Acceptance, abandonment

The other night while I was driving home, I asked myself out loud, "Why is acceptance so foreign to me?" I thought this was a heartbreaking question to hear myself ask myself. This still bothers me. This evening while I was at the beautiful coin laundromat, I asked God if my statement from the other night broke His heart to hear. He was like, "Not really. I designed you with every intention of accepting you." I guess maybe I broke my own heart. Good grief! Does it ever end?

Eventually. It will more than likely end eventually. I guess I have to just accept that.

Wait. Did I just hide behind humor again? Arrrgh, Tirzah, stop protecting yourself! Bah! Psychotherapy overload!

"Jesus answered and said to him, 'If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.' " (John 14:23)

I think I can safely substitute "she" and "her" for "he" and "him" in the verse above.

Speaking of homes, I think I had a hard time settling in one when I was a kid. Anytime life would get hard, the family would move. "Where are you from?" or "Where did you grow up?" are usually unpleasant questions for me to answer, because the most accurate answer is "Texas." It's the truth. I was born in Austin. When I was a baby, we moved to Bastrop. When I was 6, we moved back to Austin. When I was 9, we moved to Dallas. When I was 15, we moved to Odessa. While I was in Odessa, if you count my college years, we lived in 4 different houses. It was maddening. On the bright side, I am somewhat of an expert in moving.

"The church you grew up in" evokes similarly unpleasant emotions. While we lived in Austin, we went to 3 different churches. While we lived in Dallas, we went to 4 different churches. While we lived in Odessa, we went to 2 different churches. And I think I may have missed a couple. And I didn't count all the ones that we visited while Dad was filling the pulpit. Honestly, I think church congregations nowadays take it for granted that everyone who has a church background automatically knows the words to hymns. Perhaps that is one reason why I hate hymns in general. Sometimes I grew up in an English-speaking church, and sometimes I grew up in a Spanish-speaking church. Sometimes I would sing hymns in English, and sometimes I would sing hymns in Spanish. By the time I was old enough to become remotely interested in the music, I was recruited (honestly, I was kinda guilt-tripped) into becoming the church pianist. (Off topic, is it just me, or is "pee-a-nist" just a totally weird pronunciation for that word?) I didn't really get a chance to memorize hymn lyrics. On the bright side, I am somewhat of an expert in adjusting churchwise.

So, I grew up in an environment that was constantly discontented and where people and things were constantly being replaced. Almost nothing lasted for very long. Almost everything was replaceable. If you didn't like something or didn't feel appreciated, you could just pack up and leave forever.

Speaking of abandonment, recently after an extremely difficult emotional day, I was sitting in my car and talking to God, and I asked Him when I first started feeling a fear of abandonment. He was like, "You've always felt it, even when you were in your mother's womb. Your mother would abandon your needs to meet the needs of your father." When I say this, I don't mean to disrespect anyone; I mean to be honest, and I mean to understand why I struggle with the things that I struggle with. I was raised by a woman who found her identity in being a mother, and I was raised by a man who was perpetually a child. They were a perfect match for one another. I just think they accidentally kicked me to the curb in the process. Even my therapist said that they abandoned their roles as parents. I honestly felt treated more like a student than a treasure. Students are relationships that tend to only last temporarily. They're in your classroom for a while, and they're supposed to remain at a distance. They're not supposed to inherit your fortune or help you grow old or connect with you emotionally on a permanent basis. They're supposed to leave. Eventually.

And yet, as a perpetually, unnecessarily traveling family that didn't trust outsiders, we had to cling to one other to survive. I think we were emotionally distant from one another while we were enmeshed with one another. Maddening! Psychotherapy!

So, this is making sense. I wondered why God was telling me that I have a fear of intimacy. I've heard that the fear of intimacy and the fear of abandonment are interchangeable. I already thought I was plenty intimate with God, but maybe I'm shrinking back in a way that I'm not noticing. Or maybe God wants to pull me even deeper and help me feel emotions that are even more explosive.

I think my rejection issues and my abandonment issues are intermingled, and I think they're exposed and freaking me out a little bit right now. But not in a despairing, hopeless way. I'm just glad to see all of these things coming together right now. I want to work through them.

Even when I started writing this post, I felt petrified, and I felt a tear roll down my cheek. My cat sat on my thigh and purred.

My cats. I have known them and have stayed with them for 14 years. That's not normal, and that's not consistent with a rejection/abandonment lifestyle.

I'm not designed for perpetual temporariness. I'm designed for faithfulness. The latter feels more natural to me. I think maybe that's why my upbringing was so hurtful, even without me realizing it at the time.

I think inside me, I'm expecting everything that's precious to me to disintegrate and float away forever, just like everything else. I think inside me, I'm expecting everyone to turn their backs on me and replace me with a newer, younger model, just like everyone else has in the past. My expectations are rejection and abandonment, instead of acceptance and intimacy. My expectations suck. I think I need some new ones. I think I need some healthy ones.

God is definitely the place to start. He makes His home with me. He lives inside me. He's here permanently. He won't pack up and leave just because He's unhappy. He'll slice me open, dig around, and clean me out so intimately that I'll beg for more.

So, when I first started this round of psychotherapy, my therapist explained that she usually sees clients for 8-10 sessions. Today, she explained that she will see me for 12 sessions. She explained that some of my therapy goals will be accepting that some things in my past were just the way they were.

But, as I mentioned previously, acceptance is so foreign to me. And I think I know why. And I don't think it needs to stay that way.

You know what? I'm worth it. God certainly thinks so. My cats certainly think I'm worth hanging around. These three are the ones who know me the best and see me the most, and they want me. I want me, too.

People can want me, too. I don't have to be utterly shocked anytime anyone sticks around in my life for longer than a year or two. I don't have to wonder when the excitement with my presence in their lives will wear off. Maybe it never will. Maybe some of the people in my life don't want it to. Maybe not everybody is programmed to pack up and leave at the slightest hint of imperfection.

Dang it. No wonder I need therapy!

My cat is purring on my thigh right now, and I'm not forcing her to get this close to me. I think she actually likes me. I don't think she's actually using me for my Purina-serving skills.

Wow. I don't have to be afraid of acceptance, either. God doesn't make fun of me for being honest. Maybe other people won't mock me, either, for being myself when I try to get close to them. I really do belong. I really am enough.

I think this will take a really long time to sink in. And you know what? I hope it takes an extremely long time. If I'm going to get rebuilt, I would like for the job to be done the right way. And I trust the Builder to do His thing perfectly, just like He always does.

So, I can accept that things in my past/present have been/are terrible. That is OK. And even I'm acceptable. Some people are quite possibly going to abandon me, period, especially when they see what I'm really like deep, down inside. And if they're going to reject me, anyway, I would much rather them see the real me than some fakey-fake people-pleasing whitewashed me. I think that means that the people who accept me will treat me to a relationship that is that much sweeter.

Also on the bright side, "abandonment" doesn't always mean "to walk away forever." It also has a positive definition. If I abandon myself TO something, I give myself over to it completely. If I abandon myself TO God, I give myself over to Him completely. That is worship. That is ripping myself open, sharing the most precious parts of myself, risking total rejection, possibly even setting myself up for total desertion. But worshiping somebody or something that would pervert my abandonment would be foolish. Worshiping the only One who will never, ever leave me or forsake me, period, the only One who will always accept me because of His purity, isn't foolish. It's what I was created for.

If you need me, I will be in a fetal position while hugging myself and taking deep breaths.

Young lions

"The young lions lack and suffer hunger; but those who seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing." (Psalm 34:10)

When Macho was a kitten, he helped me understand this verse. Technically, he's a 14-year-old cat now, and he's more of an old tiger than a young lion.

But when he was a kitten, I wasn't his owner. I was friends with his owner, and I would sleep over at her house sometimes. (I was clinically depressed and afraid of my apartment, and she enjoyed hosting me in her spare bedroom. I don't think either of us had 8-to-5 jobs. Good times.) When I would wake up in the mornings, Macho would stand on his hind legs and look out the windows that stood about two feet off the floor. At first, I thought he was just admiring the beauty of nature in the mornings. Sigh. Sensitive cat. But then I discovered that a flock of birds would visit the back lawn in the mornings. That meant that Macho wasn't really admiring nature. He was window-stalking his prey. Arrrgh. Hunter cat.

I believe it was sometime after I moved into that house as a roommate that I witnessed another window-hunting phenomenon. Suddenly, without warning, Macho leapt from the couch onto the window blinds in pursuit of a squirrel. Of course, Macho just dangled there (and the blinds had a permanent droop after that incident), and his owner screamed, and the squirrel remained safe outdoors, and I think I probably laughed my head off.

14 years later, he's still perpetually hungry. In this current photo that I shared (which was miraculously not photo-bombed by my Siamese puma), I got him to look at the camera by saying something food-related ("dinner," I think). Macho would rather have Purina than catnip, and his genuine bottomless pit of a hunger never ceases to amaze (or surprise) me.

"So I wept much, because no one was found worthy to open and read the scroll, or to look at it. But one of the elders said to me, 'Do not weep. Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has prevailed to open the scroll and the loose its seven seals.' " (Revelation 4:4-5)

Technically, Jesus is the Lion of Judah. So technically, since Jesus is like my Big Brother, and God is my Father, I'm like a young lioness.

I'm not talking personalitywise. My personality is definitely NOT a lion, at least in the sense that I am NOT, in general, a driven, take-charge, results-oriented person. I'm more of a... wait. I'm sorry. What was I saying? I distracted myself by imagining a river of caramel flowing through my imagination. Hmm. That reminds me of a Billy Joel song. That was actually playing loudly on the radio of a car that drove past the beautiful coin laundromat the other day. Sigh.

Wait. What was I saying? That's right. Personalitywise, I'm not a lion. And yet, I can very much relate to the ferocious hunger that young lions feel. And there is a ferocious wildness inside me that rises up at very interesting times. I think some people may call her "Mama Bear," but I prefer to call her "The Snarling Shepherdess."

I think she usually shows up whenever her "young" are threatened. Recently, while I was in my kitchen, I saw a small roach sprint across a sink or counter, and I heard myself chanting, "Oh, I don't think so" repetitively like a deranged exterminator while I grabbed a nearby napkin or paper towel to introduce the roach to its Maker. (I'm 100% secure in my femininity, but I am so NOT a girl when it comes to handling pests.) Creepy-crawly intruders, I'm sorry, but you're trespassing, and you will NOT be allowed to stay in my home or come anywhere near my babies. So, don't mess with the shepherdess.

The Snarling Shepherdess showed up suddenly today at work, too, and she stayed with me during my entire shift. As soon as I checked my email this morning, a project leader pounced on a new trainee and broadcast her mistakes and my mistakes to more than one person on my team. OK, so unnecessarily criticizing me in front of my peers is one thing. However, mercilessly shaming an innocent "young" coworker is another thing altogether. I replied as diplomatically as I could (and possibly a bit too wildly) that I would appreciate it if the project leader wouldn't air out our mistakes in front of everybody in the future. Later, I found out that another coworker -- one who is "young" senioritywise and a very strong, productive, dedicated worker -- had quite possibly been on probation, too, judging from her "If you don't like my work, you can fire me" joke. Excuse me, extremely terrible employer? Threaten MY coworkers with the same crap you pulled on me? Oh, I don't think so. Oh, I don't think so. Oh, I don't think so. Oh, I don't think so. Oh, I don't think so.

It's funny how much a situation can change in a matter of seconds. One day, I'm fighting off the temptation to cut myself because I know I won't live up to my manager's expectations. The next day, I'm ready to bite my manager's head off for bullying my coworkers. Oh, I don't think so. You stay away from my "young" ones, Your Incompetentness.

So, all that to say, I can definitely understand how aggressive young lions can be. When they get hungry, they're out for blood. They don't care what it looks like, sounds like, or smells like -- they're gonna take somebody out, and it's gonna be quick, and they won't have time to barbecue because they'll be too busy scarfing it down raw.

Psalm 34:10 says that even these crazy-brave, wild creatures, these young lions, despite their ferocious attempts at locating food... even these young lions will lack and suffer hunger. But those who seek the Lord won't lack any good thing.

Even if I were to ferociously stalk the choicest of meats in the entire universe, I would STILL come up short. But if I were to (benignly) ferociously stalk the Lion of Judah and pounce on Him, I'll find Him, and I won't lack any good thing, because He'll make sure I have everything I need. Shucks. He IS everything I need.

Even the young lions LACK. They STARVE. But if I seek God, I won't lack. I won't starve. Psalm 23:1 confirms this. Matthew 5:6 confirms this.

Even the young lions, with their driven, take-charge, results-oriented personalities, lack and suffer hunger. But regardless of my personality, even the one that likes to serenade God my Father with Queen songs, if I seek Him, I won't lack or suffer hunger. I won't be disappointed. I won't be ashamed. I am the champion, my friend, and I'll keep on fighting till the end. No time for losers, 'cause I am the champion of the world.

Because Jesus is the Conqueror. I am more than a conqueror. He's the Lion of Judah. I'm a young lion who won't lack or suffer hunger, because I'm seeking God. He's a lot of fun to talk to during a long commute home. I like Him. I want to hang out with Him forever.

In the middle of the night (middle of the night) I go walking in my sleep (I go walking in my sleep).

The vending machine

In my previous post, I mentioned that I have PMS. I hope my talking openly about PMS doesn't make you uncomfortable, because PMS is a natural part of life. And, honestly, there are times when my being witchy is just 100% hormonal, so I think it's good to at least know when I can blame hormones for witchiness. And, of course, chocolate usually makes PMS-related witchiness magically disappear, so it's good to have some in stock for those special times of the month. But other times, when I become angry, it isn't PMS's fault.

There's a verse in the Bible that says to not let the sun go down on your anger (Ephesians 4:26), and I think it's usually quoted in the context of married couples. But in my case, I don't think not letting the sun go down on my anger means don't literally go to bed until you've resolved your anger (especially since God often encourages me to sleep and take a break so that I can enjoy a few moments of bliss before I wake up the next morning and suddenly remember why I've been so ticked off). I think not letting the sun go down on my anger means not procrastinating working through my anger.

Anger is such a misunderstood emotion. And it's such a fragile, delicate one to work with, despite its loud scariness. If you express it all at once, not caring who you puke on, you could expose a scary part of your flesh that could permanently hurt somebody else. If you keep it all to yourself, it could fester inside you and become depression. But if you express it to God, He will take it and make something good out of it, and He'll pop it like a boil and let all the pus and junk flow out, and you'll temporarily wonder why God isn't getting mad at you in return and punching your lights out to finally end your misery. He's absorbing your emotion, and He's comforting you, and He's actually still wanting a relationship with you while simultaneously seeing all of your icky issues. (And when I say "you," I mean "me.")

But anger is often frowned upon, especially in Christian circles, so it's rarely expressed healthily, and I think leaders rarely set good examples on how to be angry and not sin (Psalm 4:4). But that is my opinion. In this post, I'm not trying to be a good Christian leader who's setting an example. I'm just trying to resolve an anger issue I've had for a while.

"And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly." (Matthew 6:5-6)

This particular post will be a lot like this older post, but I'm mainly just going to vent.

Like I mentioned previously, I have PMS. In my monthly hormonal state, I made a wonderful discovery, of which I've shared a photo. Ohhhhh, chocolate. I found this beautiful bag at Target. Yeah, that's right. You won't find this awesome stuff in a dinky little vending machine.

Vending machines are peculiar things, really. They offer interesting (or sometimes uselessly boring) selections of snacks at often ridiculously expensive prices. The other day, I thought I would bypass the $10-for-a-bag-of-beef-jerky vending solution at my job and visit the building's vending machine downstairs near the lobby. There was an extended "Oh my gosh, we are so sorry if you lose money in this machine, we care about you, we can reimburse you with a gift card, come visit our café" apology pasted to the front of the vending machine. I should have taken this as a warning. But I deposited $1.25 for a Butterfinger into the machine anyway and, of course, my candy got stuck inside the machine. I think $1.25 is a relatively cheap price for a lesson learned. So, I have a couple of boxes of chocolately snacks ready to go to work with me tomorrow. But I've visited many other vending machines in the past, of course, that were priced much better and that actually worked. You just stick some coins in the slot or a dollar bill in the green-arrowed slot and, voila, you have something to quiet your tummy's rumbling. (And I always enjoy collecting the change for later. Will my next vending-machine victim enjoy receiving 12 dimes and one nickel as payment for a Butterfinger? Maniacal laughter!)

However, there's a problem. The last time I checked, I don't have a coin slot or a green-arrowed dollar-bill slot installed anywhere on my forehead. Why not? Because I'm a person, not a vending machine. Unfortunately, I sometimes feel treated like a vending machine instead of a person. I'll explain why.

I've heard that one way you can tell that you're gifted in intercession (which is basically praying for other people) is when you feel very honored when people ask you to pray for them. According to that definition, I am probably 100% NOT gifted in intercession whatsoever. I honestly dread receiving prayer requests.

And I honestly dread receiving prayer. If you ever hear a mental health case screech, "I DON'T WANT ANY BLEEPING PRAYER!!!" at the top of her lungs during a church service, it's probably me.

Maybe it's a pride thing. Maybe it's a bitterness thing. Maybe it's a loneliness thing. Maybe it's a post-traumatic stress thing leftover from so much spiritual abuse. Maybe it's all of the above. I'm not 100% sure. But this is what I've been working through lately. This is where I am right now.

Last summer, as you may have read about, I got my wisdom teeth removed. I was concerned before the surgery, so I asked many people to pray for me. They did, and I appreciate it, because the surgery was a success. What bothered me is that as soon as I asked for prayer for a SURGERY (which is often a prayer motif), everybody and their grandma replied very speedily with an "I'll pray for you!" But after my surgery, I spent four days by myself in my apartment. I had to watch Mr. Rogers videos so that I could have somebody talk to me and encourage me. Mr. Rogers passed away about 10 years ago. What is wrong with this picture?

Sure, God took care of me while I was recovering from my surgery, as I knew He would, because He's a good, doting Mama with the most dependable bedside manner in the universe. But where was His church? Where were His hands and feet? Have I mentioned lately that finding God is a matter of life or death?

When people approach me and ask me (or tell me) to pray for them/somebody/something, I feel like they treat me like a vending machine. Just stick your coins and/or dollar bills into the slots in Tirzah's forehead, and you'll have instant spiritual gratification. Right? Um, wrong, and I'm sorry if reading that disgusted you, but that's how I feel all the time.

As Matthew 6:6 explains, prayer technically isn't relationship-building between you and me. It's relationship-building between you and God. You won't get closer to me by praying. You'll get closer to God. You won't get any reward from me by praying. (You might get some change out of the other slot, though.) You'll get rewarded by God. Prayer is something that happens between you and God, not you and me. (Even if I'm in the room while you're praying for me or with me.) Prayer is an expression of relationship between you and God.

However, prayer isn't an expression of relationship between you and me. A prayer won't hug me. A prayer won't offer me a Kleenex while I'm crying. A prayer won't hang out with me. A prayer won't watch a movie with me. A prayer won't offer me a ride to church. A prayer won't drive me to my dental follow-up visits. I can't buy dinner for a prayer. A prayer isn't a human being.

Technically, you don't need a friend to pray for you. You can technically receive prayer from a perfect stranger. You can approach somebody, anybody, at church, and ask them to pray for you. You can email a church organization who may possibly never, ever meet you and ask them to pray for you. You can call a prayer hotline from TV and receive prayer that way, too.

I feel like when people offer to pray for me, and if that's ALL that they offer, they create a huge distance between me and them. Or I feel like they completely destroy any kind of bridge of friendship that's been built between me and them. For example, I HATE it when I pour out my heart to a friend for like an hour, and after that conversation, they ask me, "So, how can I pray for you?" Excuse me? Um, were you not paying attention? Of course, you can always use prayer for manipulation, too. Recently, a friend emailed me and said, "Let me know how I can specifically pray for you." I was like, "You can pray that people who like me will get off their butts and spend time with me."

Seriously, I feel like the only way I can get people's attention anymore is if I tack the words "Please pray" onto whatever it is I'm saying. That will get people's attention REAL quick. I don't get it. If I were to say, "I'm lonely, I'm miserable, I'm depressed, I was fighting thoughts of self-harm at my desk the other day while I was at work," I'll get crickets. But if I were to say, "Please pray for my great-aunt, whom you've never met and will never meet, who is about to have surgery in Alaska," people who I haven't heard from in years will come out of the woodwork and shower me with promises to pray.

I am not a vending machine, and neither are you.

I am a human being who has a genuine need for genuine connection with other human beings. That's how God designed me. I have pesky little things called "emotions" that surface every once in a while because, as I mentioned, I am a phenomenon called "a human being." I am sorry if any of that makes you uncomfortable. I am sorry that I do not feed enough prayer requests into your forehead-slots to keep you engaged with my life.

Of course, there are probably lots of crazy wounds floating around inside me that God is still healing, as far as prayer is concerned. He and I talk about it from time to time. I'll be like, "I really hate prayer," and He'll be like, "You realize you're praying right now, don't you?" I think there are still some crooked things inside me that God is straightening out, as far as prayer is concerned. I've gone to a few prayer classes at church, and I bought a book about prayer that I hope to read sometime this year. And, of course, I pray. And I'm thankful that the God of the universe is merciful and gracious enough to NOT burn me to a crisp whenever I puke my prayer-witchiness-anger all over Him.

And even though I feel like prayer can't really do much to bond two people together in friendship, I have noticed that the more you care about a friend, the more natural it will be to pray for them without them even asking you to. The more you like a person, the more you'll be willing to pray Psalm 85 over them in the middle of the night with tears streaming from your eyes.

But I repeat: I am not a vending machine, and neither are you.

HUNGRY!

This post will be, in a way, a new twist on this older post.

This is a photo of my bagel with berry spread (atop 70s plate), a second helping of my snack this evening. I usually don't snack this epically at night, but I felt like I needed to. I ate a very early dinner, probably around 4:45 p.m., and it's OK for a woman with PMS to have the epic munchies.

If you're a male who's reading this, no worries, PMS really is as scary as it sounds. Honestly, I really don't think we women understand it, either. For a few days a month, we become phenomenally moody monsters with absurdly huge appetites, and chocolate mysteriously makes our symptoms disappear for a while. Seriously, I don't get it. I just go with the mysteriously hormonal flow.

But you don't have to have PMS to have the epic munchies.

I've heard that males can also get cranky when they're hungry. I've heard that they have higher metabolism than we women have, in general, and that their wives like to be diligent to serve their meals on time so as to keep peace in the household.

But I really don't think hunger is just a gender thing. I think regardless of gender, hunger is a deep ache that must be satisfied if human life is going to continue at all.

Maybe that All-Bran I've been eating for breakfast at 6 a.m. hasn't been sticking to my ribs before I start my 9:30 a.m. job, or maybe it's the PMS, or maybe it's the hourlong commute, or maybe it's all of the above... I don't know what it is exactly, but I've gotten epically hungry lately right before I've begun my work shift. I know from experience that those dainty little fat-free snacks I have at my desk won't last me until lunch. And I know that the snack-vending situation at my job won't be helpful at all. (Sorry, but if your credit card machine isn't working, that means you don't want my business. (Especially if you charge $10 for a bag of beef jerky.)) So, I've stopped at McDonald's a couple of times for a second breakfast right before work. I'm not a hobbit, but I know from experience that I can't work on an empty stomach. I'll be very distracted in trying to find something, anything, to satisfy my hunger. And, not to mention, I'll be cranky and watch the clock like a hawk to see if it's lunchtime yet.

(As a side note, I've noticed that when I'm fasting, all of the hunger rules are completely different. I don't think I've ever keeled over from lack of food during a fast. I don't think God would ever be like, "Hey, I want you to eat only salads for two weeks" and then laugh maniacally when I pass out. He isn't cruel. I think He gives a special grace to abstain from certain foods, etc., during a fast.)

When I'm hungry, I'm barely able to function at all, and life pretty much stops until I can find something substantial to consume. If my hunger isn't satisfied deeply and properly, I'll be miserable.

In recent years, I've had major hunger pangs late at night. These episodes have only happened about three or four times, but they concerned me because I would feel a very sharp pain in my back that would go away after I would eat something and then take ibuprofen. When I would wake up the next morning, I would be fine. According to an internet search, this was only a hunger pain, but I should probably get a checkup sometime eventually just in case it's something else. (As a result, I try to not go to bed hungry.)

These episodes were scary. The last one was especially painful. I'm glad God has an impeccably good bedside manner. But I also wonder if the psalmists experienced something similar.

"My back is filled with searing pain; there is no health in my body." (Psalm 38:7, NIV)

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled." (Matthew 5:6)

Speaking of health issues, I recently discovered that my cat Choochie has an overactive thyroid. This is definitely a concern, and I definitely will seek treatment for her soon. But it was good to have this diagnosis, because knowing about her thyroid helps me understand why she was having such crazy symptoms, some of which I accepted to be normal for her. I thought maybe her fingernails were supposed to be thick. I thought maybe she was supposed to vomit multiple times before she would finally hawk up a hairball. I thought maybe she was just supposed to be petite. I thought maybe she just chews on the doorstops to get my attention until I feed her because her metabolism is supposed to be jacked up so high. But maybe all that stuff isn't supposed to be normal. (And maybe she isn't even supposed to be belching as much as she does. When she was a kitten, I thought her pungent flatulence was endearing.)

But Choochie gets ravenously hungry. She gets the epic munchies. And she's not ashamed to find me and tell me about her need.

I understand the metaphor that God's word (His spoken word and the Bible) is supposed to be our spiritual food. I understand that if I don't let God feed me directly from Himself, I'll die. And I understand that each one of us is born with what many people call a "God-shaped hole." In other words, I understand that we have needs that only God can satisfy. If we don't have God in our lives, we're spiritually dead. If Jesus doesn't live inside us, we're goners for all of eternity.

But the term "God-shaped hole" has become too cheesy for me. That's it? We only have one hole, and God is supposed to fit neatly inside of it like a factory-sawn puzzle piece?

Physically, when I'm racked with genuine hunger, my body doesn't just have a breakfast-shaped hole that only a Sausage McMuffin With Egg can fill. The cashier at the drive-thru doesn't tell me to turn to #94 in my breakfast hymnal for a cozy little altar call. No, I'm tearing down the highway, weaving between cars, trying to beat the clock, knowing that if I don't successfully make it to the drive-thru and order my Sausage McMuffin With Egg, a catastrophic sequence of events will occur: I will spend a large part of my morning seeking an acceptable substitute for a snack while meeting disappointment at every turn, I will eat an absurdly early lunch around 10:55 a.m., I will be ravenously hungry all over again and will spend another large part of my afternoon seeking a preferably-under-$10 snack while meeting another heap of disappointment, I will be absurdly and hopelessly hungry for dinner around 4 p.m., and my productivity for the day will be shot to heck. I will be cranky, frazzled, and almost useless as a human being without my Sausage McMuffin With Egg. Unless I successfully make it to the drive-thru that morning and order my Sausage McMuffin With Egg, I won't have anything sticking to my ribs, comforting my belly and fueling my brain, my wit, my heart, my soul.

Of course, my recent breakfast love affair with Sausage McMuffin With Egg is a very silly metaphor, but it really does remind me of my ravenous quest for God.

When I'm tortured with spiritual hunger, I don't just have a neat little "God-shaped hole" inside me. If I don't track down my God -- my One and Only true God, my First Love, my Life Source -- I won't just have a tiny little tummy growl. Life as I know it will end. I will spend most of my time groping around for comfort from anywhere I can find it, and the satisfaction will only be temporary. Whatever it is I find to temporarily dull the pain will only go away after a very short while, and I'll be hurting all over again. No codependent relationship, no job overtime, no TV show, no all-you-can-eat buffet, no sexual fantasy, no selfish ambition, no dip into the pit, NOTHING will be able to stick to my ribs -- metaphorically speaking -- and feed me like God can. Once I find Him, I can take a deep breath, know that everything will be OK, and proceed successfully with my day.

This is life or death. This is serious business. This isn't just a convenient little religion that you spend $10 on and store at your desk for whenever you get the casual munchies. This isn't something that you can conveniently plug into from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. on Sundays, 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Wednesdays, and then forget about the rest of the week. This is life or death.

A couple of years ago, my church recorded a worship CD. Before the recording, our pastor gave us an exhortation. In other words, he gave us a very polite, timely warning. He said that sometimes after the greatest triumphs, we can be open to major temptation, so we should be on our guard. He was right. I remember I sang in my church choir during that CD recording. It was the culmination of months of work and preparation, and it was an exhilarating experience. Then when I came home that evening, as soon as I closed the front door of my apartment and noticed that I didn't have anyone to share my triumph with, I thought, "Oh, this is why rock stars do drugs," and I was hit with a dangerously tempting loneliness.

What are you gonna do when that type of stuff hits? I can't be satisfied with dinky little snacks anymore. I need a hearty banquet to feast upon. This chick gets HUNGRY! This really is a matter of life or death.

God is my Friend, my Father, my Family, my Counselor, my Comforter, my Restorer, my Redeemer, the One who lets me cry on His shoulder, the One who laughs when I tell Him about the ludicrous thoughts that sometimes cross my mind, the One who firmly tells me no, the One who gently tells me yes, the One who hasn't burned me to a crisp even though He's a consuming fire and I've asked Him for multiple hugs, the One who has never failed to show up when I need Him, the One who romantically knows what I need before I ask for it, the One who writes stories that are so much more entertaining than any dumb old TV show, the One who exists even though I can't see Him with my measly little human eyes, the One who reserves a spot between His shoulders just for me, the One who I've needed all my life and didn't even know it. This One is my food. This One is my sustenance. This One sticks to my ribs and fuels every fiber of my being. I need Him. I NEED HIM. I NEED HIM!!!

He isn't a feeling, a figment of my imagination, or a freak. He's a Real Person.

I truly can't feast upon anyone else but Him, not anymore. He's ruined me for life.

Alive

This is a photo of me playing with my cat. You can't see the orange fluffball at the top of the photo? Ah, that's because he's a macho-man cat whose camouflage stealthily matches the floor.

Disclaimer: I'm not writing this to say that everybody has to believe the exact same things I do or have the exact same life I have. I'm just writing this to process some stuff in my life, some stuff I've been through, and to solidify its validity. And I'm processing lots of different things in my head right now, but I'll do my best to keep my ideas focused for you here.

"And I said, 'This is my anguish; but I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High.' I will remember the works of the Lord; surely I will remember Your wonders of old. I will also meditate on all Your work, and talk of Your deeds." (Psalm 77:10-12)

The evening after Valentine's Day, I took a brief look around my apartment and said, "I've kept myself alive for the past 15 months." I went through a major wringer almost immediately after moving into this place almost 15 months ago (if you read any of my blog posts from 2013, perhaps you got wind of it), not necessarily because of its location but because of the myriad of disappointments that I worked through while I've been here and, well... I think maybe God just wanted to pull me aside for a while and squeeze some stuff out of me. And I think He's still doing it, at least to a degree.

So, Valentine's Day was a few days ago. Of course, it's a bittersweet day in general -- bitter for those of us who believe that it's the worst holiday ever, and sweet for those of us who have someone special to celebrate the holiday with. Honestly, that's really all I would want on Valentine's Day. Forget the flowers, candy, and chocolates. I'd rather just have a husband. But since I don't have one, and since I'm working through a season of depression, of course I've been doing some Valentine's Day debriefing.

The only other time in my life when I had a significant other on Valentine's Day was 20 years ago, Valentine's Day 1994. (I've decided to not count the boyfriend I had in elementary school who never, ever spent time with me and who had another girlfriend. I hope he didn't grow up to become a deadbeat polygamist or something like that.) In 1994, I was a senior in high school, and I had a boyfriend who was really more of a secret fiancé. For Valentine's Day that year, if I remember correctly, he left me a dozen red roses on the porch of my house. I'm pretty sure he left them there anonymously, even though I knew they were from him, because I was hiding our relationship from my (ex) parents. (I don't recommend doing that, by the way.) It was a very nice, romantic gesture, of course.

A few months after that, he asked my (ex) parents for my hand in marriage, and then I unfortunately broke up with him because I realized that I didn't really love him. That is another story in and of itself, but I mention it to give you an idea of my (voluntary) background with Valentine's Day, romance, etc. After I broke up with him, I went off to college and haven't dated anyone else since. That part was 100% involuntary, because I dreamed of meeting a boy at school and getting married around age 22, but no boy returned my feelings for him. Hi, I'm Tirzah; I'm 37 years old, and have I mentioned that I deal with rejection?

So, it's been 20 years since my last (and first) real Valentine's Day. I mention that not to fish for pity but to set you up for the earful (or eyeful) of opinion that you're about to read. I've been through pretty much every emotion you can think of regarding singlehood. I've heard pretty much every theory you can think of regarding how to snag a husband. And I've been tempted with pretty much anything you can think of. (On second thought, don't think about it.)

So, here's where I am today. I think I'm somewhere between "I'm trusting God for my future spouse" and "I've given up hoping for a future spouse." I don't think this a despairing place, and I hope this isn't a hardened place. I hope this is more of a "I really don't care if I get married someday or not, because I've lived just fine without a husband" place. (It probably depends on the day. Yesterday, I was like, "I DON'T WANT A HUSBAND!" Today, I was like, "I want a husband someday. Swoon.")

Of course, I can't take all the credit for my life, and I certainly don't want to. John 15 says that apart from Jesus I can do nothing. I would completely disintegrate if it weren't for God, who is the One who picks me up and puts me back together again whenever I fall apart. I need Him. He's the only One I can count on to comfort me. Without Him, I'm toast. So, He's the One who's been sustaining me. He's the One who's been blessing me. And yet, this is the life that I've been living. I think you could say that He and I have been doing this thing called "life" together. He IS my life. In a sense, He HAS BEEN my Husband.

With that in mind, I'm in awe of the things that I've accomplished with Him in the 20 years that I've been husbandless, fiancéless, and boyfriendless. In the past 20 years, I have...

- kept myself alive

- graduated from college

- written a stage play

- disowned myself from family and grieved their loss

- learned how to overcome depression

- allowed dreams to die and allowed myself to dream new dreams

- written approximately 40 songs

- written at least 187 blog posts

- discovered that I am right-brained

- had countless crushes on men

- worked through / resolved homosexuality issues and tendencies

- discovered heavy metal and contemporary Christian music

- lived in 3 different cities, 5 if you count the suburbs, relocating multiple times

- almost finished purchasing a car

- worked for multiple employers / been unemployed multiple times

- acquired two cats and kept them alive

I think that's quite a list. I'm not bragging; I'm just amazed at how much life can be accomplished without a husband. Or pre-husband.

I haven't completely rejected the idea of finding a husband. I'm still completely open to the idea of a Prince Charming sweeping me off into the sunset as romantically or as unromantically as can be. (By "Prince Charming," I mean "a guy who actually returns my feelings for him and who actually asks me out.") What I mean is that for most of my life, I was prepped for adulthood with "When you get married" or "When you have children" or "When you find a husband," etc., etc., etc. But these "When you"s haven't happened yet. What if they never will? Why should I sit on my hands and wait to live my life? Life as I know it is right under my nose right now. There's no reason for me to not live it. There's no guarantee that a husband will ever show up.

No, I'm not going to throw myself at a man out of desperation. Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt, picked up the pieces. But that is my personal decision: If a man wants me, he's going to have to chase after me, because I'm worth chasing after. I refuse to water down my personality or compromise any of the way that God made me just so I can attract somebody whose cluelessness I will have to compensate for till death do us part. (I've seen examples of that already. No, thank you.) I want a healthy man who wants me enough to pursue me.

Otherwise, sorry, but I have a life to live. Husband or not, I gotta be me. If I see Jesus walking in a certain direction, I must follow Him. He's where the life is. God is my family now, and we're doing family things together. In this season, He and I are tackling depression together.

Life is a very fragile thing. For years, I believed that having a husband was required to live any of it. But in the midst of life's fragility, I can still gird myself with strength and be a trustworthy person. Why do I have to be married to be a Proverbs 31 woman?

So, in the aftermath of what is perhaps the most dreaded holiday known to humankind, I am still alive, and I am loving every breath that flows in and out of these thankful, redeemed, empowered lungs.

Also, for the record, I've never owned a bicycle, and I never learned how to ride a bicycle, so I don't really want to ride my bicycle, bicycle, bicycle. I just like to listen to the Queen song for the extremely cool musical texture, harmonies, and chord progression. And I like to replace the "Fat Bottomed Girls" line with my own line: "Large Muscled Men." Heh.

Sun and shield

"The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly." (Jesus talking in John 10:10)

"For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord will give grace and glory; no good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly." (Psalm 84:11)

During my yearslong walk with the Holy Spirit, one thing I've noticed in the body of Christ is a pressure to live the "abundant life" that John 10:10 talks about. Yes, of course Jesus wants us to live an abundant life. He said that that's why He came. But what exactly is "abundant"? Is it synonymous with "happy" or "carefree" or even "whitewashed"?

Unfortunately, usually when I tell somebody that I'm just living life, doing mundane things, and surviving, I feel like I'm disappointing whoever it is I'm talking to. I mean, what's so "abundant" about trudging through a mere existence?

Plenty. Oooh, wait. Isn't "plentiful" synonymous with "abundant"?

Yes, of course Jesus wants us to be happy. Of course He wants us to walk in joy and peace and all the fruits of the Spirit. Of course He wants us to live a chaos-free life where a thousand fall at our side and ten thousand at our right hand, and we're too busy being joyful and peaceful that we don't notice the craziness happening around us. Of course He wants us to enjoy His shelter and His presence, and to be overflowing with Him.

But have you taken a look at the context of John 10:10? Jesus is talking about sheep being shepherded away from thieves and wolves. That sounds like surviving to me. As Billy Joel would say, "I found that just surviving was a noble fight." I think to a degree, God would agree with that.

During my commute home from work a while back, I took a new route, and I drove west while the sun was setting. That was blinding! It was sort of a scary experience hoping everything around me was still OK while I was going at least 60 mph on a highway during rush hour in blinding conditions.

I got to thinking about that verse in Psalm 84 -- God is my sun and shield. He's my sun, which I can count on to shine regardless of how dark it is around me. And He's my shield, which I can count on to protect me 24/7. But I wonder if that verse is saying that God is my sun and shield simultaneously? If so, I think I experienced what such a phenomenon must be like during my westward commute. I think the blindingness of the sun IS a shield. If I were in the middle of a battle and I needed help, I would love it if the sun would show up and blind my enemy, creating a shield while I would make my escape.

I think there's a very nice example of this in Genesis 19. When two angels visited Lot, while he was living in Sodom, the men of the city basically demanded for Lot to let them gang-rape the angels. But just when the situation seemed the most dire, the angels struck the men with blindness. I think you could say that God showed up with a sun, of sorts, that created a blinding shield for the angels, Lot, and everyone who was inside his house (a sun and shield, like Psalm 84). I think you could also say that the Shepherd showed up and protected His sheep from being stolen, killed, and destroyed (like John 10:10). I think God cares tremendously about our survival. Survival is NOT a trivial thing.

Throughout my life, people have demanded smiles from me and a forgetfulness of my pain while I've been walking through very hard things. Instead of a shoulder to cry on, an ear to listen, or even a fist to sucker-punch my enemy, I was given mini-lectures about how I'm supposed to smile. I wonder what these people would say about me being excited about simply surviving my commute to work in one piece. Do they understand what it's like to fight through an emotion so hard that the mundaneness of life is a soothing therapy in and of itself? As Billy Joel would say, "You have no scars on your face, and you cannot handle pressure." (Did you know that he attempted suicide many, many years ago, and that he's dealt with depression, too? I think maybe he knows what he's talking about.)

Speaking of commuting to work, I had a very interesting conversation with my boss today. She said that I'm off probation and that I've been doing a good job. This news is bittersweet, of course, because while I'm happy to still have a paycheck, I'm glad that my employer can't see the deep place inside my heart that hates my job with a flaming hot passion and that I'm still trying to get out of there. I'm very thankful that God has given me favor there while coaching me on how to maneuver through it. (When He tells me to smile during a meeting, I smile. When He says to smile and nod, I smile and nod. As ABBA would say, "I'm a marionette, just a marionette, pull the string.") My boss said that she's seen a change in me during the past two months. I replied that this is the first job I've had where I've been on probation, so I threw everything I had "into the pot" and that I guess I just needed "a good kick in the pants."

What I was trying to articulate was that I felt like I didn't have anything to lose, so I just went for it and gave it all I had. Trials can do that to you. Will you sink, or will you swim? Will you let the enemy steal, kill, and destroy you, or will you punch his lights out and claim your abundant life? Will you lose, or will you win?

If you're going to win, you're going to need some help from your Sun and Shield. I think blinding the enemy is one of His countless specialties. I wonder if maybe redemption is one way that my Sun and Shield activates Himself. For instance...

The enemy sees Tirzah from afar. He smells the aroma of a Jezebel spirit. "Aha!" he thinks. "I know exactly how to trap her." So, he slithers into her range of view and speaks quietly to her. Gently, as if obeying a siren's call and forgetting to plug up her ears with wax, she cradles her enemy's face in her hands. "Ahhh," he thinks. "I've got her exactly where I wan-- Wait." He sniffs the Jezebel spirit's aroma more deeply. "It's been... PERMANENTLY DEACTIVATED???" With a sinister smile and a fiendish gleam in her eye, Tirzah grips her enemy's face more tightly as she gouges his eyes out in her strong womanly hands that reenact a scene from Blade Runner. "I see the Sun and Shield doesn't have a problem with me blinding you, does He?" she declares with a raspy triumph in her voice. "Yeah, that's right. I know how you operate, you slimy jerk. Get behind me where you belong." (As Queen would say, "She's a killer queen, gunpowder, gelatine, dynamite with a laser beam.")

I think there are lots of ways to get back at the devil. Sometimes charging at him with Bible verses and binding him works. Other times praying for somebody's salvation works even better. Still other times, simply getting out of bed in the morning and showing up for life -- the abundant life -- is the perfect "screw you" to him.

Have I mentioned lately how much I hate him? Have I talked lately about the One who permanently overcame him?

I don't care if I don't pray the exact words I need to pray every time I need to pray. I don't care if my sword feels too heavy for me when it's time for me to grip it and start swinging. I don't care if spiritual warfare is too dangerous for a frail little flower like me who likes to stay in one piece. I don't care if I'm the most awkward person in the universe when it comes to following spiritual warfare rules. I belong to Jesus, and that should be enough. He gave me authority, and I want to use it. I want my abundant life, and I don't care if I'm carefree or if I'm in the depths of despair. I know who my Sun and Shield is, and He's going to help me survive.

I've heard a saying that goes, "That which does not kill us makes us stronger." I don't completely agree with that. Sometimes that which does not kill us can give us a terminal illness that could leave us injured, damaged, and bitter. Sometimes that which does not kill us can discourage us so deeply that we could turn away from the only One who can truly help us. But sure, I agree that walking through hard stuff can make us very tough -- not heart-hardened but able to handle pressure. I think it's possible to be tough and soft simultaneously. I think Jesus is the best example of this particular phenomenon.

And I think I understand why people get tattoos and piercings. Maybe it isn't a cry for attention or a rebellion against normalcy as much as it is a way of saying, "I know how to take pain, 'cause I've been through some stuff."

Check it out. I think Somebody else in scripture has a very important tattoo, so to speak.

"Now out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should strike the nations. And He Himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And He has on His robe and on His thigh a name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS." (Revelation 19:15-16, talking about Jesus)

The enemy sees Tirzah from afar. He smells the aroma of an orphan spirit. "Aha!" he thinks. "I know exactly how to set her up to destroy herself." So, he slithers up behind her but suddenly stops in his slime-trail. With determination, Tirzah hoists herself up into the lap of the only One who her enemy has never been able to corrupt. With chubby toddler hands, she climbs up into her Father's embrace and coos, "Daddy, tell me a story about how You're going to throw the devil into the lake of fire..." And as if she is suddenly aware of her enemy's presence in the room, she turns to him with a fiery gleam in her eye and finishes her sentence with daggers shooting out of her mouth: "PERMANENTLY." In horror, her enemy sniffs the orphan spirit's aroma more deeply and thinks, "It's... IN THE PROCESS OF BEING REFURBISHED???" With a sinister smile, she forms on her lips the Name that her enemy has always dreaded to hear: "Jesus." Instantly, her enemy is blinded in his tracks. Moments later, he awakens groggily. To his dismay, he is bound and gagged somewhere in a dark place.

Never mess with a daughter of the King. Never.

Myself

I once knew a guy who said something very profound: "God will move if we will just be ourselves."

I have a very fond childhood memory from the fourth grade. My class was celebrating the end of the year with a field day at a park. I think students from other classes, or possibly the whole school, were there enjoying the sunshine and the outdoors. For whatever reason, I ended up participating in a three-legged race. I had a partner, I had not practiced at all, I am not an athletically inclined person whatsoever, and I don't think I really have a competitive bone in my body. There was no pressure whatsoever to do or not do anything on that carefree day. But from what I can remember, my partner and I each placed one leg inside a burlap bag, thought up a very quick strategy, and then ready, set, go... and in a matter of seconds, we won! That was a very nice surprise.

When I woke up that morning, it was not my goal to win a three-legged race. But it was a goal that I had almost accidentally achieved. I think now I know why: I was simply being myself.

"Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it." (1 Corinthians 9:24)

I think one of the worst ways that a human being can harm another human being is by preventing him or her from being himself or herself. If you want to hurt me, force me into a box, poke air holes in it, and then seal it up so that I won't be able to escape out of it. Stifle me that way, and I will be excruciatingly unhappy and ineffective.

Using my cats as silly (and adorable) examples, I need to expect my cats to be cats. If I expect them to bark, wag their tails, and go for controlled walks outside on a leash, I will be wildly disappointed and frustrated, and my cats will more than likely need to visit a pet therapist. ("So, your mama tells me that she loves you; how do you feel about that?" "Wow.") But if I expect them to chase a mouse when it scurries across the floor, stealthily explore cramped spaces, and take a six-hour nap every day, I won't be disappointed, and my cats will be fulfilled as purposefully created creatures. If I expect my cats to be dogs, life will be heck for all of us. If I expect my cats to be cats, all of us will be able to enjoy our lives.

One very interesting thing about this season of my life is that I'm finally getting to see how God ultimately created me. He's like, "Oh... she's waking up." I think I've got huge pieces of crust around my eyes, an aching back, and really nasty morning breath. Wow.

For many years, I was told that I should become a teacher and/or a pharmacist. There's nothing wrong with these professions, of course. It's just that they're not ME. The little girl who used to play with the family's old typewriter, the teenager who used to fall asleep with piano chords in her head -- THAT'S me. When I'm stifled, life sucks, and I lose. When I'm allowed to be myself, life is free, and I win.

I think David experienced a similar thing in 1 Samuel 17. He didn't waste any time trying to conform to the limited loser mentality of the people around him. He was like, "We have a giant problem? I can take care of it, because I know a God who can take him down." Saul was like, "Sweet, you can wear my armor." David was like, "No, thank you, this is really awkward for me. Why don't you stand back and just let me be myself?" So, he found five smooth stones and did his thang.

David was just being himself, and God moved. David wasn't Saul. David was David. My cats aren't dogs. They're cats. I'm not you. I'm me.

If I'm being forced or strongly influenced to be or to become someone or something I'm not, I'll more than likely feel suffocated or stifled. If I'm feeling suffocated or stifled, I may feel the need to escape. You know who else feels the need to escape? Prisoners.

I am not a prisoner. I am a princess.

This princess likes to nurture cats, write blog posts, compose songs, live vicariously through Lemonchicky, surf social media, think deeply, experiment on her keyboard, and sing Queen, ABBA, and Carpenters songs to God during her "quiet times."

This princess does not like to plan lessons, grade papers, kiss up to parents and administrators, decorate classrooms, or educate students. This princess does not like to think scientifically, read doctors' handwriting, measure out prescriptions, do pharmaceutical customer service, or wear a white lab coat. In fact, this princess does not have a desire to do any of that.

I think that's because God didn't give this princess a desire to do anything in the previous paragraph. I think maybe God gave this princess a desire to do everything that she wrote about two paragraphs ago instead.

And when I say "this princess," I mean me.

I think life gets complicated when we suffocate and stifle people. I think life gets easier when we simply allow (and equip) people to be themselves.

Oooh, I found a picture of my cat that I took a couple of months ago. Oh... she's waking up.

Kings and queens

Disclaimers: The stuff I'm writing about today isn't me saying, "Everybody should do this, everybody should heal this way, everybody is dealing with the same thing I'm dealing with." Rather, it's me saying, "Here's what I've gone through, here's what I'm enjoying now, writing about it helps me process it, and thank you in advance for reading about it."

Also, I've wrestled with one of the Ten Commandments that says, "Honor your father and mother." You know what else is one of the Ten Commandments? "Do not bear false witness against your neighbor." So, I aim to tell the truth. Doing so in love is the hard part. Lying to cover up people's imperfections isn't an option.

"Kings shall be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers; they shall bow down to you with their faces to the earth, and lick up the dust of your feet. Then you will know that I am the Lord, for they shall not be ashamed who wait for Me." (Isaiah 49:23)

I've noticed a very interesting "kings" and "queens" motif in my life currently. I'm pretty sure it's God inserting this motif into my life. I like God. He's fun.

Today while I was at the beautiful coin laundromat, I was sitting in my car, and I noticed a potential brawl brewing at the parking lot across the street. While a vehicle was signaling to turn right and waiting to safely merge onto the street, another vehicle came alongside to his right and basically cut him off from the side. I wouldn't have noticed this scene if it weren't for the yelling. The offended right-signaling driver exited his vehicle and asked the cutter-offer driver if he was just gonna bleeping jump the curb, and he kinda charged at the offending vehicle, and his lady friend also exited the vehicle and told her man to get back in the bleeping car. Of course, the offending vehicle jumped the curb and sped onto the street, safely escaping this heated situation.

This quickly reminded me of a scene from my childhood (which I've probably already blogged about), and I had a "No wonder I need therapy" moment. If I remember correctly, I was around 7 years old, and my grandfather was driving me to school. We got stuck in a residential traffic jam that consisted of three cars: us, the car in front of us, and his friend who stopped to chitchat with him while driving his car in the opposite direction. My grandfather honked, of course, but he became very angry, and when the car in front of us finally moved ahead, and when the car coming from the opposite direction finally moved towards us, the driver had a surprised look on his face when my grandfather yelled in his thick Mexican accent, "YES!!" After we continued with our journey, he explained, "He wanna fight." Um, no. He just wanted to chitchat with his friend. I think YOU wanted to fight.

Yes, this was my grandfather who sold Bibles and pastored churches. You would think that someone with that type of resume would be more loving and gentle, right? especially with innocent bystanders who possibly don't know Jesus? You would hope so.

Honestly, this is my heritage-- correction: This WAS my heritage: whitewashed Pharisees who danced around an invisible cauldron, idle gossipers with very short fuses and tremendously hot tempers, and Jezebels and Ahabs on perpetual power trips.

Hmm. I think God definitely had His work cut out for Him when I finally told Him "Yes." Interestingly, He has seemed very eager and very excited about healing me, being concerned when I've given Him reason to be, not freaking out when I've brought all my stuff to Him, and literally loving the heck out of me.

In terms of Bible reading (which I usually do very slowly, because -- as you can probably tell -- I'm an obsessive meditator), lately I've fallen in love with 1 Kings. 2 Kings is also pretty darn awesome so far. Yes, I've read these books before, but I'm rereading them, and I don't think it's an accident or a coincidence that I happen to be reading them NOW.

I understand that you're technically not supposed to be reading INTO the Bible when you read it, but, well... the Bible is living and active. I'm a living and active human being, so I'm probably going to see my life in it when I read it. God is probably going to clear His throat really loudly when I get to certain parts and be like, "Um, you really should look into this. Does any of this sound familiar?"

I'm pretty sure I've already blogged a bit about this, but I used to have a Jezebel spirit (or multiple Jezebel spirits) in my life rather heavily. If you don't know what that is, in a nutshell, a Jezebel spirit is a principality, a very strong demonic power that's extremely controlling, manipulative, depressing, divisive, and destructive. I've read about very severe cases of Jezebel spirits, e.g., a churchgoer literally practicing witchcraft behind closed doors, a woman convincing a pastor to divorce his wife to marry her, resulting in him dying of cancer years later, etc. I don't think the Jezebel spirit(s) in my life were that bad. In my case of manipulating, I was wildly intrusive. In my case of being manipulated, I was severely enmeshed into other people and allowed them to control what I would believe. And that's just for starters. This is my impression of a Jezebel spirit: "Oh, can I be your friend? Can I please be your friend? Oh, good, I'm your friend! YOU SUCK! YOU ARE INFERIOR! IT IS MY JOB TO REPAIR YOU NOW, YOU PATHETIC EXCUSE FOR A HUMAN BEING!!"

Have I mentioned lately that I'm in psychotherapy again?

So, the first time I heard about a Jezebel spirit and read about its symptoms, I literally gasped out loud, because it described my life: the exhaustion, the depression, the suicidal thoughts, the manipulation, the weird accidents, the financial drain, etc.

I'm pretty sure Jezebel is completely gone from my life now, but it took a really long time to unhook her from my soul. It's been interesting (and quite fun) to take a step back and examine this spirit from the original Queen Jezebel in the Bible.

1 Kings 20, 21, and 22 are shocking and hilarious simultaneously. The following is my summary/paraphrase. So, the King of Syria is like, "Hey, King Ahab! I'm going to conquer you! Your wives and your children are mine!" Ahab is like, "OK." (What??) Then the King of Syria is like, "All right, you whiny little pushover, in addition to your wives and children, we're going to take everything that looks shiny and nice to us." Ahab wakes up finally and is like, "Oh, no, you don't!" Then he was supposed to have killed the King of Syria, but he didn't. He made a treaty with him instead. (Because Ahab is a wussy little guy.)

Then the narrative becomes a comedy movie. A prophet finds a random dude and is like, "Strike me!" The random dude is like, "No, I can't just hit you." Then the prophet is like, "Fine, then. Disobey a prophet, get killed by a lion." (Which he does.) Then the prophet finds another random guy and is like, "Strike me!" The random guy shrugs his shoulders and reenacts a scene from Airplane! So, the wounded prophet bandages/disguises himself and prophesies against King Ahab, who doesn't like getting negative news, because his boundaries suck. (Because Ahab is a total wuss.) Enter Queen Jezebel, who can't stand the sight of her wussy little Queen Ahab. I mean, uh, King Ahab.

I'm sorry, but I can totally see Queen Jezebel being an emotionally macho woman, and I can totally see King Ahab being an effeminate fairy man. Not trying to be mean, but just trying being honest, I grew up around these types of people.

I forgot to mention that King Ahab told a guy named Naboth to give him his vineyard so that he could turn it into a vegetable garden. Naboth, having very good boundaries, told the king no. So, wussy little Ahab was pouting about it, so jerky Jezebel was like, "Snap out of this depression. What's wrong with you?" And Ahab is like, "He won't give me his vineyard." So, Jezebel is like, "Oh, yes, he will." I've heard about how bad Ahab and Jezebel were. I've heard about how bad it was that they took Naboth's vineyard from him. But this time when I was reading about it for myself -- free from the commentaries, just absorbing the narrative -- the severity of this injustice jumped off the page at me.

First of all, Jezebel and Ahab were in charge of the kingdom of Israel. I don't know anything about what the laws were like back then, but they totally could have just been like the IRS or something and safely, sanely repo-ed Naboth's vineyard without killing anybody. Second of all, Naboth said he wasn't going to just give away something that he inherited from his fathers. This wasn't a stupid little knickknack inheritance; this was a VINEYARD. This was more than likely a quality, productive piece of land where wine was produced. King Ahab wanted to turn it into a VEGETABLE GARDEN? That's ridiculous. He could have planted a stupid little vegetable garden anywhere. Let the guy keep his treasured vineyard. Thirdly, Queen Jezebel didn't do something subtle like hire a hitman to get rid of Naboth. She publicly shamed and humiliated him. She arranged for false witnesses to falsely accuse him of blasphemy, and then his own community stoned him to death.

Of course, this entire ordeal got God's attention. He was like, "Ahab, your posterity isn't going to make it. I'm cutting you off completely." So, Ahab ended up dying, and dogs licked his blood in the same spot where prostitutes bathed. I think it was quite fitting, actually.

Maybe I'm just a lunatic, but I was having so much fun reading the story leading up to this. I can totally hear an effeminateness in King Ahab's voice when he talks about a prophet in 1 Kings 22:8: "Yes, there's still a prophet of the Lord in Israel, but I hate him, because he's always talking bad about me."

After King Ahab died, his son Ahaziah became king, but he only reigned two years after dying of complications from a horrible accident in... his upper room? Did I read that right (in 2 Kings 1)? Did he just have a weird accident in the bathroom or something that cost him his life?

I will say that it seems like Elijah recovered very strongly after his freaking-out-into-the-wilderness episode (in 1 Kings 19). One of King Ahaziah's captains shows up with his men to bring Elijah to the king. Elijah is like, "No, thank you. I'm not a fan of Jezebel's kid. I'll just ask God to send fire from heaven to consume y'all instead." So he does, twice. The third captain who shows up gets smart and asks for mercy, which he and his men receive. I thought that was cool. Elijah wasn't like, "AAAGH! I'm gonna die!" He was like, "Nope, I realize how much power God has given me now."

I think I had a similar experience a couple of weeks ago when suicidal thoughts breezed through my mind for the first time in a long time. I didn't have time to find an appropriate Bible verse to fight back with, so I came out swinging with the first thing I could grab. And I was livid, so I cussed at the devil. I was like, "Bleep bleep bleep God opens His hand and satisfies the desire of every living thing bleep bleep bleep!" Then I started crying, knelt into my "prayer chair," opened my Bible, and started praying the first thing that popped open, which happened to be Psalm 86. God and I talked through some stuff for a little while, He told me about riding waves of emotion, and then I was fine for the rest of the day. I hung out with friends that evening, and I was fine. The entire ugly episode was very short, and it was over very quickly. God and I handled it. I guess you could say fire from heaven suddenly swooped down on my enemies and burned them to a crisp.

I'm not taking credit for what happened. I'm just saying that when you're fighting for your life, it's imperative that you actually WANT your life. I know that God wants me. I know that I want me. Now I'm working on learning that other people want me, too.

In my research about the spirit of Jezebel, I learned that this principality can take root through a rejection wound, and/or a neglect wound, and/or an abandonment wound. I'm pretty sure the reasoning behind it is, "I'm going to force you to love me, and I'm going to control you so that you will constantly pay attention to me, always accept me, and never leave me." So, God and I have had to dig really, really, really deep inside me to flush all this crap out. I think we're still digging. But thanks to Jesus, who is my Conqueror, I'm winning, because He made me more than a conqueror.

Meanwhile, it's been so validating (and so fun) to see Jezebel's handiwork come to life in scripture. I think it makes all those teachings about her make so much more sense. When I read it, it's like, "Yup, there's the weird accident... and there's the witchcraft... and there's the manipulation... and there's the fear... and there's the depression... and there's the forced submission... and there's the wussy king who's enabling her." Yup, all this activity mirrors the activity of many people who I used to know. Yup, I used to engage in a lot of this activity myself.

Have I mentioned lately that I'm in psychotherapy again?

Speaking of queens, yes, I've become quite obsessed with Queen's music lately. (But mostly just their first, second, and fourth albums. I thought their third album was boring. (Sorry, just a personal opinion.)) One song that has really intrigued me lately is Freddie Mercury's "The March of the Black Queen." I'm not sure exactly what the song is about (although I would guess it might be about all kinds of stuff that I'm not supposed to know about), but from what I understand about the songwriter, he would want me to interpret the song to mean whatever I wanted it to mean. When I listen to the song, I think about Jezebel: the controllingness, the power, the subtle seduction. It has hauntingly beautiful melodies all smushed together in crazy time changes, key changes, and blaring chaos. You know you need psychotherapy when... while listening to "The March of the Black Queen," you smile and think to yourself affectionately, "Awww, Mama."

So, in this leg of my healing, I think God and I have been having a lot of fun together. We've been listening to music together, and we've been sharing my current season of "WHERE HAS THIS MUSIC BEEN ALL MY LIFE???" together. And yes, I totally thought about "Bohemian Rhapsody" when I read 2 Kings 1 and God was like, "Seriously, Ahaziah? You're inquiring of Baal-Zebub? Do I not exist to you?"

I'm glad Israel did have some awesome kings in its history. I think one reason why I like King David so much is because he didn't whitewash himself at all. He was extremely, excruciatingly vulnerable, and God made sure that his art was collected in the songbook that sits smack-dab in the middle of the Bible. He even included the stories behind a couple of his songs. For example, as a musician, I'm used to seeing directions at the beginning of a song like "Legato," "Allegro," "Moderato," "With feeling," "Introspective," etc. In Psalm 51, King David cuts loose with "I wrote this after I committed adultery with Bathsheeba and after I got told by Nathan the prophet." I wonder what the chief musician's reaction was to these directions. "You want me to play WHAT kind of song??"

Life is so much fun! I need psychotherapy!

God is fixing stuff inside me that's been broken. He's been straightening out some stuff that's been crooked. He's been awakening some stuff that's been asleep. He's been killing some stuff that's needed to die. He's been reviving stuff that's needed to live again. I like God. He's fun. He's like the perfect King and Queen simultaneously.

Or, as Brian May would say, "I fought with you, fought on your side / Long before you were born."