My 2016 in Review (Part 1): "This was not a part of the plan God!"

For several years now, God has really been drilling it into me that I am not in control. The world does not revolve around me. And that He alone is sovereign and I am called to surrender to Him alone.

And yet I still find myself forgetting...and relearning.

This was one lesson I learned in 2016. The year started great with a dear group of friends. We had a party complete with games, food, laughter. Friends I was just beginning to know as I was working on maintaining a semblance of myself in the face of a lot of very hard things, including the end of my friendship with my best friend. "God this was not a part of the plan!" I cried out in anger as my heart broken inside; torn in this moment.

God's silence was not a part of the plan. Why, oh why was God silent? Had I disappointed Him?

Being moved to claims was not a part of the plan. My anxiety went through the roof and I had become a shell of a person; uncertain of who I really was anymore. Pieces of my heart dying was not a part of the plan. Weary, very weary and wanting to run away. Having to move a second time (end of April) when I just moved into my first apartment in October was not a part of the plan. "God this was not a part of the plan! Where are you?!" I screamed at the sky...hurt and angry. "No, no this was not a part of the plan." The numbness set in, my heart became bitter at God. Certain that everyone around me was going to leave me too.

Then a door was opened for me to leave my job. And another door opened for a wonderful, short-term place to live during the summer. And I left my job on good-terms and no longer had to deal with the relationship tension. "Well God, that definitely wasn't a part of the plan but thank you!"

And then Family Innovations happened. And I was able to rest and took a three day solitude retreat to reconnect with God. Him working on so much during those three days was beyond what was expected but I welcomed it. Throw in another sudden move (which I was again angry about). Then there was peace...peace and refuge.

Friends were good. Work was good. God and I were working to get on way better terms. Lasted two months. Then school, work, life balance - all a juggling act and I was running on full cylinders, ready to crash. Uncertain about letting people in, certain they were going to leave me too because apparently people can't handle my stress when I become stressed. I struggle to connect with God. I struggle because I know I'm not where I want to be, where I need to be...where I'm meant to be in my relationship with God. This disconnect was not a part of the plan. I needed this to be good. I needed this to be certain. But it was I who wasn't certain.

So I push for health and wholeness. I take 21 days to eat and exercise healthily. I feel my body growing stronger, my mind growing stronger. And I'm ready to step into the next phase of my therapy to really find the healing I need. And right when I said yes all hell broke loose in my life again. My heart broken over what I thought could be...at least I thought we were good friends. This doesn't make sense Lord! "This wasn't a part of the plan!"

Three weeks of intense emotions, depression, hard days at work. Long nights. "Lord this hurts! This wasn't supposed to go this way. I wasn't supposed to lose another friend!" And yet it was in this loss the light broke through. I sat and received God's love. Strength seeped into my bones, energy into my veins, and life back into my soul. I prayed. I journaled. I listened to worship music for hours. I had not been able to do that for a year (or more).

I began my EMDR therapy. I was back in the garden with Jesus. Except this time it was here in the garden, with God, that my brain was being transformed. "Well this was not a part of the plan, but I welcome it!"

School, work, life - the juggling act much more intensified as the term comes to a close. I'm still running on full cylinders but I can maintain it much better. One ball is finally gone...now it's work and life and work and life. Much more comfortable...until the last couple days. "What? God, this was not a part of the plan!..."

"Surrender, Precious One...Trust Me." Says the Father.

2016 will be looked back on as the year that surprised us all. I can honestly say if there was one year in my life (so far) where EVERYTHING was shaken that could be shaken it was 2016. Nothing went according to plan, nothing appeared stable or consistent or dependable. And yet this was the year that God grew me the most. I developed assertiveness for one! I learned to maintain healthier boundaries in relationships! I learned how to be OK being around men and even began having guy friends! I'm stepping into ministry, I'm doing things I was afraid of...this was the year that changed me because almost nothing went according to plan and yet God carried me through, steadied me in the storm, and equipped me for the journey.

I think the shakings come to push us to dig our roots deeper, to wrap ourselves around the bedrock - that which CANNOT be shaken. It hurts, it's uncomfortable, and it's definitely not easy to see it that way in the midst of the earthquake. But it's when we surrender our control to His control that life happens.

Isaiah 58:8-12

"Then your salvation will come like the dawn, and your wounds will quickly heal. Your godliness will lead you forward, and the glory of the Lord will protect you from behind. Then when you call, the Lord will answer. ‘Yes, I am here,’ he will quickly reply. “Remove the heavy yoke of oppression. Stop pointing your finger and spreading vicious rumors! Feed the hungry, and help those in trouble.
Then your light will shine out from the darkness, and the darkness around you will be as bright as noon. The Lord will guide you continually, giving you water when you are dry and restoring your strength. You will be like a well-watered garden, like an ever-flowing spring. Some of you will rebuild the deserted ruins of your cities. Then you will be known as a rebuilder of walls and a restorer of homes."

Be blessed Beloved!

The Quest for Worthiness at Christmas

It's 8pm on Christmas Eve and I rush to Target to get those last minute gifts. Not much in the bank, not much energy in my reserves, not much time left. I grab the stuff I was looking for and decide to make a quick run through the store should I need anything else I forgot. I've been so busy that I haven't had but a few days to actually think about what I was going to get people. As I'm looking at mugs I hear a yelling spat between a father and a young son towards the back of the store. Both claiming the other needed to listen better.

I haven't had much rest. It was a busy week but God really blessed me in the midst of it. Even though earlier in the week I had received a message from someone I ended up having to report as sexual harassment, and discuss thoroughly with my counselor and EMDR therapist. It's a continuation off of the last several weeks - this quest to step into worthiness. This struggle with never being good enough.

This Christmas season has brought me on a most atypical journey and yet so much of what is going around me has given me a different perspective on Christmas this year. On the birth of Christ, the Wise Men, Mary and Joseph, hope, light, truth, and brokenness.

Tonight as I think about Christmas and this quest into worthiness I've begun, my heart groans. Worthiness. To have a King become a baby for me? To humble Himself so low to demolish my sins? Looking at worthiness, I am completely unworthy of that depth of love. And yet God says just receive.

Receive the poverty, the vulnerability, the humility. Receive that nature obeyed the commands of God beyond what it was designed to function as. Receive that a young couple were chosen to endure the shame so that their Savior could be born. Receive that when Jesus cried that first cry, the cry of God's heart for the nations, it wrenched the veil between heaven and earth. For the first time since the Garden of Eden, God walked with man in the cool of the day.

Who am I that my Lord should walk with me and talk with me...and dance with me and sing with me, and bless the work of my hands, and provide for me. Give me people to surround me, a radio to blast praise music over, a roof over my head, money in my account, people to connect with, the sensation of the keys under my fingers as I type. The air in my lungs. I am mere dust. And yet He came because He sees us as something much more. And He calls us to something much more. And it's that "much more" that gives us our worthiness. It just is there, because God is always there. Separate from God we are nothing, merely chasers of the wind.

At Christmas we are called to remember. Remember the story. Remember what happened. Remember the hope we were given. Remember, and lay down our gifts before the King. "What I have I give Him, give Him my heart."

The quest for worthiness begins at Christmas. When the breather of life took His first breath in human lungs. Fully God and fully man. When Jesus was born so He could die. His coming was because He saw us as worthy to give up His glory for. Worthy to enter into the brokenness of our world so He could know us fully and so we could know Him. He became the source of joy - a joy we often struggle to have because we feel as if we may loose it at any second. But just like unconditional love can never be earned or lost, worthiness can never be earned or lost because according to God we just are worthy. By nature of being made in the image of God, being made for His pleasure. It's more the feeling of worthiness that is hard to grasp, and yet deep in our souls there is a cry to know we have worth beyond our frailty and brokenness.

The answer is we do...from a King who too knows what frailty and brokenness is.

Merry Christmas everyone!

The Gift

Last Christmas I don't really remember very well. I remember it being very busy and very dramatic. This year is busy and dramatic but in a different way. In this season I always look for ways that God seeks to bless me or give me a gift that isn't something I was looking for but was something I needed. Last year it came in the form of community. This Christmas it comes in a form of deeper healing and deeper connection with God.

Last year shortly after Thanksgiving I was diagnosed with PTSD. This is something I've struggled with for years but actually never really recognized or dealt with it. Which made it challenging for me in relationships and academics because my sensitivity to triggers really messed with me. But I just never felt like it was something I needed to deal with. Part of that probably had to do with the lies I had believed for years about myself. It took a lot digging and shoveling through muck and gunk before it became clear what was going on. At that time my therapist and I discussed doing some EMDR but I was at such a chaotic point in my life that he felt it wasn't the right time. I wanted it to be time but agreed I needed to wait it out. In the year between God brought certain things into my life that challenged me to face my triggers in ways I never thought I needed, it came in the form of community and brought me to a place of healing and redemption.

Recently my triggers related to the PTSD have become more and more clear and specific. It took me a year to sort through a lot of stuff before I finally was able to narrow it down to very specific things, specific questions, specific reactions. It was very clear and definite. And my therapist again broached the idea about doing EMDR. So I prayed about it, researched it and felt it was time.

So last week I started. I had done a lot of prayer and preparation for weeks (although consciously I didn't think of it as "preparation", it was more where I was at in life) and had broken through in my relationship with God. Finally. Like real legit breakthrough and I was coming back to where I had been before the fiasco that happened last year. I stepped into the session and was asked to describe what my "happy place" was. I knew exactly.

Some of you who have been following me for some time may have come across a poem I had written called "The Garden". This garden is my special me and Jesus spot and had become a central piece to my faith and life since I was much younger. Over the last few years the garden has grown to include an open prairie field, a forest, a seashore, a beautiful valley, a desert, and the waters have become more full of fish and coral and life in general and taken on a more defined depth to them. And each location has a very specific meaning and purpose between me and Jesus. This is where I am when I worship, when I pray, when I spend time with God. This is my "happy place".

In EMDR what happens is your "happy place" becomes your center and out of your center your brain becomes rewired around trauma. Put all of this together - the Garden, me and Jesus, brain rewired, trauma healed, and my mind was blown. I don't know about you but I thought that was AMAZING! Literally I hold something that causes me anxiety and I hold the garden together in my being and through these things called "tappers" (they give you bilateral stimulation - aka they vibrate in one hand at a time) all combined my anxiety drops - my brain becomes rewired around the thing that causes me anxiety and I no longer have an issue with that thing.

But this was the gift - that God is healing me of the trauma through some cutting edge treatment. It's not just a treatment that is based in a field that comes straight out of humanism and secularist mindset, it's God infused in the treatment, guiding me and directing EVERY SINGLE STEP of the process. To explain further this week when I went in I had to hold something mildly irritating (a leaky faucet) and the Garden together and be there until my anxiety dropped from a 6 to a 1. At first I was wandering through the Garden unsure of which location I should be at. I didn't feel settled so I went back to the river and I looked in the river and there were these little fishes swimming around in the coral there, playing together. And I enjoyed watching those little fish play together. My anxiety dropped from a 6-4. Then little animals came to sit beside me and play with me. My anxiety dropped from a 4-2. Then I had to hold something moderately irritating (stop-and-go traffic) and the Garden together. Jesus came to sit beside me while I played with the animals and watched the fish play with each other. My anxiety dropped from a 7-4. Then Jesus wrapped me up in a big hug and played along side me with the animals. Anxiety drops from 4-2. Then Jesus asks me to come chase him through the prairie grass. Anxiety drops from 2-1.

God directing every step.

I think from time to time we miss out on the Gift because we fail to realize that we hold no control over pretty much anything but our actions. We look and seek for things that are often right in front of us. Often perceiving the gift as less than what it really is. Sometimes that's people, sometimes that's things or events, and sometimes that is just this fact that we get to be in relationship with God. This gift surprised me this season - I was not prepared to be so immersed in a healing process with God. A few months ago I wasn't even in a position to really enter into this sort of relationship dynamic with God. It was only through a situation that arose that led me to a place of total surrender and total dependence on God to help me through that I found myself again.

Like the innkeeper who was seeking some peace and someone to lessen their burden. Or the shepherds who were looking for meaning and hope. Or the young couple who were looking for provision for their basic needs with a baby on the way. Or the wise men who were looking for fulfillment. All received a gift that Christmas day, a Gift that met their every need and satisfied every desire. And they almost missed it because it wasn't what they were looking for.

The Birth

The story of the virgin birth has always intrigued me at Christmas. How God reached down and touched humanity so intimately that the laws of man and nature were so in awe of the Almighty that they surrendered to His doing. How God orchestrated it all, how God choose a humble Jewish girl, how God choose to step into the lives of the lowliest. It was a death of the natural that made way for the ultimate source of life.

Sometimes in life we face a death of the natural to make way for New Life. A death to ourselves. A surrender of control for God's calling and ultimate plan that transcends and transforms our own. Every woman who has ever given birth before understands this death - a death of will, of body, of control for the sake of another. When the pains sweep over you, and every contraction tears your body apart. Birthed in fire, blood and water new life comes, purified, transformed, redeemed.

In this season I am in a death of sorts. A death to myself, of how I would have planned things to go. A death of how I wanted things to be. A death of my heartstrings as a different sort of contractions sweep over me and my life. The pains come more intensely now, more frequently, and longer. A calling of the Eternal to step into the life He has for me. If I had been Mary, could I have said yes? Could I have surrendered everything to bring the Savior into this world?

When I'm on my own, devoid of pain or struggles, I feel I can say yes to anything God asks of me. But its in the midst of the death that it gets hard. When my body, mind and spirit are uncomfortable with where I'm at. When my life has overwhelmed me and I feel like giving up. When the future only shows more difficulty. When God asks me to surrender to thy will be done. As Mary said:

“I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true.” Luke 1:38

It didn't mean that what came for the rest of Joseph and Mary's lives was easy. But from the death, from the surrender, came a new and greater life than either of them could have known when they surrendered. Some of the greatest gifts come out of the seasons of intense pain and struggle. In God's timing He makes all things new, all things beautiful.

So we cut down the Christmas trees and decorate them with light. So we light the candles and hang the garland. And we sing songs of hope and joy in the darkness. Because to have the birth, to enter into the glorious life God has for us there has to be death.

In the Darkness There Shone a Great Light

It was around this time last year, maybe even down the week, that my life fell apart. My relationship with my best friend was exploding, I was in a job I hated and drained the life out of me, I was crying out to God desperate to hear His voice and He was silent. I had become so convinced that I was a menace to society that I almost dropped my entire life and checked myself into a mental health ward. Convinced that God had turned his back on me, convinced that I was such a bad person...it was emotionally abusive and I was as close to walking through hell as I could ever have come. I had lost all semblance of who I was and I was in the thickest darkness I could have walked through in my life. At my most intense point God broke through shouting "You are My Daughter! You are My Child!" Driving deep into my soul how precious and cherished I was by God.

A year later I'm in a similar place. It feels like every year around this time for the past 7 years something major has happened relationally that has put me into a darkness that is hard to describe. It's like the season of Advent becomes real to me. The skies become darker sooner, the weather colder, the outlook bleaker as we prepare for winter, and it seems that hope is harder to hold onto. This should be a season of joy.

I think of the wise men who had no idea if what they were following was true, but they had faith that all the signs pointed to the coming king. I think of the shepherds, caring for their flock at the personal cost to them. Unsure of how many sheep would survive the next season, unsure of what hope they had for their own future. I think of the inn keeper who was so stressed with the incoming guests that they couldn't see the light before them. And I think of the young couple who had nothing and the weight of the world on their shoulders. And the Roman soldiers, hungry for blood, the evil King desperate to protect His throne. And the 4,000 years that people waited for Jesus to come. Indeed, there was a great darkness.

The season of Advent, although not really observed by myself until this year, has drawn me to seek the Lord time and time again in ways I never would have otherwise. The fact that it has continually been relationship struggles that happen around this time and questioning my identity isn't lost on me. As a connector, relationships are crucial for me. I love with all my heart. And yet the darkness always comes. This season always teaches me where to put my hope and joy. God sometimes removes the very things we cherish in the world so that we can be reminded of the one thing we should cherish more than anything else.

It's a painful surrender. And yet it's the greatest gift that I could have been given. It's a hard eucharisteo. The Christmas season is a time of giving, but it's to be more than a focus on the people in our lives. We are to give out of a heart that has been given and forgiven much. Yes Christmas is about giving, but it's not just about giving to people, it's about giving to God the very thing He cherishes most - our hearts. There's a reason, and a gift, hidden in the depression that comes for many in this season. It's to point us back to the true Light. A refocus of our priorities, the things we cherish, and the places we put our dependency and hope.

As I've walked through the last couple weeks under intense depression and anxiety because of yet another relationship struggle, it's helped me to put aside my anger at God for this last year and instead receive His comfort and love. I haven't been really able to do that in a long time. There were definite pieces of my heart that died last year and yet I keep living. There are definite disappointments in this season about where my life is at. And yet God has given a hope and light that can pierce any darkness we are in. The Light is not found in the people around us, the work we do, nor the accomplishments in our life. It's found in the One who became like us, so that He could know personally and intimately who we are. To relate to us in terms we can understand. It's easy to connect our hearts to innocence and goodness. It's easy to surrender our walls when someone else is vulnerable with us. So God came to earth as a baby. The place of primary connection. The bond to the eternal began with hope and light, new life.

My hope and prayer for you and for me this Advent season is that we would turn and return our focus and our life to the place of Light. The place of primary connection and community. God gives us these holidays to reflect who He is and to show us His love. There is a deep level of darkness in this season and yet there is a Hope, a Light that shines brighter. Sometimes God has to remove things in our life, even good things, that distract us from fully entering into that Light with Him because He cherishes our hearts above all else. I pray that we can enter into that place together this Christmas season.

Never Good Enough...

I can still see, hear and feel it as if it was yesterday. Mommy had gone into the basement with her friend who had been watching me (I was three at the time). I wanted to go into the basement too after the lady's son, who was my age, followed them. But my Mom tells me "Oh, Eliana can you watch the baby and make sure she doesn't get hurt?" I was disappointed, I wanted to go into the basement. I watch as the baby comes into the kitchen and starts playing under the table, she toddles over to me. I'm standing at the top of the stairs to the basement watching, longing, hoping that they would come back so I could go down too. Then I think to myself that if I carefully helped the baby down the steps I would be keeping her safe and get what I wanted.

I carefully take her hand and go down a couple steps in front of her, turn around and try to coax her down. She gets down the first step and I gently pull at her hand again, she resists. I pull a little harder and lose my balance. As the baby falls past me I let go to catch myself from falling. Shocked and horrified I will never be able to let go of that sight or sound of her little body hitting every single step - head, feet, head, feet. The smack as she hits the cement floor of the basement. I remember freezing with both of my hands over my mouth, screaming with no sound coming out of my mouth. I remember her laying on the floor crying as everyone down in the basement surrounded her. Everything after that was a blur. I still to this day cannot get myself to ask my parents what happened after even though we've mentioned it here and there. I cling to the fact that she cried that things turned out OK but I don't know and I don't want to know.

This moment in my life kinda became the internal lens through which I saw myself and the world around me. Choices and decisions I made since that point were made to help myself avoid the horror, embarrassment and shame that came from that moment. When I began babysitting I literally shook every time I had to carry a baby down the stairs. I would have these sensations of them falling out of my arms suddenly even though I was doing everything right. When I was at school I had to be perfect because the one time I messed up I got in trouble or someone else got hurt. I wasn't good enough. When other traumas happened and I couldn't protect myself or I said or did something hurtful to someone else, I wasn't good enough. When prom came and no one asked me to go, I wasn't good enough. When I went through college and I struggled to keep up with the demands of that time period I wasn't good enough. When two sets of best friends walked away from me, I wasn't good enough. When the man I fell in love with (knowing he didn't reciprocate) fell in love with someone else with me standing right beside him, I wasn't good enough. When I couldn't get into grad school, I wasn't good enough. When I felt God calling me into a sort of missions field with my job at Medica and He became silent after the abortion calls, I wasn't good enough. When I'm 25 and no man has expressed interest in me, I wasn't good enough (I'm too fat, I'm too afraid, I'm not pretty enough, I'm too emotional, I'm not connected with God enough, I'm not flexible enough, I'm not relationally competent enough, etc.). When I struggle to balance work, life and school, I wasn't good enough. When I struggle to connect with God after months of extreme stress and traumatic experiences, I wasn't good enough. When almost every relationship in my life becomes disconnected from me, I wasn't good enough. When God doesn't allow the desires of my heart to happen as I watch it happening to everyone else, I wasn't good enough.

I have lived my life with this mantra going on inside of me, labeling me as "never good enough." The lies, the deception, the struggles with feeling worthy. It's hard. Really hard.

"Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see." Hebrews 11: 1

Looking at my life I struggle to believe the truth that God speaks over me - that He has called me worthy, that He loves me unconditionally, that He has good things planned for me. I struggle to hold to faith because it tells me "things we cannot see." I will never be good enough. I will never measure up in this world. God has chosen to make me so different from the rest of the world, so intensely wired to connect deeply and meaningfully with others that I really struggle with relationships. I will never be good enough and that's OK. Because the truth is when we become redeemed through Christ the perfect Lamb of God, the only one without spot or blemish, becomes our identity. 

To those of you reading this who also struggle with feeling not good enough I feel ya! There is something wired into us since the fall of Adam and Eve that we long to be considered good enough. I wonder what peace would come into our lives, what ability to love and know love would come to us if we believed the gift that God gave us. Our old selves look and long and seek, our new selves, being made into the likeness and image of Christ, are satisfied and complete. It's this constant tension within ourselves to be the new man or to be the old self. But I'm tired, I'm drained from all the efforts to measure up by my own works. I'm tired of the depression I fall into with each mistake, the image of the baby falling down the steps going through my mind as I find myself hurting someone I cared about. We are flawed and sinful, and yet God loved us. He chose us. He deemed us worthy. And He just wants us to know His love.