understand why they would need help with her. I'm thankful that she is safe and getting the help she needs, but the pain of what she is going through is something I am having to consciously choose to trust my Lord with...after all He is the one who gave her to me, and He has not brought us this far to let go now. 

I may sob because the pain feels like more than I can bear, but as my tears pour like rain, the pain is released, hope is restored and my faith is ignited in a deeper way than I ever could have dreamed is possible. This is my life. I have been groomed and trained, taught from the heart of my Master, Lord of All and my Savior for such a time as this. For the very first time in my entire life I am grounded in the soil of all that Heaven is, and no longer defined by all of the wreckage that lies behind me from a life that has been laid to rest forever in the moment that I died and was reborn into the life called now. 

I decided to go for a walk at French Park. It was such an incredibly beautiful day on Saturday that I couldn't resist. I wanted to write, but I needed to be outside in the breath and heartbeat of nature. I love French Park because I used to take my children there to play when they were little. I had no idea that there were so many trails that continue leading me on incredible adventures into a beautiful forest right in the middle of the hustle and bustle of suburbia.

I decided to park somewhere different than I usually do. I have noticed my tendency to be predictable and follow the same way just because it is familiar and comfortable. So I purposely parked somewhere that was close to a trail I had never taken before. When I pulled up into the upper lot there was a sign that said “Wedding” and I thought how amazing it is that on such an incredible day two lives became one with all of creation surrounding them to celebrate them.

It was chilly in the shade so I found a trail on a hill that I have walked by several times never daring to venture off to explore. My life ever since I was a little girl has been all about the life of the adventure. I used to go off into the woods hoping to get lost, but somehow even if I had no idea where I was going I always ended up finding my way back home. My walk on Saturday was just like that! I went out to spend time with just me, God, and all of my glorious angels. I find that I am most alive in the places in nature where I feel like I am the only one here on this planet. For the time that I am wandering curiously through the pathways and those less traveled, it is in the whispering breeze that I feel wrap around every part of my body that awakens everything within me. Its more than just an incredible experience. It's like my body, my soul and my spirit are one and it feels like I am “home!”

I think that is the one thing that has ushered in the greatest healing, revelation and my awareness of just how intricately connected we are with everything and everyone. In the presence of nature there is a powerful exchange that happens. I give off the very element that they need to live, and I receive life sustaining oxygen in return. It is like the ebb and flow of life. Without each other we fail to thrive and life becomes nothing more than the mere suffocation of existence. With my feet planted firmly on the ground I am refilled with the very life recalibrating vibration that every cell in my body desperately needs.

There is something deeper though that I remembered as I was walking. I allowed myself to get so caught up in the moment, feeling that the air sweeping across my face were the kisses of my Heavenly Father and all of creation rejoicing that I came out to play! I looked for the places that I could walk that would lead me into places I had never been before. The thrill I felt inside was so exciting! I breathed deeply and held it in because I wanted to be able to give all of me to everything around me in the wake of my exhale. Some may think that I'm silly and that's totally ok. So much of life is spent busily engaging in the rat race of “have to, need to, and should” where life's obligations and desires are so much on the forefront of our thoughts that we miss the very life within life.

I was thinking of my walk as I would if I were to get together with a very close friend. I didn't see the trees and cattails or anything as just beautiful pieces of nature along the paths. I saw everything as all the friends that were patiently waiting for me to come and visit. I found my way toward a cluster of the most beautiful birch trees and overlooking a nearly dried up stream I saw a tree with a long branch that I could crawl up on to sit for a while. So I did!

I could feel the energy pulsing through my entire body and I tipped my head back in the sun as if to surrender to the flow of life within and all around me. I was letting all of the dark sadness and anything that was interested in anything other than basking in the beauty and majesty of the moment. I was thanking God for the magnificence of all He is and has created.

I sat with my head tilted back to feel the wind fluttering across my face and it felt like the trees were communicating with each other and everything else through the sounds they made with every branch that creaked. It was like they were making rhythmic beats as the wind wrapped in and out of their branches pulling and pushing each branch in its own way. It was amazing to witness just how independent each branch really is while continuing to be attached and part of the tree as a whole! It felt more like I was listening to a symphony being played by natures orchestra than just sitting up on a tree limb.

I watched the branches swaying this way, then that way and in that moment I recalled a story I heard many years ago. How it is the wind that causes the trees to thrive, become deeply rooted, and grow strong and able to withstand the weathering of time. A group of scientists got together and built a bio dome type environment that would keep the evironment controlled and constant, thus making the elements totally "perfect." There were no storms, no winds, and nothing that would “rock the boat” within their created “world.” However it didn't take long for the trees to begin to wither and die setting off a chain "eco" reaction that turned their perfect environment into a death trap.

What they discovered was this...without the wind, the trees and eco system are unable to develop the very strength and elements necessary to grow, nourish and sustain. It is the buffeting that actually builds the core and creates the ability to endure and persevere. Without the adversities and winds, the tree would never be able to become deeply rooted and it would fall over underneath the force of it's own weight and size.

As I sat there I reflected over my life with fresh eyes. My life has been filled with the winds of life's hurricanes and earthquakes that have shaken me over and over until everything within me finally came crashing down and nothing remained standing. In the end my ego lied buried deep within the smoldering rubble, and there was nothing left of me except the dust of who I used to be. But just as the Phoenix rises from the ashes, my Lord, my Savior knows just who He created me to be, and He raised me to new life! He continues sculpting me with the nutrient filled clay, taken from those very same ashes that no longer hold me in the shape or the form of all I used to be. The fires that burned me from within, refined me, purified me and gave me new life.

Sitting high up on the tree branch I was visualizing that process, (the death of the “me I used to be”) when I was drawn into the beautifully changing leaves fluttering on the trees all around me. Vibrant reds, oranges and the most brilliant shades of mustard captured me and in a moment I was swept away in the awe of such beauty...and then it hit me that the beauty was only possible because the tree was preparing to sleep for a long winter. It is an accelerated process that is as death...the loss of that season of its life, and there is nothing it can do except yield as its beautiful leaves fade from green into breathtaking shades of the rainbow before everything so luscious and beautiful that once clothed the tree falls to the ground, leaving it naked, totally exposed, and as if it were never beautiful at all.

There have been so many seasons in my life where I can honestly identify with the full circle that reveals how life gives way to death, and death is nothing more than the gateway where true, new life abounds. Just as with the tree when it goes to “sleep” and looks totally dead, unfruitful and barren, it is only a matter of time before it will stretch its limbs, embrace the light and begin once again. The tree never contemplates how it will live or what it is going to do once all of its leaves are stripped away. It simply awakens to the day, recharges throughout the night giving us the vital oxygen that we need and takes in all of our waste and toxicity. In the fullness of all it has been created to be, it takes in what would otherwise cause death, and gives us life. So it is with us. In being who we are created to be, the joy, love, gratitude, compassion, empathy and connection within us purifies the pain, emptiness, isolation, hopelessness, and disconnection making us stronger within to bear the heaviness all around us.

I remember having a conversation with someone dear to my heart over this past summer and she and I were talking about the differences between our experience with physical pain. I was just beginning to have relief with my chronic back pain that I had been living with for nearly 3 ½ years and she was completely unable to relate because for all of her life she has been healthy, strong, and totally unphased by any sort of physical limitation. I was happy for her because she had never gone through such terrible things, but I was also sad because I understood how difficult it would be to relate to people who had gone through things that were beyond understanding if you never did.

In that moment, I was able to find great thankfulness for everything I have ever been through and experienced throughout my life! Suddenly it became clear to me that it is impossible to have true empathy and understanding for others without having experienced things that rock your world in your own life. I was able to see all of the horrifying circumstances as blessings because I realized that every adversity, loss, and pain are the greatest gifts I have ever been given! 

My nightmares became my miracles and I have never been the same because no matter how much better the pain is whether physical, emotional or both, I am never so far beyond my circumstances that I can't remember just what it felt like and how everything once looked deep in the despair in my life. Even more amazing to me is how sharing the cold, hard truth of just how things really were has given me the ability to communicate and even more than that, I finally live life knowing what it took to move beyond the confines of a living hell and journey into the paradise of Now. 

I was sitting high upon the tree branch, swinging my legs and bouncing when the sun began to set. In that moment I felt like I never wanted it to end, but instead of being saddened that it would soon be dark I chose to remind myself that it never has to end even when its over! Many times this week already I have traveled through those woods in my mind, in my memory and suddenly I feel in this moment the same thrill and joy that I did when I physically went there! 

It's incredible how powerful we have been created to be! Our brain doesn't know how to distinguish between what is "real" and an image of thought or a photograph. It interprets them both the same...so I have learned to use this to change my feelings and in the process I have discovered that if I can recognize I am thinking or "seeing" something that is bringing my feelings down, that I can recall places I've been that bring my joy and visualizing the experience actually makes me feel the same feelings even though I am not there at all...God has created us in His image and His likeness...we are not powerless, we are powerful beyond measure. 

He loves it when we see and experience life in the most epic ways that are only possible when we dare to explore and live the adventure with Him and each other. I love you Jesus for all that you are and I thank you for making it more than possible to live life limitlessly! I love you!!!

Rewritten

I have spent my entire life hoping and praying for all of my dreams to come true. Even when they were sitting right in front of my face, I never really knew it because I was so absorbed with my idea of them that I missed the very magnificence of Heaven here on earth.

I was so consumed with being loved and living in the past unable to see beyond the memories of never being loved that I never let in the love that was given to change my life.

My heart aches to realize so many memories and years later, that I am the only reason that my life has ever been less than amazing. Even when amazing was in my arms, I didn't believe. I couldn't stop turning everything into the very same thing over and over again, though everyone was completely different from each other. I am the common denominator in the heart of all that has been lost. Remembering opens my heart to seeing that nothing is as I thought. Ever!

The things that I fought my hardest to be free from are the very things that have saved my life, and continue to bring me closer to understanding myself, and learning how to unlearn everything that I have learned throughout my life. I used to think that was impossible and sounded ridiculous but I am learning that as I dump all of the old, the things that were real always remain for they are deeply rooted and secure within the foundation that I am built upon. As for the rest, the clearing has been great and there is much that is still waiting to be discovered. I look forward to every moment as I am able to write as all has been, and continue day by day in the beauty of all that is being rewritten within my heart.

Returning Home

Here I am Lord

Once again, standing before you with arms open wide

Please restore me

O my king

For I've fallen away from you

Please reach down into my heart

Take my life and make me brand new

For I let you down

When I fell off of this course in my life

You are so faithful Mighty King

You're the ruler over everything

Take my sins and cast them as far as the east is from the west

I fall before you

And I adore you

As I lay here on my face

I know I've let you down and hurt you so

I can’t bear this anymore

Once I loved you so much

That I knew I’d die without you

Then I fell into that sinful place

In that disgrace

I thought that I’d lost you from my life

The agony and torment of living a life

Without you to hold me

Is more than I can bear

I've been a prodigal for far too long now

Daddy will you still care?

God you’re my father

The love of my life and there is no way

That I can make it another day without you

Your faithfulness amazes me

How no matter where I go or what I do

That you’re still right here loving me and waiting

Ever so patiently for me to open my eyes

And

See you with my heart

It feels to me like an eternity has already passed

Since I've seen you or felt you in my life

But that is my fault for stepping off course

And getting all messed up inside

Here comes your prodigal, dirty, scraped, torn, shattered, and scared!

Scared of the hopelessness I feel in my spirit without you inside of me

Terrified of taking one more step or another breath

Without returning home to you

It’s been far too long

And I’m afraid that I am far too gone

To ever have you love me again-

Then I remembered your faithfulness and love are unfailing

And that it wasn't your love that changed, but mine

I weep from the bottom of my soul

Missing you and needing to give you full control

Of my mind and my life

But I've forgotten just how to do that daddy

I used to pray and I lived to spend time with you

You were my life

Then I took my eyes off of you

And I sunk

Just as Peter did in the midst of the storm

But he got up, and I haven’t yet

Oh how I want to daddy!

Here is my hand

Please take hold of me

Lay me in your secret place

So I can be healed and sheltered from this storm

For you see the winds are blowing

And overtaking me

The waters are rising and drowning me

Pulling me far beneath them, and I can’t breathe!

You’re my only hope my precious Lord

And I am sorry that it has taken me so long to return

But you see I've been ashamed

Just as Adam and Eve were in your garden

Then I was afraid that you’d cast me out …
until I remembered once again

That your faithfulness and love do not change or grow weary

So it was then that I started to make my way back to you

It’s been dark within me and hard to see

Where you are is the only place that I want to be

In your presence is the only place I will ever find peace

And it’s there that I know you will restore me!

I am weary from my sins and my heart has been so tattered

The enemy kept me longer than I wanted to stay

And took me places that I never wanted to go

…Left me shattered

I can’t imagine the pain and suffering that I've caused you

You've watched carefully my every move

Waiting for me to just call on you

And

The tears that you have cried because you've missed me

Are all too much for me to even grasp-

Why didn't you just wipe me out?

You could have, but you haven’t

Which makes me believe that all of this that I've gone through

And all the pain that I've endured

Will serve a purpose and give you glory one day

I need you to come to my rescue

For I’m not strong enough to take one more step

I’m so ashamed of the things that I've done

And all of the lives that have been affected

Please forgive me my precious Heavenly Father

For choosing my own way over yours

I humbly come before you broken and ready

To be placed upon your potter’s wheel

I don’t know what that will mean right now

But I do know that I surrender to give you full control

And that whatever pain it will cause me by being on your wheel

That it couldn't compare to the pain that I've endured

Being apart from you

Lord please bandage my wounds

Use your healing salve of Love to make them clean

Wrap me up tightly and lay me next to your heart

Hold me close and let me feel the beating of your heart

Next to mine

Then hide me away in your secret place

The place where I am filled, healed, protected, loved, cleansed,

And

Made whole again

Take my heart and wash it in the precious blood of your son Jesus

Give me a new life though I am undeserving

Where my heart will be reshaped with your love

And made brand new

As if I had never fallen

Take my ashes and give me your beauty

Then mold me, shape me, and make me 

Into what you would have me to be

My hearts desire is to hear your voice and to shine with your love,

To see things through your eyes, be broken with the things that break your heart

And

To walk in the truth of your spirit

That has always been my hearts desire daddy

And I’m sorry that I fell away from you until now

But you promised to restore my life from the inside out

And I’m taking you at your word!

For you have said

No eye has seen

Nor ear has heard

All of the good things that you have in store

For those who love you

And Father I just want you to know

That more than anything else in this world,

I LOVE YOU!

I can hear it now…

I hear the music playing just for me

Here you come running out to me

And you've clothed me in a robe of your righteousness

You wrap your arms tightly around me

Weeping and laughing

Welcoming me home once again

From that journey that now you've forgiven me for taking

All of Heaven is rejoicing at my return

and it will be now as though I never left!

Authored by: Elizabeth Walker 

The Tatoo of Transformation

As I have been working on writing a book about the story of my life there are so many events wrapped into many different seasons that have all been epic and pivotal. I have been writing in many journals throughout these past few years and I am amazed as I read what I have documented and expressed within every step that has taken me forward, back, around, into and through the roads that have led me inward before allowing me to emerge into the world that is all around me.

I cross the full gamut of emotions when I read what I have poured out onto the pages that hold my life's greatest sorrows, joys, and inventions. These have become an ever evolving map. This map of my life reminds me of all that was, is and is filled with the hope of all that is to come as long as I continue to believe and hold fast to the one who made me. For He is the one responsible for this trans-formative metamorphosis, and it is His signature that is tattooed within every fiber of my being.

I am living proof that anything is possible! I have lived a life so utterly despicable and in such depths of darkness for most of my life where there was no light. The only times where even glimpses of possibility flickered were usually in the altered states of emotion induced by drugs or alcohol, and sometimes both. Once the buzz or euphoria faded, so did the hope that appeared like a hologram in the brief thawing of my frozen heart.

This past 5 years has been a whirlwind that has ripped everything I thought I was apart and has stripped away everything that made it nearly impossible for me to find an opening to begin my journey into the center of myself. I'm pretty sure that this is the real journey to the center of the earth! I have written about my days within each season and what it has held for me. It has been terrifying, dangerous, breathtaking, and unfamiliar, but I have been able to capture the true essence of all that I am certain I would never have been able to remember. I have been able to capture the crazy (R)evolution of my life, my process, the crossing of insanity and the journey back.

I read the pages I have written and find myself immersed within the story that is my life. There are moments of great pain and I weep, there are moments of great joy for what I have been able to realize, accept, and that also makes me weep. There are stories I have captured that make me giggle so hard that I almost cry and then there are the pages that hold all of the begging, pleading and whining as I was undergoing many emotional deaths...even more amazing are the pages that follow and illuminate the process of resurrection where I have died to the bondage's and demands of my ego and false self, only to be raised up from those ashes into the experience of true freedom from none other than me!

Then there are the pages that I had written at earlier times so full of clarity, insight and revolutionary wisdom that was absolutely poured into me from the heart of Heaven. In some of my greatest struggles I would grab one of my journals and randomly open it and to my amazement, what I read clearly gave me exactly what I needed to pull myself out of whatever I was going through that was so difficult! But it reminds me that I am never so far along this journey that I am immune to having to practice all I have learned if I want to continue having success and be able to master me.

I have been my own worst enemy in my life and I find that its in the times when I feel like I am so certain that I “don't do that anymore” that I am prone to some sneaky subconscious process and old way of doing things to slip in nearly undetected. It is especially important for me to maintain order and consistency because otherwise the chaos around me will spin me inside and in the moments of overwhelming busyness all that used to be my “default” tries to kick in. It seems that being busy tends to take me out of being present. Not being present is an unconscious existence, and that can be catastrophic depending on how long it takes me to realize that I am “off” and return to where I left myself.

Sometimes what's even more difficult for me is when I come face to face with everything I have done my best to avoid having to do since I was young and realizing that just because I distract or go off in a different direction doesn't mean that it is going to go away and leave me alone. Having to learn how to do things now seems much more overwhelming to me because of all of the thoughts that do their best to invade my process dangling reminders clothed in the form of “should have's and if only.” That has always been a dangerous place for me to go because of the guilt and shame that has always followed close behind.

Being 41 trying to learn how to be healthy seems much more difficult than if I would have just decided to take an interest in myself when I was still in High School or when I moved out to live on my own. However, I was not mentally healthy then. I am certain that until I finally became well in my mental and emotional health that anything I would have done physically also would have suffered. Its almost like now that I have been deconstructed from the inside and remade, now the outside of my house (my body) is finally able to be primed, cleansed, and re-sculpted as if for the very first time.

I am in way over my head and though I can swim, I am struggling. I’m usually able to see clearly and yet I wonder if that's true then how in the world can everything feel so dark and hazy. What I am experiencing right now is more than just emotional. It is nearly inescapable within my body physically. It is also as emotional as it is physical. The resistance within is throwing everything off and my body is crying out in ways that it hasn’t in what seems like forever. I have come to the place where I am face to face with the me I am, the me that I used to be and the me I hope to become. The me I used to be grew up rooted in the fear of punishment and withholding based upon what I did or did not do.

That “me” was shaped and formed by the church doctrines that I am still finding myself struggling to be free from because they operate on what seems to be the subconscious ingraining which is so automatic and habitual because it was “wired” within me from the time I was 10 months old all the way through my life.

I just want to be totally real about where I am in my journey and how I am navigating this thing we call life. It seems that just as the oceans have tides and currents, so it is with life. I am finding that no matter how much I have learned and overcome or stopped doing along the way because I learned how to choose differently instead of trying to not do something anymore that life happens in waves and seasons of tides that are coming in and drawing back out again. 

When the tides of my life are coming in sometimes it happens so gradually that it is almost unnoticeable until I am almost in over my head and being pulled backwards by the force underneath when I am giving all I’ve got to keep moving forward. I resist the very periods of being pulled backward and out of what looks like balance and consistency. I forget more than I remember it seems just how important all phases of the tides and waves in life are. They are the breath of life that cause expansion and then create room through the release that so many times feels and looks more like loss than anything healthy or productive. 

I am not here to write pretty words that make me feel good or anyone else feel all warm and fuzzy. That used to be my agenda. But all of that has changed. Don’t get me wrong, I love lifting people up and living the hope that burns within everything I am. 

 

I have come to believe so strongly that Love is the only choice that makes the impossible possible that I have chosen to let everything go that is not love…even when the letting go feels anything other than loving. This has been the most excruciating journey. Though I know with all of my heart there will be a point of completion, the truth is that I am in the heart of the greatest nightmare and miracle that is beyond my wildest imaginations. The truth is that I never would have imagined this road twisting and dropping off as it has along the way, and I was so certain that by now I was going to be in a place that looks nothing like what any of my life looks like at this moment.

I cling to the hope that no matter how it looks and feels right now, it won’t always be this way. And then I stop myself like now and ask, “What if everything did stay just as it is, then what?” I think even asking that question I can feel my resistance because I have been living my life for the grand design of my Heavenly Father who is my everything and surely He has amazing plans for my life…for all of our lives. 

 

What I have experienced over these past 5 ½ years has not only rocked my world because of everything I have gone through and endured along the way, it has rocked my world because I have been witness to and experienced life fully immersed within the incredible nature of God and a savior that have more often than not been so much cooler and candid than anything I was ever taught about them when I was growing up and even as an adult. 

So much of my life right now feels like I have again become entangled within the web of religious rules and traditions that I have experienced the freedom from in a way that changed my entire life. Its been a very long time since I have become so wrapped up in the heavy, nearly indescribable fear that is somehow lurking deep within me. It doesn’t matter how much I’ve learned. It is not a discipline thing. It strikes me physically and I am gripped by the hands of hyper vigilance. To me, it doesn’t matter what label it has, fear, anxiety, hyper vigilance, trauma…I am beginning to see that it seems to be rooted in my expectations which I thought I really moved beyond. 

Even more than that, when I stop choosing without realizing that I have, I begin reacting to everything going on all around me, and the tormenting grips of indecision and questioning what I am supposed to do end up taking over.

I have committed to being real, honest, and totally authentic with myself and everyone else. This is who I have learned to be. The problem I am facing though is one that I am certain finds form in what is called ego or my false self. My false self is all about image and having to “have it all together” and “have learned so much” that before I even realize what is happening I am withdrawing from within myself and that slowly trickles into everything. 

What’s even worse is I end up feeling like others are judging me and looking at me funny when the truth is that I am actually judging myself and looking at myself funny. It only looks like it is everyone else. They are only reflecting back to me what I am unwilling to see going on inside of me. This totally sucks because it feels crappy and I would rather not feel sad and scared. Then the dangling reminders of how I was taught all of my life that if I am afraid it means that I don’t have faith ends up causing me to judge myself even more harshly because “I know better.” 

 

Or do I? 

 

For the first time in my life a couple of Saturday's ago I said something out loud to a friend of mine that I never would have even dared to speak out loud to another human being at any other time in my life. 

 

I told her that it occurred to me that it’s quite possible that everything I think I know is wrong! That is one of the most terrifying places I’ve ever been because it brings me right up against everything I was taught for pretty much my whole life. To be honest, everything I was taught growing up was all founded in fear anyway. Fear is the thread that has been within every part of my life and when I wasn’t afraid of the dark anymore, all it did was change form and become something else.

My conflict is that I have learned that life is so much more than what I am being right now, and sadly it’s like I can’t even access any of the things that have effectively made it possible for me to get here. About 2 weekends ago I went to a church retreat about discernment and I went in believing that I was on top of things when it came to discerning in my life. 

 

Three days later the conference ended and I was overwhelmed by the mess I felt like suddenly enveloped in a mass wave of fear that ushered in unexpected panic. I thought I was going the “right” direction and suddenly I was hit with feeling like everything I believed was totally off and I had no idea! 

So I chose not to run from the pain I was feeling emotionally and I was not going to try to distract from it either. I chose to be with myself in the condition I was in which is pretty exhausting because I have experienced what it is to have every day be beyond words amazing and full of joy and awe. I have found that I don’t have to feel like crap and that shifting my attention to all that Love is and recalling things that brought me happiness can change everything I feel, see, and do, faster than most cars go 0-60! 

So I was miserable and choosing to be in the fullness of all that is because I know that it was happening for a reason and that it is teaching me more about myself. It is revealing things that are still very alive inside of me and as ugly as it feels, being able to be real and raw in my life and experience continues to be a gateway that leads to places beyond my wildest imaginations. It is in this darkness that I have been able to hold fast to the light that is inside of me…even when it looks like it has gone out.

I guess if I am willing to be totally naked in my life and let it all hang out, I see that I have gotten a little too used to the darkness inside this cocoon. Sometimes not being able to see what is really in front of me can be a form of ignorant bliss because in the dark it’s much easier to hold onto my own ideas and visions that have been the color and hope within my world than to try and see beyond the mountainous obstacles that interfere with my hopes and dreams only to litter my reality. 

I am coming face to face with the me I was never willing to grow up and become and the one that I have always dreamed I would be one day. Though it seems like these 2 are two totally different people, they are not. They are both making each other possible because they are me. One is the me I have been and am, and the other is what is possible if I will only set aside my own grandiose ideas and dig into my own life to face all of the things I have spent my life avoiding.

Then something incredible happened today while I was driving to Lifetime Fitness and in a moment, the ordinary became extraordinary! There was a large construction sign on the left side of 42^nd street in Crystal and it said, “Thank you for your patience” …at that moment it was like God letting me know that no matter what it looks like or feels like, that He is proud of how I am patiently navigating through this process with Him. I barely finished my thought when the most radiant orange Monarch butterfly flew at the middle of my windshield from the right side of the road! It made me nearly unzip my skin and go all alien because I could barely contain the joy of just how He is always with me in every step; and just because I may feel I’m not doing enough or unsure if anything I’m doing is making Him happy with me, I am reminded that He has never seen things the way we do. That is so incredible that words don’t even begin to do it justice!

I have been in the darkness of my cocoon for some time, but I understand now that this pressure and intensity is only preparation for when I am ready to emerge with wings of my own that will allow me to soar as I never could before. Not long ago I learned that when caterpillars go into their cocoon in the process of metamorphosis they become totally liquefied…crazy huh?! 

 

But just as with the Butterfly, we will never know just what we have been created to become without the season inside the cocoon that completely and irreversibly changes all we once were. Even more difficult to understand sometimes is the process of emergence. Wings have to dry before its possible to fly...and if anyone helps the butterfly out of the cocoon, it will die for it is the strength developed in the process of exiting the cocoon that gives the butterfly the wherewithal to fly! So it is with us if we are willing to “go it alone” even though we're never alone! Thank you for sharing my journey and taking your time to read my blog! I love you and God loves you more than anything!

 

How playing Farmville changed my life!

I was thinking the other day about how much has actually taken place in my life from the inside out over the past 6 months...and even more epic over these past 64 months since my children were taken away from me and went to live with their dad's. I was trying to remember if there was a single event that marked the pivotal beginning of the changes that have led me through this metamorphosis. I mean, I know there are seasons and many events that have been instrumental in making all of this possible, but I was looking to see what exactly set all of this in motion.

As I thought back over these past 5 years, I found myself reflecting about what life was like through the days after my children were taken away from me. I'm pretty sure that I spent the first 3 months fighting against accepting that the reason my children were not with me was not anyone else's fault but my own. I was determined that I was going to prove that my children were taken away from me illegally. I was doing everything to make sure that I didn't leave any stone unturned because I wanted the court to see just how much I was doing. So I made sure that I had a long paper trail of all of the “proactive” appointments and classes that I was willing to take and diligently attend.

I wanted my children back and was willing to do anything it would take for the court to be able to see that I not only complied with the courts laundry list of demands, but I proactively enrolled in parenting classes and many other therapeutic activities that I was sure would show how intent I was on being healthy and equipped to help my children once the court let them come home. Looking back, I see now that what I was doing was nothing more than my “I'll show them” reactionary “choosing.” I was on a mission to convince the court that my children would be safe when they came back home.

I was dying without them and not having any control over anything was a moment by moment death unlike I ever imagined would be possible to endure. The bottom line is that everything I was facing at 36 years old was something that could have been healed and avoided if I had only cared enough about myself to make the time to get the help I desperately needed before I ever began having children.

I spent my entire life being careless, terrified of being alone, and desperate to be anything other than what I was. I made the “fake it til you make it” concept my entire life. The only thing is that I spent my life faking it and never really making it. Well, I made “it” and a lot of “it” but to be honest, “it” never turned out to be anything but chaos, dysfunction, misery drowned in the darkness of addiction and co-dependency.

I never planned to live my adult life as I have, and yet I see now that I never planned not to. I really believed that if I could just meet the “right” person who had a heart filled with love for me, somehow that would heal me, make me better, take away all of the endless pain and trauma and give me all of the things that nobody else was ever willing to give me. I never understood that remaining in the condition I was in mentally and emotionally would only bring others into my life who would be the fuel to the flames of dysfunction in an already unquenchable inferno raging within me.

By the time I was 18 I had spent the greater part of my life and nearly all of my adolescence in and out of therapists offices, and nothing ever reached my pain or helped me move beyond all of the tormenting memories. After the countless hours and visits week after week and year after year, there was not a single therapist who did anything to impact my life or show me the way to get beyond myself. I was talked out. 

I was sick and tired of rehashing my past and every single moment of inescapable memories that owned me. I was sick and tired of having to deal with the nightmare that I was living. I wanted to move on and live my life. I was certain that I knew what would be good for me. I knew what I was never going to do because of how it wrecked my life when other people who were supposed to love me and take care of me abused me, abandoned me, and left me as a little girl to fend for myself while they went on about their business as if I never even existed.

I was determined to not only become the greatest mother I could when I had children, but I knew that I was going to do everything different for my children than what people who were supposed to love and protect me did in my life. I never wanted my children to ever know the kind of pain and horror that I have, and I was willing to do whatever it took to make sure that I could give them all of the things I never had. I was going to be the mommy whose life revolved around her children and I knew that I was never going to shelter my children or keep them from experiencing life to the fullest. All of my life growing up my mom worked and I spent my life missing her. I was going to do whatever it took for me to be able to spend as much time with my children as possible because I never wanted them to miss me or hurt because I was always working like my mom did in order to support the both of us.

I can see now that my hopes and intentions were not enough. Regardless of how much I wanted to create that kind of life for my children, I had no idea how to make that a reality. I thought that it was enough to know what you don't want and then do the things that are opposite of that and everything would just fall into place. I was wrong.

My entire life of pain, trauma, loss, and fear was housed within me within every thought, every choice, every response, and every plan. I was a terrified control freak who didn't trust anyone because everyone I had ever put my trust in not only hurt me, but always left my life no matter how much they promised they would never hurt me like they knew I had already been hurt throughout my life.

Eventually, my life became about doing everything to keep people from leaving my life. In that process when I couldn't make people stop hurting me and leaving my life, I became the one who did the leaving before someone else had a chance to leave me. As a result, I have spent my life playing games and sabotaging my own life which has caused only God knows how much damage in my life, the lives of my children and anyone else who happened to find themselves caught in the web of my existence.

I am not proud of any of this, and even writing about it dangles the baiting reminders of guilt, shame, and the embarrassment that has always been the glue that holds and weaves them all together. However, I also know the truth which continues to set me free. The truth is that my life has been the furthest extreme of an inconceivable nightmare and there is nobody who is worse than what I was. I am certain that nothing was ever going to reach me and be able to break me without breaking my spirit. I was a broken mess with an ego and a chip on both shoulders which made me a force to be reckoned with. I never wanted to be like that, but I didn't know how to stop. Nor was I willing to listen to anyone try to tell me how to live my life or what I had to or couldn't do.

Somehow through every hopeless circumstance that has happened in my life, hope has always burned within me. Not because I am so hopeful or have the strength to keep my head up, be positive, or believe that things can change to become everything and more than I have spent my life dreaming about. When I had no idea what love was, hope still found a way to rise up within me and pull me from underneath the wreckage and smoldering rubble each and every time my life has come crashing down. I wish that I could say it is because I am so strong and resilient, but that wouldn't be true.

True strength I have learned has very little to do with getting back up again. Ego is very good at pushing you to get up and do it again. Ego propels response and action when there is fear of how you will look if you don't get up again. Ego even has a way of convincing you of just how strong you are... how taking the bull by the horns will only make you stronger and cheers you on to use every ounce of strength to show just what you can do so that you never have to go through whatever it is again. True strength most oftentimes looks more like weakness than being strong. I continue to discover that strength is found within the heart we have been given because this is where I've learned love lives and calls home. However, I have discovered that love has many companions and where love is, hope is always close by.

It has been my many rendezvous with hope that actually prepared me for love, and it is only because of Love that I am here today. Love shows me how to pour out everything I am without holding back or trying to sugar coat things to minimize the things that I have done. A moment with Love changed my entire world and everything in it. Love has always been right here, waiting for me, waiting for you. I was never willing to follow Love because it was all about me and I didn't know how to trust people I could see, much-less someone and something that I couldn't see.

So I sat on the sidelines of my life waiting for love to find me, and when it didn't, I took my ideas of what I wanted love to be and set out to find it and make it happen for myself. This was the story of my life. Compromise, deceit, settling, impulsiveness, and everything to try to make everything happen “right now.” I refused to understand that without the process and the order that creates a solid foundation to build upon, it is only a matter of time before whatever goes up will come crashing down. 3 marriages, divorces and 23 years later, here I am. I finally see that “quick fixes” are nothing more than band-aids. They cover things for a bit, but never stick for too long. I spent my life doing everything possible to band-aid everything and instead of getting better or being able to heal, the years of band-aids that covered me had turned me into a mummy.

Every part of my life was not just broken, it was shattered! Sometimes when a broken bone doesn't heal properly the only way to fix it is to re-break it. It's going to be painful and there is no guarantee that everything will be as good as new, but you will never know unless you trust that the doctor is able and knows what to do. I have had to be deconstructed to remove all of the pieces and shards of the toxic me, reconstructed and put back together again piece by piece. This has taken so much longer than I ever would have imagined, and I know that this is something that never would have been able to happen in this way if my children would have still been living with me. And though I have died everyday that they have not physically been with me, I know that the mommy they have now and who I am for the rest of forever is someone who is well equipped to handle anything that comes with skill, heart, love, fortitude, courage, surrender, wisdom and understanding from navigating the uncharted waters and unmapped terrain of life!

Who I am today is who I was always created to be, and for the very first time in all of my life I love the person I am and am in awe at all that I continue emerging at the hands and heart of the Master Creator, the Lord Almighty! The road has been long, but He has walked every step of the way and carried me when I was too weak or terrified to take another step. Every tear I have cried he has wiped away, and He has cried with me because He has shown me that what hurts me makes Him sad too.

He is faithfully working all of this out as He continues taking what was meant to destroy me and using the intense fire to transform the carbon like darkness of who I was into a diamond vessel that His love and light brilliantly shines through...not because I am great for I am nothing without all that He is within me. It is only because He is most awesome and as long as I am willing, He is faithful and will complete this work in me that He started when He thought me into being.

The clearing in my life has been unfathomable and for many seasons over these past 5 years it looked like nothing good would ever be able to emerge because everything was continuously being ripped out of my life. I would just barely get beyond one loss and another came in like a flood with even greater force than the one before! I didn't know why He wasn't rescuing me from the insanity that took everything except my physical life and left me totally and completely destitute.

Everything that I had attachment to in material form, everything that held my identity was stripped away. It was like the band-aids I had spent my life covering every owie became a part of me and as it was peeled away, it felt like pieces of me were being torn apart. They had been on me for so long that to me it looked and felt like me. I resisted and sobbed, I prayed and cried, I begged and pleaded for God to make it stop and to take away the pain and make the people responsible for all I was going through, to stop destroying my life.

Then just as I felt myself able to breathe for a moment and the rays of hope just began to peek through and shine into the dust and debris of the most recent whirlwind, I was nailed with something more devastating than the last. I didn’t realize it then, but I was praying for God to save me from the very process that He was using to shape me, cleanse me and save me from all of the idols and gods that I was certain I could never live without!

If He would have rescued me as I begged Him to do, none of what has happened and who I am today would be possible! I would still be totally consumed by my past, all of the guilt and shame that comes with being abused and being an abuser. I would never know what it is to be free from all that was impossible to overcome and I would never have reached for Him as I did, do, and learned that no matter what I am going through I really am never alone for He is always right here with me. He knows the best way because He created the way. Together the things that we are doing are monumental in my life, family and our legacy is eternally reaching. This is forever!

Today I am thankful for every second of pain both physical and emotional. I am thankful for every abrupt loss and unanswered question because it is that pain that keeps my heart connected to thankfulness.

I am thankful for all of the moments that I have witnessed miracles of epic proportion even when I am the only one who sees things the way I do. As insane as the pain and loss have been, the inexhaustible joy on the other side of it has shown me how to see. I have learned to gauge that as deep as the darkness swallows me, I know that if I hold on and not try to avert the pain but instead let myself move through it, the heights that I am being prepared to soar into are equally as high as the depths were deep!

I've learned about something called radical acceptance which is fully accepting any given situation. Knowing that “it is what it is” doesn't mean that I have to like whatever it is I am going through or in the middle of. It just frees me to be able to adjust myself and gain the power over how I choose to respond in the midst of an undesirable or “unfair” situation. I have learned that no matter how awful something is, that it won't always be that way. The  unimaginable event becomes an opportunity for me to remember all that I have learned along the way, and to use those skills to help me as I face myself and the circumstance. 

I think that I was so focused on getting to a certain place in life or beyond that I never bothered to stop and see that all I have is right now. In this moment of now, I can either cultivate something within myself, reach to see what else is buried like treasure within me, push the envelope and experience life in the magical moment by moment unfolding. Or I can be so consumed with “getting somewhere” that I end up missing the only moment I have (now) and never uncover anything more than I already have.

It has taken me my entire lifetime to really begin to believe that what I do and choose and think in this moment is the energy creating the next moment and all that follows. I am still learning just how powerful we have been created to be, but the truth is that we are powerful beyond measure because we are created in the image and likeness of God Almighty, creator of all! How can we say we love Him and are waiting on Him to fill our lives with everything we hope for, pray for and dream of, and then sit back doing the same things we have always done and wonder why nothing is turning out quite the way we hoped it would?

Something happened to me a few years ago and it ended up being instrumental in changing my life. I was kind of addicted to playing Farmville on Face Book. I had spent my time creating an amazing farm and designing it just the way I would if it were a real farm. I even went through the different crops you could plant and harvest to find what would cost me the least amount of money to plant the most of and also would grow at the fastest rate and yield the highest return. I found that grapes grew the quickest, cost me the least amount of money and yielded the highest profit.

So I spent oodles of Farmville money buying more land, planting more grapes, and expanding like crazy. It was kind of ridiculous because I actually scheduled my life around the time I knew that my grapes were going to be ready to harvest. I bought bigger equipment to ensure it took me less time to collect all of the grapes and I had an amazing time because it felt like I was really farming and making a lot of money even though it was just play money.

Then my life took a turn in a direction that I wasn't planning to go. I decided that I was going to go back to school. I was accepted to a design school and since they didn't have a campus here my only option was to take my classes online. I decided to get my Bachelor's degree in Video Game Production and Design and I had absolutely no idea just how intensive the courses were going to be. It felt like right out of the gate from the moment I started school all I had time for was school, sleep and homework. I suppose I never factored my Farmville addiction into the equation when I went back to school. Sadly, back then, I may never have started school at all if I would have thought it could interfere in harvesting my virtual crops!

Needless to say, the first few days of class I totally forgot to check my crops and harvest time came and went, my crops were totally dead. I was actually pretty upset because not only was I going to have to pay to harvest dead crops and making zero profit, but I was going to have to plant new crops with my Farmville reserves! I did that for a short while until I lost track of everything on Farmville and finally just stopped visiting Face book altogether. I knew that I had a choice to make and I was paying real money to go to college and that trumped Farmville, and that was that.

Until...

I began to notice things about the way I was living and the way I went about making choices in my life. It was interesting for me because it’s like when I stopped playing Farmville, the principles I learned and was using to strategically design and manage as well as prepare to make my farm a success, seamlessly became a part of my everyday life. I joked with my mom and told her that I was going to write a book called, “How playing Farmville changed my life” and she thought that was hilarious. I was totally serious. I thought it was amazing how something so simple could have such a profound impact in my life and not even realize it.

That's when I discovered that life is more like farming than we probably ever bother to think about. I mean, unless you're a farmer, why would you ever compare or connect the two? Since then, life has become like farming for me. I see things so much differently now and somehow, because I learned the virtual process through Farmville in my own life I can see things through the eyes of faith and hope because I have the mental connection to the cause and effect of when I used to play Farmville. 

In the most horrific time in my life, Farmville became the platform that helped me to distract from the agony of not being able to be with my children. For a moment I was able to get lost in the moment where for a little bit I didn't feel like I was going to die. As I found my niche in the game and found the best way to make the most money in the least amount of time, I found myself looking forward to the process as my crops sprouted and ripened to harvest. I was developing hope and I didn't even know it.

It seems silly to think of my faith somehow becoming rooted because of a silly game on Face Book. I would rather give all that credit to God...and I do! But I believe that He is willing to use whatever is going to reach us individually. I had never been consistent with anything in my life and so I suppose it makes sense why many processes were never able to take hold within me.

I played the game pretty much every day and in my real life because of what I was doing every day, day after day my brain was changing in ways I never had before. This is how our brains thrive…through consistency and repetition. I was creating new neural pathways and processes and didn't even know it. So naturally, it didn’t matter if I didn’t play the game anymore because the processes were established and the neural pathways in my brain became well worn and smooth. That carried over into my “real” life with the same thinking and the same method of choosing that taught me cause and effect in Farmville.

I learned how costly it is to miss your window of harvest opportunity and even learned how to adjust my crops and choose to plant a crop that would grow a little bit slower and maybe not pay out as much, but would allow me the time I needed to do my school work and still be able to play the game and at least not lose any more money.

Beyond Farm-ville, my life became my farm. I was able to see just how much work needed to be done in the game to get to a place where I had the ability to plant a crop. I had to buy the land, till up the land, cultivate the soil and then water it and make sure I had what I needed for my crops to grow. Once I'd plant my seeds it seemed like forever before they finally began to pop up through the ground so I could see the “fruit” of my labor. So it is with life. Most of the time I never even gave any thought to cultivate the soil of my life. I'd get an idea, run with it, and if it took too long, I'd get distracted and then fade out and onto something else. This was the dominant process that ruled my life for most of it.

I can't even imagine just how many crops I have planted in the soil of my life that I walked away from just before the shoots were about to pop up out of the ground and begin to sprout. What I do know is that all of the choices and mistakes I have spent my life making were all part of the intensive preparation for me to get here! And what I know for sure is that every ounce of drama, pain, loss, catastrophe and wrong is not in vain because I am living proof that with all I have done wrong and all of the messes I have made that are far beyond anything I know how to fix, everything has been useful in shaping me, remaking me, and reminding me of all that I am and all I have been shown how to overcome! More than anything, I know with all I am that the best is yet to come and we are the miracles of the Master’s Plan! I love you and God Bless you in everything!