Meet Harvey

I ended up with Harvey at a white elephant gift exchange this past Christmas. If you're not familiar with the procedure of a white elephant, I'll give you the gist of it: A person will unwrap a gift. The next person can either "steal" that gift or unwrap a new gift. This will go on until all gifts are unwrapped. Sometimes you could end up with a really nice gift, and other times you could get stuck with something questionable. Harvey was one of these questionable gifts at first because, well...

...yep, Harvey is actually a wino fish. He was a gag gift, a novelty item. I'm honestly not sure that he was actually designed to be wanted. The person who unwrapped Harvey during the white elephant did not want to keep Harvey, so they tried to persuade each gift-unwrapper to "steal" Harvey from them. During this exchange, I waited for my turn, and while I was waiting, I'm not exactly sure what happened inside me. Maybe I took pity on this novelty wino fish. Maybe I wanted to be a good friend to the person who unwrapped Harvey. Maybe I was suddenly, mysteriously enamored with the idea of adopting an unwanted novelty wino fish. Maybe I just wanted to blog about him. But I "stole" this fish, and I almost immediately named him Harvey and gladly took him in. Harvey was mine.

Of course, my kitties and I are a package deal, so pretty much anything that comes into my home will more than likely be integrated into life with da cats. Here is Harvey serving as a cat-food bowl. (This really was a one-time photo opp. Harvey does not serve food regularly.) For the record, I don't use Harvey to store wine or any alcoholic beverage. One of the ministries that I'm involved in at my church forbids me from drinking alcoholic beverages pretty much altogether (at least in my case). This is more than fine with me because, frankly, I don't like alcoholic beverages. I tried wine many years ago, and I didn't like it. Also frankly, I'm crazy enough without alcohol. Have I told you lately how much I heart my kitties? So, Harvey is a fireplace-mantel decoration.

At first, I thought Harvey would be a cute little story about rejection and adoption and "Aww, God has mercy on us and chooses us at the white elephants where everyone else tries to get rid of us." But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that in a symbolic sort of way, Harvey is ME!

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

"Let them give thanks to the Lord for His unfailing love and His wonderful deeds for men, for He satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things." (Psalm 107:8-9)

"Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him." (Psalm 34:8)

"They feast on the abundance of Your house; You give them drink from Your river of delights. For with You is the fountain of life; in Your light we see light." (Psalm 36:8-9)

"My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise You." (Psalm 63:5)

"One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in His temple." (Psalm 27:4)

For the past few years around my birthday, I've blogged about how much I've changed over the years. But this year, I'm pretty much blogging about how I've ALWAYS been a certain way and am discovering it in a new way. God made me, and He continually shows me how He made me, and I'm extremely thankful for that.

Harvey didn't suddenly turn into a novelty wino fish while he was being transported from the factory to the fireplace-mantel decoration store. He was DESIGNED to be a guzzler. He was CREATED to hold a bottle of something. He is DESTINED to snuggle back with a bottle of something for the rest of his novelty-wino-fish life.

I'm the same way. I'm a worshiper. I was DESIGNED to worship God. I was CREATED to drink in God's beauty and deeply absorb anything that He wants to feed me. I am DESTINED to taste and worship God for the rest of my days.

That's been perverted whenever I've worshiped people, myself, things, or anything or anyone else besides God. (Besides the fact that worshiping anything or anyone else besides God is idolatry, sin, a major no-no that hurts me and hurts God.) I need to be extremely careful with what I guzzle, because filling myself up with the wrong stuff could lead to something really bad really quickly. For instance, if I worship people, it could lead to codependence. If I worship how people hurt me, it could lead to bitterness or depression. If I worship myself, it could lead to arrogance or insecurity. If I worship perfection, imperfection, or mistakes, it could lead to condemnation, anxiety, or confusion.

Of course, Harvey's metaphorical existence isn't an exact parallel to mine. I'm not a manufactured, lifeless object that sits around and waits for somebody to use me. I'm a human being (not a "human doing") who's been saved by Jesus, redeemed from the pit, and destined for eternal life with my God. I'm a citizen of heaven, so that's where my home is. I belong in God's throne room. I was designed to enjoy a relationship with God and hang out with Him in His house for the rest of my life, even after I leave this earth. And no, God didn't feel sorry for whoever got stuck with me at some white elephant party 36 years ago. His adopting me isn't an accident. He was very intentional about the way that He made me (see Psalm 139). He wants me, period. And yes, He made and wants you, too, reader.

See? Even a novelty wino fish can be retrained.

Sure, I'll let total strangers observe my humiliation. Why not?

I almost titled this blog post "Diagnostics and maintenance," but I didn't want anyone to think that I was going to write about cars. (Actually, I do have an idea to write about my car, but it might not make it here on my blog for quite a while.) So, I thought I'd continue with my question-mark-in-the-title trend and my really-disgusting-subject-matter trend for now. For this particular gross topic, for your sake and for my dignity's sake, I'm very glad that I don't have photos available for this post. I would like to blog about a story that I've told people in person. I was reminded of this incident today while I was performing routine maintenance on my cats. That is, once a month, I have to ambush -- I mean, uh... subtly approach my cats... and trim their nails, clean their ears, and apply heartworm-prevention medicine on their fur. So, on with my story, and please be forewarned that it's a graphic but hopefully humorous one.

About 10 years ago, I started a new job that was extremely stressful. I developed IBS-like symptoms and needed to call in sick and visit a medical clinic at least once. To add to the scariness, I didn't have health insurance at the time. One of the doctors explained to me that after the health insurance would kick in at my new job, they could "scope" me and investigate my condition further. After a short while, I was promoted to a less stressful position at work, and my symptoms improved. I wasn't sick anymore. I went back to the clinic for follow-up and testing, but later I was informed that a test yielded disturbing results. So, they scheduled me for my "scope" procedure -- a flexible sigmoidoscopy. This is a procedure where they basically stick a camera up your butt so that they can look at your intestines. This is similar to a colonoscopy, but the camera doesn't go up as far, and you're awake during the procedure.

So, after I prepared for the procedure by not eating solid foods for 24 hours, I arrived at the clinic for my flexible sigmoidoscopy, and I was told that they would also perform a procedure on me called a barium enema, whatever that was. So, I changed into a hospital-type gown and went into a room with a male doctor and a male nurse. The cheerful doctor asked me if I would allow some medical students (I think they were both female) to observe the procedure. I consented, and my reasoning was basically Sure, why not? I'm about to be humiliated, anyway.

I was told that the procedure would involve the nurse using a device to mechanically blast air up into my intestines, I think because my empty intestines needed to be blown up so that the scoping camera could take good photographs and that the medical staff could take a good look at exactly what was inside my intestines. I was warned that I would feel pressure and discomfort during the procedure. However, I was not warned that I had just been told a series of major understatements.

So, air-compressor noises were roaring behind me while air was painfully blasted up my butt while medical students were watching the whole thing and taking notes while the doctor made a joke, I guess to try to lighten the mood. I was in a buttload of cramping pain, and I was probably cringing and/or groaning, and the nurse was telling me to hold still or stop squirming or something. I don't remember exactly. I just know that it hurt.

When it was over, I was told that I would have some privacy while I could get dressed and that I might pass some gas. Another major understatement. I had intestines that were full of artificial air, so I artificially farted. A heck of a lot. Imagine the longest fart you've ever farted, multiply that by about 5, and voila, you've got an idea of what my supersonic, non-stinky farts were like.

The doctor gave me a good report: the only thing he detected during the procedure was a condition that I won't repeat on this blog post, but let's just say that some ways to treat this condition are eating a high-fiber diet, taking a fiber supplement, and using Preparation H.

I thought that I could go home right after this procedure, but I was reminded that I needed to drive to a nearby hospital for my next procedure: a barium enema. I was warned that this procedure would be somewhat similar to the last procedure. Instead of using an air compressor and a camera, the barium enema would fill my empty intestines with a substance that would allow my intestines to glow in the dark, so to speak, while medical staff would take X-rays. This procedure was uncomfortable, but it wasn't as humorous of a circus as the flexible sigmoidoscopy, and nobody was in the room with me while it was happening. It was a little bit scary lying there alone on the examination table while I was vulnerable and had a radioactive substance pumped into my butt while a machine took pictures of my posing-for-the-camera intestines, and I was being observed by people that I couldn't see. I actually ended up writing part of a worship song while I was lying there. The first lines went, "You will never leave me / Never forsake me."

Before I finally got to go home, the nurse warned me that since I had just been pumped with stuff, I would have white poop. I was like, Whatever. I didn't really believe her, until I got home and... OH, MY GOSH, IT'S WHITE!

I don't remember hearing back from the barium-enema doctor, so I think that means that my test results were normal. Ever since that day, I've tried to include more fiber in my diet. And I'm glad that I had those tests, because not knowing what's wrong is perhaps more scary than finding out the truth.

"You are my hiding place; You will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance. Selah I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you and watch over you. Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle or they will not come to you." (Psalm 32:7-9)

"Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life." (Proverbs 13:12)

When I say things like "God, I want to be free, and I don't care what it looks like" or "Lord, please do whatever You want with me" or "This really hurts; please heal my wound" or "I don't want crap; I want You," He takes me up on it. I don't think He usually uses anesthesia. He pretty much just tells me that He's about to slice me open and perform a spiritual/emotional procedure, and He goes for it. If I kick and scream, He reminds me that I need to hold still and stop squirming. He's serious about operating on my heart. He's serious about restoring my soul. He's serious about my emotional healing and well-being. He doesn't want my heart to be sick, and I don't want it to be sick, either. I want Him to keep digging deep inside me and removing anything that isn't supposed to be there, including any infections or scar tissue or parasites that may have been leftover from past procedures that were ended prematurely or from procedures that He wasn't performing or from whatever out-of-whack thing that has been lurking inside me and just needs to be removed. If my symptoms improve, I want Him to keep operating and preventing any kind of disease.

So, while I was performing maintenance today on my cats, I was reminded of a blog post that I wrote awhile back. If my cats don't let me trim their nails on a regular basis, their claws could grow dangerously long and scratch me or curve around and fuse onto their paws. If my cats don't let me clean their ears on a regular basis, their ears could become so dirty that an infection could develop. If my cats don't let me give them their heartworm-prevention medicine on a regular basis, they could become very sick. These are all procedures that my cats often resist, sometimes ferociously. It's something that needs to be done, and it would be over a lot faster if they would just cooperate and let me be their catmama. After years of performing this maintenance (with lots of trial, error, and getting a talking-to from a vet), I've developed a technique that seems to work (at least for now). I'll wait until it's their morning snacktime, during a weekend when I've got plenty of time, and they're ready to launch into their scheduled napping slumber, and their bellies are almost empty, and I'll begin the maintenance routine. They'll offer little resistance because they're sleepy and hungry, and since they depend on me to feed them, they're pretty much at my mercy. I'll usually affirm them during the procedures, too: "Good boy. You're my girl. I love you. You're my kitty."

I'm pretty sure it's the same way with me and God. "Are you ready?" "Sure, I-- AAAGH! THIS HURTS!" "It's OK. Almost done. Hold still." "Oy vey!" The God of all comfort knows what He's doing. I need to just let Him do it. And I don't think He'll leave me alone in a strange room during a procedure that He's conducting and then neglect to contact me afterwards. He's a good Daddymama who counsels me and helps me through the whole thing. And that's no major understatement.

Can you tell the difference?

This is a photo of my two thumbs. My left thumb (which is on your right) is a bit pointier than the other one (probably because my entire left hand is a tiny bit leaner than my right), and it also has a funky guitar callus that juts out on the joint. But I'd like to bring your attention to the fingerprint area. Without a microscope, can you see any difference between these two thumbs? Do they appear identical? Does my left thumb show any evidence of any past trauma? Years ago, I got a second-degree burn on my left thumb. It's been completely healed for a long time, but that experience was so crazy that I'm going to blog about it and the healing process.

Before I continue, I'd like to offer a tiny disclaimer. I've noticed that I've been blogging lately about things that are gross. But grossness is sometimes a natural, necessary part of life. Take snot, for example. Where would we be without snot? It's a substance that runs out of our noses while carrying away infections. It's nasty and beautiful simultaneously. Thank you, reader, for bearing with my nasty descriptions, and I apologize in advance if any of my writing grosses you out to the point of nausea. I'll try to warn you before you read anything that's extremely gross.

Here's the story about the second-degree burn that I got on my left thumb. One Sunday evening about four years ago, I was cooking dinner. (Or depending on how you look at it, I was defrosting dinner. The leftovers from that evening would be my dinner for the rest of the week.) Back then, it was routine for me to boil some rice, microwave some frozen veggies, and warm up some frozen fish fillets in the oven. When it was time for me to turn over the fillets about halfway through their cooking time, I opened the oven door and removed the baking sheet. What actually happened here is kind of vague in my memory. I think I used a potholder to remove the baking sheet from the oven like I usually did, but the potholder must have slipped, or maybe I just forgot to use a potholder altogether, because my left thumb wrapped around the baking sheet that had been cooking at about 375 degrees. What I do remember clearly is shouting in pain, tossing the baking sheet onto the stove, and running my thumb under cold water. I think I remember my thumb having indented red marks that were shaped like the baking sheet, but I mostly remember the white blisters. One of the blisters was so big that it covered most of the fingerprint area of my thumb.

The hour that followed the burn was pretty scary. My thumb felt like it was on fire. The only things that kept it from feeling like it was on fire were running it under cold water or smashing it against an ice cube. The pain was so bad that I was groaning out loud. I couldn't even function. All I could do was run my thumb under cold water or smash it against an ice cube and try to stop hurting. It was scary. I didn't know what kind of damage the burn had done to my skin. What kind of a burn was this? Was I about to lose my thumb? I prayed for God to heal my thumb. I put some ice in a plastic bag, smashed my thumb against it, and drove to a nearby convenience store and bought some Neosporin so that I wouldn't have to spend the rest of my life relieving the pain with cold water or ice. After I got home, I was disappointed to discover that Neosporin didn't ease the pain at all. I quickly ate my dinner, fed my cats, smashed my thumb against some ice, and drove myself to the emergency room. To add to the serious mood, I think it was raining, too.

After waiting in the ER for a long time (and going through at least one small bag of ice that the staff was kind enough to provide), I finally saw a doctor who took a quick look at my wound and immediately diagnosed it as a second-degree burn. After he left, the nurse came, bandaged my wound, and showed me how to do it because I would need to keep my thumb bandaged for the next several weeks while it was healing. She applied an ointment (silver sulfadiazine cream) to my burn that worked a million times better than Neosporin. Then I left the hospital with instructions on how to care for the burn; the instructions explained that it would take about six weeks to heal.

I drove to a pharmacy and filled a prescription for painkiller, and by the time I got home and got to bed, it was around 4 or 5:00 in the morning. I called in sick from work (via email) and slept in. A wound that only took up about an inch of my body consumed and disrupted my entire evening and would affect my entire life for the next few weeks.

When I returned to work the following day, to my job that required lots of typing, I was thankful to see that my left thumb is the digit that I use the least (if at all) when I type. I'm pretty sure it was God's mercy that I ended up burning that thumb and not any of my other fingers.

During this time, I became a connoisseur of bandages. I experimented with which brands of gauze and adhesive tape to use and how much to use. Living alone suddenly stank because there wasn't anyone to bandage my wound for me. It was just me and my nine other fingers bandaging up my blistered little nasty-looking thumb.

About one week later, it appeared that something miraculous had happened. The blister on my thumb went down and turned yellow. I thought that my thumb had healed early. Forget the ointment, the gauze, and the tape; I could get away with using only regular Band-Aids. Forget the hospital instructions for the six-week healing. My wound had healed in only one week! Right? Nope. My healing had barely started.

The original now-yellow layer over my thumb peeled off and exposed a deep, raw layer of skin underneath. This part of the healing process was almost more painful than the original burn itself! I needed to continue the bandaging process with the ointment, the gauze, and the tape. A tiny little one-inch burn not only hijacked a Sunday evening and a Monday, but it also dominated my daily routine for the next six weeks or so.

While my wound was healing, I walked around with a white bandaged thumb, and I sometimes got interesting responses from people. Some people showed sympathy and pity. Many of them simply asked what happened, and then they empathized, and we swapped burn stories. One person remarked, "That's what you get from frying up fish." Well, I wasn't frying (I was baking), and all I was doing was trying to cook dinner like a normal human being, and was this person insinuating that the trauma to my thumb had been all my fault?

"Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is there no healing for the wound of My people?" (Jeremiah 8:22)

"He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds." (Psalm 147:3)

Emotional healing can be very similar to my second-degree burn's healing. A trauma can happen and cause severe pain that can seem to halt your life for a while. You try to stop or relieve your pain, possibly trying several different methods, but the pain is acute and insistent. Finally, you talk to an expert and get help. Maybe you find a professional counselor, or maybe you get help from somebody at church. However, the Wonderful Counselor who is always available -- regardless of however many fallible human counselors you talk to -- is God. Jesus is like a doctor who will diagnose your wound and prescribe treatment for it more accurately than anyone else. He's like a nurse who will spend time with you, clean out your wound, and carefully, skillfully bandage it up so that it will heal properly. He's the ointment, the balm, that covers the wound and absorbs the pain. He doesn't make you feel guilty for getting wounded in the first place. He talks to you, helps you, encourages you, assures you, comforts you, heals you.

Sometimes this healing can happen at different levels or in layers. Maybe you think one area is healed because it doesn't hurt anymore, but maybe God sees more underneath that needs to be taken care of. Maybe the top layer needs to peel off so that He can dig deeper and heal the wound more thoroughly. Maybe there's an infection, and He needs to flush it out. Maybe there are root issues that have never been dealt with. God isn't always in a hurry. He's patient. I think sometimes He waits until we're willing to be healed or until the timing is just right. He made all of us individually (Psalm 139:13-14), and He knows that we're all wired differently. I don't think every prescription or treatment will work for everybody.

Frankly, one reason why I became so depressed and sick 12 years ago is because people around me kept telling me that I was fine because I had already done certain counseling. But I wasn't fine, and I couldn't put my finger on it at the time, and I probably didn't understand at the time that my pain was worth investigating. Another reason why I slipped down into a pit of despair was because I took bad advice. And quite frankly, my whitewashed upbringing didn't help, either. Sometimes stuff just pops out, unplanned, out of the blue. It's OK to hit the pause button for a while so that God can take care of an issue, instead of plastering on a smile, comforting yourself with a platitude like "Everything happens for a reason," beating yourself up for "having a pity party," and pretending that everything is OK, while people around you are wondering why you can't smell the stench in your infected wound.

"My friends and companions avoid me because of my wounds; my neighbors stay far away." (Psalm 38:11)

This paragraph has extremely gross stuff in it, so please feel free to skip it (especially if you have a weak stomach). One evening very recently, I came home to a nasty surprise. There was a hairball on the carpet, and apparently it had been sitting there since I had left that morning. On closer examination, I discovered that it wasn't a vomited hairball. It was a pooped hairball. (What the crap? It was crap!) Cleaning it up was a disgusting task. But I have two kitties that I love extremely much, and they get hairballs just because they're cats. Emitting hairballs is a natural, necessary part of feline life. I would rather my cats vomit or poop a hairball onto my carpet (or couch or wherever it lands) than for the hairball to stay inside them and grow to a deadly size. I heard a story once of a cat that died of a massive hairball. That's terrible. I want my cats to be alive and healthy.

God wants us to be emotionally healthy. Some wounds are more severe than others or just take longer to heal than others. I don't think there's any shame in letting Jesus heal me as thoroughly as He wants to.

A couple of years ago, long after my left thumb had healed and was back to normal, I went through a phase of cooking burritos. I would heat up flour tortillas at the stove, and once in a while I could feel something deep inside my left thumb. It was as if something underneath wanted to peel off or run away. Maybe more healing was happening underneath, or maybe it was just trying to get my attention: "TIRZAH, USE OVEN MITTS!" (Why do I suddenly want to draw a smiley face on my thumb?)

My thumb survived a traumatic incident, and I'm confident that God can help my heart survive all of its traumas, too. Hopefully while my heart gets all healed up, however long it takes -- unless it'll be a lifetime process, which I'd definitely be OK with -- I'll get a huge dose of wisdom along the way. (Don't worry -- I won't try to draw a smiley face on my heart.)

What happens when church becomes unsafe?

Are you disgusted? Good. You're in the perfect mood to read this really long post.

This disgusting photo is a picture of my shower after mildew grew in it for a few months. Unfortunately, I let it become so disgusting for several reasons. It's an isolated shower; I live by myself, so I'm the only one who uses it. I can't see a thing without contact lenses or glasses, so it took a while for me to realize how disgusting it had become. And for a long time, I was too busy with other things to actually make time to address the mildew problem.

Meanwhile, I discovered how ironic it was to get clean in an environment that was so dirty. I kind of became an expert at stepping around the mildewy spots. Dropping my soap was extra terrible because it would, of course, pick up mildew on contact, and the only readily available way to clean it off was to scrape off the mildew with my thumbnail. What a gross, terrible way to live! How clean was I really getting?

A few months ago, I briefly mentioned a disgusting topic in a blog post: spiritual abuse. I think I was fairly polite in that post. Warning: In this post, I'm not going to be very polite. My intention isn't to harm, shame, or condemn anyone. My intention is to help people. My intention is to shine a really bright light on a really heavy burden that some overly polite people have been carrying, and it's been crippling them like it crippled me. So, if you're one of those people, and especially if you've been afraid to speak up, please take courage. I would love to speak up for you, but I would love it even more if the information in this post were to become a launching pad for God to set you free from anything that you feel may have been imprisoning you, or for God to help you finally put your finger on something that's been bugging you for a while. Not all churches are unsafe, and not all unsafe environments are completely devoid of God moving in the lives of the people there. God can move anywhere He wants to move, and He can change anyone who will let Him. But He hates it when His people get hurt.

"Again Jesus said, 'Simon son of John, do you truly love Me?' He answered, 'Yes, Lord, You know that I love You.' Jesus said, 'Take care of My sheep.'" (This is part of the dialogue between Jesus and Peter in John 21:16.)

"Be shepherds of God's flock that is under your care, serving as overseers -- not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not greedy for money, but eager to serve; not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock." (This is Peter writing in 1 Peter 5:2-3.)

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to." (This is part of Jesus' chapter-long rebuking of the Pharisees in Matthew 23:13.)

"The word of the Lord came to me: 'Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy and say to them: "This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Woe to the shepherds of Israel who only take care of themselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock? You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock. You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally."'" (Ezekiel 34:1-4)

I first heard of the concept of spiritual abuse last summer, and I learned more about it when I took a class at church, where I learned about a book that's taught me a ton about it. The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse by David Johnson and Jeff Van Vonderen defines and explains spiritual abuse much better than I can, but I can tell you about it from my experience and understanding. I'm only about halfway finished reading the abovementioned book (it's a very heavy read), but it's been life-changing and extremely helpful so far. There are other books and resources out there on spiritual abuse, but this is the one with which I'm becoming familiar.

In a nutshell, spiritual abuse (also called spiritual rape) is, of course, abusing a person spiritually. It's someone in spiritual authority taking advantage of a person and manipulating them into furthering a spiritual agenda. It's neglecting to help someone who seeks out spiritual help. It's shaming someone while they are seeking out spiritual help. It's making someone feel as if they're sinning, when they're really not. It's twisting Scripture to one's own advantage, and then usually making someone feel like they're not as spiritual as you are, and running over them. It's being a legalistic Pharisee. It's someone in spiritual authority being so insecure that they try to control people spiritually and basically be God.

I was spiritually abused for years. I was in a spiritually abusive environment for so long that I ended up transferring to another spiritually abusive environment when I'd move to another church. Certainly not all of the churches I've ever attended were spiritually abusive, and that's totally God's mercy. I've been on a journey of discovering how abused I was. And I'm learning that abused people often become abusers, partially because it's what they've known.

I used to spiritually abuse people. I used to be a Pharisee. Some of those Bible verses that I quoted above haunt me. In college especially, I put myself on a pedestal, and I hurt people. Some of these people won't talk to me anymore, and I don't blame them. I worshiped evangelism and missions. It was when I was in a missionary school that I tried to commit suicide. Remember that photo of my disgusting shower? The previously mentioned book observes that one characteristic of spiritually abused people is a lack of life skills. Yes, I'm 35 years old, and I'm still learning how to clean house.

Getting free from spiritual abuse has become a very big deal to me. I'm finally understanding why some of my friends mistreated me and why other friends stopped following God after leaving our church environment. (While I was severely depressed, I also was considering not being a Christian anymore.) From my perspective, many of my past friends and I were in an environment where the entire church was on a track. The track wasn't pointing us to Jesus and showing us how to become the people that God designed us to be; it was insisting that we be as spiritual as possible and follow as many rules as possible so that we could feed into the church projects. If that sounds vague, it's because I don't want to mention any names on this public forum. But I would like to share with you some examples of abusive statements that I've heard throughout the years from preachers, church leaders, etc. Some of the bolded statements below are exact quotes, and some are paraphrases. I will follow each past statement with my present-day response.

God would never tell you to watch a movie.
Really? There are lots of movies that share the gospel. Would you object to Him telling me to watch those movies? Also, there are lots of regular, everyday, healthy things that I enjoy in my life that aren't explicitly, specifically mentioned by name in the Bible. Are you also suggesting that God would never tell me to put artificial lenses in my eyes (contacts), stand under a manmade waterfall (take a shower), operate a two-ton machine (car), or play a six-stringed instrument (guitar)? And speaking of entertainment...

Let your entertainment dovetail into evangelism or edification.
Yes, there are some overtly terrible forms of entertainment out there such as pornography, soap operas, and horror movies. That's honestly another topic of discussion altogether, because there are definitely some things in general that should be avoided. But you're saying that I can only participate in entertainment if I'm using it to share my faith with somebody or edify (build up or encourage) myself? You're saying that I'm not allowed to enjoy a healthy, rated-G work of art just for the sake of unraveling my brain -- even on my Sabbath, when I'm supposed to be resting? You're saying that all of my spare time needs to be spent on sharing the gospel? You're saying that all I'm good for is God "using" me to win converts? Yes, it is true that I need to share my faith. Jesus commanded me to do so. But wouldn't you say that I need to follow His way of doing it -- in the context of me being myself, the way He designed and redeemed me to be -- instead of your way? For instance...

If you're a Christian, you should want to be a missionary unless God calls you to do something else.
I'm sorry, but my Bible doesn't have that listed as the Eleventh Commandment. I'm curious if you've ever rebuked your financial supporters for not quitting their jobs to become missionaries. You're saying that the vast majority of Christians should become missionaries while only a teeny-tiny group of non-missionary people write monthly checks for your financial support? How much worse could this missionary thing sound?

If you want to be a missionary, you should practice here in the United States by winning at least one person to the Lord every six months.
Oh. Yeah, this is worse. You're saying I should completely forget the fact that we get saved by grace as an act of our FREE WILL of accepting Jesus as our Savior? Yeah, that's right. You can't force people to accept Christ. You can't guarantee that at least one person every six months will choose to accept Christ as an act of their FREE WILL. You can share truth with people, you can share the gospel with people, and you can pray for them (and God wants us to do these things!), but you can't make up their minds for them. In my past as a spiritual abuser/Pharisee, I would manipulate people into praying salvation prayers. This is heartbreaking. I wish I could track down these people and apologize to them.

If all it took for somebody to get saved was pray a prayer, I'd stand on the corner of the busiest intersection in town with a gun and make people pray the prayer.
Hmm. This statement doesn't make me feel any better. I'll try sarcasm: Yeah, that'll show people that you love them -- pointing a gun at them to scare them into heaven.

God is more interested in your character than your comfort.
I really wish you had qualified this statement for me. Yes, it's absolutely true that God allows trials to come into our lives so that He can build character in us and make us more like Jesus. But He's also the God of all comfort. If you're hurting, He wants to comfort you. He created you to be a person who has feelings, opinions, and a brain. If you're a healthy person who has healthy boundaries, you're not afraid of saying something like, "That makes me uncomfortable." Do you know who truly isn't interested in your comfort? Abusers. That reminds me...

[Me]  So-and-so has been violating me in the church youth room. Help.
[Pastor's wife] Don't tell the pastor. He has a big mouth.
Have you ever read that verse in the Bible where Jesus said that if you make a little one stumble, it would be better for you if a millstone were tied around your neck and you were cast into the midst of the sea (Luke 17:2)? Perhaps I'm quoting it out of context, or perhaps it totally applies here. I'll let you decide. Also, this particular example may actually be emotional abuse (rather than spiritual abuse), but I think different types of abuses morph together sometimes into one disgusting mildew spot.

[Shouted to a college student during a disagreement about spiritual matters] Children, obey your parents!
Perhaps you don't realize that the "child" in question is at least 18 years old and has a mind of her own. Barking at her to get her to agree with you probably won't endear her to you. Also, if you're going to partially quote Ephesians 6:1, to be fair, perhaps you should also invite the "child" to partially quote verse 4: Do not exasperate your children!

Yeah, we knew that the person who was discipling you had problems with codependence. But instead of warning you about it, we let this person keep discipling you. Now we get to visit you in the psychiatric hospital.
Have I ever told you that I have issues with pastoral neglect? If you're a church leader whose job it is to look after people, please remember that I'm a sheep who, at the end of the day, belongs to Jesus the Great Shepherd. I know that I'm more important to Him than I am to you (and I always will be), but could you please at least try a teeny-tiny bit to have my back?

So, I hope you get the idea that spiritual abuse, whether it happens on purpose or accidentally, is an extremely terrible thing. Jesus wants His people to be cared for, not harmed. But there's good news. Mildewy showers can become clean. Jesus is the Healer who can set free anyone who will let Him.

Healing from spiritual abuse/Phariseeism/legalism/holier-than-thou-religiosity can take a while. Squeezing out the leaven of the Pharisees can be a very long, grueling, task. But it's worth it. I'm worth it. You're worth it. People are worth it.

If you're in the ministry or are simply involved in a church, I would like to offer you some red flags that were in my own life and/or that I've observed from the lives of other people. Here are some indications that you could become spiritually abusive if you don't let God heal your heart.

1) Behind their backs, you make fun of the people you oversee. I don't think mocking people is what Jesus had in mind when He commanded me to love people. I'm not perfect. What right do I have to pick on somebody? I know I don't appreciate it when people do that to me.

2) You quote preachers' sermons more than you do the Bible. It certainly isn't wrong to quote other people's sermons. But I don't remember Jesus saying that He wanted me to simply regurgitate other people's insights or opinions. He wants me to have a relationship with Him and receive revelation directly from God. He wants me to be salt and light. He wants me to live a life that other people can point to and say, "She knows God, and it shows."

3) You believe that God wants you to clone yourself. I know we're supposed to make disciples and spiritually reproduce ourselves, but I don't think there's a big photocopy machine in heaven. God doesn't want robots. He wants people who have personalities, passions, and interests, and I believe that He wants Jesus to be at the center of my personality, passions, interests, and every nook and cranny of my life.

4) When something in a church setting bothers you, you stuff it down and pretend that it doesn't bother you. I'm not saying that it's OK for me to scream my displeasure at the top of my lungs during a church service. Church meetings are supposed to happen in an orderly fashion. I'm saying that if I don't acknowledge my feelings, especially when something's wrong, there's a strong chance that I won't let other people acknowledge their own feelings when they notice that something's wrong. Church is supposed to be a safe place. God gave us feelings, emotions, and instincts to warn us of a potentially unsafe presence.

By "church," I definitely mean the people that are in the body of Christ, and I also mean actual buildings where the body of Christ gathers. I'm not saying that the Holy Spirit won't sometimes prompt His people to do dangerous things like preach the gospel in a foreign country where Christianity is illegal. I'm saying that Jesus is a Shepherd Who's serious about making sure that His sheep are in good, safe hands.

Below is a photo of my shower after one and a half rounds of Tilex and a new liner. It isn't perfectly shiny, and I still need to do more cleaning and scrubbing. But it's much better and less gross. I think I'm really getting clean now! Is there mildew in your shower? Please put on a good pair of glasses and check it out. Let Jesus clean the disgustingness from your shower, like He's done for me and is still doing for me. There's no shame in letting Him roll up His sleeves and scrub the tiles to a new, clean shine.

 

What the bleep? You gotta be bleepin' kidding me.

One winter morning somewhat recently, I awoke shortly after my extremely adorable, extremely beloved little cat Choochie scratched my nose with her extremely sharp claw. You can't see it very well in the photo above (if you can see it at all), but it left a small scab on the left side of my nose. It healed quickly, and it was kind of hidden in my sea of freckles, anyway, but it was a painful way to start the day. I don't think Choochie was trying to hurt me. She was just trying to snuggle under the covers with me because she was cold and because snuggling and napping together is what cats do. (Actually, there are a lot of strange things that cats do. While I was typing those past two sentences, Choochie was chewing on the collar of my T-shirt. I'm convinced that she has a pica, and she is a neverending source of natural, non-electronic entertainment.)

I've drawn a boundary with Choochie. As much as I would love for her to snuggle with me on my pillow at night, I can't let her do it anymore because her whiskers poke my face and keep me awake. And now she accidentally scratches me. But here's another crazy fact: When I took her in 11 and a half years ago, I basically rescued her from getting declawed because her previous owners couldn't afford the procedure. I chose to let her keep her claws. I want her and my other cat Macho to keep their claws because, in my opinionated opinion, a cat without claws just ain't a cat. (Declawed cats, from my experience, are exponentially meaner than clawed cats. Declawed cats bite, possibly to compensate for their lack of claws.) I have to chase my cats around the apartment about once a month to trim their nails, and I occasionally get scratched, but they get to keep their claws. And I have to keep an eye on their nails because if they get too long, they could get caught on stuff, and my babies could get hurt. (When Choochie was a kitten, her little thumbnail got caught on the metallic part of her collar once.) So, nail maintenance can get complicated, but in my opinionated opinion, it's worth it.

Here's another thing about being a cat in my household. My cats are my furry family. My cats and I are a package deal. I want my cats to be as close to me as possible while observing the boundaries that I set for them. (Why do I feel like submitting an idea to Cloud and Townsend for a Boundaries With Cats book? On second thought, it would be a very short book. Insert rimshot here.) I want them to be comfortable enough around me to be the cats they were created to be. I just don't like my face to get scratched. (And I haven't even mentioned my furniture, but that's replaceable.)

"Trust in Him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to Him, for God is our refuge." (Psalm 62:8)

"Before a word is on my tongue You know it completely, O Lord." (Psalm 139:4)

I think I've quoted Psalm 62:8 before on this blog. Teaching me how to pour out my heart to Him was a major way that God began to set me free from depression about 11 years ago. In many ways, I was like a clogged drain emotionally. I needed to learn how to keep the flow going by puking out my emotions to Him, receiving His love, and repeating the process continually. Recently, He took me through another season of learning how to do so at a deeper, scarier level.

Perhaps anyone who follows me on Twitter remembers me mentioning a few months ago that I was learning how to cuss in God's presence. Because I was extremely angry at God while I was depressed all those years ago, the concept of being angry at God pretty much scares the crap out of me. But recently while I was going through a deeply emotional, scary season, after I did some majorly crazy things that God had told me to do, He basically encouraged me to be angry at Him, because that's how I was feeling, and He wanted me to just let it out. Jesus showed me that He died for me so that I could have that honest of a relationship with Father God.

I would like to balance what I said in the previous paragraph. I love God. I fear God. I don't want to disrespect God. I don't want to recommend anyone disrespecting God or hating Him or spitting in His face like I did in my suicidal past. But what He taught me personally just a few months ago was that there was some stuff inside me that He needed to remove, and His presence was the safest place for Him to do so.

So, in the refuge of His presence (like Psalm 62:8 mentions), in an environment that He controlled, where He called the shots and kept me safe, He squeezed some stuff out of me, and much of it happened through me cussing. Instead of whitewashing over my feelings, I needed to be exasperated about some bad stuff that had happened to me in my past. God needed to show me His perspective on the bad stuff and correct what I had believed about it. This all happened during a brief season. (He doesn't allow me to cuss in His presence anymore.) He showed me that I was like a tea bag that needed to steep. I was just obeying what He told me to do. From what I can tell, the anger and bitterness are gone, I'm much more honest with Him than I used to be, and He and I bonded through that series of experiences. It was kind of weird (I don't think they offer a How To Cuss With God class at church), but that's how God restored part of my soul. Actually, I've noticed that He tends to do a lot of cathartic exercises with people like me who were hurt in the past by being stifled emotionally.

When Jesus redeemed me, He didn't declaw me emotionally. He let me keep my emotions and my free will, and He didn't turn me into a robot. He doesn't want me to hurt Him, but He wants me to express myself to Him honestly. He already knows how I feel, anyway. Perhaps He wants me to discover how I honestly feel. In this post, I specifically talked about anger, but I really think God wants us to pour out all of the emotions in our hearts -- sadness, happiness, fear, contentment, confusion, relief -- not just anger.

Jesus is my Lord, but He's also my Best Friend. Intimate friends are extremely honest with each other. They aren't rude to each other, but there are times when the polite masks just come off and they're more real with each other than ever.

A mask -- why the bleep didn't I think of that bleepin' sooner?!? What a good idea for protecting my face from untrimmed claws! I'm kidding. My kitties delight my heart, no matter how sharp their claws get. As I type this, Choochie has nestled into a purring ball of feline snugglylove on my lap. Wait. No, she just jumped off. Oh, well. She's welcome back anytime.

You got a problem with my gentle and quiet spirit?

[Rather than cuing the theme music, single chick sits at her coffee table and eats her lunch. As she bites down on her pepperoni pizza and its greasy cheese oozes at the corners of her mouth, she is very content to listen to the ticking clock on the wall instead of any kind of music. Macho, her large orange cat, reclines in her lap and stares intensely up at his mama while subtly disguising his pizza-stealing agenda with a desire to snuggle. Single chick finally remembers that she's supposed to be hosting an episode for her readers. Still chewing, she begins to speak.]

Oh. What's up, y'all? This is another episode of Here's What It's Like To Be Single Theater. [She wipes the corners of her mouth with a napkin. Then she hesitates.] I'm sorry. I'm distracted by the orangeness of this grease on a white napkin. It kinda matches my cat. Ooo. [She stares at her napkin in silence for a moment. Macho meows, waking her up to reality.] Hi, kitten.

So, usually on Here's What It's Like To Be Single Theater, I conduct diversity training about singlehood. If you'd like to catch up on past episodes, please check out previous blog entries from 4/23/11 and 11/29/11. Today, instead of focusing on singlehood, I'd like to focus on womanhood. There seem to have been some stereotypes about this particular topic throughout the centuries. Yes, that was an intentional understatement. I struggled a bit to come up with an original title for this blog post without ripping off anyone else's ideas, i.e., parodying Billy Joel's "She's Always a Woman," which honestly seems a bit insulting to me as a female despite its intoxicating melody, or that "I am woman, hear me roar" song which I have yet to actually hear but have heard parodied ad nauseum and actually parodied myself once. Hmm. I wonder if I should just pull it up on YouTube and... I'm sorry. I distracted myself again with my stream of consciousness.

"Do not let your adornment be merely outward -- arranging the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel -- rather let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God." (1 Peter 3:3-4, NKJV)

I had a friend once who was disturbed by the above Scripture reference. She had a disposition that was neither gentle nor quiet. I basically told her that it says "gentle and quiet spirit, not gentle and quiet personality." We're created in God's image, right? He gives us different personalities. Some of us women have very driven and strong personalities, while other women have very gentle and quiet personalities, while the rest of us women have a random mixture of something in between all that.

Last month, I attended women's events at two completely different church venues two nights in a row. The first event was a good night overall, but as I walked out of the building amidst a crowd of cackling, I didn't really feel like I fit in. The second night started out with a fashion show and a shocking declaration that the eyebrows are the most important part of a woman's face, and it also was a good night overall, but I think it helped to solidify the feelings that I'm about to express in this post...

Women are a diverse bunch of people! We aren't all the same! Not all of us are into beauty tips and cooking and collecting pink outfits! In fact, some of us ferociously run away from all of that! Some of us are nerdy and quite proud of it! Some of us hate to wear makeup and are allergic to perfume! Some of us are extremely artsy-fartsy, to the point of distracting ourselves while we're blogging!

I can't speak for everybody, but for me, the more God frees up my soul, the more secure I become in my womanhood. Heck yes, I want to look good. But my style probably won't be found on any runway. My style is more the punk-wannabe look that I sported back in the 90s, around the time when I stopped wearing makeup. I have to trim my nails short so that they don't interfere with playing my guitar. (I used to buff my nails nice and shiny, but I stopped that after I started to play the guitar so much that the friction started buffing/ripping off half of one of my nails.) My schedule has become so busy that "cooking" has turned into heating up TV dinners and eating sandwiches, and I've become best buddies with my dishwasher. I only shop for clothes when I wear out my old ones. And I'm OK with that.

Not all women are clueless about "manly" things like sports, hunting, or cars. And not all men are clueless about "womanly" things like fashion, housekeeping, or openly expressing emotions. Actually, I really wish that someone had taught me much earlier in life that that last one is completely OK and even normal for women (and men) to do. When something hurts or just hits you strongly, it's OK to cry! There are a lot of things that I really wish I had known earlier about being a woman, and I wish I had been encouraged to explore the reasons why I was drawn to certain things instead of stifling them or pretending that they weren't there. Perhaps the good things I was drawn to could have blossomed sooner, and perhaps the bad things I was drawn to could have been cut off sooner.

For example, would you like to see some of the toys that I used to play with when I was a little girl? (I'm planning to sell them on eBay soon.)

Aw, yeah, I liked action figures. I owned dolls, too, but what made the action figures more fun than the dolls was their intricate details. Check out the muscles on those plastic little bods! I like details. Artsy-fartsy people like details. We drown in details. Also, the first time I discovered what a "tomboy" was, I was discouraged from calling myself one. I wonder if perhaps I'd been allowed to label myself as such earlier in life, I could have dealt with some extremely important gender issues earlier in life.

Earlier in this post, I mentioned that being a woman means having a gentle and quiet spirit. What are some other things that the Bible says about what it really means to be a woman?

"The heart of her husband safely trusts her." (Proverbs 31:11a, NKJV)

"She is like the merchant ships, bringing her food from afar. She gets up while it is still dark; she provides food for her family and portions for her servant girls... She sets about her work vigorously; her arms are strong for the tasks... She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come. She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue. She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness... Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised." (Proverbs 31:14-15, 17, 25-27, 30 NIV)

The other day, I walked into a grocery store to do my regular mundane grocery shopping, and I noticed that I was very excited about it. God showed me that I'm a woman; therefore, I like to shop. Yes, even doing something as non-thrilling as walking into a grocery-store deli and picking out a salad and a bottle of juice is exciting for me in a relaxing, yay-I-get-to-choose-something-from-zillions-of-detailed-options kind of way.

Technically, the verses in Proverbs 31 are talking about being a wife. However, since there's no guarantee that I'm ever going to become anyone's wife, I don't think that I'm exempt from taking these verses seriously. I want to be the kind of woman that God can trust. I want to fear Him. I want to walk and talk wisdom. I was not designed to sit around and do nothing and gossip. I was designed to be diligent. I was designed to "hunt" for things like bargains and time-savers, and then bring them home to hungry people and excitedly declare, "Look what I found!" No, there isn't anything wrong with being a woman who's a girly-girl who likes to wear perfume and paint her nails and match her makeup with her outfit. But if all that becomes her sole focus, perhaps she's missed the entire point of being a woman.

Wait. What was I saying? I'm sorry. I distracted myself again. I think maybe I should stop typing and finish writing my new song.

Thanks again, y'all, for joining me here on Here's What It's Like To Be Single Theater. Hmm. I wonder if I should change the show's title to Here's What It's Like To Learn How to Be Yourself Theater. [Lost in her artsy-fartsy thoughts, single chick belches aloud. Purring aloud on her lap, Macho sniffs the aroma of his mama's lunch. He has forgotten about his pizza-stealing agenda and is completely lost in the snuggliness of his mama's love.] Stay tuned to Windowbrawl, where I hope to blog soon about Choochie.