pain

Reverse

Posted on by Christine

“Jack!”

It was early morning, and my bedroom was next to the kitchen. I’m not sure how the floor plan of the house was determined, but I was residing in what had been the nursery, and while the other five kids had to share rooms, I had my own space.

My two sisters were stuffed in a back room, and my three brothers were stacked military-style with bunk beds.

As each child arrived, there was shuffling that had to take place. Since I was the last, I landed and got to stay where I was. I had my own closet, dresser, and room for a desk. Compared to the rest of them, I was living the dream.

If I was upset or sick, I closed my doors and spent time alone. I wasn’t simulating dorm life, so right from the start, I was given a different perspective.

From the outside, it looked inviting, but at times I was a bit jealous that they had people to talk to. Being alone was isolating, and at night, when I had nightmares, which I did every time I fell asleep, I woke up in a dark room with no one to help me chase away the fear.

Not to mention the noise.

My mom was up every day to start breakfast at 5:30. On one side of me was the kitchen, and the other was the bathroom. Between the two, I was bound to wake up to a flushing toilet or the clatter of silverware. Usually, it wasn’t the sound of her screaming.

I heard him swear, and the back door flung open with such force it bounced off the wall, nearly off the hinges.

That did it for me. My self-perseveration skills kicked in. There was no way I would be a victim without trying to escape.

I got out of bed and ran into the kitchen, expecting to see her, but she had vanished. The heavy fragrance of coffee hung in the air. I wasn’t dreaming, and the evidence was in front of me. There were used juice glasses and cereal bowls on the table.

I heard a noise from the living room, so I moved on to find out what was happening at 6 a.m. I joined her at the picture window. It’s supposed to bring more natural sunlight into dark places.

We needed all the help we could get.

On this cold winter morning, my dad was in the middle of the street, trying to get his car under control. While I was tucked in my bed, trying to suck up all the peace I could before the onslaught of school began, my dad was in an episode of the Twilight Zone.

He had started his car to warm it up before the drive. Until I was in my first snowstorm behind the wheel, I never realized his seasonal plight of getting to and from work. I usually was asleep when he left.

To be sure it ran right, he had a routine. When the last bite of his cereal was gone, he would go out and raise the garage door by hand. The electric opener was available, but they liked the old-fashioned, difficult way to preserve their history of pilgrim times.

Back in the house, he would get his coat, secure his lunch bag and kiss my mom goodbye. Once in a while, I heard this when I rolled over into a deeper REM state.

“Goodbye, dear,” she would say. He would murmur something back, indicating his mind was still asleep.

I could not figure out what had disrupted their morning schedule that was as sure as a national holiday on the calendar.

I looked at her, watching him corraling the car. When her brows came together, it was an unspoken signal that something serious had happened.

Why was the car in the street? And why was he trying to open it, but it was locked?

Before I could ask, he dashed to the front door, which they always kept locked. His frantic knocking didn’t phase her.

She took her time opening it. One lock, then the other, and looked at him like he was there to sell her a vacuum cleaner.

“I need the extra set of keys!”

This was another clue. Commanding my mother was not how it went. Usually, she told him what to do, and he never questioned it. She didn’t do well with snappy communication unless he was in an emergency.

“Where are they?”

“Aren’t they in your purse?”

“I don’t know, John.”

His formal name. Another red flag the tension was high.

When in the middle of a problem, it always seemed like they had another issue surface that added another layer, like a jello salad.

She noticed he was gripping his hand.

“What is wrong?”

“Get the keys, Jean!”

The car was running on fumes, and he had one eye on her and the other on traffic. The road that ran in front of their house was always busy, so he had many concerns.

I still had no idea why they were in this mess.

“Did you hurt yourself?” Her attention was entirely on a potential injury, and she had left the nursing profession behind to be at home full-time.

“Jean! Get me the keys!”

“Are you bleeding?”

“I need the damn keys! Yes! I’m bleeding! Get me the keys!”

The change in her body language went from concerned to offended the minute he used foul language.

“Don’t speak to me like that!”

She was not making any effort to get what he was asking.

“I have to get the car out of the street! Please get me the extra set of keys! The car is locked!”

Now that his tone was more cordial to her liking, she hurried off to their bedroom.

I stayed out of the way. There was no way I was getting into the line of fire.

She put them in his hand forcefully, still showing irritation that he had spoken so coarsely. Her trip and back through the house had given her a few seconds to replay the scene. She didn’t like it when he sunk to a low level of speaking obscenities, especially around me.

She returned to the window as he unlocked it and got into the car.

When he pulled into the driveway, she said,

“Dad’s car drove itself out of the garage.”

Before I could ask why, he was back, hurrying to get what was needed.

“John, let me see your hand.”

“I have to go.”

“I need to take a look at your hand.”

“I’m fine. It’s not that bad. I cut it, trying to grab the door handle on the car.”

Another piece to the puzzle.

She said nothing else, but this was when the magic always happened. Against his will, he presented his wound so she could assess the damage.

“I have to go!” He said like an impatient toddler.

She turned it side to side, running her fingers along it to see if it needed a stitch or two.

It was hard to believe this man had served as a sergeant in the military, blowing up mortars to practice taking out an enemy, but she could turn him into a docile human being without saying one word.

He was the seventh child in the family. That’s awful to say about an adult, but it was how the roles were. She was contemplating if he needed a bandaid or not. She didn’t like to waste them if the skin wasn’t broken.

The cost of a box of bandages over a flesh-eating bacteria was at stake.

He had his limits, though.

“I’m leaving!” He got free of her and zoomed out.

No affection at the door.

She stood at the sink and watched him leave through the small window.

I heard him hit the gas and race away like a madman. He was trying to beat the clock.

“You can go back to bed, Chris.”

What?! Go back to bed! I was wide awake and had just watched two episodes of a soap opera take place in front of me.

“Why was the car in the street? What happened to dad’s hand?”

I wanted answers. I had given up my rest free of bad dreams to watch a display of marital dysfunction.

She started laughing so hard she couldn’t talk. As time went along with them, I realized that after the crisis had passed, she thought his poor luck was the best comedy she had ever seen.

I waited, more confused than ever. It was a school day, and I was out of my unconscious state, wasting precious time over something that made absolutely no sense.

“Your dad’s car slipped into reverse and backed down the driveway.”

Now that she heard herself say it, the hysteria took over. She hung on to the counter to keep herself from falling over.

I looked out the window at the neighbor’s driveway that had cars parked in it.

“He came over here to wash his hands after he ate, and he saw his car go by. He was worried it would crash into the ones parked across the street.”

In haste, he had chosen door number one instead of going out the front, which would have been the sensible thing. Going in the opposite direction of where the car was headed wasn’t to his advantage. With the motion, the door locks had activated.

His luck had run out.

He had been electrocuted and brought back to life, broke his back on a sled, and been shot at. His car was about to be the ruin of him. Would his insurance cover multiple car crashes without anyone driving?

With angels on his side, he had to stand by, unable to do anything. Miraculously, it took a slight turn and came to an abrupt halt.

The curb had saved the day.

My alarm went off.

“Get dressed for school, Chris,” she said, back to normal.

As everyone left the house to start their lives, I was suddenly the only one living with them. Now that there were fewer mouths to feed and options for me to inhabit, it was a matter of relocating me.

They converted my room into a formal dining room, and I was transferred to the basement where my three brothers had been living like inmates.

I didn’t mind the move because it gave me more privacy and my own bathroom. I didn’t have to share anymore, so I could come and go as I pleased. But, the limited shower rule was still in effect.

My dad didn’t want our hair clogging up the drain, so we could rinse off but had to use the stationary tub next to the washing machine. He feared we would all shed and clog up the drain, forcing him to fix it.

Liquid plumber products existed, but his theory was these would “hurt the pipes,” so none of us could risk it due to his apprehension.

It was unpleasant to come out of a hot shower shivering to get clean hair, so it was wise to do that first.

When I was little, I had to stand on a stool with my body bent over the sink while she sprayed water on my head. It was rare to be asked if the water temperature was too hot or cold. She decided, and usually, scorching was her setting.

Germs were her thing, and kids didn’t realize how to kill them.

I endured the hair washing ceremony, often freezing, while she scrubbed and pretended she was a beautician, using the cheapest shampoo and conditioners. It wasn’t about healthy hair but something that stripped out the natural oils and smelled like strawberries.

With my new room, I uncovered an unbelievable family secret.

I was in bed with the bifold doors open, barely awake. The flimsy doors would not have kept out any light or noise even if they had been shut. They were designed for a small closet, not an entry.

It was Saturday, so I didn’t have to rush out anywhere. It was dark, but I heard my dad go into the shower. A few minutes later, he stood by a heat vent near the furnace, drying his hair.

In my haze, I wondered how he had gotten his hair washed in the dark laundry room. I hadn’t heard the familiar loud squeak of the faucets. There was no way I would have slept through that.

The whispering started, so I turned over to see him better.

I thought he would notice me, but he was so far gone in his thoughts and self-talk, he was not in the present moment.

I could make out only a few words, but it was a rehashing of conversations he had from a different day as if he were going over his statements to be sure he had said them right. Then, it switched to what he would say if it happened again.

I made a slight noise, but he was so engrossed mentally with his stream of consciousness he didn’t hear me. It sounded like static from a tv caught between channels. He was working something out in his mind, exercising his mental capacities.

He told me he had read The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale and his other book, Stay Alive All Your Life. In both, the author heavily encourages his readers to visualize and rehearse scenes to help relieve anxiety. Maybe that’s what he was doing. This was way before I began to read self-help books.

I was trying to comprehend why someone would stand so long whisper talking.

Wait a minute! His hair was wet!

Suddenly I didn’t care about the conversation he was having with himself or a dead relative. He took a shower and washed his hair against the rule he had imposed on all of us. He was bypassing all those frigid hair-washing sessions to stay nice and warm.

I rapidly sat up, and he saw me.

Cut off mid-sentence, he cleared his throat and pretended to hum.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

He was not getting off that easy.

“I’m drying my hair,” he said calmly to throw me.

“Oh.”

We knew. We both knew I had caught him red-handed.

On my next trip into the shower, I suds up and never looked back. I made sure to wipe down the walls with my towels.

The next time my mom cleaned it, she found a strand of my long brown hair.

“Chris, did you wash your hair in here?”

Following the advice of Norman, I conjured up an image of my dad drying his illegal wet hair by the furnace.

“Yes, I did.”

There was a breach in the allegiance, and I wouldn’t let it get past me.

“Dad doesn’t want anyone doing that.”

I wondered if she believed this or if he lied to her. I took my chances and decided that honesty was my best option.

“Well, I saw dad drying his hair after he got out of the shower last Saturday. He was by the vent drying it and talking to himself.”

She took a minute. Which one should she address?

The next card she played was always a good one but slightly overused. When all was falling apart, she asked a question. A tactical move that served her well for years.

“He washed his hair in the shower?”

It wasn’t that she was telling a lie outright, but pretending to reflect what I had stated.

“Yes.”

She knew she had nowhere to go.

It wasn’t ever spoken about again, and I took that as a green light.

After his runaway car situation, there was a heightened sense of awareness when leaving it running unattended. Due to a bad experience, he didn’t fully trust it wouldn’t go rolling by starting the horror all over. Every time he washed his hands at the kitchen sink, he saw the image of it.

After some time passed, and it didn’t happen again, he didn’t give it another thought. He returned to his usual non-thinking mode in the morning before work.

As for the shower, his worries never materialized.

It’s good to look back to where you have been to see if you still have something operating in your present that is blocking your good from coming to you.

It can silently be at work below the surface, but it shows up through your behavior.

There are a lot of people who say, “The past is over! Forget it!”

I agree we shouldn’t dwell there, but sometimes you have to take a glance to figure out why your life is running the course it’s on.

To go forward healed and to promote excellent spiritual and mental health, sometimes you have to throw it in reverse.

Measure

Posted on by Christine

I was washing dishes the other day, and I looked down at a large spoon in the sink. An unpleasant memory floated in.

I heard the gagging coming from the bathroom. I was hidden away but not far enough.

My mom was in a hurry, trying to get a meal thrown together. This was the height of having teens with multiple schedules and carting them all over town. I waited until I was dragged to the car, trying not to be in the way.

My brother Bob was first at the table because he had a meeting to attend, so he ate ahead of the rest of us.

I have heard that she was a great cook, but by the time I entered the family, she was opening cans, heating TV dinners, and had gone the way of convenience because it was easier. Good nutrition had been tossed aside, but no one went hungry. We ate our fill of synthetic substances and washed it down with whole milk.

One of the worst meals I had to get through was creamed chicken. A slab of white bread toasted to near burnt was then covered over with a sloppy mess of cream of mushroom soup and canned chicken. This was one of the higher end offerings that cost under $1 per plate. On the side, she dished out canned beets, the ultimate in disgusting. I learned early not to fight the system. You had to navigate around it.

I would strategically chew what I could with my teeth barely coming together and then take a huge sip of milk. Gulp and swallow on repeat.

“Can I have more milk?” This was usually microseconds of sitting down. I would hand her my glass for a refill.

One evening, I asked, and much to my horror, she denied my request.

“No, Chris. You are drinking way too much milk.”

I looked at what I had to handle without any liquid. It was rough, and from then on, I took smaller sips and never asked for a second cup.

You would think that when pizza was on the menu, I would have been thrilled. They managed to ruin that too. Two tiny frozen discs were put in the oven to feed eight people. To add bulk, canned mushrooms, black olives, and onions were smothered on.

Instead of adding shredded mozzarella like normal people, cheese squares were slapped on after they were unwrapped from their plastic packages.

I opted for a sandwich on those special occasions and refused to eat pizza until I realized it wasn’t a garbage pile like they had created.

So to hear someone gagging in the bathroom wasn’t surprising. It was going to happen sooner or later with the atrocities coming out of that kitchen.

There was yelling too.

“Bob! Hold still! Let me do this!”

More choking. If she was killing him, I wanted to witness it. By then, he and I weren’t on the greatest of terms as brother and sister, so to see him go down was worth taking a peek.

I rounded the corner into the laundry room. Things get slightly fuzzy, but I recall a large kitchen spoon shoved down his throat.

“Gag me with a spoon” wasn’t said until the 80s, so my mom was ahead of her time in the 70s.

My presence must have been noticed because the door suddenly shut, so I only got the audio version.

It reminded me of a situation I had been in not long before. I had an outbreak of canker sores that took over every square inch of my mouth. No one considered this a physical manifestation of stress.

A prescription was ordered, and all of them ascended on me. Where I stood watching my brother being assaulted with a serving utensil was where they all held me down. My arms and legs were immobile as someone else put a vice grip on my head. Her job was to pry my mouth open and squirt a paste that tasted like tin onto my tongue and gums.

Once I knew I was trapped against my will, I screamed. This made it easier for her to spray the obnoxious cream that would heal me.

It cleared up the issue, but I was scarred. I recall being afraid after that because I couldn’t trust anyone. Who knew when they would all snap again and pin me down?

From my five-year-old perception, I was under attack, and no one explained the process. Afterward, they left with no comfort or reassurance while I continued screaming. Now, she had set her sites on my brother, who was not cooperating.

My brother Jim saw me there and tried to explain.

“He ate some spoiled food.”

All the commotion was over a can of vegetables that had gone bad, with the fear of botulism setting in. I found out later that my other brother, a Boy Scout on his way up the ladder to Eagle Scout, had gotten out his manual to mix up a remedy to induce vomiting. When someone is out in the woods ingesting tree bark and wild, unknown grasses, they must be ready to hurl it out of the body.

With his magic spell book in hand, he grabbed a raw egg, milk of magnesia, and a host of other ingredients to cook up something that would save his sibling’s life. I think he added a dash of black pepper to make it more palatable.

The poisoned victim drank it like Happy Hour, and no throwing up resulted. My mom took matters into her hands and decided to force the issue. She plucked the largest metal spoon from the drawer and hoped to use his gag reflex as leverage.

I was ushered away from the scene because I have no recollection of what happened, but he lived to see another day to torment me more.

What my mother feared happening was rare and unlikely. After he had devoured his food and left, she detected a foul odor from the vegetables in a pot. Retrieving the aluminum can, she saw it had a dent, which made her panic.

She had read about the unsafe canning practices at the time, and if one was not fully sealed, this could allow in deadly bacteria.

Not on her watch.

To ensure he lived to a ripe old age, she jammed a utensil into his esophagus. We had emergency rooms back then, but she was on a schedule. There were two other people to drive to their activities, so her method seemed the better option.

For her.

It was one of those landmark moments in our family where I often heard it said: do you remember when Bob ate that rotten can of beans?

No one wanted to think of it as she assembled our plates. Our life was in her hands.

Being in a large family on a tight budget, she controlled our portions. In other families I visited, the entire meal would be on the table and was passed around to each member to take what they desired. In some homes, everyone fended for themselves. Her dishing it up meant we had to conform to what she thought was best. And there better not be any complaints because she was exhausted from opening all those cans.

She put on a good front, not showing her worry regarding the lack of money. One time she said to me,

“Chris, I think it’s an adventure to see how God will provide.”

She seemed like a woman with great faith, but her actions said otherwise. She wasn’t a giver, and she viewed money as evil. Somewhere along the way, she saw it as an idol that could take God’s place, and her viewpoint caused great suffering for all of us.

She decided to play God by controlling every bite taken and all the details of the house. It was a false sense of reality we all had to abide by. After a while, that way of living starts to seem real.

Like the gigantic spoon, she shoved down my brother’s throat, she forced her will on our lives and blotted out God’s. There were better alternatives for her to take, but she decided what was best.

This mindset spilled over into many areas beyond providing food.

We were all told what to do and how to do it. There was no room for independent thinking even though many times she said to me,

“I have raised all of my children to be independent.”

I’m not sure what the badge of honor was, but when you examine the statement closer, you see the flaws in that thinking. While it’s important to be your true self, it’s also valuable to let others into your life that bring support and love.

She believed her actions were done in the best interests of all, but the outcome was fractured individuals who had no sense of security and unable to make decisions that were for their highest good.

Thrown on top of the control was perfectionism, which added to the constraint of having no freedom. While many kids were happy to be out of school and rest in the comfort of their homes, this was not the way it was. There was always some task to perform or rule to meet.

If you stayed in bed too long on the weekend, you were deemed lazy. If you stayed up too late at night, you “weren’t getting proper rest.” It wasn’t a situation you could ever win, and it wasn’t until many years later that I began to see how much her idea of life was flawed.

She never allowed anyone to be themselves. We were to be replicas of who she was. And when it came time to be on my own, I had trouble making decisions.

I was worried about making the wrong ones due to all the years of having to meet her lofty expectations. On the other hand, I was intelligent and considered myself competent. There was a constant war inside of me where I was trying to please others while sacrificing myself. This way of operating leaves no room for balance.

The dangerous part of living this way is you’re never at peace. If you do this for a long time, you become accustomed to the inner turmoil and don’t see you need to break it off yourself.

Until your world completely unravels, and you have no other choice but to ask yourself what is causing certain patterns to continue that revolve around your low self-esteem. Why are you masking the truth and faking it?

That’s when compassion shows up.

I see situations differently than I did before and this branches into more revelations. It’s not a suffocating confrontation that leaves no room to breathe. There might be regrets or unhappy feelings momentarily, but I know I will be a better person once I get past it.

It’s when you have taken in a spiritual toxin and are unaware God will move in and remove it, so you no longer are endangered. That’s how true love works. It doesn’t come at you threateningly, holding you down while you struggle, demanding its way.

A different approach is taken where grace is given in small doses, allowing you to heal and adjust to each measure.

She gave new meaning to being “spoon fed”

Plain

Posted on by Christine

We should have gone to bed, but for some reason, we were awake watching a home shopping channel. I find it fascinating how salespeople rope you in with their description of color. Tomato garden, stargazer blue, dandelion fields, and watermelon rind can be yours in a convenient pack of plastic containers with lids that get lost in a sea of mismatched covers. You will ask yourself later,

“Where did I put the peach margarita? I thought I saw it in here yesterday.” You shuffle pieces and parts around, looking for the orange one, but settle on another after profuse sweating.

Exaggeration while presenting products to generate want and need is the key to a healthy flow of income. Announcing what we already know isn’t enticing. We have to throw a new name on it, usually with something that appeals to the senses, like a tropical island or a favorite food.

What would you rather buy: a plain red pair of underwear or a super slim bikini-ready panty?

Even though we all know it’s a tourist trap in your living room, we cannot find the strength to turn off the tv and leave. We must listen to the exasperated voices, the fantastic way a zipper functions, and the marvelous fringe hanging from a throwback jacket from the 70s.

We were subjected to a woman explaining her blue jean collection. She had them neatly on a rack so the camera could zoom in while she pulled them to the side to show off her handiwork done at a factory by machines. Yet, she took all the credit.

“We wanted to create a line, especially for the older female wanting to feel empowered and the fullness of their feminity.” This was the gateway to more. It started with the soft sell to work on emotions, and when the phones weren’t lighting up, they had to move it up a notch.

“How great,” the host said, in her whispery voice, sounding like this was the first pair of pants she had ever seen.

Then, the material had to be petted like a small animal with the softest fur.

“Now, ladies, can’t you see yourself on a night out rocking these jeans like a teenager all over again?”

I started to fade long before the word ‘rocking’ showed up. I can be visual, so when that word was used, I saw an older woman sitting in a chair, wearing sweatpants and knitting a shawl. When did a musical term become something someone does with clothing?

I was the demographic for this display, as they were advertised for the more mature. They saved the best part for last.

“These are embellished, ladies.”

“What?” said the presenter next to her, acting as if her last shot of whiskey had just kicked in.

For more minutes than humanly possible, they went on a tirade about how there had been a lot of care taken to put special steel inserts up and down the legs. These weren’t your typical choices with rivets adorning them.

That’s when the language took a turn.

“You will feel so sexy in these you won’t ever want to take them off to wash them!”

This caused me to recline back to the fullest extent in my chair and slap my hands over my eyes. The charade was in full swing. They were preying upon the late-night snackers who had insomnia. By the time they received their order, they would have to go up two sizes.

Even then, we kept looking on, waiting to see if there were any more surprises, like a trap door in the back of them. My daughter, unable to take another second of the lies, said,

“The only thing that is embellished is this lady’s speech!”

She wasn’t buying it, probably because she isn’t past thirty. Skinny jeans are normal to her, but to me, they conjure up not eating for at least a week. In my youth, skinny meant no extra fat anywhere, not even on your thumbs. So, for her to take issue with this, it wasn’t just me who saw the facade.

I became curious the other day and searched for the meaning of embellish. It’s a double-edged sword.

Here is the positive side: make (something) more attractive with the addition of decorative details or features.

That seemed to be what the sales professionals aimed for with their post-midnight attention grab.

Here’s the darker side: make (a statement or story) more interesting or entertaining by adding extra details, especially ones that are not true.

There is just the slightest difference between good and evil. My daughter was correct. Would wearing them bring in the height of satisfaction viewers were chasing after? I bet not.

I wanted to know what was said about the opposite of this word. Here is what I found: Disfigure. To spoil the appearance of.

While the items were meant to be a fashion statement that would increase self-esteem, this would not be a long term effect. Anything on the outside, and not from the spirit, is short lived. That’s why the clever, hypnotic subconscious tricks were stated so customers would be reeled in.

I saw how the positive and the negative were not opposites at all. Let’s say someone who dislikes themselves buys these, believing this is the answer to all of their self-hatred. They run for the credit card, place the order, and anticipate feeling better when they slip into them. After a while, the false high fades along with the jeans.

The original intent was to make a purchase to cover up feelings of inferiority, but it will only be healed if the root of the problem is dealt with. Instead of making one discover wholeness, it tears down and disfigures. Something that was to bring a beautiful gain ends up causing pain. The mirror shows the same body, housing the same mindset that holds the worn out thoughts that you are ugly and not of any value. When one looks at themselves, they see distortion, another form of disfigurement.

Isn’t it horrifying to think that when you dress something up to make it more pretty, it can backfire?

For years, I practiced the art of embellishment, and not with clothing items. I did it with my life, covering up the abuse I endured in my marriage. I didn’t tell anyone about the physical, psychological, or emotional turmoil I was living in.

I put on a smile and pretended that all was well. My family and friends may have seen through it; I am not sure, but I was a great actress, taught at a young age how to minimize circumstances and distort reality. I lied so often that I believed my twisting of the truth.

This was not done with malice but to protect my girls and me from more perceived harm. The damage of what I did was extraordinarily serious, causing my spiritual growth to stop as I was so caught up in trying to control the situation with the only tools I had been given in my childhood, modeled by my mom.

If I hurt myself and would go to her, she made me believe it wasn’t that bad. Our house had an unwritten rule that we had to tough it out no matter what, and anything to her dislike was made into something else. I recall having a vivid dream that I broke my leg, and when I showed her, she said,

“Oh, you just cut yourself. That’s not bad at all.”

Dreams tell us what we shove down to avoid. I woke up knowing that I had fractured a bone, but her dismissive attitude was trying to convince me otherwise. This is how I was conditioned to take adverse circumstances and make them disappear.

For years, I felt I could not tell anyone what was happening. I put up blocks, propped us up, and made excuses. I was good at it because it was about self-preservation, but I was stifling the growth in my house, keeping us trapped. I demonstrated to my daughters a worse version of what my mother had done to me.

I see it similar to when a person is building a snowman. You start with a small ball of snow and keep rolling it until you can no longer push it further. Something that once fit into the palm of your hand is now more massive than you, and you cannot move the weight of it anymore.

You start in control, but it gets increasingly out of your control.

It wasn’t until a divorce that I could have stepped into another place that would have set me free from this insidious darkness that had a choke hold on me. But, in the chaos and fear, I defaulted toward what was familiar.

I read a book not long ago that contained research on the brain. When a person deceives long enough, chemicals are released that change the makeup of the organ, causing it to be more challenging to undo the falsehoods. If this person takes a lie detector test, it often comes back as truth because they believe what they are saying, and the body supports it.

When you live in denial since childhood, you aren’t aware of what you are doing. You make decisions without thinking, and it has only been by revelation that I see the damage it has caused me. Living an existence parallel to an authentic life is not what God wants. The word that comes to mind is pretending.

Like characters in a play, we put on our disguises and act our part. Someone else is writing the script, and we are not in a place of authority as we were designed to be. And when you live in such a way, your external world reflects what you give it. Your relationships are fake, people will lie just as much as you are, and you become a shadow of yourself.

This is where you work with God to find your freedom. No matter how frightening it is, you decide to leave the past behind and become who you were put on earth to be, no matter how uncomfortable it gets. The voices of despair and panic scream through your mind that you will not make it, but you fight past it, wanting to create a new life you were always meant to have.

You become honest, and this is where you find yourself, the one that went missing as a child. You understand you can demand that the people around you respect you, disengage from toxic people, and build genuine deep, loving relationships. Anyone who mistreated you in the past is no longer in a close inner circle. You handle it like a drug addict who sets himself free and finds new people to associate with, even if it means moving from one location to another to fully get away from your past.

No one would have said I was a bad person. I went out of my way to be a people pleaser, putting myself last on the list because I disregarded myself and my true feelings. It was a vicious cycle of pretending to be okay when I was hemorrhaging everywhere spiritually.

In Psalm 147:3 it says,
He heals the brokenhearted and bandages their wounds. (NLT)

God longs for us to come out of our prisons and live in abundant peace. We can concoct our plans, but His ways are higher and better. Simplicity is what heaven offers. It doesn’t involve ducking and dodging out of the way of harm or making up one story after another to cover up the last one.

And those embellished jeans? They will always be for sale, hoping some unsuspecting buyer will come along and succumb to the slick sales pitch. The emotional manipulation draws in the weak, but the enlightened woman turns her back on what doesn’t honor her value.

Instead, you can cast all that away and put on God’s garment of truth, only seeking the attention of heaven, keeping your dignity intact, and being okay with wearing what some might consider plain.

They are what they are

Reset

Posted on by Christine

“No,” I said. “You have already been outside.”

When you have dogs and kids, it’s easy to fall into rituals to maintain order in the house. Both species thrive on a schedule, otherwise, a lack of security starts to set in. The snack bin gets raided repeatedly, the fridge pursued multiple times, the aimless wandering begins, and naps happen at weird hours.

Meals and bedtimes are the two most significant parameters around a day.

With my dogs, I set their schedule right away, feeding them at the same time and letting them out. Like a fine oiled machine, they worked with me and usually conformed. Sometimes though, they would stray from the plan. Their internal clock would go off, and suddenly at an off hour, they would beg to go out.

The routine at night was to let them out at ten, followed by a teeth treat. Both had dental challenges and hated to be confined while I tried to get them to open their mouths. If dealing with a resistant child and medication is difficult, a dog and a toothbrush are arch enemies.

The hounding to go out early indicated they were hustling me for a treat. Sometimes I gave in, and other nights I made them wait it out.

This time they had already been out, had a snack and were now racing toward the door like I had amnesia. Do you know how your kids will tag team you into believing you are not right when you know you are? They both tell you one thing, but you know the truth. Dogs can manipulate this way too. It was time to go to bed.

They went to the door to go out, trying to swindle another round of handouts.

After watching me struggle with them for a few minutes, my daughter said,

“I need to reset them.”

“Huh?”

“I need to convince them they have had what they normally get.”

She went to the kitchen cupboard where we kept their nighttime chew sticks. They watched her open and close the door, but she gave them a baby carrot from the refrigerator.

After that, it was like a switch was thrown to recalibrate their brains.

When I said,

“Time for bed,” they ran side by side to my bedroom.

She used the term “reset” because most electronic devices have them hidden somewhere. I discovered with my Fitbit I used to own that if it was malfunctioning, I had to take a paper clip, bend it into a straight line and press the tip into a microscopic hole. Like magic, it would bring everything back into working order.

We take the ease of today’s technology for granted, and many of us have not experienced any of the former ways of doing tasks. Calculators didn’t exist, so a pencil and paper had to be on hand. Inventions like “touchless” faucets or soap dispensers didn’t exist. You had to put your hands all over everything. Stairs you walked on, not people movers or escalators, got you from point A to B.

One time, I went into a bowling alley with my dad. As we were watching someone throw a ball down a lane, he said,

“I hurt a guy really bad once at a place like this.”

If we had been attending a boxing match, I would have understood. But this was bowling. There were people in their late 80s wearing ugly shoes and matching shirts, barely able to use their back muscles when letting go of the ball. It was a far cry from a drag down brawl. It ranked it up there with croquet, backgammon, or chess.

“How did you do that?”

I knew when he was young he was in a street gang, so I assumed he had a run-in with a rival.

“Watch after someone knocks down the pins. Do you see how the machine drops down to pick up what they didn’t hit and sweeps away the ones they got? Then it puts the rest of them back for their second try?”

“Yes,” I said. “Isn’t that the reset?”

I had no clue where he was going with this.

“Before they invented that automated system, they had guys standing back there waiting to do that job for the bowlers. They had to jump in, take out pins and return the ones still in play.”

I watched more closely, and this seemed an impossible task for a human to do.

“I had turned my back to retrieve the ball, and I wasn’t paying attention to the person crouching down to put everything back in place. I quickly stepped up to the line, whipped my ball down there, and it knocked him in the head. He ended up flat on his back with a goose egg on his head.”

“Was he knocked out?”

“No. He was stunned and could barely move. I gave him some money because I felt so bad.”

I could relate to his feelings because I had hit a ball while playing softball that struck the pitcher. She was taken off the field by ambulance, and I had to go on and play.

I imagine both individuals were a bit more head shy the next time they resumed their positions. It only takes one bad incident to cause trauma in the body and mind for years.

Feeling anxious would happen every spring when I would get behind home plate as a catcher. My coach expected me to stretch forward to place my glove as close as possible to the edge of the strike zone, making it difficult for the batter. This was strategic and a great idea unless you were the one with the top of your head inches from the bat.

By the fall, when the season ended, I wouldn’t flinch once, but at the start of March, every muscle in my body would jump as I tried to control my emotions. The crack of the aluminum impacting the ball was unnerving, but I forced myself to stay there to get used to it. Moving away would have made it that much more difficult the next time. With repetition, my body learned to relax when I didn’t sustain a concussion.

It was mind over matter and can be applied to anything that has brought pain or the potential to cause more.

You can go through life believing that being clubbed might happen, so you avoid what will make you cower. Or, you face it, and whatever isn’t real, you identify as fake.

I was in a dangerous place, but it never resulted in injury. I learned to return, deal with the uncomfortable feelings and play on. Every year I had to reacquaint myself, but after a few times, the fear would disappear, and my focus would change to what would happen next.

More than once, I was hurt by a runner. I was knocked down, trampled on, punched, and felt the agony of cleats digging into my exposed arms while on the ground. I had to throw myself into defending the plate, even if that meant sustaining damage. To play meant I had to take the chance of being hurt.

My interest was not to ride the bench. Ever. To sit and watch runners come home on plays I knew I would have tagged them on was worse than the possibility of getting wounded.

That’s the dilemma of life. You can hide away, running from more harm that might never happen, or you can take another chance and put it into God’s hands.

Reviewing past offenses that resulted in trauma, I see where I contributed to the situation. I am not condemning abuse victims but making sense of how it has occurred. I’m not coming at this in an angry, bitter stance. But to see where the missteps might have been on my part for letting it continue. The true test is to overcome the thought you will keep the destructive pattern going.

It helps to ignore the idea that you have wasted your time that you cannot get back.

But, once you get good at blocking off the fear of repeating the same mistakes, all you can do is ask God for a redo.

As an act of heaven’s great love, the stopwatch gets reset.

My patience for doing 1 plank.

Deodorant

Posted on by Christine

When my daughters were young, I trusted them to clean their room. I never set aside a certain time of day or demanded they clear the clutter at the expense of missing an activity. I knew some mothers who put their kids in lockdown if they were not keeping their spaces neat. Being ‘grounded’ seemed like punishment for me, so I subjected no one to it. After all, the area I lived in as a child and a teen often required I blaze a trail to get to my bed at night. 

This could go on for months, and then, a spirit of irritation would hit, and I couldn’t stand to look at the clutter. When I had time off from school or work when my brain wasn’t preoccupied with study or an unforgiving schedule, I would suddenly have to toss everything. Otherwise, I could flop down in the middle of it and not see it.  

Once in a while, my mom would open the door, gasp, and with wide eyes say,

“Chris, you need to clean your room.”

“Why?” I would look at her over a pile of clothes I had worn for about two seconds spread out over weeks. They weren’t filthy dirty, and it was at least ten steps to the washing machine from my bedroom. Why waste my energy on that?

“It’s a mess in here.”

“It is?”  

No matter how much I had to kick objects out of my way or go around obstacles, as long as I could leap into my bed, it was easy to ignore. It would improve my skill when I had to clear the high jump in gym. The one thing I never dared do was to eat in my room. I knew better than that, or her wrath would be immediate. She knew where every utensil was in each drawer. 

She never demanded that I buckle down and do anything about it. There was the suggestion with a sigh that it was awful and I might want to take some action.

I used the same philosophy with my two. When it got bad enough, they would eventually take care of it. It was strikingly obvious when we would be on vacation, and the two of them would share a room. My oldest daughter would make her bed, put her clothes in the dresser, and make herself a beautiful home like Martha Stewart. The other got out of bed and never looked back until we checked out at the end of the week. 

Based on this, it was easy to discern who was not pulling her share of straightening up and needed a little assistance. Occasionally, I would enter the room and check the environment for overlooked hazards. Like when a child stockpiles collectibles in their pockets or a shakedown in a prison cell, it was anyone’s guess what would show up.  

During one of these routine inspections, I opened the door and heard sloshing. A souvenir water bottle was hung on the doorknob and swung back and forth.

A memory surfaced of her sucking up a high sugar, sticky liquid on a hot summer day. I mentally calculated when we had been to that amusement park. It was at least a year, so it wasn’t looking good for me to twist off the cap. I took my chances because I couldn’t leave it there until we relocated. 

The smell was horrifying. Seeing the fuzzy black mold growth raised more than one gag. If it were a homeschool science project, she would have been awarded an A. I learned what time, darkness, and saliva do together when unattended. I am sure there is an unknown algebraic equation that would fit this situation. 

I had to precariously transport it from one end of the house to the other where I could dispose of it in the kitchen. That was the longest walk, trying not to trip and spill any of it on me or the carpet. I imagined one drop being like the sulphuric acid I had to handle in chemistry class in high school. We had gloved up, but I had not yet secured my safety goggles. 

The teacher had just said,

“Don’t let any of this touch your skin. You will suffer burns.” 

Moments later, my lab partner accidentally splashed it in my eyes. My entire face went under the faucet, and everything was okay except for her nerves.    

My daughter saw me, and as I rushed without rushing, I asked,

“Why was this in your room?”

“I hung it there when we got home. I forgot about it.”

I dumped the contents and the memento that had cost triple its production. 

Why do we easily remember some things but suddenly forget others? Usually, if it’s an unpleasant task, we can let it vanish without care. You would think something like personal hygiene generally holds a high priority in memory. 

This is not always the case. 

I was on my way to a family member’s house, trying to concentrate on the food I was to bring. I had made multiple trips from the kitchen to the car, securing a hot crockpot and other containers. Positioning is a priority in case of a sharp turn, and your goal is to not see the contents all over the back seat. 

Nothing is worse than getting to your destination and realizing that you left an item behind, and then you have to drive all the way back to retrieve it. My mind was on nothing but loading the car and arriving on time. 

The three of us got in and buckled up. It started with my oldest daughter seated in the back.

“I forgot to put deodorant on!”

My first thought was,

Oh, no. I have to turn the car off because my house key is on the ring and there is no other way to get in.  

I felt shuffling and heard a slight sniff in the passenger seat beside my right arm. The announcement had triggered her sister to double check herself. 

“I forgot to put mine on, too!”  

My armpits suddenly felt sweaty. No way. I had to admit it. 

“I forgot to put mine on too.” 

Now it was worth turning off the car, so we could run into the house to quickly swipe some on.  

I have always appreciated those moments when suddenly, a quiet voice in my mind reminds me of something I am about to forget at the door when I leave. Or, at the store, just before I check out, while in line, and have to run up and down aisles trying to get back before the cashier is to the final item on the belt. 

The help is always there, but I can get distracted and forget. I fall easily into striving, trying to do it all myself, and disregard the inside communication that could save time. 

All the experts say to make a list before shopping and go after a meal. I generally adhere to both pieces of advice by eating beforehand and writing down what I need. I either forget my list on the kitchen table or lose it, especially if I have to go to more than one store.  

I have been reminded lately to start my day in prayer. Not scrolling through my phone looking at what draws the world’s attention, but making a connection right away when I wake up. Calling in the direction of heaven seems to improve my day. Some would say this is a psychological phenomenon, but what if it isn’t? What if God wants that, and until we do it, there will be a struggle when one isn’t necessary?

If someone told me to bet on a horse they knew would win because it had won before, the odds would be in my favor, and placing my money on it would bring me a reward. What if it worked? If that is the outcome, lying down a couple of dollars would result in a small win. The risk would be worth it.  

It’s the same with asking for help right from your bed before the day begins. What can it hurt?  

In Psalm 143:8 it says,

“Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love, for in you I trust. Make me know the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul.” (ESV)

Before your phone buzzes or you have to make a life-changing decision, God will speak to you so when the moment arrives, you may already have an answer.  

Just as powerful as remembering, so is forgetting. In the movie Inside Out, sadness and joy realize they cannot exist without each other. How can someone suddenly laugh in the middle of sobbing their eyes out? Because one overrides the other.

While it is a great thing for us to recall certain events, it is also a gift to forget circumstances that hurt us to the core of who we are. The chalkboard of the mind can be erased as if the pain never existed. That’s another fantastic tool that God employs to help us move forward.  

Isaiah 43:18 says,

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.”

I have a lot of places in my life where I have been physically, mentally, and spiritually hurt, and several years went by where I stuffed down my feelings. Without realizing it, there was darkness residing inside that I was unaware of, but it was running my thinking and influencing what was manifesting itself around me. Before waking up to the truth, I couldn’t comprehend why a loving God would allow so many distressing patterns that kept repeating themselves.  

I had to bravely take the cap off the container I had housed for years, hanging on the door of my heart, collecting sludge. 

With God’s help, I became an observer, able to stand outside the emotions, separate myself and be free. I didn’t have to force myself not to think of the past; I finally looked at it for what it was, saw the errors made, and let it go. 

As explained in the verse, I can now bury the past and look at it no more. It has lost its energetic hold on me so I can walk free of it. Dropping unnecessary, dense energy creates space for new, better experiences.

One of the most helpful things I have done is to imagine making peace with the people who caused me to suffer harm, and I see how in some places, not all, I allowed it. Through supernatural help, I can visualize myself being in the presence of some of my worst enemies, forgiving them, and creating peace. 

You don’t want to walk through your life dragging the heavy weight of burdens along because they will rob you of your peace and joy. The negative emotions will repel your good. 

Just like showing up at a social gathering without your deodorant.  

Never let them see you sweat.

Balancing the Scale

Posted on by Christine

“Step on the scale,” she said. “I need to see how much you weigh.”

I hadn’t any time to sit in the waiting room to wring my hands while staring at the closed door. That was usually the case when I previously breezed into a clinic for a check-up. I would clutch a book in my hand and nervously try to read with my mind elsewhere. I would imagine the condemnation of not liking the number I saw flash on the digital screen, followed by the noose-like grip that the blood pressure cuff would take on my arm, causing that uncomfortable feeling of my pulse ripping through my bicep.

Then there was the question and answer round regarding my lifestyle, such as did I take supplements. How was I feeling? Am I independently wealthy, and do I cut coupons before I grocery shop? It always feels like a pop quiz where I hope I get the answer right about myself. I expect a loud buzzer to go off while I am ushered out with a tongue depressor as a parting gift.

No, there wasn’t any time to adjust to my surroundings before she called my name. I was headed for the section C seats not to watch a sporting event or have a baby delivered but to start my ritual of pre-check-up overthinking. But I was summoned before I could pick out my spot as far away as possible.

Immediately after being allowed through the door where all the magic happens, she gave me the order to get on the scale.

“Already?” I said. I had no time to do a couple extra push-ups or wall squats to take off a few extra inches. It was like being on The Biggest Loser in the middle of the hallway where any passerby could see my weight and gasp.

Where had this complex come from? Why had I hated the weigh-in process so much? Maybe it had something to do with a required class from long ago.

In 7th grade, we began a journey into the world of placing ourselves before the prying eyes of someone who might share a desk next to us in math, home economics, or English. How does this reflect an authentic life experience? Wasn’t school supposed to prepare us for the real world? No office setting would ever require its employees to strip down to their underwear and bare their acne, scars, and moles to their coworkers.

We had to do it no matter how self-conscious we felt or not graduate six years later. That was always the threat. Conform or be left behind.

Some of us gathered our clothes and ran for the bathroom stalls or the protective barrier of the showers. Elementary school never held our feet to the fire like this. We were told to cover our coughs, don’t push your neighbor, and be on your best behavior.

At the height of body changes, we had to take it all off and not bat an eyelash.

Having learned how to skirt being unclothed in front of the people I would sit next to at my high school graduation, I then had to endure the ultimate of humiliation.

The Presidential Fitness Test.

By the looks of our government leaders and officials, they skipped gym class during this unit of study.

But the rest of us had to participate or be subjected to a firing squad in detention. I had been through this before, but they added an element that was downright deplorable. We stood in a line, and they rolled in a scale from the nurse’s office where no one had set foot on it. The rattling sound sent a shockwave of horror for those who were too self-aware of our weight.

From the time I was born, my mom always made this announcement,

“I have always weighed 110 pounds. No more and no less.”

It was like a broken record and usually stated right around the time of my physical exams as she would take note of my number, which was at least twenty more and climbing as I grew.

My frame easily made muscle from the slightest form of exercise. This increased my result on the scale, but that was an undisclosed health secret back then.

In addition to her weight, she said,

“My foot has always been a size 5.”

Not only was I three sizes larger, but I had to wear wide.

“I hate my feet,” I told her before bed one night.

With a shocked expression, she said,

“Why?”

“They are too big. Yours are smaller than mine.”

The frown indicated she was seeing the error of her ways.

“Some people don’t have feet or legs, Chris. So be thankful for what you have. You can walk and run.”

It didn’t make much of a dent in my view of myself because by the time I expressed those feelings, I was at the height of self-hatred. She had planted the seeds for years, and the crop grew out of control with wild abandon.

I figured I would keep my weight and shoe size hidden as much as possible. Putting something into a far dark corner always solves it, right? It was the only form of self-preservation I had in my arsenal at that age.

It was one thing to have to undress in front of others, but now I was being set up for more ridicule by my peers. The year before, I had suffered under the bullying of a boy who sat inches from me, and at home, I had an older brother who made sure I knew every day that I was fat and ugly.

With all of these factors, is it any wonder why a simple invention that measures my pounds would bother me so much?

The teacher parked the contraption in the middle of the room. My formal name, first, middle, and last, was called out just like my mom did when I was in trouble, so psychological trigger number three reared its ugly head.

My footsteps echoed off all the walls as I moved toward what seemed like a guillotine, with no sound coming from anybody. I stepped on the black platform, and the entire measuring mechanism slid to the far right with a loud metal grating sound.

With clipboard in one hand and a pen in the other, she squinted and slid the marker back and forth and one final time back until she landed on a number that seemed fitting. Not having an ounce of a social filter, she loudly announced my number as she wrote it on her sheet.

Body shaming was not considered illegal back then but a right of passage through puberty. I distinctly heard the slight giggles of those who didn’t have triple digits next to their names. They were the ones who had mastered hair flips, the art of applying lip gloss, and had on designer gaucho boots.

Once we were properly disgraced, it was on to physical agility. How many sit-ups and pull-ups could we do with the stopwatch ticking away? There was a standard to achieve, and if you fell short, you were considered an outcast.

Those more athletic were usually the males who walked around like gorillas thumping their chests and lording it over the rest of us losers. Many of the girls were instantly checked off as failures, especially the malnourished ones.

Out of all the drills we had to perform, the ropes that hung from ceiling to the ground were the most ominous because I was afraid of heights. Climbing a step stool mere inches off the floor caused a swirly feeling in my stomach.

We were expected to jump on those ropes like monkeys and climb our way up and back, all under the watch of the clock. It didn’t matter what direction I was going. A rope burn would occur on some part of me. It wasn’t a maybe. It was a certainty.

Going up wasn’t bad, and I’m sure my time would have made the record books. The way down chewed up the clock because backward and up high are not a nice combination.

We left exhausted, and a part of our soul had died. The next day, we were back on the scale, and my weight was up an ounce.

When I saw the number at the clinic, it was the first time I felt peace and didn’t care. It’s interesting when you have lost weight, and you know you were about twenty pounds heavier last time, that you aren’t so bad off.

As soon as that hurdle is cleared, they present you with your BMI that screams you are in the overweight category, just in case you start to feel overconfident.

This is when you begin to see how your value should not be attached to a range of numbers on paper. It should be a guide but not a live or die proclamation.

Our society glorifies and promotes “the perfect” who have flaws but mask them. The public school system conditions us early to consider ourselves a number, whether on a scale or a test score. It becomes our identity that spills over into a bank account, a wage that determines what we do for employment and our age.

What has God numbered? Matthew 10:30 says,

But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. (AMP)

What happens when those become gray?

Proverbs 16:31: Gray hair is a crown of glory; it is gained in a righteous life.

It is challenging to separate who we are from what we believe. God doesn’t look at us in the way that the world does. We are carriers of a highly crafted divine spirit that gets little to no recognition in public. It’s usually ignored.

I did not go to the doctor and discuss how many prayers I had seen answered, how many people I had shown compassion to or helped when I didn’t have to. Where’s that scorecard? There isn’t one because God doesn’t keep track of that, either.

You are on earth to learn, figure out your purpose, and live it to the fullest. This comes by direct communication to the One who sent you. You listen to what is spoken and let all the distractions fall away.

Jeremiah 29:11 says:

11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. (NIV)

Until I examined the factors contributing to why I detested being weighed, it didn’t make sense to me. My reaction was to feel ashamed, and it had become an automatic response. Much like Pavlov’s dogs hearing a bell ring to start drooling, mine was to feel guilt at the thought of my weight, no matter what it was.

Where are these people I allowed to create an unhealthy stronghold in my mind? My mom is in heaven, and my peers are long gone, so their voices should have been silenced long ago.

A “bad” number can motivate a person to do better, but what if you are doing your best, and no matter the result, you still beat yourself up? That’s where you figure out the why, and in that puzzle-solving experience, you see where the errors in your thinking have been so you can correct them.

While maintaining a healthy life, you don’t make it an obsession. You bless your body and be grateful for its hard work. This is a great accomplishment toward balancing the scale.

I read in a book recently that if you put your fruit on the counter instead of in the refrigerator, you will be more likely to eat it. So, I put these on top of my container of brownies.

Quit

Posted on by Christine

In a house full of women, there are bound to be shoes. This sounds sexist, but in my home, it’s the truth. I had a visitor come in the door many years ago and say,

“How many people live here?”

“Just three of us.”

“By the looks of it, I would say at least ten based on the number of shoes you have on that rug.”

What’s funny is that I don’t buy myself many. At times, a pair or two have been put out into the garage as my “lawn mowing” attire, but they often pile up and, unless I make an effort, tend to stay longer than they should. I never throw them away.

Much like some of the relationships I have let into my life.

The other day, I walked in a melted snow puddle on the kitchen floor and realized that most of the rug by the door was taken up by footwear designed for summer. It’s January, and flip-flops and sandals occupy space. If we are lucky, they will be used again four months from now, but until then, they have become a nuisance, not allowing what should be there.

My daughter and I began the removal process and designated the spot next to the door for boots only. When I walked in the next time, it was nice not to trip over all the shoes. I slipped off what I had on and didn’t end up with wet socks.

It’s the little things like this that can make a difference. Removing what didn’t belong made it easier to enter. I didn’t make a mess that I would have to clean up.

I recently heard a speaker say people give up on situations like bad relationships too early. They think it’s too much to take, and they bail out. I have seen that happen, but what are the consequences of staying too long? I don’t hear this one talked about as much.

There is this idea that most people get uncomfortable and flee. What about those of us who get used to the discomfort? We make a comfort zone in the misery, and soon it feels normal to struggle. We don’t know or understand that by removing ourselves, we could have more freedom and less to step around to keep the peace.

I went out of my way to shove all the out-of-season ones as far away from the door as possible. Every time I came home, I went through this process of kicking a tiny space where I could remove my boots. I used up my time going around the problem instead of dealing with it.

Until last week, I couldn’t take another second of it. I took a few moments to put away the ones that were not being used any longer. Instead of continuing in the madness I partially created, I wanted better.

From experience, this is a universal truth that can also be applied to dishes in the sink. Don’t be that person to leave something that can go two inches into the dishwasher. It starts with one fork, and suddenly there’s an entire day of utensils and plates piled high. What would have taken one second now takes up more seconds.

It makes me wonder. What else am I overlooking and allowing? Where else besides my rebellious shoe piling do I need to become aware so I can have it easier?

I realize we have a coat problem. It’s not that we have an overabundance of them. We can’t seem to catch a break on where to hang them. I have a wood railing by the stairs, and my favorite spot is to hang them all on the post. Every moment counts at times as I’m going out the door. And more often than not, I have to unearth my jacket from underneath those that have been hung on top of mine.

I know I have done the same to the other parties involved. I’m not innocent in any of this.

We really could use a coat rack.

We have one.

So why do we continually go back to the post to disengage our jackets? We have a place designated for them, yet they return to our old familiar ways.

Once in a while, one of us will haphazardly throw it over the back of a chair. I can’t stand it, so I hang it on the post as I walk past the coat rack while tripping over the flip-flops from summer.

For this, I have a good excuse. The rack is broken. It was purchased with the high expectations that it would end our plight, but when we went to use it, the hangers couldn’t handle the weight, and threw our jackets to the floor. Someone always scraps their coat off the floor, and who wants that?

What should have allowed us to use multiple hooks and live a life of luxury ended up only with two functioning holders that work if we fast and pray. It proves beneficial for a lightweight hat on a good day, but we hardly wear those.

So, why don’t I throw it? Because I just have made it part of my existence, trying to make it work.

In every self-help book I have read, the most significant advice is that a person should throw away anything that is broken or not of use. I have known people who give things that should be thrown away. That’s not the idea. Either pitch it or donate it if it’s still decent to give to another to relieve their burden.

The point is eliminating what isn’t helpful to make room for better. I have realized that if something is taking up a space meant for an upgrade, a higher manifestation cannot occur until the room is made.

God’s idea of better is probably at an elevation grander than mine, and I think we cling to what we know instead of being brave enough to let the outdated or nonfunctioning thing go.

Isaiah 55 includes this reminder:

“I don’t think the way you think.
The way you work isn’t the way I work.”
“For as the sky soars high above earth,
so the way I work surpasses the way you work,
and the way I think is beyond the way you think.”

While God is trying to give us a blessing of more significant proportions, we keep throwing our shoes in a pile and stacking up our jackets, wondering why He has forsaken us.

I hear a lot about how we must become “awake” to global issues. Like, take up a cause. Get out into the streets and fight for justice. Meanwhile, I’m battling my self-created coat and shoe troubles. Isn’t that humbling?

Your junk drawer speaks volumes about who you really believe God is.

It’s not God’s nature to condemn any of us. We tend to shove something into a far, dark corner and put up with it. But, if we allow it to be brought into the light, we can be free of it, whether it is materialistic or involves self-destructive behavior patterns.

I was shocked that shoes have “miles” on them. I had no idea they should no longer be worn after a certain amount of wear, as this can damage your feet. If they no longer support you, they can hurt you. This is where a decision must be made and can involve your self-worth.

Are you worth God’s best? And when were you told that you weren’t? What circumstances made you believe a lie or who convinced you that you didn’t deserve to have good? Those are the questions to examine. What worn-out thing takes the place of something greater or people you can help? What new thing does God want to add that can make your life more meaningful and happy?

It might involve transferring to a better job, moving to a new location, or finding a new circle of friends.

It was highly ingrained in my subconscious mind not to give up anything. Whether this was a class in school, a new hobby, or an old worn out shirt, this action was marked as a failure. So it’s a high probability that I will hang on to the coat rack until I have met an invisible rule regarding the length of time I have to suffer along with it.

When is its time up? I don’t know.

As I become more aware of how I go through life, allowing what stays and what goes, it’s okay to throw away your old pairs of underwear that are stretched out way too far, your socks that have holes in them, and your toothbrush that is down to its last bristle.

If it’s not working, somebody needs to say it. It’s okay to quit.

It’s a team effort….

Forward

Posted on by Christine

I could have skipped it and gone another way, but I chose not to. I have walked on a trail by my house for a couple of years, watching the magic of nature slip from one season into the next. 

On humid summer evenings with the air so still, I have come upon deer making their way through the tall grass trying not to be detected. 

Nothing compares to a day when a slight breeze picks up, and you are strolling through a brief, unexpected dry leaf shower. The leaves in the fall brilliantly turn to flaming reds and gold before they lose their grip. They gently come down as if God Himself is sprinkling you with a message of His divine presence. 

Winter, harsh at times in this wooded area, always makes me stop just for a second to see what possibly could still be alive and moving in the frequently subzero temperatures. Typically, the pathway through is plowed and pretty easy to navigate.

But not this time. I saw as I crossed the street that the snow bank to the entrance was high, and it wasn’t going to be the usual walk without a challenge. I considered turning around but decided to make the best of it. I second-guessed myself as the initial bits of snow began to pack around my ankles inside my boots.

Someone had been there before me, so wherever I could, I slipped my foot inside their left behind shoe print. If you have ever tried walking fast through wet sand, it’s similar in that you feel like you are putting in a lot of effort to move forward while feeling like you aren’t making much progress. The only thing that feels like it is being produced is a cold sweat. 

It looked like 2022 for me, where each day felt like only a little was being accomplished, but I was striving.  

Before the halfway mark, I had the opportunity to exit onto the street, but I decided that my legs weren’t on fire enough and my muscles could use a little more toning. I can be stubborn like that. My jeans will fit me better later, is my thinking. 

I encountered a particularly rough spot where I had to have my feet apart and straddling, much like running through an obstacle course of old tires. I half expected a guy to appear with a military haircut, blow a whistle at me, and tell me to hurry up.

Nature provided me with an outdoor gym, and I inhaled as much fresh air as my lungs could take. I wasn’t enjoying the scenery as much because I had to watch where I was going continually. Usually, I can be in autopilot mode, but the situation forced me to pay attention to every move I made. 

As I came to the end, I wondered who would use my blazed trail to their advantage if they were caught unaware of it being piled up with snow. 

A few weeks ago, before Christmas, while considering my not-so-great financial state, I saw a clear memory in my mind’s eye, heard that still, small voice, and I wrote this in a notebook: 

Every month I have shown My faithfulness to you as you have had to rely on Me. You have felt the pressure of the world bearing down on you as you have tried to walk the way I have told you to go. You have followed in My footsteps. Think of when you were young, and an older brother of yours walked ahead of you to make it easier for you to walk through deep snow. 

I am that good Father. I am putting my steps before you so you can put your feet where Mine are. The snow won’t be deep. It will be a depth that you will be able to handle. I will never let you go under or fail you.

It seems at times like it’s all the same. It appears to be the same as always, but it isn’t. I am having you put your feet where Mine go before you so you can walk. You are My daughter. I look at you like my little child, full of such wisdom and knowledge. Do not fear the month. Do you see My steps for you to follow? (Yes) Then that’s all you need to do. Just listen to Me and do what you hear. I will never fail you. Just walk in my footsteps and stay with Me.

I will lead you to greater places outside of this box you now dwell in. For now, just go each day and know how much I can make all things perfect. My plan for your life is perfectly made. 

By the time I got home, my socks were soaking wet, and chunks of snow were clinging to my pants, but I had gotten in one of the best workouts that cost me nothing but an hour. If I had listened to the “rational” voice, I wouldn’t have chosen the way I did. I would have walked on the sidewalk or the street like everyone else, forgoing the struggle. But what is there to gain by doing what everyone else is? 

Going the unconventional way while everyone else is wondering why you aren’t taking the seemingly more effortless way out is a part of the mystery of following God. Different voices have asked me why I have lived my life a certain way in the last year. The only thing I can say is that I have tried to allow God to do a work in me. 

While I struggled on the trail, I added my steps to that of others to make it easier for anyone coming by later. 

While trying to figure out my life and how to serve God best that’s the most rewarding part.  

Proverbs 11:25 says:

The one who blesses others is abundantly blessed; those who help others are helped.

There have been days when I could barely get out of bed, but I did anyway. Mainly because of my 14-year-old dog, who wants to go outside and come charging back in to eat. Who can say no to that? 

There have been times of great mental torment, like when my car broke down, and I sat paralyzed by a panic attack in a rental car for nearly 40 minutes. A day when I grabbed a pillow at noon and didn’t leave the couch as my body kept going into deep periods of sleep. Others where I lost my ability to smile when it has always come to me so easily up until then—sitting with nothing to say as I listened to everyone else in public carry on conversations looking like they didn’t have a care in the world. And, I felt like I was under the weight of it.

The snow has been deep, and I have felt frozen, but His footsteps have been there, leading me forward. 

Encounter

Posted on by Christine

“Do I need these?” I asked, holding up a pair of workout pants and showing them to my daughter, standing across from me at a table where humanity had trampled through and thrown all the sizes everywhere. I had finally unearthed what I thought would fit.

I hadn’t paid much attention to the lady standing next to me, folding, sorting, and putting them back in order. I saw her nametag briefly, but I was not focusing my attention on her. Instead, I was consumed by an inward mental battle with a nagging voice telling me to leave the store and not come back.

The harassment started in the parking lot before I was out of the car.

“You don’t belong here. This is for people who have money. You don’t have any, so turn around and go back home!“

I had not heeded its advice and dragged myself through the door. How I ended up in a clothing section was beyond me. I should have been shopping for food to live, not clothes. That is why I asked, 

“Do I need these?”

The woman next to me said,

“Need? I don’t think that has ever stopped me from spending money. I look at things, decide that I want them, and buy.”

Now, she had my full attention. I grabbed two pairs and moved to her other side. They were on sale for a really low price, and I did need them. My other ones were starting to fall apart. 

“When you go through some things financially, you start to ask yourself that question a lot,” I said.  

I noticed she had a smile the entire time she worked correcting the chaos of what the public had created. 

When I got to the other side of the table facing her, I had the familiar light-headed feeling take over. This comes right when I know that I have been placed in the path of someone who needs to hear something from someone in heaven.  

Without me asking much, she told me she had gotten a divorce from a chemically dependent man and had children with him. She was now with a new person who she said did everything for her.

“I don’t need to work now, but I do.”

As she spoke, I saw a woman, a hologram-like person, stand behind her on her right.  

“Do you have family?” I knew it was her mom, but I didn’t assume. I never do.

“Not really. I have a dad, but my mom died..”

Before she finished her sentence, I said,

“She is standing right behind you to your right with her hand on your shoulder. She is proud of the decision you made to get the divorce. You will go on to have grandchildren, your ex-husband will get remarried, and many more family members will come from that.”

“I like that,” she said. 

I saw her surrounded by many people, resulting from her one decision to give up fighting something that would never change. 

Her smile got brighter and brighter.

“Did your mom have a favorite color? I think you will start to see the color pink, and when you do, that’s her.”

She held up her freshly manicured nails, and they were bright pink.

“Pink was her favorite color, so I picked it.”

“Do you celebrate her birthday? Because I feel she would want you to celebrate her passing to heaven more than her birthday.”

“Yes, we always have a party on the day she passed. She had cancer, and she died 16 years ago. That date is coming up in a couple of weeks. Just before you and I started talking, I saw a lady who looked just like her walk past.”

I told her that her decision to leave behind what wasn’t working would open the door for more to come in.  

All of this over a couple of pairs of pants that I was not so sure I should get. I left Laura to go about her business happily, and I was suddenly not afraid to get myself new clothes. 

From there, I went through a drive-thru, and as I was waiting, I saw a young blonde girl filling up a machine with ice. I got her attention, and she came to the window.

“I think you are supposed to go to school. Are you putting it off?”

Her eyes were enormous, and unlike in my other encounter, she only nodded her head and verbalized nothing.  

“Your grandpa, who is in heaven, is trying to tell you that now is the time. Don’t put it off. This is the time. And don’t worry about the money. Are you worried about the money part of it?”

I saw tears fill her huge eyes, and she nodded yes. It was like a paralysis had taken over, and she was frozen, staring at me while the words came at her. 

“Start filling out the paperwork and go now. You will be able to communicate with animals like no one else can, and you will be very successful.”

It’s incredible for me to watch absolute strangers be told things that I would have no clue knowing. By the time her coworker handed me the bag, she was smiling through the tears and promising to look into becoming a vet. 

A few weeks later, I was in a store with my brother, and he needed light bulbs. A woman came around a corner out of nowhere and asked if we needed help.

He told her what he needed, and she meticulously walked him through every choice of light bulb he could choose. She was very experienced in knowing what she was saying and seemed to do this effortlessly. Thomas Edison would have been impressed. 

As she walked away, I felt that familiar pull to give her a message she needed to hear.  

“I need to tell her something,” I said as I watched her walk away. I noticed her shirt was slightly stained in the back, like she didn’t have a lot of money to buy herself new things.  

I know the feeling, and I have found that what I have experienced has made me hyper-aware of those walking that road. 

As I chased her down, my brother said,

“Is this going to be like Touched By an Angel?” 

He knows I do this once in a while when God asks me. 

I ignored him.  

“Excuse me,” I said, trying not to get the whole store looking our way.

“I have to tell you something.”

I explained that this was just a starting point for her and that she would quickly climb the ladder of success. That promotions would come her way quickly, and her co-workers might get a little jealous, but to cast it aside.  

“You are loyal and trustworthy with a good heart. That is leading you through, and someone on the other side is helping open doors for you. That’s why you are moving up so quickly. You will outgrow this place and move way up higher.” I could see far in advance. 

“I have only been here two months, and they have given me two promotions already, which is unusual.”

That’s about all she said because, once again, I think the shock of hearing all of her life secrets, good ones, being spilled out was overwhelming to take in.

She kept saying thank you and then returned to her work. I feel Emily will never forget that she met God in the middle of the cleaning section of a hardware store. 

We moved on to the cash registers, where a lady was waiting with no one in her line. 

“You need to ask her who is sick that she knows.“

I didn’t want to do that. I tried to get through and get out the door. The question seemed too invasive and might not even be true. When I got to the door, I had to go back.

She was standing at the end of her lane, waiting for customers to come.  

“I have to ask you a question,” I said. “I can see heaven, and I have been told to ask you who is sick that you know.”

“My sister’s son,” she said. She went on to tell me he was in the end stage of disease.  

“He has an angel standing next to him,” I said.

“My sister has spoken to that angel,”

“Tell her that this confirms she is right about it.”

I saw the future and that a grandfather figure would be showing up to take him to heaven.

She told me that his dad had passed on as well.

Both of us were near tears as I said,

“Both men will pick him up and take him to heaven. Tell your sister he will be okay. He probably will say he sees them before he moves on.”

“We believe. Thank you for saying all this. I will tell her.”

The next night, I visited my dad in a rehab he has been in for about a month. Later in the evening, the med technician came in to give him his pills. She introduced herself, and I told her who I was.  

I began to see a grandmother figure.  

“She needs to know she is going to have kids soon. You have to tell her,” said the whisper.

Oh, gosh, no! I cannot tell someone they are going to have a baby. What if she doesn’t want one? I thought I would make a big mistake, but when God wants to use your mouth, you and your opinion don’t matter. 

I started with the soft sell.

I explained that I could see and hear heaven; then, I asked questions about her life. Was she married? Yes. Did she have brothers and sisters? Yes.

And then, she opened the door for me to move in a bit further.  

“Does anyone have kids in the family?”

“My brothers and sisters do.”

“You will. You are going to have kids soon.”

I watched her eyes get that shocked look.  

“You are going to have a big family. They will be musical. I see piano players and singers. And this is probably going to happen before you have thought it possible. You are waiting for the money to show up, right?”

She was wearing a mask, and I could see now that her smile was reaching her eyes. 

“Yes, I will stay home and home-school when we have a family. My husband wants a big family, and his whole family is very musical.”

I told her some more, and she looked at my daughter and said,

“Does she do this all the time?”

I sensed she was a bit scared it would happen the next day.  As if she would wake up with ten kids all wanting breakfast.

“This will come to you naturally, but it is coming sooner than you think. When your husband gets a raise, which will be soon, that is your sign.” 

She said this would make her husband so happy and left with a big smile.

Crisis averted for me. That one seemed like a big and frightening jump. 

I don’t have to look for them; they sometimes come to me. 

Like the nursing assistant who told me she had just visited her neighbor who was dying.  

“Did you feel the angels in the room? There are two, one by the foot and the head of his bed.”

“I told them I could feel the angels in the room when I went to visit.”

“There are two of them, and his grandma is coming to get him.”

“His wife kept talking about his grandparents, and he gets to see them again,” she said.

“Yes. They will escort him into heaven.” 

I can always see when the words bring comfort too.

“Ask her if she is a teacher.”

Going out on a limb, I asked,

“Are you a teacher? I hear the word teacher.”

I hadn’t ever had a conversation with this woman who works at an assisted living where I was visiting a hospice patient. 

“Yes. I am a teacher.”

“This job will end, and that will be your job again, but less stressful.”  

She told me she taught English to children who were disabled and that it has been very overwhelming.

“It won’t be next time, so don’t turn it away. You’re a teacher, and that’s your life path.”  

She walked away smiling, raising her hands to the ceiling and thanking God. 

There is a promise that God will always keep you in sight and not forsake you, but the world can convince us otherwise. There’s a wearing down process that can take place, making some of us wonder if any of this has a point.

When I am sent to strangers with details I shouldn’t know, there is no denying that everything needed is seen, and the Creator of all is longing to reach us through a loving encounter.

Seeing Red

Posted on by Christine

The color red has been my favorite for a long time. I’m drawn to it like a moth is to a flame. When asked to select a color in kindergarten, I always chose this shade. Most of the time, this boy always wanted whatever I had. And when we were expected to trade, I looked for someone who had it so I could keep it.

This was well before speed dating and swiping past profiles. And Tinder.

I would always look for someone else to exchange with, and he would follow me. Not quietly but relentlessly, making it apparent that he wanted my attention more than my Crayola. The day that the teacher saw me ignoring him and made me publicly make the trade was the last day I avoided him.

I felt like she spotlighted me, and everyone was looking at us. I quickly handed over what he wanted and tried to pretend he wasn’t there.

But whenever we switched to another color, he was right there, waiting for me to give mine to him.

It killed me to use blue, green, or whatever choice he took without thinking. There was no alliance between him and what he randomly grabbed from the box.

Mine was my Ruby birth color, and I knew it was significant even at age five. It was the last stone on my mom’s Mother’s ring that housed five others. I found out later they had to break the ring and make room for mine on the end.

Of course, they did.

Anytime I pick a game piece or am required to create a character if I can get red or an equivalent of it, I try to. When with people who also seem to have this affinity and take it before I can claim it, a part of me dies inside. It’s the kid from kindergarten rearing his ugly head. But, I never say. I go with yellow or some other meaningless option.

I have found you can be defeated whether you play with your favorite color or not. The only consolation is that you at least had that in your possession at the start space.

It’s not surprising to me now that I have a neighbor named Red who drives a red truck.

I have lived in my house for thirty-one years, and my front window faces a busy street where I have seen kids catch busses for school and the same ones graduate and go to college. You don’t realize who is around you until they aren’t anymore.

A few months ago, my daughter and I noticed that this man and his wife were no longer buzzing by every morning at 9 am. Even when I wasn’t working from home, I would see them go by. Stop sign and a left turn.

Suddenly, it wasn’t happening anymore.

“I think you are supposed to help him with hospice for his wife,” she said one day, as she does, and it goes through me like electricity.

That would have been great, but I didn’t know him. I had waved and acknowledged his existence all the years I have lived in my house. I watched a while ago as she started to show signs of having a stroke.

One arm hung down at her side, and he did all the yard work alone. But, every day, they drove past my house.

“I bet they go get coffee,” I said to my daughter. We would often try to guess where they were off to.

So when she said I was to help him, I started paying more attention. The lights were on, but no one was home. He was coming home later at night and started going on walks with a large wooden staff like Moses.

“You have to help them,” she said. As I looked out the window, I watched him in a very slow and sad saunter up the street.

Then I flashed back mentally to 2020—the political yard signs. I saw them and gave them little thought. I had decided to disassociate myself from it. Does it exist in heaven? Then I don’t want anything to do with it.

I know I always get the speech that if I don’t vote, bad, bad things will happen. The horror of horrors! You don’t vote? Your one vote is needed. You are why, Chris, this country is going to the dogs.

To each, their own, and mine is to stay out of the fray.

I listened to comments from those supporting the “opposing” side when they noticed the signs proudly displayed.

“They support them? They are so brainwashed and delusional!”

And I have heard the other side say the same thing.

One day recently, I saw him outside. I ran out the front door and across the street before he could disappear.

I introduced myself, and he said his name was Red. My daughter and I were right in our assessment of him being alone. I found out that his wife is in a care facility near his home. I offered to help him in any way I could, including taking things for donation as he was getting ready to sell the house in the future.

I told him I volunteered for hospice and to let me know if it ever came to that.

He came to my door the other night wanting the hospice’s name. It’s now been determined this is where the situation is.

I gave him the information, and I saw his sadness. There’s no running away from it, and he’s in the most challenging part of the walk.

My daughter’s words were true when I had no idea what was happening.

He came back to get my full name, but I wasn’t home. I caught him the next day in his yard. He was removing plants so the siding could be redone.

I followed him into his house so I could write my name on a sheet of paper. On the way in, I saw it.

In the garage, at least 20 bright red with white lettering I Voted stickers were hanging on a cabinet showing his former treks to the voting booth.

I scribbled my name on a sheet of paper and looked at the surroundings of very feminine collectibles. Even though she was absent, her presence was everywhere I looked.

He told me he and his daughter would start going through belongings to give away.

He pointed to many of the items surrounding us and said,

“She could tell you where she got each one.”

As was the case with me, going through a divorce, I had to get rid of material things. But, I always found someone who needed it.

“When you give these things away, you will feel the gratitude of those who need what you give them. The people who get these things will treat them like she did.”

I said goodbye, and he went back to his work.

Had I let politics come between us, I would not have been able to extend myself to him this way. While many sit in front of their TVs or read the latest headline on their phone regarding where we are as a society and how far we think we have come, I find we haven’t advanced all that much.

Many old ways of doing things, like taking care of your neighbor, have fallen to the wayside because of a piece of paper where you make choices about who will run for an office we are so removed from. Yet, people near us, next to us, need our help.

While the world screams one way, God whispers another. And God’s way won’t leave you seeing red.