Being ourselves

Warning: I'm going to write about my aging cat in this post, so things might get a little gross. And I'm going to talk about my relationship with God, so I might use some PG-13 language. Just a heads-up.

When I was a little girl, maybe about 5 years old, I was out shopping with my family. Rather, Dad was inside the store shopping, while Mom and sister and I were hanging out in the car. (We used to do that a lot, and I'm not sure why, but whatevs.) We had the windows open, and I saw a woman, maybe in her 50s or 60s, walking across the parking lot. She was wearing tennis shoes, and for some reason this struck me as odd because I had never seen that before. In fact, I blurted out loudly, "An old lady with tennis shoes??" She heard me, because she suddenly turned her head toward our car. She kept walking and didn't approach us, but I probably hurt her feelings. And I definitely embarrassed Mom.

Yes, even as a child, I used to freely speak my mind. Are you surprised?

Years later, of course I understand that there's nothing wrong with being "an old lady with tennis shoes," especially since now I'M the old lady with tennis shoes. And I take selfies everywhere, even in the church restroom. 'Cause that's how I roll.

I'll be 40 in a couple of months, and although I really don't consider 40 to be "old," I guess comparatively speaking, it kind of is. For example, if a college-age male flirts with me, I ain't gonna flirt back. Are you kidding? I'm old enough to be your mom, son.

I'm not sure if I've ever had an official mid-life crisis (although I've had plenty of other kinds of crises), but I've had plenty of time to think about my life and figure some stuff out. I'm definitely an adult, but in some ways I still live like a college student (e.g., I've lived in this apartment for three years but have never, ever used my stove/oven, and I don't ever intend to). I enjoy the independence of living alone and doing whatever the heck I want (e.g., I stopped by the McDonald's drive-thru and bought an ice cream cone on the way to mail my tax return today).

My independence is God's gift to me. Maybe that's one thing that sets me apart from other women my age. I'm definitely not the only 39-year-old independent woman in the world. I'm definitely not the only "old lady" who walks around in tennis shoes.

But I am me.

I have to be myself. I think God would be heartbroken if I weren't myself.

 

In my previous post, I mentioned that my cat Macho recently had surgery to remove his little thing. (Otherwise, he wouldn't be able to pee on his own.) His recovery has been interesting, to say the least. See his adorable little butt that's groomed/shaved metrosexual style?

Seriously, oh my gosh, he is such a drama queen. I never have to guess how he's doing, because he'll come find me and tell me. Or if I wait long enough, he'll show me. For example, I knew it was time to take him back to the vet yesterday when I caught him peeing blood in my bathtub. (He was diagnosed with a urinary tract infection, and I was warned beforehand that he could get this type of infection with his type of surgery.)

But even when everything's going well and he isn't having any health crises, he is so clingy. He follows me around everywhere. Sometimes when I come home, he's waiting for me by the front door like a little dog. He meows at me to feed him at 3:30 in the morning. He meows at me to feed him anytime I mention anything food-related. He tries to sneak inside the refrigerator nearly every time I open it.

He wants to snuggle with me on the couch. He wants to snuggle with me on my lap. He wants to snuggle with me while I'm typing on my computer. He wants to snuggle close by anytime I play my piano keyboard.

I have to keep a close watch on him. Sometimes he'll bully my other cat Choochie. (Which is probably why she swats her claws at his face every time he struts by her food bowl.) If he does #2 in the litterbox, I have to wipe his little metrosexual butt immediately or I might find a surprise somewhere in my apartment later. If he does #1, lately he's been missing the litterbox, and I've had to clean up after him. If he vomits, I have to clean it up right away or he'll eat it (seriously, he's like a dog). If he has difficulty with any of the above, I won't really have a moment's rest.

Right after he had his surgery, he had trouble learning how to control his newer, freer flow, so he ended up giving himself some kind of infection (possibly a fungal one; it's still being tested) on his belly. He was prescribed two different medicines to treat it, so now I have to apply these topical drugs on him every few hours. And I've been washing blankets and pillowcases and keeping Macho away from my bed and my table where I eat. Because, like a paranoid little mama, I don't want Choochie or myself to catch what he has.

And yet, I have no idea why he keeps getting sick, because he's as healthy as a horse. I recently discovered that I can't eat chicken anymore because Macho will climb on me and claw at me unless I feed him from my plate. Sometimes I give in to his desires just so that he will give me a moment's peace.

The truth is, Macho is completely helpless without me. Yes, my apartment was SO QUIET while he was away at the animal hospital, but I would rather have him here with me than not at all. He's a hot mess, but he's my little hot mess.

And I wouldn't want it any other way.

Macho has to be himself. Anytime he's not himself, I know that something is horribly wrong.

"So the King will greatly desire your beauty; because He is your Lord, worship Him." (Psalm 45:11)

"Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!" (Psalm 46:10)

Macho reminds me so much of myself. I'm just as overly dramatic, emotionally helpless, and clingy as he is (if not more so), and maybe there have been times in my life when God just gave in to what I was asking Him for because I was desperate and wouldn't leave Him alone. (Kind of like that neighbor or that judge in those parables where Jesus describes prayer.)

But just as quirky as I am, or just as quirky as my cat is, I think we both learned from the Master. I mean this respectfully, but God can be kind of crazy, too. See that photo a couple of paragraphs up? That's a once-in-a-lifetime selfie of me holding Macho (while he was wearing his little lampshade) and trying to make some eye contact with him. I was trying to meet him where he was.

God does the same thing with us, of course. He stoops down and tries to connect with us exactly where we are. Yes, of course the only way to access God the Father is through Jesus, but the fact is that He wanted so much to be near us that He actually BECAME one of us. And after we accept Him, He puts His Holy Spirit inside us -- He actually LIVES INSIDE US.

I don't know of any other god who does that. My God seriously wants us. He's for real. And He interacts with us in a way that I don't think any other god would reduce himself or herself to do.

For example, I don't remember the exact words of our conversation, but I recently was talking to my God about how tough I've become. I was like, "I'm a badass." And, because He's always going to be better than everybody else, He was like, "I'm the Baddest Ass of them all."

Yes, Father. With all due respect, and definitely in the spirit of what You were saying, You are absolutely correct. You are always going to be absolutely correct.

'Cause that's how You roll.

People may not always know how to break through all my quirks, temperament, or personality, and simply connect with me. But God always knows how.

I love my church. It's so huge that it meets on several different campuses at the same time. Sometimes I'll be going through something hard, and at church God will speak something very specific that I need to hear. On a couple of occasions, during a season when I was experiencing very deep grief, people walked up to me and said, "I feel like God told me to give you a hug." At the campus closer to my home, on a day when I happened to be thinking about my finances, a person sitting behind me told me that they felt like they needed to give me $100. Yesterday when I was feeling a little bit self-conscious about my looks, a perfect stranger walked up to me after the worship music and said, "I felt like the Lord said that you're beautiful and your worship is beautiful."

Wow. And all I did was show up. (See? You should go to church, if you don't already.)

Ideally, church is a place where you can show up and be yourself, and God can show up and be Himself.

At home, in my struggle to be OK with having a non-religious "quiet time," where I'm still on Psalm 46, God has boiled down our short, quiet times together: "I just want to cuddle with you."

That's my Father. That's how He rolls. And I wouldn't want it any other way.

God has to be Himself, and I have to let Him. I honestly don't know how I would exist otherwise.

When healing hurts

Lately, I've been fascinated with the concept of strength vs. weakness. In my previous post, I talked about being strong during a trial. Today, I'm going to talk more about being weak. Honestly, I'm not really going to talk about the following verse...

"And He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me." (2 Corinthians 12:9)

...because I haven't really gotten the hang of it yet. So, I think I should just let my cat do the "talking." I heard a preacher say once that physical healing shouldn't be compared to emotional healing, but I say those processes can be pretty darn similar.

Reader, beware: I'm about to get kind of personal.

Last weekend, Macho had rather drastic surgery. After several days at the animal hospital and a couple of not-so-successful treatments, it got to the point where he couldn't urinate without a catheter. So, the only option was to surgically remove Macho's penis. "He will pee like a girl," the vet explained. Um, I don't know if your pet has ever had a major part of his or her anatomy removed, but at first I didn't really know whether to laugh or cry. It's a good thing I call my cat Macho, because that might be the only manly thing he has left. Stifled snicker.

But the healing process has been no laughing matter. The surgery was successful in that Macho can urinate on his own now. But since his little opening is larger, and since the urine has a shorter distance to travel, he has had to make some major adjustments.

Shucks -- we all have had to make some adjustments. My apartment has turned into a feline nursing home. Macho has been on two different antibiotics, and he bit me a couple of times while I administered his medicine. (You're welcome, cat.) Today, I followed both my babies around so that I could clean up pee, poop, hairballs, etc. Ever since I brought Macho home a few days ago, he has wet his bed, he has peed on the floor, and he has had to use a special type of litter in the litterbox. Choochie, of course, has had to use the special litter, too, and I'm very proud of her for adjusting (instead of protesting by making a mess on purpose).

A couple of summers ago, Macho had surgery to remove a couple of stones, and I blogged about how he had to make some adjustments to his life with the soft little satellite dish on his head.

However, this time around, the vet felt it necessary to upgrade Macho's post-operation gear to a hard lampshade (aka cone of shame). I recently noticed some abnormal-looking inflammation in his stitched-up area, and I emailed a photo of it to the vet, who said it didn't look infected but that Macho had probably been licking at it. Sure enough, I caught him in the act today, so I tightened up his little lampshade, and I've been keeping a closer eye on him.

Gosh. Even with that drastic of a boundary that was set so that his wound would heal properly, Macho still found a way to mess with his incision. But I do understand his deep desire for normalcy. His little lampshade kind of gets in the way of everything.

 

For example, it makes it impossible for him to crawl under the bed to take his morning naps.

 

Mealtimes have been difficult because his little lampshade won't let his head reach the bottom of his bowl. So, I put a saucer on top of his bowl so that his mouth could reach his food. That solution works well when he actually has an appetite (which shrunk for a little while, probably because of the medicine I've been forcing into his adorable little fanged mouth).

Today, I realized that exactly 15 years ago this week, I was nursing another kitty back to health: Choochie. I've mentioned here before that after she got spayed, she gave herself an infection from scrape-licking her stitched-up area. (I have no idea why her quack-shack discount-surgery clinic didn't give her any kind of protective collar to take home, and I'm kind of frustrated at myself now for being such a naive cat lady back then. But God's mercy and hand definitely kept her alive and helped her heal.)

Macho's instincts are powerful enough to cause him a great deal of harm. Yes, of course he reminds me of myself.

"Thus my heart was grieved, and I was vexed in my mind. I was so foolish and ignorant; I was like a beast before You. Nevertheless I am continually with You; You hold me by my right hand. You will guide me with Your counsel, and afterward receive me to glory." (Psalm 73:21-24)

I've never had anything drastic surgically removed (except wisdom teeth), but I've had all kinds of precious things cut out of my life: dreams, people, dignity, parts of my heart, etc. God has pruned me John-15 style, and He is continuing to do so. He's made all kinds of adjustments in my life to set me up for healing, restoration, and regrowth. It's been awesome, but it's also been gruesome.

I ain't gonna lie. I'm still bitter in some pretty big areas. Yesterday, I asked God to lance my bitterness like a boil. Later on while my heart was fuming, I was like, "Where the heck are all these thoughts coming from??" And God was like, "Well, you asked Me to lance it, so I lanced it." Oh. That would explain the icky thought-oozing.

One issue that has been in my face lately has been rejection -- like, the deep, intimate kind. For example, today is Valentine's Day. If you've read my blog for the past several years, you know how I feel about shmalentine's day. I think it's the worst holiday ever. Celebrating love? OK, but why only one day a year? If the people in my life don't already show me or tell me that they love me on a consistent basis (e.g., more than once a year), they can take a hike.

Come on. It's a holiday for couples (as if they don't already celebrate each other on their anniversaries). Who's that little cherub symbol with the bow and arrow? Cupid, aka Eros, aka the mythological character from whose name we derive the word "erotic." Shmalentine's fray is for couples. That's why we non-attached single people try to make peace with it and celebrate it as best we can. For me, that means not celebrating it at all. (As you can see from my icky thought-oozing, it's probably better that way.)

I am never going to get married. And I'm OK with that. I've accepted that.

Frankly, I don't want to get married anymore. The only thing I would want a husband for at this point in my life is sex. (And I don't even want that most of the time anymore.) I'm not called to be single. But I've accepted the fact that marriage isn't something God has in store for me anymore, and I'm OK with it.

But it's a recent realization, a recent pruning that's still in the process of healing. Metaphorically speaking, I'm still wearing my cone of shame so that I won't cause myself harm from obsessing over my still-healing wound. Most of the time, the scab is OK, the stitched-up area is clean, and I am at peace.

Then suddenly, something or someone will come along and start picking at my stitched-up area, and the wound will flare up all over again. Maybe someone who barely knows me will try to set me up on a blind date. Or maybe those feelings I still have for a certain guy will bounce around inside me and then fizzle away when Mr. Clueless won't even give me the time of day. Or maybe a national holiday will come along every 14th of February that will make every cashier in America ask you if you have any big plans for Valentine's Day. Yes. I plan on avoiding eye contact with chatty cashiers.

I am OK with my involuntary singlehood. However, I am not OK with being treated like an unused pair of ovaries. I don't think I've ever been OK with that.

I think whenever that gets flung in my face, I'm suddenly back in the fifth grade being humiliated in front of my entire class when a certain boy announced to everybody that he didn't like me the way I liked him. I'm suddenly reading an email from a guy who emotionally used me for 14 years, only for him to admit that he only thought of me as a sister. I'm suddenly dealing with family friends who thought my birth sister was older than me because she was already married. I'm suddenly back at my grandparents' house where my grandfather is having a warm, lengthy conversation with my sister, but he only talks to me for like 30 seconds and asks coldly, "Are you happy?" I'm suddenly at the park when I'm 4 or 5 years old, and my uncle is playing ball with me, and then he throws it to a perfect-stranger child instead, and I retreat to a nearby park bench and sulk because I'm feeling something that I don't know how to verbalize yet.

It's rejection. It's abandonment. It's shame. It's betrayal.

God saw all of it. He's been going to a lot of trouble to fix it. And He and I have been trying to work together to keep my stitched-up area clean.

If my heart/brain goes to a certain place and I start dreaming again about getting married, God is like, "You don't need to go there." If I ask Him if I'm ever going to get married someday, God is like, "Why do you need a husband? You have Me." OK, then. I'm good to go. I just need to wait for the healing process to run its course, because I don't want to mess any of it up.

Sometimes when I'm still enough, I can put together the pieces of what I've heard God say, and they all make sense: He's told me that my independence is His gift to me... He's told me that He wants me to channel my loneliness into songwriting... He's told me that He wants me to be strong...

Which is probably why lately I've just wanted to crawl into a cave, write songs, and dance with gypsies. Hey, an independent woman can do that, right?

Seriously, though, I want to be strong enough for other people. I want people to lean on me and receive wisdom, dignity, and courage from me -- like the big sister that I am -- without me feeding them the poison of my bitterness. I want people to look at me and think, "If she can make it, I can, too. Whatever helped her through her stuff -- I want that, too."

Well, I hope it's no secret that that "Whatever" is actually a "Whoever." It's God.

 

Today, I gave Macho a heart-to-heart and explained why he's had to wear his little lampshade and why it's important that he doesn't scrape-lick his adorable little stitched-up area. (Yeah, I know he's a cat, and he might not have understood a word I said, but I talked to him, anyway.) I think one nice side effect of the lampshade is that it forces Macho to give me his undivided attention. And it forces him to trust me to take care of the areas that he can't see.

It's the same way with me and my metaphorical lampshade, of course. Lately while I've been working through a deep emotional issue, God has let me just vent a lot of stuff to Him. And He's said, "You're always going to be Mine. That's all you need to know."

Indeed.

Dancing with the fire

Right after I got out of the psych hospital about 15 years ago, I drew a lot for my own therapy. I kept a lot of my drawings (most of which were integrated with a journal that I kept back then), and I still have a couple of them hung on my wall. I'm no Michelangelo, but my therapeutic creations have a lot of sentimental value to me.

The disco theme for a song at my church this past weekend, as well as some stuff that I've been thinking about lately, reminded me of this picture that I drew circa 2001. It's a cartoon of me standing in the middle of a disco-type arena facing an Exodus-type cloud pillar and fire pillars. God is speaking to me in the cloud. I am wearing a purple dress -- the purple symbolizes that I am royalty, and the dress symbolizes that I am a chick. I'm holding my hands behind my back, I'm totally digging God, and I'm completely secure.

Security was a huge deal to me back then -- as it is for everybody, all the time, especially if you're a woman -- but it was an even bigger deal to me then because I was pretty much fighting for my peace every day. Depression was like that for me. Maybe you don't know what it's like to be choked to death by an invisible monster that is stronger than you, that has grabbed hold of you and has refused to let you go, that is always trying to drag you down into a dark pit. That was my life back then. Rather, my life had been stolen from me, and even though I was very weak, I was using every ounce of strength I had to get my life back.

Although I know now that I wasn't recovering from depression in a spiritually healthy environment, one place where I wasn't stifled was my drawings. God let me use them as a vehicle to pour out my heart to Him. He let me get angry there. He let me work things out there. He let me express myself there.

Expression is a pretty important thing, especially if you're in the middle of trying to cure a mental-health crisis that ignited after years of absorbing bad things and stuffing then down inside you.

"Gird Your sword upon Your thigh, O Mighty One, with Your glory and Your majesty. And in Your majesty ride prosperously because of truth, humility, and righteousness; and Your right hand shall teach You awesome things." (Psalm 45:3-4)

"Blessed be the Lord my Rock, who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for battle." (Psalm 144:1)

Last year, I started getting into the Gipsy Kings' music (as I talked about in this post), and I haven't been able to stop. I think I like them now about as much as I like Queen (which is a lot). I'm totally a fan, and I've been gawk-researching their music/lives.

As I mentioned before, the Gipsy Kings didn't give themselves a pretentious-sounding name because they claimed to be the "kings" of their music genre. They didn't even start out to become world-famous musicians. Music is simply in their blood; they are who they are, and they don't apologize for it. They don't need to. And I don't want them to.

From what I understand, the group's families come from a long line of people called Romani who originated in India. They have traditionally been nomadic and -- for reasons which I really don't understand -- highly persecuted. In fact, hundreds of thousands of Romani people were exterminated during the Holocaust. I had no idea.

Today, from what I understand, many Romani people have traded in their nomadic lifestyle for a more settled existence, and a great many of them are musicians. The Gipsy Kings' families are gitanos, or Romani people from Spain.

I read an interview online from the lead singer of the Gipsy Kings, and he explained that his family had to move around a lot because they weren't welcome in society. They were denied schooling/education, and they weren't even allowed to fight in the Spanish Civil War (which is why his family emigrated to France for safety).

But one place where they could truly be themselves was within the family -- especially when they would play music together. The men would sing and play guitars while the women would dance, and they would all party pretty much all night long. Their children were treated like royalty because they were the only way that their persecuted clan could keep existing.

When I learned this information about their families, the Gipsy Kings' music gradually started to make so much more sense.

Their first album (1982) is an acoustic recording that is very underproduced and sounds like the engineer just turned a few mics on and told the musicians to do their thing. There is a lot of chitchat between songs. After one of the songs, you hear someone quietly crash the recording session when all the group members greet her one by one: "¡Dora! ¡Elé!" From the way they dote on her several songs later, I'm guessing the recording-crasher is a child who probably starts dancing.

Sometimes I can understand their Spanish. Other times, I can recognize that French is being sung/spoken. Still other times, I can't understand what the heck is being sung/said because it's some sort of language hybrid sung by a bunch of ingenious musicians who probably create new stuff all the time, I'm guessing even in their everyday speech.

These are artists who grew up in a nomadic society that fused languages together. Since they were largely denied formal education, they might not know how to read. I think this explains the interesting spellings on the titles of their songs. Even "Gipsy" is actually technically supposed to be spelled "Gypsy" in English. But so what? They're authentic. They're the real deal.

Since it sounds like they pretty much only had each other while they were growing up, the guys in the group are more than likely extremely close. Since they had to lean on each other to survive, and since they played music together constantly, they can follow one another impeccably. When they make mistakes on their underproduced recordings, you can barely tell because their music is so organic, so tight, and so fluid. It's brilliant. And there's so much of it to listen to.

Frankly, it's intoxicating. I'm not addicted. I can stop anytime I want. Oh, who am I kidding? I am so addicted.

I love these guys' music. They have a crazy way of expressing any kind of emotion -- sadness, happiness, shame -- with a fast-paced dance. They've even tackled the issue of domestic violence in this happy style of music. The English translation of one of their songs is "Dad, Don't Hit Mom," and it even has a key change and I think a prayer in the middle. From what I can understand, it basically goes, "Dad, Dad, don't hit Mom, you're going to kill her, Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey, Father please bless me [rhythmic clapping, guitar flourish, a bunch of gitanos cheering loudly], ¡Olé!" Toe-tapping catharsis.

I love listening to their live recordings. It sounds like they encourage each other while they are playing and improvising. And I think perhaps one welcome side effect of their years of persecution and isolation is a very intense focus on their craft. Vocally and on guitar, they are virtuosos. Honestly, I consider them to be like my musical grandfathers now.

Listening to the Gipsy Kings' folk-flamenco music has introduced me to another traditional genre of flamenco music called the fandango. (Not to be confused with the Portuguese dance. (Or the movie-ticket company.)) The fandango is like the Spanish blues. From what I understand, if you have at least one guitarist and one vocalist, you two can fandango your hearts out until you run out of stuff to vocally vent about. I've seen YouTube videos of gitanos go pretty crazy (in a good way) with fandangos. From what I understand, it's all improvised, and a typical song goes something like, "[guitar flourish intro] You left me, you left me, you left me [guitar flourish], I can't believe you could have been so foolish [guitar flourish], everybody told me you were bad for me [long guitar flourish], and now you're gone [longer guitar flourish], I still can't believe you left me, left me, left me-e-e-e-e [etc.]."

Dang. Can you get how I've really been digging this stuff the past several months? Oh, my gosh. It's like I died and went to flamenco heaven.

Seriously. I want to integrate this stuff into my quiet time: "[guitar intro] Lord, with all due respect [guitar picking], seriously, what the heck [guitar guitar guitar], but I know You know best [guitar guitar], I just don't get how all [guitar] of this crap [guitar] has been flung in my face lately [guitar], lately [guitar], lately, lately, lately, lately-y-y-y-y [spastic guitar finish], ¡Olé! Selah!"

Sometimes a chick just needs to express herself. God definitely knows that.

"When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, nor shall the flame scorch you." (Isaiah 43:2)

Last week was totally insane for me. I was hit with challenges and trials from all different directions. When I began my drive to work last Monday morning, God was like, "Let's DO this, child." He and I are on the same team (otherwise I would be toast), and it sounded like He was ready to duke it out with somebody.

The other night when I got home from work, after I had gotten another life-hit, God told me, "Let's kick this trial's [bleep]." I promise you that's what He said, minus my censoring. I know my Father's voice. He's gentle and fierce simultaneously. He comforts me, and He disciplines me. Sometimes He sings to me in falsetto, and sometimes He calls me Chucklehead. (Sorry, only God is allowed to call me Chucklehead.)

The other day when I was reading Psalm 45 for the zillionth time, I couldn't get past verse 4. In His majesty, God rides in truth, HUMILITY, and righteousness. I think people everywhere have a bad idea of what humility really is. Humility isn't humiliation. I heard a pastor say a long time ago that humility is being focused on Jesus; the pastor was right.

Humility is staying focused on your relationship with God and being honest with yourself. When Jesus was on this earth and He told people that He is the Light of the World, He wasn't being arrogant. He was never arrogant. He was being humble. He was being honest. He was just telling people who He is.

I think Psalm 45:4 says that there is an element of God's majesty that He won't ever be able to separate from His humility. When He's riding forth in majesty, Psalm 45:4 says He's doing so prosperously. It says that He's doing it BECAUSE OF truth, humility, and righteousness. Psalm 45:4 doesn't say that God helplessly shrugs His shoulders and says, "Oh, woe is Me, and woe is you because all you can do now is trust in Me. I'm such a wussy little God. Cough, cough."

Nope. Psalm 45:3 says He girds His sword with glory and majesty. Psalm 45:4 says He rides prosperously. And Psalm 45:5 says His arrows are sharp in His enemies' hearts. When my God says He's going to kick my trial's [bleep], that means He's going to kick its [bleep]. I know my Father.

And Psalm 144:1 says that He trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle. Let's DO this, Father.

So, here's where all the crazy ideas in this post come together. In the Bible (and in everyday speech), a trial or hardship is sometimes referred to as a "fire." Recently while I've experienced my own "fires," and while I've been listening to a lot of Gipsy Kings music (which is quite fiery metaphorically), I've pictured myself dancing with fire. Not in a recreational or pagan sense. More like in a triumphant sense. Please indulge me while I bully my tormentor.

[crazy flamenco guitar] "Aw, hello there, little flamey. You like my dance moves? You don't like my dance moves? Why not? Aw, little flamey-wamey doesn't like Tirzah's hands clasped around your neck? Hmm. That's funny. I thought since you tried to choke the life out of me, you wouldn't have a problem with me choking the life out of you. [guitar guitar guitar] Eh, what's that? You have no idea how my hands aren't burning to a crisp? Ay, pobre fuego-fueguito. Come on, now, poor little flamey. There's no way I can spend all this time with you and your kind and NOT know how to handle you. [guitar guitar guitar guitar guitar] Eh, what's that? You suddenly have a problem dancing with me? I'm wearing you out? I'm wearing you down? I'm too strong for you? Well, that's not my fault. See, I learned all my chokehold moves from my hip-dislocater Dance Partner. You know. He's the Consuming Fire. Oh, you don't know? Well, you're about to find out exactly who He is! [spastic guitar finish] ¡Olé! Selah!" [flamey-wamey chokes, sputters, and fizzles out]

Last month, a visiting pastor at my church said that 2016 would be a year to "thrive." I think that can totally be done while you're dancing in the fire, while your Father is keeping the flames from burning you, while you're focusing on your relationship with Him, while you're being honest with Him and with yourself, and while He and you are kicking a trial's [bleep].

I think thriving can also happen while you're curled up in a fetal position and crying your eyes out into your Daddy's bosom while He's holding you and comforting you.

Because as long as you haven't broken the life-essential connection with your Father, you've won.

Although technically, we're more than conquerors in Jesus because He won first. He treats us like royalty because in Him, we are. We can definitely be secure in that. ¡Olé! Selah!

Why I...

Why I Left

"You made a mistake," she accused.

Like a dormant volcano, the irritation in my voice erupted, and for a moment I reverted back to the scared little girl who was backed into a corner like a dog. "I'm not your employee anymore," I barked over the phone. My heart pounded loudly in my ears as I explained why I had closed my retirement account.

"We are required by law to make a deposit into your account, and since you closed the account, now you'll have to pay a penalty," she insisted.

The words danced carelessly through the air like dead leaves caught up in a whirlwind as we argued. At the end of the conversation, I agreed to fix her problem by opening a new account.

I hung up the phone, did some research online, and discovered that she was right. But when I left her company months ago, she hadn't explained the law to me. She had clarified very little at our parting.

But now here she was, suddenly in my face again, throwing accusations at me and rubbing my nose in my mess, and now I was going to have to take responsibility for her irresponsibility. All over again, her incompetence was my inconvenience. All over again, she was controlling my money. All over again, she was neglecting to take care of me the way any decent employer should take care of an employee who works her tail off. Just like old times.

And then I remembered: That was why I left.

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Why I Am Keeping my Distance

"That's his problem," she accused over the phone. "What does his family think of him talking about them like that during a sermon?"

As if we had suddenly encountered a stalled car in the middle of a street, our phone conversation quickly veered in an awkward direction. Was this really happening? Was a trusted relative actually criticizing my pastor to me directly? "I'm sorry you feel that way," I said, hoping my words would serve as an effective band-aid.

But the bleeding continued. "I'm looking at it from the perspective of a pastor's daughter. He can use other illustrations in his sermons."

Oh, she was a pastor's daughter. And what was I? Chopped liver?

But she was one of the nicer relatives. Even though the insults were being hurled at my pastor's preaching style -- just like the Pharisees probably did while Jesus was simply conducting His Father's business during His earthly ministry -- I couldn't just insult her back. So, I just listened, and I bore it.

Fortunately, she is aware of the fact that my pastor preaches different sermon series on TV all the time, and maybe she'll actually like a series that airs in the future. Perhaps she's looking forward to my pastor not being vulnerable about his testimony at all. (Heh. Sorry, but that'll never happen. One of the reasons why I stick around his church is because he constantly creates an environment where people can safely be human.)

So, I took several giant paces away from her in my heart.

On a different occasion, another relative explained to me about a friend of his: "He doesn't like hymns because he didn't grow up in church."

"I grew up in church, and I hate hymns," I said plainly.

The relative explained how contemporary worship artists update hymns to make them "more palatable" and how he doesn't like it. He prefers the traditional music. (Good for him. But it's also good for me to know that if I ever decide to write a song by updating a hymn myself, he probably won't support me.)

Suddenly, his wife leaned over to me and asked me if I would be interested in double-dating with them. Since I didn't give her the name of anyone that I am really interested in, she offered to set me up on a blind date. I left their house as quickly and as politely as I could.

That night, I cried on my pillow.

So, I'm hoping I'll never have to set foot in their house ever again.

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Why I Walked Away Forever

"Honor thy father and thy mother," the email message repeatedly commanded.

I had just corresponded with my birth parents and explained why I had permanently disowned myself from the family. Confused and heartbroken, my birth father was stunned as to why I left.

I had explained plainly, as gently as I could, that I left because they were abusive, and also because God told me to leave.

Suddenly his confusion and heartache hardened into patronizing accusation. I was told that anytime I hear a message, I need to make sure it doesn't go against Scripture. There was no acknowledgement of abuse. But he did offer one last eruption of scriptural and spiritual abuse for the road.

God also told me that there will be no reconciliation.

Years later, I was sitting in church during one of my vulnerable pastor's sermons. He was passionately talking about how there are three baptisms: salvation, water baptism, and baptism in the Holy Spirit. He explained that many churches unfortunately only teach about the first two baptisms. People are either scared of the very idea of the third baptism or they simply haven't heard about it yet.

I know firsthand about the controversy that the third baptism causes in the body of Christ. When I was first baptized in the Holy Spirit, my life was never the same afterwards. After I received a prayer language, I made the mistake of telling my birth parents about it. They spiritually abused me quite fiercely, even getting me to profess that the baptism of the Holy Spirit occurs at salvation (which it doesn't). They forced me to read a book. They forced me to listen to a lengthy sermon series on audiotape. They did all they could do to deprogram me.

Sometime after that, God began to show me that I would need to leave my family. They were coming between Him and me. In essence, I would eventually need to choose between my family and God.

So, I finally chose God.

During my vulnerable pastor's recent sermon about the three baptisms, when I saw him get "worked up" about the ridiculous controversy that the third baptism causes in the body of Christ, I recognized the frustration in his voice.

Because I had felt it, too, many years ago.

Because the Holy Spirit is God. To claim to serve and worship God, but to block a spiritually starved young woman from fully experiencing Him (the only One who could ever heal her from all the years of control, shame, neglect, and abuse)... well, I think Jesus would say it would be better for that person if they were to have a millstone tied around their neck right before they are thrown into the sea.

I will more than likely never see those people again.

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Why I Will Stay with Him Forever

He doesn't insist that I drag myself out of bed and open my Bible before I talk to Him in the mornings. He lets me talk to Him groggily, waiting for the snooze button to run its course, even while my cat is meowing at me or stepping on me to convince me to get up and serve breakfast.

He is patient with me, and when I am ready to read in His Word, He quietly waits for me to process what He is really saying. He listens to me. He encourages me.

Sometimes He shows up suddenly in my day and gently asks me what I'm thinking. The tone in His voice is one of an Intimate Friend, or perhaps a Passionate Lover, or maybe an Eager Father who wants to build a relationship with His child... even though He already knows her thoughts long before she ever thinks about thinking about them.

When I am sad, He comforts me. When I am lonely, He spends time with me. When I am angry, He helps me calm down. When I need a swift kick in the tail, He is happy to oblige. When I feel like I am falling apart, He infuses me with strength and then He runs into battle with me. When I have already fallen apart, He lets the tears flow while He holds me and gently puts me back together.

We talk about everything, and we talk about nothing. We are buddies. We are confidantes.

Our relationship is an uneven one, and it always will be, because He is God to whom no one can compare, and I am Tirzah who will always be helplessly dependent upon her Creator.

He never, ever accuses me. I never, ever feel trapped into a corner with Him. I never, ever feel unsafe with Him. I never, ever feel misunderstood by Him. I never, ever feel abused by Him. He never, ever makes me feel treated like an object.

Because He knows that I am His child. He created me in His image. He has my best interests at heart, and His way is always best.

He loves me. He wants me. He cherishes me.

He is set on permanently destroying any force that comes against me.

He takes care of me. He guides me. He knows that I need Him, and He can't bear to be away from me, so He makes Himself available to me constantly.

In the past, I kept my distance from Him in one way or another. I ran away from Him. I embraced the poisons that swirled around like decaying gases in my mind... the poisons that led me away from Him and threatened to trap me and annihilate me. And they almost won.

But God broke through all of that and grafted me permanently into His family. All Three of Them -- Father, Son, Holy Spirit -- all One of Him -- the Lion adopted me as if I were an abandoned little kitten, and He nursed me back to health.

I can't leave His house. I've become attached to Him. This is my home. I belong here with Him. He's stuck with me forever.

And that's the way He wanted it in the first place.

Still

A couple of blog posts ago, here was my gush-rambling point (even though my gush-ramblingness kinda got in the way of me saying it): If it were any other cat making messes in my home, that cat would be history... but my Macho gets to stay with me forever because he has my favorgrace -- because he's mine. In a very similar way, if I weren't God's child, He wouldn't bother putting up with all my messiness... but He works with me, helps me, and cherishes me because I have His favorgrace -- because I'm His. (And if I weren't His child, He would be working overtime to get my attention and make sure I knew that He wanted me.)

Wow! What a huge revelation! That alone should be enough to make me feel completely secure all the time, right?

Alas, wrong.

"Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!" (Psalm 46:10)

 

I just finished a 21-day fast (with my church). I felt led to fast TV and movies, including any non-work-related TV or movie stuff on YouTube.

I broke my fast today with a music/documentary DVD that I had brought home from work (where they sometimes give us cool free stuff), and I also just finished watching The Devil Wears Prada this evening (for the first time). That would have been a great movie to have around when I was working at my previous job -- you know, the periodical with the jerk boss that made you sell your soul to patronizingly ensure that industrial workers all over the world could get a copy of a publication that contained overwhelmingly technical information (which any engineer could get with a simple Google search) and a bunch of ads.

I heard a pastor say once that fasting is basically saying, "No." He's right: "Would you like a steak?" "No, I'll have a salad." "Would you like some iced tea?" "No, I'll have some water." So, the best boundary I knew to make for myself was to put a sticky note with the word "NO" on my DVD/VHS player. I put another one on my TV, but the note kept falling off, and by the time I realized it wouldn't stay, my entertainment-starved soul had gotten the message.

This fast was pretty challenging for me. In the past 21 days, I've encountered lots of situations at work and especially in my personal life that would have been awesome to relax from by lazing around on the couch and taking in a movie or a recorded TV show (I don't have cable or rabbit ears). So, I ended up playing some video games (skipping the option to watch a video ad to continue a game) and scrolling Facebook (skipping the shared YouTube videos) instead.

And I finally bought a new CD/cassette player. God has been pretty adamant about restoring my love of music (which was squelched pretty hard during my college Pharisee days), and He reminded me that several years ago, He told me to relax after work by listening to Andrea Bocelli. I did for a while, but I'm not sure why I stopped. Maybe life got too busy. But for these past 21 days, it's been very nice getting to listen to music like Andrea Bocelli and The Carpenters for relaxation purposes (if you see a middle-age woman headbanging to "Goodbye to Love" on the drive home from work, it's me), and it's been extremely nice getting to explore more of The Gipsy Kings' repertoire (which I might write more about later).

An important key to destressing and relaxation is stillness. Yes, a motif in my life these days seems to be stillness, as Psalm 46:10 can vouch for.

One thing God has been showing me is that 2016 will be what the year 2000 was supposed to have been for me. In 2000, I attempted suicide, and I lost almost everything in my life (even though I was still breathing). After I was released from the psych hospital, anytime I tried to have a "quiet" time, I couldn't get out of Psalm 46. God ended up keeping me in Psalm 46 for many months (if not years -- I can't remember exactly). And now in 2016, He has me in Psalm 46 again. (Sometimes He leads me to read Psalm 47, 45, or 42, but He ends up boomeranging me back to 46. You get the idea.)

Psalm 46 is fascinating. There are so many ideas in it. The one that's repeated is the one that goes, "The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge; selah." Translation: "The God who has tons of legions of angels at His beck and call is WITH YOU; the God who wrestled with the deceiver-guy and dislocated his hip wants you to HIDE YOURSELF IN HIM; He's watching over you, you're going to be OK, so just CHILL OUT." This all occurs in the middle of the mountains plunging into the sea, you're in trouble, and your entire world is pretty much falling apart. When this happens, Psalm 46 says it's going to be OK, because God is God.

It also says in verse 9 that God can instantly stop the wars and the turmoil and the world-falling-apart-ness that happens inside your head. A friend tried to tell me this a long time ago, and she was right. Psalm 46:9 says that if there's a chariot or spear headed right at you, He can stop it, and then the war will be over right then and there.

And I've also experienced the fact that some wars cease gradually, but Psalm 46:10 says to be STILL and know that He is God.

So, this God who wants to come to my rescue every time I'm in trouble... um, He knows me. Like, He really really really really really knows me... better than I know myself.

Going back to His idea of my 2016 being what my 2000 was supposed to have been all along -- translation: God restoring to me the things that I lost --

My life in 2000:

- I had a job where I was respected

- I was a leader in my church

- I believed I was called to some sort of ministry

- I was involved with music at my church in several different ways

- I had very close friends and was involved in a community

My life in 2016:

- I have a job where I am respected

- I am leader in my church choir

- I am definitely called to the ministry

- I am looking for ways to become more involved in the music at my church

- I have at least one close friend and am rather deeply rooted in a community

Cool. All of that restoration didn't happen overnight. All of that was definitely God.

Sure, there were plenty of times when my world was completely falling apart. There were times when I cried buckets of tears to God, there were times when I got hurt, and there were times when I opened my Bible and was desperate for God to show me what to do in certain situations. But I gotta say... it's all OK, because God is God.

He keeps telling me to just show up and be myself. Maybe that's because that's exactly what HE does.

So, He knows what He's doing, and I'm happy to just hold on to Him and let Him keep doing His thang. Because He knows me, and He knows His plans, thoughts, and purposes for me. And they're bigger than me. And so is He.

Speaking of stillness, I had to drop my cat Macho off at the vet yesterday (brace yourself for some possible TMI) because he has a urinary blockage and is getting flushed out. While he's been away for the weekend, I've noticed that my home is much quieter without him around. He truly is the spokescat of my feline tribe. This confirms what I knew all along: Macho is the loud, clingy one, and Choochie is the quiet, independent one. (Even though Macho is the introvert who hides from people, and Choochie is the extrovert who explores/climbs on people.)

Even though I like the stillness, I miss having my Macho drama queen around. Yes, of course he reminds me of myself. With him, it isn't "I'm hungry." It's "I'M HUNGRY NOW! WOW!!" While I was in the vet's waiting room yesterday waiting for test results, a customer walked in, and Macho meow-howled from across the other end of the building. "That's my cat," I explained to the customer.

I'm sure God has similar feelings about me. Maybe in heaven, the angels approach Him and are like, "Um, Lord, there's a problem at such-and-such church." And God just smiles, sighs, looks down on earth and says, "That's My Tirzah. I know that hunger-squeal from a million miles away. Drop an Amplified Bible into her lap and make sure she knows Psalm 46:10 backwards [behind, toward the back] and forwards [at the front, at the beginning]."

I'm God's child. This God of angel-hosts, hip-dislocations, and cease-fires is with me. I'm OK.

"Just you and Me"

Several years ago, I started this blog as a place where I could safely talk about politics and other controversial issues. However, since then, I've discovered that I absolutely hate politics and other controversial issues, because they were shoved down my throat in my past, they make me cringe now, and the best way I've personally found to make people stop yelling at me online is to 1) unfriend them and/or 2) turn them into villains in my fiction stories.

But since its inception, this blog has become a therapeutic place for me to write and share my spiritual journey with others far, far away from the din of social media, where people seem to come out of the woodwork to tell me how wrong my political views supposedly are.

Well, OK, but you're on my turf now. I hope you understand that my views are my own -- they're not dictated to me by my church, my pastor, my employer, or even the leaders of the political party that I usually vote for (Republican). Since I get almost 100% of my news now from Facebook, politics is in my face all the time now. I've seen some disturbing things that I would like to address briefly here, if you'll indulge me. And then I'll go right back into self-therapy. (Once upon a time, there lived a middle-aged half-Hispanic woman who just wanted to spend a quiet afternoon minding her own business on her couch with her cats...)

Almost eight years ago, I stood in line for an hour to vote for Sarah Palin. I thought it was worth it, even though the presidential candidate she was running with lost the race. And I thought I wouldn't hesitate to vote for Sarah Palin again... until recently.

OK, take a step back for a second. Hillary Clinton... versus Donald Trump. Is this what the American presidential race has become -- a total joke? I wouldn't naturally respect either of them as my commander-in-chief. It would be kind of like whenever my effeminate birth father would spank me with a belt (which would barely graze my bottom) -- ooo, I'm so scared of you, buddy!

(For the record, I've planned on voting for the guy whose dad and brother were president before him. You know, the guy whose children are half-Hispanic. I think he might understand where I'm coming from. And I think it's safe to say that being president is kind of already in his gene pool. I would be honored to stand in line for an hour to vote for him if need be. Not that anyone cares who I plan to vote for, but I gotta tell you, my voter registration card is up to date, and I'm not afraid to use it.)

But I will have to respect whoever gets elected into the White House (regardless of my authority issues) simply because of their position of authority over me, in the spirit of Romans 13. I have been praying that men and women who love God and want to do life His way would get elected into office. I have also been praying that whoever God wants to be elected into the White House would have favor with the American people. It's been interesting to see how things have been shifting around so far.

Unfortunately, for me, one early casualty of this election has been my disillusionment. I have almost 100% lost respect for Sarah Palin. I used to look up to her as a role model. I used to want to meet her. Now I can't really believe anything she says. Wait. Let me put this in Trump-esque vocabulary for her: Sarah, you're fired.

End of political rant. Back to therapy.

"Do not put your trust in princes, nor in a son of man, in whom there is no help. His spirit departs, he returns to his earth; in that very day his plans perish. Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God..." (Psalm 146:3-5)

"A father of the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in His holy habitation. God sets the solitary in families; He brings out those who are bound into prosperity; but the rebellious dwell in a dry land." (Psalm 68:5-6)

I mentioned this briefly in a previous post, but in recent years when I've had a disillusioning, heartbreaking, or otherwise world-shaking experience, God has comforted me by telling me, "It's still just you and Me."

No matter what happens in my life, it's still just me and God. No matter who comes and goes in my life, it's still just me and God. If a friend publicly rejects me and shames me, it's still just me and God. If my cat dies, it's still just me and God. If I end up walking away from my family and all of my relatives, it's still just me and God. If all of my dreams die and are never resuscitated or replaced, it's still just me and God.

Even though it can be excruciating, I really am OK with it. The most important Being in the universe... the highest Authority in the universe... the Creator of the universe... wants a relationship with me? Why? I'll never understand it. But I gladly accept it.

He's the only One who's always available for me to talk to, hang out with, get counseling from, ask questions of, throw a tantrum with, cry to, and want obsessively. He's the only One who can handle it. And He's the only One who is OK for me to relate to that way nonstop. That's how He intended it in the first place. That's how He designed me. He wants me to worship Him.

And I like my relationship with Him. I want it to go even deeper. He wants that, too. (He keeps saying so through pastors at my church.)

And yet, today while I've been working through another emotional disillusionment in my personal life, I asked God if He was going to tell me that it's still just Him and me again. He replied, "It's you, Me, and a bunch of people who care about you."

OK. I'll gladly take that, too.

And this can go in a positive direction, too.

No matter what happens in my life, it's still just me and God. No matter how many people love and accept me, it's still just me and God. If all of my friends publicly praise me and honor me, it's still just me and God. If both my cats miraculously live to be 50 years old each, and if the people from Guinness come knocking on my door to find out my secret to feline longevity, it's still just me and God. If I end up being permanently knit into multiple families for life, and if I have more invitations to Thanksgiving, Christmas, Fourth of July, Easter, and every other holiday you can think of, it's still just me and God. If I end up becoming the world's greatest worship pastor, novelist, songwriter, and rock star who ever lived, it's still just me and God.

Tonight when I feed my cats before bedtime, it will be just me and God. When I go to bed alone, it will be just me and God. While I sleep and the angels guard my home, my dreams, and the private concert that my Father will sing over me and that no one else will hear, it will be just me and Him.

(For the record, regardless of what happens in this year's elections, we as Christians must cling to God as our only hope, rather than some lame political candidate. Ooo, I'm so scared!)