Wednesday, May 27, 2009

When God Hurts Us

11:44 PM by Christi Bowman

"The best path is through the valley of the shadow of death. The crags of doubt and the valleys of despair offer a proving ground of God that no other terrain can provide. God does show Himself faithful; but the geography is often desert-dry and mountainous-demanding, to the point that the path seems to dangerous to face the journey ahead...the path involves the risk of putting into words the condition of our inner being and placing those words before God for His response...The obstacle to life is the conviction that God will damage and destroy us. The problem is that the path does involve His hurting us, but only in order to heal us"

I am being broken, dashed against the Cornerstone. I am proving God in the "crags of doubt" and the "valleys of despair." He is there, but it is a waiting game! Jesus is not like us; He does not rush through pain or bypass it altogether. He purposefully walks right into the center of it. He is unafraid. Jesus makes pain His home. He makes it ours too if we allow Him to take us there. The painful places are where He wants to go; they are where Jesus feels most at home. We are the ones who want a quick fix. Pain makes us uncomfortable. We want to hurry it up and sweep pain under the rug.

My mother never really had any friends. She kept everybody at arms length, eventually even me. For a time I knew her inside and out. I knew other people considered her a friend, but I also knew that she did not trust them. She had a beautiful facade and put on a glorious show but I knew who she really was. It was not that she was a bad person...when you are loved by her she is the most amazing person in the world. Growing up, she was spectacular, and others in her path thought so too. It was not that she did not get along with people it was that she did not trust them. When people would get to close or demand more from her than she was willing to give she would, without a word, pick up and silently move on. I am not sure she would be able to admit this to herself, even today.

My mother and I have had a very strenuous relationship for years now. She used to call me her best friend, but that was many years ago. she has since picked up and silently moved on and left me with only her shell. For a few years we enjoyed peace, but what I did not realize then was: The harmonious times would only last for about as long as I remained the person she wanted me to be. When I dressed the way she wanted me to dress, when I did the things she wanted me to do, when I dated who she wanted me to date, when I could be controlled and therefor trusted my life was filled to the brim with pleasantries. But, when I dared to step outside of her will I became uncontrollable and therefor incapable of being trusted. I quickly found out that my mother's love was conditional. Nothing has changed.

Today I do not get phone calls, although it is expected of me to call. when I can bring myself to call, which is not often enough, I can feel her keeping me at arms length and when I am in her presence the distance feels even worse. There are so many elephants in the room, so much pain and anger swept under the rug for the sake of niceties that the air is thick with tension.

I have recently told my mom that I want to start being honest about the things that hurt me hoping against hope that honesty might remove some of the tension. It was my sincere desire to find out, through truth telling, that I had somehow created her, in my head, to be a person that she was not. I assumed that by being honest about my feelings she would come through for me and I could then change how I saw my mother. This was not to be.

If I ever needed a mother, these past few weeks were the time. I called her on a Thursday at 2 a.m. to talk about some of the memories I was having. I was desperate for her solace. She was not supportive. She spoke words that stung rather than words of comfort and she cut me very deeply. I tried to be honest with her the next day and she only got more angry. I could not talk to her so I passed the phone to my husband hoping that he could somehow make her aware of the pain I was in. She continued to say hurtful things.

After I was out of treatment I sent her an email trying to explain my state of mind and why I was angry with her. She was unable to hear that. During a phone call she was quick to absolve herself of any guilt during the 2 a.m. call saying that she was not in the right state of mind at that time for that type of phone call. I told her I could understand that, but I wondered why, during a time when phone calling was more appropriate, she had said hurtful things about me to my husband. She never denied those for a minute all she could do was accuse him of betrayal. After blaming my husband for things that were not his she went on to say that she would never be able to forget the hurt I caused her for choices I made as a late teen finding my way through the pain of past abuse. As I hung up the phone I realized that the tension that had hung so thickly in the air for all those years was gone but to my surprise there was no longer a relationship underneath it.

Today I got an email from my dad making it very clear whose side he was on. I do not blame him really, but he also had to walk me through, in many paragraphs, why I was a bad daughter. He completely invalidated me and at one point even bolded, underlined, and in all caps said "shame on you." I couldn't believe my eyes. My heart began to race and I began to sweat. Time does heal wounds but the process takes longer when people keep ripping those wounds wide open. I had just begun to heal and make sense of yesterday's phone call when I received today's email.

After today we are being proactive and my husband, in an effort to protect me, has blocked their emails. The other day a friend informed me that God does not hurt us only fallen people do...but I will have to disagree. The relationship with my parents has been toxic for years and in the last few weeks has become unbearably painful. As of yesterday and today I have felt free of any need to continue a relationship with them, but that freedom came with a price tag and its price was pain.

Today, on Wrecked For the Ordinary, I read a timely piece titled "Love in the Midst of Pain." Kari Miller writes: "Why had love exposed my tender place only to leave it unprotected?"

Ms. Miller said it correctly. Jesus exposes our tender places only to leave them unprotected. Fallen people do hurt, but Jesus tenderizes the hard places and that belongs only to Him. He does this for freedom...not freedom from flesh and blood, but freedom from powers and principalities and that type of freedom is costly and its currency is pain.

Labels: emotional pain, Jesus, Proving God

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Wednesday, April 22, 2009

It Still Lies

3:27 PM by Christi Bowman

It has been a long time since I have been able to carve out a significant amount of time long enough to sit and listen to a favorite teacher of mine, Andrew Wommack. There are a few things Mr. Wommack talks about that I must tuck away until I am ready to deal with them. One of those things I took out and tested the other night and I would like to piece together my experience.

Andrew Wommack was talking about believing in the complete healing power of the Holy Spirit when he chose to make an example of the alcoholic. He warned against continuing to call oneself an alcoholic as that was to presume that their were still active issues and that God had not been faithful to completely heal.

This concept resonated with me as I do feel I was miraculously healed from the disease they call alcoholism. I know what it is like to white knuckle sobriety and want with every fiber in my being to take a drink fully aware of the consequences if I did. I suffered through that with the occasional relapse from December of 07 to March of 08, and I acknowledge that many people never conquer this phase.

In March God led me to a verse, which led to my first blog post, which led to an outright confession and what I believe to be a miraculous healing of my body. I ceased craving any alcohol and I was content with my decision to quit drinking completely. I discussed this rarity with an AIM counselor as he was helping me work through some issues via the phone. He gave me a glimmer of hope that this could be completely over when he stated that as people deal with the deep seated issues that caused alcoholism to flare up it is not uncommon for the cravings to disappear completely.

That conversation took place in June of 08 and I probably heard Mr Wommack make an example out of the alcoholic in either late fall or early winter. Despite this information I chose to remain sober although my resolve was loosening. I did not envision participating in the binge drinking of my past; instead I fancied the relaxing properties of a nice glass of wine in the evening with my husband. I began placing the idea in my husband's head but he was not the fan of it I was. He had not talked with the counselor nor did he care about what Andrew Wommack had to say. His resolve was as firm as ever, but true to who he is he never forced sobriety upon me. When I would not relent he would offer to go and buy me the wine of my choosing but he was adamant that I would be drinking alone. I did not want to drink alone and so March of 09 came and went and I found myself completely sober, only by the grace of God, for a whole year.

As time went on I became more persistent about the glass of wine and at times my persistence would bother me as I had to ask myself why, if I did not have a problem, did I care so much about one glass of wine? Truth be told I was curious as to what it would be like to share a nice glass of wine with my husband without the pressing urge to drown all of my anger and pain in the whole bottle.

There are no words to describe the wonderful patience of my husband. Maybe he sensed that there could be some healing in one glass of wine or at the very least some insight, but no matter what he thought, he chose to lay his apprehensions aside and share in a glass of wine. As I raised the glass to my lips I was surprised at the feeling of butterflies fluttering around in my stomach. I acknowledged that fourteen months was quite an accomplishment and I wasn't sure that I wanted to break this long string of sobriety. I decided that I had never been to an AA meeting to deal with my own alcoholism and so I wasn't in it for the chips. I didn't want my long string of sobriety to become my god. I wanted to decide once and for all if wine was something that I could enjoy responsibly and with restraint. I am not opposed to the occasional drink with friends where other people are concerned nor have I ever been. I now stand opposed to using alcohol to the extent that it causes drunkenness, but that was not what I was after and I knew that from the bottom of my heart.

With the first sip down and the long stint broken my husband and I began to ease into our respective glasses of wine. We began to talk as if we did this sort of thing all the time and there had never been a problem. However, as I neared the bottom of my glass the old feelings returned and tears began to roll down my cheeks. When God told me that I was to quit drinking He used Genesis 3:3, and for the first time, as I write this, I understand that it was no accident that He compared my alcohol addiction to the fruit that hung from the tree of good and evil.

I was surprised to find that evening that when I drink instead of dulling the ache inside of me it actually awakens me to it. I was not aware of this when I stopped drinking because I was entrenched in it, but after removing myself from it for a year I was more able to put a finger on what I was experiencing than I ever could have before.

Every day I carry around with me on a subconscious level a huge burden of pain and all though I know its source, because of repression, there are some things that I will never know. God has been faithful and allows me to live out my life with very little knowledge of the emotional pain that lies deep within my psyche as long as I remain sober. I know that many psychologists seek to bring into the open that which their patients have repressed but I believe that repression can also be God's band aid and some things are not meant to be remembered. Satan can only do what God allows him to do and for some reason, even while drinking, satan has never been allowed to bring to remembrance that which God has allowed me to repress, however, that does not mean that satan cannot use the euphoric feeling of even one glass of wine to bring to my conscience the large amount of pain that I exist in.

I was surprised to find that once again in this semi euphoric state (I must be a cheap date) all I could think about was my last sip, although I was in a large amount of pain I found myself wanting to go deeper and the only way I could do that was to have more alcohol. I was once again believing that only in this state can I fully know and be fully known. There is probably some truth to that and that is why alcohol will be to me forever alluring, but not all things that are knowable are supposed to be known...at least not yet...and so although I am completely healed I have found that I will need to continue to stay away because it still lies.

Labels: alcoholism, emotional pain, healing, relapse

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