Lizzie and the Bush

A deep depression has fallen over me as I feel the sadness and loss of being forced to resign.  Every thing I know about myself and all the introspection I have been doing still says, "It was a mistake."  Just like the abuse I was dealt as a child, it doesn't matter.

I took my brother to the hospital for his shoulder surgery yesterday.  I had to leave my house at 3:30 a.m. and didn't get home until about 4:30 p.m..  I was so exhausted but I was having racing thoughts.  I had to make myself do mindless chores.

I unclogged the drain holes in my sunroof so it didn't leak water into the car.  That's when Lizzie appeared.  She goes outside for a day or two then shows up ready to be pet.  She's a hunter so she seldom comes home for food.  I was sitting in my car trying to figure out something else about my sunroof when she jumped in through the sunroof and laid down on the back seat.

We both exited the car.  I decided to trim one of my huge bushes.  I was cutting back the part that prevented my shed from opening easily.  I cut it way back very nicely.  And then I saw her, again.

Lizzie was laying under the bush at the other end when I felt a need to lay on the patio and pet her.  I curled up and stayed there for a long time.  She was very snuggly and cute.  I felt safe.

Laying there brought thoughts of when I'd last felt safe.  It's been a long time.  Dealing with issues where I was volunteering was draining.  Not feeling well was draining, too.  Trying to discern friendships is draining.  Even the dreams I'm having are draining.

I'm trying to force my drain pipe to go up to God instead of down into my core.  It's a tricky job.  I hope I can succeed.

I'm tired, now.  Maybe a nap.

Or maybe another chore.

More than likely, feeling more sadness...

....and sleeping.

My Train

Have you ever had a string of good days and even though your body feels like crap, God gives your spirit a boost?  I've been having those experiences for about 10 days.  It's like riding a freight train with no headlight in the tunnel.  All you hear is the roaring of the engines, the metal on the tracks and you cannot see your hand in front of your face because it's so dark.  It's when you trust God the most.

And then, when you see a light approaching from the other direction, you wonder one of two things:  Either that light is here to help or you're about to have a fatal collision.  I had that collision last night and I knew it was coming.

On my voice mail was one of those messages where she said who's calling and to call back.  It was the tone in the voice, the choice of words and the timing of the call.  I already knew what was going to happen - just by the tone of her voice.

And I was right.  Have you ever been part of a group and have the leader accuse you of something, never ask you about it and then remove you from that group?  Let me tell you something, I'll be the first to admit I'm not perfect and I make mistakes.  But I always try to make sure I ask questions before I judge someone's behavior.  Had this person chosen to meet and talk, tell me what I did and give me a chance to apologize and try to make things right, the outcome would have been the same but relationships could have been saved.

I made a mistake.  An unforgivable one that caused the entire group (secret attenders known only to themselves) to meet behind closed doors and call into question my loyalty, my integrity and my character.  I suddenly, after almost two years of serving together, became untrustworthy and they would feel uneasy and uncomfortable with me still there.

Really?  I feel that way every time we have a meeting!!  I made a mistake.  I apologized for the mistake.  They made it sound as if I did this on purpose and therefore had to be removed from my position.  Are you kidding me?  Nope - I was forced to resign.

I did not allow what was being told to me to stick to me or stay hanging in the balance without my side of the story being said.  I did not ask nor did I want to be reinstated.  I wanted to use my God given voice to admit my wrong, take responsibility for it, research how it happened and give that information to them.  I was now done.

Until I received a response email which I briefly scanned.  Then I wrote a crystal clear email that defined my boundries and solidified my integrity.   I was not going to let a group of people who I thought (and was told) were my friends ruin the rest of my day.  I was done, again.

You see, when you serve in a group of volunteers and if you have the gift of discernment or wisdom, you can pick out the ones to stay away from and move toward the ones that appear to be safe.  There are those who absolutely despise you but put on a pretty face and deny it.  Then there are those who sit quietly watching the show in front of them.  Me?  I'm assertive and I don't put up with crap.  I don't allow others to say things about me that aren't true and I know when to call it quits.

God has a unique and exciting plan for our lives when we are submitted to Him.  Even though I wish I could do Matthew 18 (reconciliation) with whomever I offended, that was not an avenue offered to me.  In fact, it was strongly discouraged.  So I pray that those who felt so strongly wronged by me are able to accept my apology and forgive me.  But that's up to them.

I talked to my therapist in depth about it.  She's fully behind me.  I've reached out to other friends for support.  One friend is so shocked they forced me to resign that even she was at a loss for words.

They treated me just like my Dad did so unfortunately, I've been self-injuring in my mouth quite a bit.  My Dad would find one mistake and blow up all over me for it.  And that's exactly what happened but this time - I blew back in an assertive, not aggressive, manner.

The train has parked for the night.
Good night.

Waking Up To A Chronic Migraine

Whenever I ask someone, "Have you ever had a migraine?", their response is usually, "Oh, gosh no!  I could never handle one of those."  This is when I feel like a super hero because I have them all the time and I can still put on my red cape to fly, use a magic lasso, ride the underwater sea creatures and drive the migraine mobile.

You know what's interesting about the word, "chronic?"  It's all the time.  Not some of the time, not once a year, not once in a lifetime but on a regular basis.  You get to experience what "chronic" is.  I've never heard anyone say, "I was diagnosed with chronic laughter and I don't know what joke to tell."  Or, "I was diagnosed with chronic dancing but there's no one who will be my partner." Chronic is usually connected to some sort of ailment that either hurts or is bothersome to the person in some way.  Some have accused me of having chronic cat syndrome but that's for another day because I'm in denial.

This morning I woke up with a migraine, Was is chronic?  I don't know, it wasn't wearing a name tag.  It feels like your skull is going to pull itself apart, like a melon that gets dropped from a tall building but has no cape.  It makes it incredibly hard to get out of bed to get to the pain pill down the long hallway.(Note to self:  Move the pain pill closer to the bed with a bottled water.)

Every move you make hurts your head.  Every step you take is unbalanced so you hold onto the walls.  Your eyes are closed because any kind of light sends a bolt of pain to the back of your head.  Every time you think about the relief you HOPE to get is met with the understanding that this time, it might not work.

The first thing I do is head to the bathroom (in case I throw up).  That's a side benefit no one tells you about.  With the lights off (and this is tricky) I immediately turn on the shower to cool/cold and tilt my head back so that the pine needles of water pelt the ache across my skull.  Sometimes it helps to bang your head against the wall but I've been discouraged from doing that.  I'm just saying, it's your head, your pain - do what you need to do.

In this case, the shower did not help.  Now I am wet and my head is still pounding.  I made my way into the kitchen trying to avoid the cat litter on the floor which is now sticking to my wet feet and irks me to no end.  I took down the bottle of over the counter medication that most times kicks the migraine in twenty minutes.  I swallowed two of them, opened the freezer to grab my frozen sock (homemade) and went back to bed, covering my eyes with the frozen cold.  I fell asleep.  (A frozen sock is made of a very long tube sock filled with as much rice as it can hold but leave room to tie the knot at the end.  DO NOT MICROWAVE.  The rice will cook and believe me, the sock cannot be reused).

I walked back down to bed, shook the cat litter from my feet, threw on a nightgown, put the rice sock on my face and fell asleep.  When I woke up, the sock was off my face and the cat was laying on it and he, too, brought cat litter into my bed.  My head was still pounding hot and the migraine went down only a smidgen (I like that word - smidgen).  I decided to take a lot more over the counter pills (because I'm an addict and that's what we do) when the small still voice of God made another suggestion:  take a pain pill.

SNAP!  I'd forgotten about those.  It's a small narcotic that packs a wallop of a punch in a short amount of time.  it dissolves in your mouth so the effects are almost instantaneous.  The migraine was slowly going away and I  was getting dizzy as I was getting ready for church.  No matter.

I was feeling woozy and could tell my speech was a little off so I didn't talk to my friend I was bringing with me.  My chores for the day got done (sweeping the floor and cleaning out kitty boxes).  I was able to hear the sermon, take legible notes, participate in worship and managed to meet and greet people while looking/feeling a little off.  It was okay once I explained the migraine.  My pastor prayed over me.

I'm very tired now.  I had to go grocery shopping but did so quickly because that's another side effect of the medication.  My friend and I went to a local farm stand.  I'm so grateful for my pastor, my new friends, my old friends, my family and God for modern medicine.

Chronic migraines are just that - chronic.  Sometimes I know what causes them and sometimes they come out of the blue.  I know the immense amount of stress I've been under contributed to it.  I self-injured a lot in my mouth and I didn't eat well.  But was that the cause of it?  I don't know because I have never been able to establish a pattern but all of the contributors in the cartoon above make perfect sense.

I am a survivor...of many painful things that have happened to my body and those that happen because of my body.  But this truth I hold onto with the grip of one swinging from a vine:  God is my only source of wellness and it is only in Him that I trust the pain has a reason and will not go to waste.

Amen and amen.