Tag: relationship with God

“A 48 hr Personal Growth Experience”

This past weekend I attended a retreat called “A 48hr Personal Growth Experience”. It was a pilot retreat run by my good friend Francie Brown and the ministry she does with her husband called LOOK INSIDE. I’ve done other retreats with Francie so I was really excited about this one. 

As always, the timing was all God. This past month I have been floundering. New schedules, new routines. I fell off my diet wagon. I have felt like everything needed over-hauling but I had no direction or purpose. Why am I doing this?? So, the thought of going to a retreat where I might get a download of my “call” and “purpose” sounded great. 

As always, I ended up being surprised. Instead of looking for some outside source to give me direction, what we ended up doing was taking a really close look at what we already had in our lives. Let’s look at our incentives for change. Let’s look at the tools we have used in the past and that we are using right now. Let’s solidify our vision, based on what we already hope and dream about. Let’s look at our connections we already have in life and assess the health of those connections. And then, let’s figure out how to use the tools that are readily available to come up with an action plan that supports healthy connections and pursuing our vision. 

Very simple. But profound as we looked at each aspect of our life and made judgement on whether these things were good, bad, redeemable? Let’s figure out how to make the good better, contain the bad so it isn’t draining us, and either walk away from or redeem the mediocre in hopes of turning it into good. 

I walked away feeling hope. And also feeling like I had tangible steps I could make towards pursuing my vision. 

I’m going to share my Vision with you. But, first, a caveat. My vision is kind of like envisioning Heaven. This is perfection. This is what the ideal abundant life would look like. I am under no illusion that I am going to accomplish this vision perfectly or ever get as close to it as I wish. But, it’s the path I want to be on. The direction I want to be heading. 

My vision is in three parts. Relational: hopes and dreams for my relationships. Tangible: hopes and dreams for my circumstances and environment. God: my desires for my relationship with God. 

Here goes. 

I want my relationships to be authentic, mutual, and vulnerable. I want to grow my community. I want health and healing in my relationships. 

I want to thrive instead of survive. I want tangible plans for our finances and home/family management. I want to serve others with my gifts and talents. I want to have a healthy body/mind/emotions. 

I want to walk in deeper understanding of God’s love and grace. I want to make God the true center of my life and be purposeful about being in his presence. 

So, that all sounds really lofty. But in reality, what it looks like is making a TO DO list. Revamping my old home management systems. Inviting friends over for supper. Buying a book. Setting a timer on my FB so I don’t waste all my time in a mediocre environment. Just a bunch of small, doable steps. 

I’m feeling hopeful and thankful, ready to go conquer the world, one small step at a time. 

Thoughts on the Nature of Comfort

This past week, my almost three year old had to have a minor outpatient surgery. They had to put him to sleep for a short time and I was called back when he was in the recovery room, very slowly waking up from the anesthesia. It was pretty rough. He was moaning and crying and tossing and turning, trying to yank out the I.V., trying to pull off the monitors attached to his body, but all with his eyes closed, obviously not fully aware of what was going on. When I walked in, the nurse was trying to keep him from falling off his bed. I went straight for him and she asked if I wanted to hold him. Yes. Of course! 

 

She helped me get him out of the bed without disturbing the various wires, and I settled in a rocking chair with him. Even though he wasn’t awake, he knew it was me holding him. He immediately tried to snuggle as close to me as possible, still moaning and thrashing around. I held him tight and whispered in his ear, over and over, Mama’s here, it’s ok. Mama’s here. You’re going to be ok. He would settle down for a little bit and then start thrashing around again. And the whole time I was whispering to him, a litany of Presence. I am here. You are not alone. You are safe. Feel me touching you. Feel me holding you. I’ve got you. 

 

As I held him, I thought about comfort. How, in his pain and confusion, he craved physical touch, craved hearing my voice. In essence, what he really needed was to know that he was not alone. 

 

I thought about all the times that I have needed comforting. Even in my forties, I still have an occasional nightmare that jerks me awake panting in sheer terror. In that moment in time, when my heart is racing, and I am still struggling to sort out truth from fiction, all I want is for my husband to hold me. Let me feel your presence, let me know I am not alone. Let me feel protected in your arms. 

 

As a child with his parents or a wife with her husband, physical touch as a form of comfort is acceptable. But, in our less close relationships, we often don’t feel free to touch each other while offering comfort. So, what do we do? 

 

If you think back and remember times that people have comforted you, comfort basically boils down to letting someone know that they are not alone. I am so sorry for the death of your close one. I just want you to know that I’m praying for you. Here’s a token:  a card, or a cake, or a casserole…I just want you to know that someone is thinking about you enough to take time to get you something. You are not alone. 

 

Or perhaps when someone is suffering with cancer, we pull up memories of times that we faced cancer with another loved one. And the whole point of bringing up these other stories is that we want to assure them that they are not alone. Other people have walked this same path and had good outcomes. 

 

All this makes me wonder, is loneliness actually the worst thing that we can face?  When I think about all the times that I have been sad or heartbroken, I can say, yes, it has stemmed from some kind of loneliness. Perhaps missing friends, perhaps fear of losing someone close to me, perhaps being overwhelmed with life and feeling like I have no one to help me. No one who cares.

 

Two days ago I posted a blog about struggling with depression. I posted it on my Facebook and my friends came out in droves to comfort me. We’re here Esther! We love you! How can we help you? Have you tried these solutions? It was comfort. An offering of Presence from over the internet. 

 

Thank you all. 

 

We were made to be in relationship. Not alone. Relationship with God. Relationship with each other. 

 

“It is not good that the man should be alone…” Gen 2:18a

 

Thanks for being my friends and easing that loneliness. 

 

Loneliness

Loneliness has been on my mind this week. I was reading through a total stranger’s blog that I happened upon and I was overwhelmed with the waves of loneliness that crashed through one of her posts. I had a physical longing to just reach through the computer screen and pat her on the shoulder. Tell her I would be her friend if she wanted. Somehow let her know that there is a personal, relatable God who would love to permeate her life, take away the pain, fill it up with meaningful relationships. Somehow let her know that there is an answer, a solution.

I didn’t say anything though. I didn’t comment on her blog, I ghosted on by. Mostly because if a total stranger started talking real deep to me I would probably not be real open to what they have to say.  But she has stayed in my mind and I have been praying for her. And I have been thinking about loneliness.

I wish that I had some kind of “5 Steps Solution to Curing Your Loneliness”.  I was trying to think about what the solution is and all I could think of was that every single person is so different, how can there be one plan that fits all situations? And it occurs to me that while there is no “1 size fits all” plan, there is a “1 size fits all” God. If you have asked Jesus to forgive your sins and you have given your life to him, then you now have access to the One who can fix all things. He can fix your loneliness. He wants to fix your loneliness. He didn’t create us to be alone. That theme starts all the way in Genesis. God created us for relationships. To be in relationship with him and then to be in relationship with others. When people complain that they are lonely, they are in fact noticing that something is wrong with their lives, and I think it’s a problem that is universally recognized…it is not good to be alone. We were created to Not Be Lonely.

I am more of an introvert. I have never needed large groups of friends. I prefer a couple close friends, small groups, one-on-one conversations. While my childhood friendships were typical up-and-down affairs, God did bless me with a close family so that even on those days when my best friend hated me, I still had a family I could fall back on. Later I was blessed with a husband who has been my best friend for the last 20 years. Even when my women friends moved away or entered into different phases of life that moved us away from each other, I have still had my husband always there. I am what you would call a blessed woman. But I have to tell you a little bit about loneliness. It is very nuanced.

Somehow it is possible to be in a room, surrounded by people who love you and whom you love and yet you still feel alone. I was this way. I’m going to speculate on why I felt this way. When I was a kid I learned very quickly that the more people knew about you, your likes, dislikes, interests etc, the more power they had to hurt you. If they knew which boy you had a crush on, they could go tell other people and embarrass you. If they knew that something had hurt your feelings they could rub it in your face and make it a hundred times worse. If they knew of a mistake you had made they could broadcast it to the world and humiliate you. I slowly adopted the attitude of “If you don’t know me, you can’t hurt me”. If the only things you knew about me were surface things, inconsequential things, then you had no power over me. I retreated into a shell where I was very good at listening to other people and speaking into their lives, but I never opened up too much about my own life. It was too dangerous. I didn’t want to be hurt.

Now we come back to the one God who can fix all things. God lead me to a small group of women who offered me a safe place to talk, a safe place where I could open up about myself and not worry about having that information used against me. We met together once a week for years and while there were seasons when I couldn’t go, I attended as faithfully as possible. As I gained courage to open up, God used that momentum to start revealing areas in my life that needed healing and as he started healing me, I found it easier and easier to open up more. I started having courage to open up more even in my relationship with my husband which I had thought was pretty transparent. I found it easier to share about myself. The fear of being hurt slowly lessened.

Nowadays, I still have parts of me that I keep to myself, but now it’s just because not all stories are for all people. If the right person comes along who would benefit from those stories, I’ll share with them. I’m still an introvert, I still don’t have a boatload of friends, I still prefer small groups, one-on-one, but I find that I don’t feel near as lonely as I used to. Probably because I am no longer hiding.

Everyone has a different history, a different journey. I don’t know what your past was like. I don’t know what your daily struggles are. But I do know the God who knows you. And I know he doesn’t want you to be lonely. Ask. He’s listening.