A Bridge to Sanity

What if...

2009-08-16T20:38:12-05:00

This was taken out of a few Facebook comments I made, so if they seem choppy or going different directions...I'm sorry. Read each paragraph as a stand alone, maybe it'll make sense.

What if we’re all looking in the wrong place for examples of God’s love, protection, power? We’ve all been told that the church is the shinning example of God, but what if it isn’t? What if His protection is seen in the military, the police, the courts and laws? What if He knew that people would ultimately fail to show His example and so He devised ways that people could see Him, feel Him, experience Him—even outside the church walls? What if His love is seen in counselors, Pastors (not necessarily the people in the pews), in the lyrics of a true love song, or true friends (churched or not) who though flawed (and see your flaws) don’t lose sight of the friendship even if you do? Isn’t that what He did? What if His power is to be seen through nature, storms, miracles and regular people who fight against injustice?

I feel that there are not ample displays of God's love or protection--& sometimes not even His power--in Church services. Or within a lot of Church relationships. I don't know if it's becuz we don't get real with each other or if we've been hurt too many times b4 and surface relationships are easier/less painful.

As for relying on Him to fill the need and bring the people, i've lost faith in that. I don't think churched people listen or put aside the time to make those connections, with the people that are sitting next to them.

I guess my problem isn't necessarily with the church as an organization, but with how people relate in that organization. The Pastor can only do so much, right? What is Jesus' view of the church? Have we put our own spin on it? He pulled aside 12 people and had daily fellowship with them and then took them on "training missions" to impact people around them. How are we expected to have the same impact/example if we aren't as dedicated to relationships as He was? Is it impossible with this ages demands?

I don't know why really lousy people aren't dealt with. I feel hurt, angry and disgusted when those kids of people are allowed to inflict pain to those around them freely under the guise of grace or they are just imperfect people.

Sometimes it seems like a Perfect Storm scenio. Hurting people and hurtful people coming together, with no referees. I think everyone has a bit of the hypocrite in them...in certain areas--i.e. white lies or polite to someones face but talk behind their back. Maybe the church is afraid to be firm, thinking they'll lose people, when in reality a lot of people are getting hurt and walking away...not just from them but from God. I think Jesus needs to come and flip over some tables again. :-)

I've been assuming that the "christians hurting people" was a new phenomenon, but then I remembered several historical events (like the crusades) & think maybe it's been happening all along--we've just put rose colored glasses on. I googled "hurt by Chrisitans" and got this book: "When Bad Christians Happen to Good People: Where We Have Failed Each Other and How to Reverse the Damage" by Burchett. Might be worth a read..don't know. Anybody read it?

Let's try this again...

2009-08-16T20:26:58-05:00

I haven't written in FOREVER, it seems. I can't even begin to look back and recall why or what's happened since so.....let's just move on from here.

I'm going to blog again. Not becuz I know it all, in fact, just the opposite. I have an unbelieveable amount of questions. Some spawned out of currents hurts, some are from things long burried-but eveidentally still alive and kicking!, some from things I just always assumed but never thought about it in practical life, and some from waking up and realizing that some things just aren't right.

So....I'm gonna ask questions, try to figure them out to the best of my knowledge. And you can read, and input helpful suggestions or vents of your personal experience.

I ask 1 thing: Please do not tell me I'm not seeing or feeling the things I write about or justify anybodies actions. I am not making anything up. I won't pretend something doesn't exist to make you feel better. You may not agree with it. You may not like it, but it's out there. Are there other views? Yes, undoubtadly! But this is my blog...if it offends you--quit reading it!

That sounds harsh but I think in order to uncover the hurt and heal some things, a very ugly truth has to be talked about. And hopefully it'll be replaced by a more mature understanding of the "whys" that plague my thinking. We'll see.

They're Here...

2008-10-27T21:18:26-05:00

I know it’s been a while since I’ve blogged. I’ve had the time. I’ve just chosen to do other things with it---like read a really good book series with my best friend & neighbor, J.

The last few weeks have been crazy! My hubby made a business trip to ABQ. He got to see the old stomping grounds (BCA), visit good friends and have dinner with my parents & sister (mommy’s peppers!!! YUMM-O). I have to admit I was a little jealous & home sick for a few days. I even put a picture of ABQ city lights on my desktop!! Pathetic!

The Friday my honey flew back, my Grandmother (in ABQ) had a heart attack. It was a very stressful day—not being able to talk to David since he was flying & being so far away from all the action. Is that a crude way to put it? I’m used to being able to jump in and handle things or find out answers. It was really hard to have to sit back and wait for information to filter down to me. I know everyone called in a timely manner but between the Drs and tests and people---GEEZ! I’m just saying it would be really nice to have a camera on the people you care about and just be able to pop in and out and check on them when you need to. Ok…a little creepy….and controlling…hmmmm. By the way…Grandma’s doing good. She’s healing and progressing.

Then last week, my body started fighting off (or at least trying to) the cold the kids were passing around. I was really achey and tired—might have been emotional leftovers from the week before…..ANYWAY. It finally hit Thursday night. And I’m still fighting it. OK so this weekend I slept a lot and watched movies cuddled on the couch with the hubby…you say tomatoe I say tomato. Resting is fighting…..right? Well, between the cold meds and the rest I was functioning today.

AND got a lot done, I might add. (what is the purpose of that statement? Isn’t the fact that you said it mean you DID or at least WILL add and not MIGHT?)

We have a cold snap moving in tonight so I made a trip to Walmart & Lowes to get Christmas lights, mulch and frost blankets for my more tropical plants. Then spent the day mulching and stringing and covering and hooking up….the result…

The bad news…the neighbors might be moving. YUP, it sucks, but they gotta do what’s best for their family. He’s been transferred out of state and only being able to see the kids once or twice a month. My bff , J, and the kids are having a rough time…understandably. So they’re checking into move packages etc. Nothing’s final, it’s just in the thinking stages but….still….bummer.

I went for a walk (before all the hectic—ness of the day) with my OTHER neighbor, A. We both brought our puppies along for the exercise. I had fun, the puppies had a blast & I hope she did too. ;-P

She told us (I can’t remember when) about a TV show call “My Big Redneck Wedding”. If you haven’t seen it….it’s too cheesy and hilarious to put into words, but I’ll try. I really hope we don’t become addicted to this show. How lame would that be to put in “my favs”!! So this episode was about Amyie—not misspelled! (this will be her 3rd marriage) and George (this will be his 4th). She bought her dress at the consignment store and borrowed her daughters’ Bedazzler to write Mrs.(whatever his last name was) on the back of her dress. They made home made wine, by stomping--with their rinsed off feet--grapes, and adding some clear alcohol—not sure if it was vodka or moonshine. And I quote, “not too bad. It gets better after you keep drinking it”. I couldn’t stop saying “oh my God” alternating with “Oh Lord.” Amyie began the reception---same site as the wedding…their backyard, next to the trailer….with “Let’s get sloshed!”. They started off the festivities with jello shots, and jello wrestling and concluded with them riding off into the sunset on their go cart. *sigh* They just don’t write love stories like that anymore! A big THANK YOU to A for passing that little jewel our way! 

Intermission….eldest daughter, S, just came in IRKED that she couldn’t text someone. This is her impersonation of a person IRKED.

Not bad, huh? Let me fix it…I’ll be right back!

“I’m sick and sadistic”…started out a pretty funny phone call just now. My daughter, H, is currently taking care of a pumpkin for a class project! She’s supposed to take it everywhere with her, arrange for babysitting if she can’t take it…that kind of thing. Her best friends’ mom, L, (and a getting to be good friend of mine) is the initiator of the phone call. It seems M (H’s best friend) kept dropping the pumpkin and L thought that if it were more baby like M would take better care of it. So she went to the craft store and bought a baby doll, ripped the head off and somehow (she explained but it would be a lot to write here and I doubt you’re going to do it. If you are…call me and I’ll give you the directions.) rigged the pumpkin to stay on the baby’s body. They’ve nicknamed it…pumpkin-head! I think it’s very fitting seeing as Halloween is only 4 days away. I just know, H, is going to come home from school tomorrow and want a pumpkin-head baby, too. Is this the time to coach on not following along with the crowd, be unique, or try to think of something even more funny….yeah right! L won the prize on this one!

Processing it all

2008-03-22T11:27:42-05:00

The results of my saliva tests came back the other day. Two things jumped out: first, my melatonin levels don’t drop as far as they should mid-day--and actually spike around 11a.m.-12 p.m.--which contribute to stress during that time, dropping my body temperature and putting my body/mind in a manic state. Second, my cortisol levels drop like a brick after I wake up—going to a normal persons “end of the day” level around 11 a.m.; leaving me unable to cope with any kind of stress as the day wears on. It also looks like my adrenal glands (which make the cortisol) are going into overdrive at night and going into fatigue during the day. So this is the physical stuff…how does it affect me inside?

I totally understand alcoholics or at least how they get there…not that I’m anywhere near that. When stress tanks my cortisol levels…it’s the only “safe” thing for my family. Alcohol can turn the switch off so I don’t have the mood swings. Maybe the best thing for them would be for me to leave—at least until I have this all straightened out in my body, but then again leaving would tear them apart so….alcohol (and sleep) are the switch flippers so I can still be here but not be so up and down and sideways in my head.

I know this directly goes against anything a Christian believes, but the “stay in the word, worship and just believe God’s gonna come through”—didn’t help my body make cortisol or help my adrenal glands rest! I needed a Dr’s wisdom to come in and say you need (insert treatment). NO amount of (insert religious method of stress relief) was going to tell me that…and until I had enough symptoms for the Dr to order the tests to be able to tell what was going on in my body—because they don’t listen to you based on a hunch (I tried that!), I needed something else to help medicate my mind so I stayed sane. I tried the B vitamins, I’m now taking a vitamin that helps my body make more serotonin so that I have more resources to combat stress, BUT the only thing that’s going to be a permanent fix is getting the cortisol and giving my adrenal glands a break so they can begin to make it on their own.

I can’t even imagine what would have happened to me or my family had we stayed in ABQ. If this peacefully place can’t help me recover fully from daily stress, I would have completely gone insane in ABQ.

The Dr said the “clawing” in my head was stress. Now I know why…my body can’t even handle the little things without stressing out; much less the physical stress of working out, the emotional stress of broken relationships and not being able to lose weight, and the mental stress of dealing with a teenager on some days. I feel like I’m going crazy on those days-and not the one you joke about “this is driving me crazy”…really thinking I’m going to go crazy—slip inside my mind and never come out, hurt me, leave the family, or scream and shout until I just explode—crazy!

I don’t think anyone understands that.

Even me sometimes, I feel like I should “push through this” or more ‘suck it up”, I’ve always been able to before. Now my body is tanked and can’t do it. Everything you’re ever taught about how to relieve stress is thrown out the window i.e. I can’t workout regularly because cortisol levels will drop too severely and my body can’t handle the stress right now. On days when I “need” to work out to burn the stress energy, I have to make sure I take a nap to rebuild cortisol levels, because if my body exerts the energy to do that, my mind and then my body completely crash. I hate this!

How did it happen? All the studies I’ve read say that when person goes through a time of great stress (i.e. major surgeries, sickness or emotional stress beyond what you can handle normally) it takes a toll on your body. Sometimes your kidneys can’t recover and your adrenal glands go into fatigue—causing you to put out less cortisol. The varying degrees of output obviously coincide with the varying degrees of symptoms. Since my body went through ALL of those things (3 c-sections within 4 years, the sickness where I lost 80lbs—later figuring out I was sensitive to caffeine, which side note here…is a stress on the body—the emotional stress of broken relationships, a ex-best friend (and I don’t let those in lightly) being petty towards me, and other people (friends and husband) who weren’t supportive and didn’t believe what was going on….ALL those things…put my body over the limit.

Just chillin'

2008-02-13T19:05:32-06:00

Tonight has been awesome! We took the fam out to dinner to celebrate Hailey's 9th Birthday! My how the time has flown!!!

I'm sitting on the couch--next to my hubby--listening to a couple CDs one of my best friends put together for me especially for Valentine's Day, while David's googling news stuff. The quintessential 21st century couple....yeah right? :-P

So anyway...I haven't blogged in a while. Mostly becuz I haven't been doing anything or the kids have been sick and I haven't had time...but I wanted to share my new favorite song with you all. Music is my life...Thanks, Libby for sendin' it my way!!!

A Little More You

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The weirdest most productive day

2007-12-18T20:49:40-06:00

When my three youngest woke up with congestion, head & tummy aches, I thought I wouldn't get very much accomplished today at all. It turns out to be exactly the opposite, I got all the volunteer work done for Zach's teacher. (correlating 3000--that's 3 thousand-- sheets of paper!!!) Granted I was supposed to be doing this over the last couple months but I kept getting sidetracked on other things. The kids helped me and it took us 1 1/2 hours to do it. If you multiply that out, it would've taken me 6 hours to do the job by myself!! My kids ROCK!

I even got the surfaces in my bedroom cleaned off from all the cluter that's accumulated over the month that I was sick. I shampooed the cushions on the loveseat and managed to do 2 loads of laundry. (you know me, it didn't get folded but it's clean! I should get points for that!!) I even got to visit with my best friend 3 times today! :-)

Enter the weird part of the day, besides my time being multiplied and redeemed, I overheard my 2nd eldest daughter sing songing "mider span, mider span"...I thought she got it off one of the cartoons they watch, but it turns out my wonderful hubby re-wrote/sung the Spiderman Theme song to them in pig latin-ish....and they loved it!!! Next thing I know, I'm on the computer typing out the words becuz I can't stop singing the stupid thing and I need to know what the words are and I can't translate as fast as he can! WHAT'S HAPPENING TO ME?!!!

In an effort to corrupt your mind and make me feel better knowing someone else has this stupid song in their head all day...

Mider span mider span

Whoes Dat ever a cider span

wins a speb any size

thatches c(k)ieves just fike lies

look out cere hums mider span

mider span mider span

niendly freighborhood mider span

fealth and wame

He’s ignored

Iction as ris heward.

ho tim, life is a breat gig ang bup

Thenever where’s a ang hup

Fou’ll yind the mider span!

just the chorus y'all...have a great day!! :-)

2007-12-16T07:39:27-06:00

There are times like this morning when I wish I could go back to how I used to be: caring about the needs of others, but thinking they're grown up and if they want to change it's thier responsibility to do it; I'll give them the advice/scriptures I know but my heart was not involved.

Instead I seem to be stuck in a world of hurt: caring about people (past & present) who most of the time don't seem to give a flip about me (don't write, email, call or visit), but ready & willing to help the moment they need it without expecting anything in return AND even knowing the next day they'll go back to their normal/busy lives and forget about me. Thank God for the Deb T's and Jen's of this world who seem to understand what friendship is all about.

No, I'm not a martyr and I don't think I'm all that, but I think this "Christianity with a heart" sucks sometimes and I don't know if I like it yet.

Let's see what Pastor talks about today...

Brain Dump

2007-11-08T18:25:05-06:00

I tried to come up with a really intelligent/meaningful blog for my first blog. However, after heavy duty thinking I could only come up with these little tidbits. My husband calls them brain dumps....so that's what I'll blog.

Trying to have faith in relationships again… A couple months ago, a long time mentor disagree vehemently with me about something church/attitude related…nothing wrong with that. But now that same person—who said they valued our friendship and differences of opinions and the fact that we could be real with each other—no longer communicates with me. I guess I’ve been banished.

The mass Christian outrage at political stuff…stuff they’re not even bothering to verify before forwarding on---is getting really old and giving us a bad name. Please check Snopes.com or google the issue before forwarding it on. We look like a bunch of religious idiots inciting riots over make believe problems.

America is not a refugee colony…we are a country, founded on freedom. In order to protect that freedom, we have to fight wars---foreign and domestic. Our country is being taken over by people who have no desire to learn our language, contribute to our economy or our governments taxes. But they expect government financial help, want us to change our language to include theirs and participate in elections that will decide how our government is run. I don't know about you, but I'm not ok with that.