Anne Marie Miller

Author: Anne Marie Miller

  • Dirty Feet

    Over the past two weeks, I shared two essays I wrote privately during Holy Week (when I still lived in California). So often I get distracted after the season has passed and simply forget how profoundly reflecting on the Cross can be. Two weeks ago was the first. Last week was the second. Here is the third and final.

    ____

    Maundy Thursday.

    I had heard those words before, but even after spending most of my life in church, I had no idea what they meant. During Holy Week, I told my friend Susan I’d attend all the services at her church with her. When Thursday rolled around, I realized I didn’t know what I was getting myself into.

    I remember the first time I went to St. B’s in Nashville. I had never been to a liturgical church in my life, at least, not during a service. The first time I attended a service, I nervously clenched my program. When do we kneel? Will people look at me strangely if I don’t make the sign of the cross? Do I dip the bread in the cup or do I have to drink from the cup after all those other people have touched it? Can I even receive communion here? I was a member at a non-denominational church and was even an ordained and licensed minister…but not in an Episcopal church. At the churches I had been to and worked at in my adult life, communion appeared to be a programming element. “Oh, we have ten extra minutes in the service here – let’s do communion.” It wasn’t a weekly thing.

    I was so nervous.

    The same nervousness passed over me as I drove to the Maundy Thursday services last week. I quickly read through the history of Maundy Thursday on Wikipedia – summaries of different interpretations hit my screen. Foot-washing, giving money to the poor, eucharist, stripping of the altar….

    Ohhhh-kay…?

    I decided to just flow with whatever was going to happen.

    After some prayers and readings, one of the junior bishops got up and talked about the foot washing prior to the Lord’s Supper.

    Most of us, myself included, have always seen the act as one of service – Jesus putting himself in a lowly position to perform a menial task.

    And then…

    Plot. Twist.

    He pulled out a verse in John to focus on.The one where Simon Peter refuses to let Jesus wash his feet, and Jesus’ response to him.

    No,” Peter protested, “you will never ever wash my feet!”

    Jesus replied, “Unless I wash you, you won’t belong to me.”

    Simon Peter had a point, and I’d probably have the same reaction. “Sorry, Jesus. You’re, you know…JESUS…and I am not going to let you wash my feet.” He felt unworthy to have his leader, someone who he saw as the coming messiah, get down and clean his dirty feet.

    How often do we feel the same way?

    How often do we not want to let people in (or Jesus for that matter) because we feel we are burdening them with our dirty feet?

    ***

    I tried to hold them back, but I couldn’t.

    Tears started running down my face. Especially over the last year, I have felt like a walking weight. I’ve often likened it to thrashing in the middle of the ocean trying not to drown while my friends are all swimming to shore…I grab on to someone, we swim for a while, I see the shore, and I try to swim harder. I don’t want to push any of my friends down along the way but I need to get to dry land. I don’t feel worthy enough to be carried much longer. And so much of the shame and guilt from my past has me keeping God’s all-restoring, all-perfecting love at arms’ length.

    “No, Jesus, you can’t wash my feet.

    I’m too…

    Broken.

    Hopeless.

    Confused.

    Aimless.

    You should have given up on me by now.”

    “Let me wash your feet.”

    “But…”

    “Let me wash your feet. If you desire me, you will let me wash your feet.”

    ***

    The church leaders up front started pulling out bowls and water.

    What?

    We were going to have a foot-washing ceremony, in church?

    But there are so many of us.

    This is going to take forever.

    Where am I supposed to put my shoes?

    What?

    Wash my feet?

    No.

    No.

    No.

    “Go, Anne. Go.”

    I know God’s voice when I hear it.

    I made my way to the front.

    I pulled my red shoes off and tucked my socks inside. I sat in a chair and waited. Finally, I walked to the bowl and sat down in front of it.

    The junior bishop dipped his towel into the bowl as I placed my feet in it. He said a prayer of blessing over me, thanking God for the “path he has placed me on.” I continued to cry. If only he knew my path, maybe he wouldn’t say such crazy things. Or maybe he does know? Who knows. Another leader dried my feet off. I walked back to my shoes, picked them up, and made my way back to my seat. I placed my arms on the pew in front of me and laid my head them, quietly crying.

    “Why do you still love me? How can anyone still love me? I feel so helpless.”

    I continued to cry…pushing away the love that was trying to envelop me. To be lavished on me.

    “No…no…no…you can’t wash my feet.”

    “I already have…”

    As the choir sang and the rest of the congregation had their feet washed, I realized how hard it is for me to choose to receive love.

    But receiving love is just as important as giving it.

    ***

    After we were all seated, the Bishop and other leaders began silently removing everything from the altar. Every flower, every cloth, every kneeling cushion. Even the very cross that had been draped with a sheer white cloth was removed. And they began washing the altar with towels and water. The candles which remain lit at all times were put out.

    I thought about what it must have been like for the disciples and Jesus to clear the table after the Lord’s Supper. How they probably stripped away the table cloth and the plates of food and the chalices of wine and the bread crumbs.

    It represents the end of an era. An end of a time.

    And it was preparing the way.

    A way of death for life.

    A way of life for us.

    They finished stripping the altar – it was completely bare.

    Without notice, all of the lights went out.

    A door slammed.

    Some people gasped. I jumped, startled.

    There was no cue, but we all filed out of the sanctuary. Nobody said a word.

    It was finished.

    ***

    Jesus knew what waited for him the day after the Final Supper. We knew what this meant.

    I drove home in complete silence.

    I felt like the person I loved the most was dying because of something I did.

    It wasn’t fair.

    “Why? How?”

    I’ve spent most of my life reflecting on Easter, the death and the resurrection, and have yet to reconcile it. I know it was what was meant to be. And who am I to take his cup?

    I just need to stop trying to rationalize love.

    And I need to let him kneel before me, and wash my dirty, messed up, broken-hearted, fearful but eternally grateful feet.

  • Online Porn, Cosmopolitan Magazine & Me

    When I got a message from a writer for the Australian edition of Cosmopolitan magazine, I never thought anything would come from it. I’d been contacted by large-scale media in the past and after being interviewed, they might use a line or two of what I said in an article. Maybe.

    I assumed the same would happen with this. First, I’m not Australian. Second, I’m about as far away from a Cosmo girl as a Lean Cuisine is from making it as a centerfold for Food & Wine Magazine. But when I saw my name pop up on Twitter from someone saying she enjoyed the “Anne Jackson article” in the August issue, my stomach freaked out a little.

    A few emails later, I had a PDF copy of the article. Sure enough, it was completely focused on the story of my addiction to pornography that I wrestled with in my late teens and early twenties. Aside from a few misquotes (one saying I still “look at porn, just not compulsively” – the truth is I don’t look at porn, especially not compulsively…on rare occasion I have given into temptation, but have gracious accountability on the other side),

    I was surprised but thankful a magazine like Cosmo opened such a proactive and vocal door to women and pornography addiction.

    Unfortunately, I can’t publish the article online (the screen shot above is as good as I can do), but if I can, I’ll certainly do that. Until then, I thought I’d share an essay out of my book Permission to Speak Freely (which I learned is currently on sale for $7.98) that shares my journey.

    It’s my hope that if someone Googles something about women and porn addiction seeking help, they’ll find some hope and support here. This is a problem that loves to hide in the dark. It could make a huge difference in the life of someone you know if you shared this openly with your small group, the women you know, or on your blog or Facebook.

    —

    Essay #5 – Shattered Pixels

    As you saw from my playground experience earlier, I run when hurt hunts me down.

    I put the blame for the pain I was experiencing from the “relationship” with this youth pastor on God and began to run from my faith again. God and I were through. He obviously didn’t care about me, so I didn’t care about Him anymore either.

    To help numb the pain, I began experimenting with a lot of things that weren’t healthy for me.

    A little alcohol.

    Some pills.

    And pornography.

    I know, I know. Porn is a guy’s problem. Girls—especially teenage girls—don’t look at porn.

    And the last place you would expect to see porn is the living room of a former pastor, right?

    But during these “dark years,” between a portrait of my family taken at Christmastime and an old, broken, dot matrix printer sat a computer screen. The place where I typed book reports and instant-messaged my friends became the doorway to an endless amount of forbidden fruit—and even more amounts of guilt.

    Still in culture shock from our move to Dallas, and now with an awakened sense of myself sexually, I began to notice the provocatively lit neon signs loudly proclaiming XXX and FULL NUDITY. On the way home from school on my bus, I overheard two boys talking about looking up images of people having sex online. Ignited teenage hormones combined with the new technology of the Internet proved to be a dangerous combination.

    Late one night, after my parents and younger brother had gone to bed, I logged on and did an online search for “sex.” I had no idea that typing that one word into a computer would lead me to an addiction I’d fight for years.

    And it wasn’t just a physical addiction either. Viewing these outwardly flawless women fed the huge emotional need that was left by my dad’s withdrawal and the youth pastor’s rejection. Through the fantasies I would have by looking at that computer screen, I would find love and affirmation.

    I graduated as planned my junior year and moved out a few months after my seventeenth birthday. Now I had my own apartment with my own computer, and all the freedom in the world. I would go to work (now the manager of the Christian bookstore), come home, and look at porn almost every night. Soon my porn binges started affecting my performance at work and my relationships because I wouldn’t get any sleep, and when I was with friends, I would secretly obsess about how soon I could be home and when I could get my next fix.

    What’s a girl to do?

    Of course, I never mentioned my struggle to anyone. Looking at porn was typical, even expected, for men . . . but a girl? A girl who likes porn? I often questioned my sexual orientation. If I was straight, why did I like looking at naked women? So was I gay? Or bisexual? Or was I just perverted?

    I hated the pattern I had fallen into. I think I knew it was wrong. At least I realized anything that caused this much obsession couldn’t be right.

    But I couldn’t stop.

    The addiction went from online to offline. When something as dark and lonely and shameful as a sexually oriented addiction has a grasp on you, you do a lot of things you’d never in a million, billion years dream you’d ever do.

    My boundaries crumbled and I began sexually experimenting, at times with men I barely knew. One night when I was almost eighteen, I remember going to a cute guy’s house. He was a junior in college, and I had met him only a few days before at a local Waffle House. Aside from a few mental snapshots, I don’t remember anything from that night except having a drink and waking up fuzzy, alone, half dressed on his couch. He was nowhere to be found; I dressed and went home. I never saw him or heard from him again.

    I don’t even remember his name.

    According to everything I had seen, to be accepted and loved meant to have a sexual relationship, and what girl doesn’t need to be accepted and loved?

    For years this addiction held me tightly in a dark embrace, and somewhere inside me I knew it wasn’t the life I was intended to have. I knew it was wrong. And as I got older and began to rediscover my faith and my purpose and identity in Christ, I knew I had to break away from the safety I found in my morphed perspective of sex.

    As twisted as it was, it was familiar. And that familiarity brought me comfort.

    But I knew I needed to let it go.

    I confessed everything I could remember to God, even asking Him to cover the things I had forgotten or didn’t want to bring up because I was so ashamed of them. I took my computer out and placed it in the dumpster by my apartment and refused to have Internet at home for the next several years. It helped me break that cycle.

    That confession and resulting penance seemed like it was good enough. For the time being, anyway.

    —

    Aside: I also ended up confessing a couple of years later to a friend, who had shared some of her secrets with me. Her opening up to me about her brokenness first gave me the courage to speak freely about mine. It’s never easy or comfortable asking for help, but in the end, speaking the truth about who we are and what God has done in our lives shines more brightly than we’ll ever know. If you’re needing help with any addiction or abuse, click here.

  • The Slow and Inefficient Work of God (Part 2)

    Over the next couple of weeks, I will be posting three essays I wrote privately during Holy Week (when I still lived in California). So often I get distracted after the season has passed and simply forget how profoundly reflecting on the Cross can be. Last week was the first. This is the second.

    —

    Some days, it is hard enough to get me out of bed for church – let alone drive anything over an hour to go. But when my friend Susan asked me to attend the Holy Week services at her church in South Pasadena I was more than willing to trek the 62.4 miles (one way) from my South Orange County abode. And to do it several times this week. Susan’s church seemed similar to St. B’s, plus I’d get to escape the OC bubble all week. And of course, I wanted to be very intentional about listening to what God is telling me during this season of renewal.

    As I wrote in the previous note, Palm Sunday was the official beginning of Holy Week. I went to St. James’ evening service – a sparsely attended service lit mainly by the glow of candles. I took my seat next to Susan in an old, wooden pew and looked up at the light fixture above me. The light fixture above me was identical to the ones at St. B’s.

    I grinned as I sang.

    Standing up during the rest of the songs, I allowed my hands to grasp the back of the pew in front of me, feeling each and every crack in the smooth wood. I wondered how many people have clinched this pew because of how lonely they were, just waiting to hear something – anything – from God.

    “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

    I imagine a nervous mom who’s worried about her son rubbing her thumbs across the top, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

    I imagine a girl new to LA, trying to find work and praying she doesn’t lose her apartment. “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

    I imagine a husband whose wife has just passed, leaving him and their children behind. “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

    I think of the person who just found out the test came back positive with cancer. “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

    No doubt this pew had received it’s share of sweaty palms and fingers over its day. The wood was smooth and worn because of human flesh, slowly, weekly, perhaps daily, rubbing over it desperately, grasping for anything.

    The priest stood up to share on Matthew. If you’re not familiar with liturgical tradition, there typically is no 30 minute “how-to” sermon. It’s more of a reflection on the liturgy for that day and leading into that week. He spoke about Jesus’ last week (which I found interesting given I had just written about it hours before) and then he said a phrase that has forever lodged into my head:

    The Slow & Inefficient Work of God.

    He illustrated it with waves of the ocean, moment by moment moving in from the vast sea to land. In one wave, this motion does nothing. But slowly and inefficiently, whatever is in the ocean’s way becomes worn smooth.

    I thought back to Sunset Beach on Saturday night – the sand was smooth…so remarkably smooth. The closer to the ocean I got, the smoother it got until it felt as if I were walking on silk.

    The slow and inefficient work of God.

    I thought about the pew in front of me, worn and glassy. Those who had rubbed past the gloss, through the stain, and worn the wood down to satin in their desperate fingers.

    The slow and inefficient work of God.

    I thought about my heart. It’s crag-like and rough. If you were to walk on it, there are sharp edges that would cut your feet. I want God to change my heart. Now. I want him to take away my impatience, my entitlement to not feel lonely sometimes, the way I can impose on others. Take it away, God. Now?

    He gently says no as one, single wave of his grace washes over.

    And then another.

    And then another.

    I could move my heart farther from the ocean and let it live untouched and unbothered by this seemingly unproductive task. I could build a dam around it and not let the waters in. Or I could simply sit and let the waters of grace slowly, moment by moment, smooth my heart out.

    The slow and inefficient work of God.

    “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

  • A Holy Week Repeat (Part 1)

    Over the next three weeks, I will be posting three essays I wrote privately during Holy Week (when I still lived in California). So often I get distracted after the season has passed and simply forget how profoundly reflecting on the Cross can be.

    ____

    Holy Week Reflections – Part 1 – Sunset

    Yesterday, I went to the ocean.

    Given the fact I currently reside in the nether regions of California, one would think the ocean existing ten miles from my house would somehow be capable of luring me to its shore at least two or three times a week. However, in the two months I have lived here, I have only made it to its salty border three times – and one of those was out of sheer determination since it was pouring, and I stayed in my car squinting over Lookout Point trying to find some hint of the Pacific through the blinding rain.

    Yesterday, it was almost ninety degrees and sunny. I know the ocean and I will not always live in such proximity, and with all my chores done and bills paid, there was no excuse for me not to pay my respect. I took a winding road to Sunset Beach, a flat beach known for its great surfing, to watch the sun plummet into the waters.

    I was in my typical weekend uniform: a grey t-shirt and jeans and flip flops. With each drop of the sun, the temperature became cooler and the salty breeze moved up my skin, leaving a trail of goosebumps in its wake. The smooth sand climbed off the ground and ran toward the crevices between my toes, each grain being welcomed as I slid my way across the shoreline.

    As with every sunset I intentionally pursue, I captured a few photos on my phone. Two children played with kites at the top of the beach, a few surfers waited to see if the waters would give them one final wave, and with each push of the climbing tide, what used to be a teepee of firewood from a bonfire began to drift back west into the ocean.

    After most of the sun had disappeared, I made my way back up to my car, parked at the top of the hill. I turned it around and drove slowly through this uniquely beach-style community, and in typical “Anne Jackson Must Plan Everything” style, I began to schedule out the next day: Palm Sunday.

    Palm Sunday is the beginning of Holy Week, and in the most recent years, has become a marker for me, much like Advent. While I worked in protestant churches, Holy Week was more like Hell Week (with all due respect to my protestant church friends). Let me clarify: In the specific churches I served in, it was as if a tsunami were arriving Easter Sunday (the tsunami being twice our normal attendance looking for a spectacular show). So here comes the Tsunami and it was my job to tell everyone about it and make sure nobody died. Obviously, as believers we are all entrusted to stewarding every moment we are given to shine God’s glory in every situation (Easter Sunday and all its festivities included) however, I (emphasis on I) was never able to align my duties with my faith and the reverence such a week should demand. Ironic, isn’t it? On the other hand, there are many of my friends who serve in non-liturgical churches who do so with such admirable fervor filled with integrity. I just couldn’t do it.

    It wasn’t until I began attending St. Bartholomew’s in Nashville, at the invitation of my manager (and then continued encouragement from several of my friends who attended) that I began to crack the door open on what it was I had been missing. Sure, I always knew it was something — but I never knew what.

    And please note: this is not an essay on denominational preference. I am just a girl who grew up Baptist and almost exclusively worked in Baptist churches until I found community at St. B’s – not theology. And there’s no denying that even for liturgical churches like St. B’s, extra “work” goes into Holy Week. I mean, where does anyone find all those palm leaves for Palm Sunday? In California, it makes sense — but in Tennessee? Is there a catalog?

    With the liturgy, doing what has been done for centuries and having the Spirit guide us newly each and every year reduces the “show” and puts the emphasis for me, personally, where it should be: back at the altar where I can commune and be reminded of the blood and the body; the brokenness in me which has died (what was, now, and is to come). Those things were crucified with Christ and this week, I remember that with a heavy and grateful heart. And out of that heart comes joy overflowing. Abundant. Ready to give and share with others.

    If I’m lucky, I’ll have experienced around 29,000 sunsets in my life. 29,000 sunrises too. And not to be morose, but I’m getting close to the halfway point. As I drove away from Sunset Beach last night and the final rays of light merged into darkness, I couldn’t help but wonder “What were You thinking the week before you died?”

    If I knew I had one week to live, even if I fully understood the reason for my life to begin with, what would I be thinking with each passing sunset?

    Did each minute for you go by even quicker? When the temperature dropped and the night settled in, did your heart beat just a little faster, knowing you were one day closer to the end and yet at the same time, the beginning? The divine humanity that we’re told about in stories of you knowing the weight of the burden you carried doesn’t leave me doubting that there was some kind of holy fear within you. Did you close your eyes and anticipate what each stripe of a leather whip would feel like as it tore through your skin? Did you wonder how heavy the cross would be, and how it would feel to have the sharp edges of old wood bury itself into your flesh? Did you dream? Did you sleep at all?

    Today is Palm Sunday. I am not at St. B’s with the church family I have come to love, but later this evening I will be at a friend’s church as we will participate in Sacramentum. Sacramentum is an experimental emergent Eucharistic service that aims to bridge the gap between ancient liturgy and modern life through the art of music, media, and setting.

    Yes, this is “just another Sunday.” But on this particular Sunday my heart is quieted, and focused. Focused on what has come that has been forgiven and crucified. On what is now and the grace in which I abide in and Christ who lives in me. And on what is to come, in hope, and glory eternal.

    “What were you thinking?”

    That’s what I’ll be thinking about this week.

  • From Knot to Knot

    There is a story that begins with a monk in Croatia and ends with me, in Nashville, wearing a prayer bracelet he made. A woman who I’ve never met purchased a handful from this monk and gave a some to a female graduate student living in Salem, Oregon. I visited Salem on my book tour last fall, where this lovely girl interviewed me about my trip to India and sex trafficking before the event began. We shared stories and quite possibly, a kindred spirit. She had no idea that soon, the world that had been falling apart inside and around me would collapse into one of my darkest times.

    Three days after the event in Salem, I was laying in a bed in Gig Harbor, Washington, after finishing the tour the evening before. A friend of mine sent me a text message which woke me up, as it was 8:30 am in his time zone and 5:30 am in mine. He asked how I was doing, knowing it had been a rough season. I debated in my sleep-filled mind what to say. Do I tell him exactly what I’m thinking? Do I tell him what I’ve done?

    At 5:30 am, I count it a blessing I couldn’t think clearly enough to lie. I told him the truth.

    Sensing the urgency of my words, he and a small group of people worked together to get me the help I needed. I was going to be able to go away to a center in a desert for thirty days of intensive counseling and healing.

    As I packed my bags for Arizona, I was checking my email one last time. One downloaded from the graduate student I met in Salem. She asked if she could pray for me, feeling led to reach out. Only my closest friends knew I’d be leaving, but not counting her email a coincidence, I decided to tell her as well. I gave her the address to the place I’d be staying in case she wanted to write, as I wouldn’t have internet access there.

    If what the Scriptures say is true about our spirits groaning, that is the only faith I could find, and that wasn’t even intentional. God seemed absent, and I didn’t have the energy – and quite honestly the desire – to seek him out. Once I was in my routine in the desert, when people would ask about my faith I simply said, “I’m searching,” and moved on.

    I was empty.

    A package came in the mail a week or so after I arrived, and in it, this bracelet from Croatia, with the story of how she received it and why she was sending it. I figured since I was “searching,” surely wearing this bracelet as a reminder wouldn’t hurt. Through therapy sessions, solitude and long, long walks, I fingered the black knots and the silver cross, not really praying anything. The simplest prayer one prays with these bracelets is what is known as “The Jesus Prayer” and states, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” At my best, sometimes all I could muster was “mercy.”

    There was a girl I got to know at this facility who was also searching, also praying. She needed to go to a treatment center more specific to her needs, but because of some family issues wasn’t able to afford it. I looked at my bracelet and looked at her as we walked down a hall together.

    “Look. I just got this prayer bracelet in the mail and I don’t know what to think. But I guess since we’re both trying to find our faith, maybe it would be good for me to pray for you to get into that treatment center. So whenever I do pray, I’ll be praying for you.”

    I’ll admit. In a way it was a test. I followed through with my promise to her and prayed. And as it turned out, she was able to go.

    I left Arizona a week before the thirty days was over. I was ready. I had found what I needed to find and was able to begin on a steady and consistent path of healing. The bracelet, however, hasn’t left my arm until this weekend. After six months of life, even something as sacred as a Croatian prayer bracelet begins to get a little funky smelling. I zipped it into a delicates pouch and put it in with my laundry.

    When it was time for the clothes to go into the dryer, I took out the bracelet and rolled it back on my arm. Now with much more stable footing in my faith, I thought back to the many times I’ve prayed using this bracelet: many times The Jesus Prayer, but for others as well. As I touched each damp knot on my arm, I was flooded with the stories this bracelet has heard. Waves of gratitude washed over me as I realize that I am truly in a new season; the prayers of the past washed away in soapy water, most having been answered – sometimes immediately and sometimes slowly and inefficiently (as I’ve noticed is more the pace for things that require faith). Regardless of when, they were answered with a strong sovereignty I cannot explain in words.

    I realize the bracelet I wear holds no magical powers in and of itself. It is made of cloth and metal, and as I mentioned before, even can start smelling foul. However, the many hands that have held it…from its creation in a a far away land to its purchase to its travel to its passing down, and finally to its destination in my own presence while I doubted in a purple, quiet desert so beautifully paints the connectedness of our lives to the world around us.

    I’m sure the monk in Croatia had no idea as he sewed the black knots that eventually a girl in Nashville’s fingers would progress from knot to knot and would, sometimes with sweaty, nervous fingers, pray over the very threads he bound. And just as the threads in this bracelet hold it together, the threads in each of our stories bind us together as humans, never knowing how one story will lead to the next.

  • Healing and Purpose

    The following is adapted from an email I wrote yesterday morning as I waited for my twice-a-year cardiologist appointment. I haven’t been to see my cardiologist since March 2010, so maybe I was under the impression “bi-annually” meant once-every-two-years. While I waited, with clumsy thumbs I typed this out on my phone and decided I’d post it up here, as I think my friend’s question is a good one for all of us to answer, especially as we wrestle with purpose and healing.

    ***

    Last night, after organizing and budgeting, I was packing up my mess from the den, about to head into my room to go to sleep.  The family I live with came home and it was almost as if [The Wife’s] maternal instinct was on high alert. She came directly up to where I was and asked how my day was. What ensued was not pretty…gobs of mucous flowed like a river. I was struggling. My pile of unexpected bills was growing and my income is nowhere near what it used to be. More than financially, I was wrecked over the fact I am not spending as much time as I think I need to writing — simply due to the amount of hours in a day, I can’t commit the hours like I was able to in my former life.

    She was able to really help me see a lot of truth that had been buried in the dark corners of my heart, to bring some clarity to the present, and to shed some light and hope (although the difficult to swallow kind) on the future.

    Then she said something that has been stuck in a loop in the synapses in my brain…

    “Do you want relief? Or do you want to be healed?”

    Of course in the moment, in the now, I want relief. I’m thankful much of the intense and acute grief of what happened last year has been recovered and that emotional pain has subsided a good bit. However, there is pain I recognize in the absence of my trusting God with everything, including the things you and I spoke of yesterday – my purpose and meaning in life.

    I feel as if those things which were so secure and were running like clockwork were stripped from me and I had no control as everything was pulled into a vortex. I feel anger and envy in those places, directed at myself, at God, and sometimes toward others. There is grief in losing who I “thought” I was…which is exactly where God wants me to be – completely uncertain of myself apart from anything other than Him. I know he doesn’t intend it in a sadistic, punishing way, but in the refining way we always hear about and generally allow to fall on the trail of cliches we leave behind us like breadcrumbs – boring, plain, stale and easily forgotten.

    It’s obvious the healing process is going to be painful, but in the end it will not only paint me more in the image of Christ, but through grace and his perfect mercy, perhaps color others whose lives with whom I may come into contact.

    Looking back, I see a life that was selfish, ego-centric, and insecure.

    Do I want that to be my legacy? Is that what I want to pour into others? Is that what I want to reflect?

    Sure, I want relief from the “pain” and “injustice” I’ve walked in the last year (those words are in quotes as they are based from my perspective), but to be healed means to be first be broken, to be reset – like a bone.

    When I had my heart surgery, they had to burn the broken spots. I should be praying for more of those broken spots to be burned, so my heart can be made whole. Whole doesn’t mean perfect or without evidence of pain.

    Whole means whole.

    Deep down, I do desire that – that wholeness, which many spiritual leaders say is brought in two ways: through prayer and through suffering. And maybe deep down, more than writing, more than advocating, more than being someone people can rely on…maybe that is my purpose. Maybe that is where my perspective needs to shift and I won’t feel so lost and off-base.

    And maybe, just maybe, that is a purpose that belongs to us all.

  • Silence

    “For as long as you can remember, you have been a pleaser, depending on others to give you an identity. You need not look at that only in a negative way. You wanted to give your heart to others, and you did so quickly and easily. But now you are being asked to let go of all these self-made props and trust that God is enough for you. You must stop being a pleaser and reclaim your identity as a free self.

    The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing – not healing, not curing – that is a friend who cares.

    Somewhere we know that without silence words lose their meaning, that without listening speaking no longer heals, that without distance closeness cannot cure.”

    -Nouwen

  • Advice for Helping People Going Through a Divorce

    Divorce is not something new to me. As I think back through my childhood, I clearly remember many of my friends’ parents getting divorced. In my mid-twenties, two of my best friends, married for almost ten years, split (as did each of their siblings, who were also friends of mine). Then two more friends…and two more.

    As I shared in the post on my own divorce, I never thought my marriage would end. And while the news is still fresh in the public eye, being separated and divorced is a reality I’ve been walking through for almost a year.

    Because we chose to keep our private life private as we traveled that journey, only a small group of friends, people in our church, counselors, and a few colleagues and pastors knew what we were going through. Reflecting over the last several months has awakened my analytical mind, and I’ve been intentionally processing how many of our relationships have changed, what’s added to the pain, and what’s helped relieve it.

    Some questions and comments I’ve frequently heard over the last month are:

    “What advice do you have for friends going through a divorce?”

    “Are there any resources you’ve found that have helped you, or that you’d recommend for me to help my friends?”

    “I just don’t know what to do or what to say to them.

    “I don’t want to get in their business.”

    Because these remarks occur on a daily basis, I thought it’d be best to share two thoughts with you – one on things that helped me and one on things that hurt.

    Keep in mind, these are unique to me and every relationship is different, so please don’t assume I’m an expert by any stretch of the imagination.

    —

    WHAT TO DO:

    Be there.

    Just because you don’t know what to say doesn’t mean you shouldn’t say anything. In fact, most of the time it’s better that you don’t say anything at all except to acknowledge what your friend is feeling is real (and is usually pretty rotten).

    Here’s the catch. When a relationship is ending, especially a marriage, it physically feels as if your soul has been ripped out of your body. People going through this change will likely not have the strength to reach out to you. We will feel that we’re a burden or that the only thing we have to talk about is how sad, angry, lonely, or afraid we are. Most of us don’t want to be Debbie Downers, but we feel as if we epitomize that character in a season like this.

    Not only do we not want to bring people down with us, we don’t have the strength to engage with others.

    This is why it’s so important you reach out constantly to your friends. I’m an introvert and I tend to isolate myself when I’m going through a hard time. During the worst six months, I had friends texting, calling or emailing daily and at times willing to drive through snowstorms to pick me up and take me to the only open café in town with no agenda at all but to be with me. Sometimes we talked about the situation. Other times, we talked about music, or watched TV, or we didn’t even talk at all.

    Knowing our friends are pursuing us helps remove the weight of loneliness that haunts us. And don’t worry…if you think you may be intruding or being overbearing, if we really need some time alone, we’ll let you know.

    WHAT NOT TO DO:

    Don’t disappear or blow Jesus smoke.

    Don’t ignore the situation. If someone reaches out to you to even make you aware of the what’s happening, even if you have nothing to say back, just say you’re sorry. That is enough.

    When I sent an email out to an expanded (but still small) group of friends and acquaintances a few weeks before my blog post went up, about 90% of the fifty or so people responded. The 10% that didn’t were people I had traveled with, shared stages with, signed books with, who had endorsed my books, or I endorsed theirs. After no response from the email, or from the blog post, or any acknowledgment whatsoever that they even received the information, I re-evaluated my relationship with them. Sadly, many of the friendships I thought were based on mutual respect weren’t. They were simply relationships of benefit and circumstance. Coming to that realization hurt, and I had to make changes in the way I view those relationships now.

    There is a medical term called body dysmorphic disorder which essentially means you believe something about your body image that isn’t true. For example, many people who struggle with eating disorders literally see their bodies as being significantly larger than they are in reality. For me, this has translated into an emotional association. I realize I don’t have actual leprosy, but I often feel like a leper; that I’m contagious, or unclean. I feel people need to stay on the other side of the road. And when friends disappear, it adds to this misconception.

    Please don’t disappear.

    Also, don’t assume that “ministry” or cliché “Christianese” will stitch up our bleeding hearts.

    Be Jesus. Don’t just talk about him.

    I recently received an email from a pastor who shared about a friend currently in the middle of a divorce: “My prayer is that he will wake up to this hurting world around him and engage,” he wrote.

    I can only hope this pastor’s heart is in the right place, however, I wrote him back and explained to him the last thing we can do when we are this broken is to jump back into the world and “wake up and engage” and care for others…especially when our own pain is so new.

    This is one of the times the church needs to “reach in and engage with the people around them who are hurting,” not the other way around as this pastor indicated.

    Please keep in mind I don’t think this implies people going through a divorce should expect to be waited on hand and foot and maintain a completely selfish existence. By making our health and recovery a priority, we will naturally emerge back into a place where we can serve out of abundance – not pressure.

    —

    HERE IS THE BOTTOM LINE:

    Be there for your friends. Grieve with them. Celebrate with them. Give them lots of chocolate and hugs and hold them tightly. Don’t worry about having nothing to say. Pursue them. Pray for them. Love them. Constantly let them know you have their back.

    Don’t fall off the face of the earth. Yes, it’s uncomfortable…for both us and you.

    And please, for the love of God, don’t shove Him down our throats. He’s already here with us, and we all know it. We are each made in His likeness, so go show compassion, be compassion, and live compassion instead of misusing a “happy Bible verse” to cheer someone up.

    Sometimes at the right time, those scriptures are what we need to hear. But especially when the brokenness is new, most of the time we need to hear, “This sucks. I love you. And no matter what, I have your back. Always.”

  • Bright & Early

    This song from one of my favorite bands, Sleeping at Last, has been on serious repeat in my car lately.

    Take a listen here.

    _______

    Bright & Early

    Bright and early, through the curtains, the sun comes pouring in.
    Filling glasses up with diamonds, stirring where I’ve been
    It’s all trigger and effect…Dominoes at their best.

    In the end I’m told it taught me everything I know.
    That the wreckage left behind, will somehow make me grow.
    But why couldn’t I have been safe from the start?
    Soundly asleep.

    The warmth of blankets makes me nervous. I’d rather catch a cold.
    Like sparks and matches, blink, you’ll miss it, the future’s up in smoke.
    Though dust has settled, I smell the ashes buried in my clothes.
    It’s all trigger and effect, I know…Dominoes at their best.

    In the end I’m told it taught me everything I know.
    When the fire took our home, I lost part of my soul.

    From the ground up I’ll keep building houses into homes.
    If trust is ribbon, then patience ties it in a perfect bow.