Never Put Anyone on a Pedestal

I frequently hear from readers and acquaintances that I seem to be incredibly strong, in spite of the pain of my past. The trouble with viewing me as if I belong on a pedestal, is that I can tumble from that place as quickly as anyone else can. Never put anyone on a pedestal. I guarantee you'll eventually be disappointed. No one is perfect.

Last Tuesday, I completely lost it and couldn't stop crying. My problems felt unsolvable, and everywhere I turned, I thought I was seeing my abuser...a man in a restaurant, another in a store, and so on. Life felt so completely overwhelming and hopeless, I wanted to die.

On Wednesday morning, Joe took me to the emergency room. The doctor admitted me to the psychiatric unit, where I was diagnosed with PTSD and 'major depression,' which in old-fashioned terms means a nervous breakdown.

Thank God for Joe and his position at the hospital as chaplain. He was able to come up and visit me every few hours.

I spent three days in the hospital, and I've been home now for three days. I feel like a zombie. The doctor put me on a medication designed to treat depression, anxiety, and neuropathic pain. The pain relief from MS has been great, but I'm so tired and dizzy, I just sleep constantly. Hopefully, my body will adjust to the medication.

I'll be seeing a therapist, beginning tomorrow, as well as a psychiatrist, probably for a very long time. When the staff at the hospital looked at all the 'challenging life events' that I've survived, they were very empathetic. They were surprised I hadn't cracked before now. Apparently, when big events occur, such as childhood sexual abuse, we are supposed to get ourselves into psychiatric-based therapy PDQ. If we don't, we eventually lose it, as I did.

Needless to say, the three days in the psych unit were interesting. From the guy screaming obscenities in the room next door to Nurse Ratchet to the drunks and addicts in detox, I got an education in mental un-health.

On the up side, I've got an outline for a suspense novel about a twisted mental hospital that turns homeless patients into slaves. Now you know how I can come up with the plot lines in my novels about crazy people. We write what we know. HaHa.

I'm feeling very fragile, so if my posts are sporadic, I hope you'll understand, dear reader. Thank you for keeping me in your prayers.

Today's Challenge
If you're suffering from the depression and/or anxiety that go hand-in-hand with childhood sexual abuse, domestic violence, or trauma, please consider finding a qualified psychiatrist and therapist. Don't be ashamed of mental illness. It must be treated, just as any other ailment that debilitates us.

Take a Leap of Faith

We continue with my series, Confident in God's Hands, to help survivors of abuse and trauma develop greater courage. Today, we look at what it means to take a leap of faith.

A splat or a flight?
After my divorce, I met with a Stephen Minister each week. She listened patiently as I told her about how it felt to be a single mother, struggling to discover my purpose.

When we are being abused, someone else is always telling us what to do. After we've left the abuse behind, we may discover that we don't know anymore who we are. Our individuality has been beaten or berated out of us, and the only thing we know is confusion.

After leaving my first husband, I can remember making the decision to buy myself a nightgown of my own choosing for the first time in nearly 20 years. I went to a department store and combed through the racks. I was determined that I would never buy anything that reminded me of the sleezy night-time attire that my abuser had demanded I wear.

But after an hour of searching, I stood in the midst of thousands of nightgowns and burst into tears. There was nothing there that suited me, and I knew it wasn't because there was a lack of variety. My inability to choose came from the realization that I didn't know who I was or what I liked anymore. The abuse had depersonalized me to such an extent, I had no evidence of my former self remaining.

As I told my Stephen Minister my tale of woe, I said, "I feel as if I jumped off a cliff when I left the abuse behind, and I'm about to splat on the rocks below."

With great wisdom and enthusiasm for God's ability to turn around the most hopeless situation, she asked, "How about imagining that you just jumped off that cliff, and God has given you wings to fly?"

At the time, I was so depressed, I had no response for her. So many terrible things had happened to me that I had just about given up believing that God was real. I hadn't been to church in months. I could barely drag myself out of bed in the morning, and I wasn't sure I could ever find my way out of the mess I had created. But this woman got me thinking. Could God really help me fly again?

I decided in the following days that the only way to discover if I had wings was to test them. So, I bought a newspaper, looked through the classified ads, and circled several jobs that I thought I could do. Within an hour, I had an interview scheduled. The next day, I had a job as a file clerk, working for a temp agency.

After just a few weeks on the job, a man recognized my potential and arranged for an interview with the advertising department. The following Monday morning, I went back to work, not as a file clerk, but as a writer. And the rest, they say, is history.

I often reflect back on that time in my life when I felt as if my leap of faith was about to end in a nasty splat. But I discovered that even when we have no idea where we're going to land, if we dare to spread our wings and fly, God puts the wind beneath our wings.

Isaiah 40:31 (NIV) reminds us, But those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. When we trust in God to show us the way and to provide for us along that path, we find that we are able to do the impossible.

And when we dare to fly again, God's provision for all of our needs gives us the confidence to take another flight, and another, and another. Suddenly, we find ourselves soaring through life, wondering why we ever doubted ourselves.

Today's Challenge
Are you terrified of taking that leap of faith and testing your wings? Are past hurts keeping you grounded? Nudge yourself out of the comfort of your familiar nest, and try out your wings again. God promises to provide the wind beneath your wings.

Following Jesus Should be Our Highest Goal

During my series, Confident in God's Hands, I've given you a lot of tips about how to become more courageous after suffering from abuse or trauma. Hopefully, these ideas have been helpful to you. I know that writing them for you has helped me to feel more confident. We're about midway through the series, and I'd like to pause to reflect on an important point.

Along the way, I have discovered something that I wasn't expecting. We may set big goals and make plans to achieve them. We may have dreams in our hearts that we desperately want to make real. But in the end, our highest goal has to be a real relationship with Jesus.

Unless the Christ is enough for us, we will never feel fulfilled. We've got to get to the point where it doesn't matter if we've got a great job, lots of money, a nice house, a sleek new car, a loving partner, or anything else we think we have to have. When we place too much emphasis on our worldly achievements, Jesus takes a back seat along the way. And that's not where he wants to be.

Jesus wants to be in the driver's seat, with us right beside him. Above all things, he wants us to want him more than anything else. Finding a way to get close to him is our greatest challenge. And when we find him, he will be our greatest prize.

Let me say that again. Jesus must be the goal we are aiming for first and foremost. Just sitting in his presence and praising him for his love must give us total satisfaction. If it doesn't, we've got our priorities out of order.

I'm not saying that we can't have other dreams. We certainly can't sit around all day, just grinning from ear to ear because we're close to Jesus. He put us all here to do things. But we have to remember that he wants our complete love and attention 24/7. He wants us to be content with him first. Then, when other dreams get fulfilled, we can feel extra blessed.

We run into trouble when we put our dreams first. When they don't get fulfilled, we get angry at Jesus for failing us. We rail at him for letting us down, over and over. The sad truth is that we're failing him when we act like this.

We may discover in the process of chasing after dreams that we are spoiled rotten children. God our father doesn't want us to just demand baubles and cookies and fun from him. He wants us to crawl up into his lap, rest our head on his chest, and snuggle into the comfort of his arms. He wants us to share our innermost thoughts with him. More than anything, he wants to lead and protect us throughout life so that he can shower blessings on us.

But when we become like demanding children, stomping our feet and pouting over what he hasn't given us, Jesus puts us in time out. There, we stay until we learn that we need to respect and love him first. Only then will we position ourselves to be blessed by him.

And if our focus becomes trained on receiving blessings as a result of loving Jesus, we'll continue to sit in time out. We must expect nothing...absolutely nothing beyond a relationship with him. When we get to that point of realizing that he alone is our greatest dream come true, then the blessings will flow.

A lot of preachers claim that Jesus will shower us with blessings...that we deserve them. Unfortunately, we often believe that those blessings come with four tires attached...or a roof...or a karat designation.

The truth is, God's blessings may come in the form of greater peace, giving up unrealistic expectations, feeling content in spite of our circumstances, or simply resting in the knowledge that the King of the universe loves us deeply.

Micah 6:8 (NIV) reminds us of what is really important. He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

To act justly means that we stand up for those who cannot speak up for themselves. This is why I have chosen to become the voice for victims of abuse and trauma. Someone must speak out against the victimization of helpless people. I am blessed in knowing that I am creating greater awareness of this problem so that laws will be changed to protect innocent children and victims of crime.

To love mercy means that we look after the needs of those around us who are weaker than we are. This would include helpless children, the unborn, widows, handicapped people, the elderly among us,and anyone else who is suffering. I am blessed in knowing that I am helping others, like me, who have experienced abuse and trauma. Giving others comfort, as God has comforted us, ought to be one of our loftiest goals.

To walk humbly with your God means that we have to give up pride. I never realized until this past week how prideful I have been. I always thought that humility simply meant that I was willing to admit my faults. It's far more than that. We become prideful when we take our problems into our own hands and attempt to solve them through stupid means.

In my case, I have tried to solve my financial troubles in a host of ways so that my husband can work just one job. A lack of money has created a huge hang-up for me, because I have been stubbornly refusing to let Jesus help me with the problem.

Jesus doesn't just want us to give up trying to control some things in our lives. He wants us to give up our need to fix all of our problems. The only solution to our problems is to admit to Jesus that our lives are unmanageable, that we have made an even greater mess in trying to fix things, and that we acknowledge him as our only hope for relief.

Hmmm...seems to me that I learned that slogan years ago at Al-Anon. I read it, memorized it, repeated it, and thought that I was living it when I gave up trying to control other people's lives. Now, I realize that I must give up trying to control my own life.

When we really and truly humble ourselves before God, we discover that we can hear his voice, telling us which way to go. Then, it really doesn't matter whether we have goals or not. Because, in the end, our highest goal ought to be to follow wherever he leads, confident that he will take us where our hearts desires will be fulfilled.

Today's Challenge
Take time to reflect today where you stand with Jesus. Is he completely in control of every aspect of your life? Or are you taking back problems and trying to solve them with your own plans? Do whatever it takes to surrender everything to him, including your own life and all of its challenges.

Find the Good in Suffering

I've been off the radar for a few days, because MS has knocked me for a loop. I don't like to let my readers down, and it has been bothering me that I haven't had the strength to continue writing. However, the experience has taught me, once again, that we can always find some good in suffering.

I was lying in bed last night, suffering from so much pain that I wished I could die. Not only did my joints and muscles hurt, but my spirit was in agony. I'd been having recurring nightmares again about my parents, and the images left me feeling so depressed, I could hardly stand to breathe.

I prayed that God would give me some relief. Instead, he whispered that I should be looking for the good in my suffering. Suddenly, I realized that whenever I'm in such bad shape, I lean harder on God. It dawned on me that when I'm sick, I have to trust him completely. In that instant, it didn't matter anymore that everything hurt. I felt God's nearness, and I knew that I could endure anything together with him.

In the old testament, Joseph's brothers threw him into a pit to kill him. But when some slave traders came along, they decided instead to sell him. Later in life, when Joseph was serving as one of the most powerful leaders of Egypt, his brothers approached him for help. A famine in their land was wiping out the population.

When they discovered that this great leader was their brother, whom they had tried to kill, they were terrified. But Joseph forgave them and said, You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. (Gen 50:20 NIV)

I have really been struggling with thoughts about what I would like to say to my parents about my dad molesting my daughter, as well as his molesting me as a child. I finally sat down yesterday and wrote a six-page letter. I told them how they had hurt me and that I needed them to admit the truth about what they had done. I asked them to apologize, but only if they sincerely understood how much damage they had done.

I concluded the letter with a list of things they had done well as parents, ending with the statement that God can take the most awful childhood and make something beautiful out of it.

As a result of my unhappy experiences, I have developed a voice for all victims, which I express through the written word. My parents meant to harm me, but God intended that suffering for good to accomplish what is now being done, the encouraging of many wounded souls.

Thank you for your understanding about my recent silence. Next week, we will continue with my series, Confident in God's Hands.

Today's Challenge
Take a look at your past and acknowledge the pain you have experienced. Then, reflect on how God may be using that suffering to carry out his plans and draw you into a relationship with him. Put your thoughts in writing, and if it is safe to do so, mail it off to the person who hurt you. Remind them that God will use the pain they imposed on you to accomplish something important.

Self-Imposed Solitary Confinement Kills Confidence

We continue today with my series, Confident in God's Hands. As survivors of abuse and trauma, we frequently create a form of self-imposed solitary confinement. Social anxiety can make us so fearful or uncomfortable that we barricade ourselves in our homes for days, weeks, months, or even years at a time. This is a sure-fire way to slowly drive ourselves crazy.

Research shows that we need other people.
Researchers found in 2009 that one's social environment can modify the biology of breast cancer and lead to significant differences in outcome. Female mice stressed because they were separated from their mothers developed more and larger mammary gland tumours than more contented animals. (The University of Chicago study appears in the Journal for Cancer Prevention Research.)

Researcher S. Grassian studied the effects of solitary confinement on prison inmates. He described psychiatric symptoms that appeared in 14 inmates exposed to periods of increased social isolation and sensory restriction in solitary confinement. The author asserts that these symptoms form a major, clinically distinguishable psychiatric syndrome. (Am J Psychiatry 1983; 140:1450-1454)

Psychologist Craig Haney of the University of California, Santa Cruz, is an expert on long-term solitary confinement. He explained why solitary confinement is typically used in prisons.

He said, "It’s a very painful experience. People experience isolation panic. They have a difficult time psychologically coping with the experience of being completely alone."

"In addition," he said, "solitary confinement imposes conditions of social and perceptual stimulus deprivation. Often it’s the deprivation of activity, the deprivation of cognitive stimulation, that some people find to be painful and frightening."

"Some of them lose their grasp of their identity. Who we are, and how we function in the world around us, is very much nested in our relation to other people. Over a long period of time, solitary confinement undermines one’s sense of self. It undermines your ability to register and regulate emotion. The appropriateness of what you’re thinking and feeling is difficult to index, because we’re so dependent on contact with others for that feedback. And for some people, it becomes a struggle to maintain sanity."

Go out into the world every day and talk to at least one person.
The social isolation that often results from abuse or trauma can be disabling. We must fight this downward spiral into depression and ever-greater anxiety by going out into the world every single day to find someone to talk to.

Talking on the phone, texting, and emailing don't count as much as real, one-on-one interactions with others. We need to be around other people, because it helps us to measure how we are doing. Social interaction helps us to monitor and adjust our behavior. It gives us confidence, because other people validate who we are and why we're here.

We're a lot like dogs in a pack.
My poodle, Zibby, is frequently as isolated as I am. She doesn't get very many opportunities to go out into the world, particularly when MS slows me down. When she was a puppy, our trainer told us that it was imperative for Zibby to meet at least 5 new people every week if we wanted her to become socially mature.

For the past several months, I've been so busy, Zibby has had to stay at home more often than she or I would like her to. After a number of days of isolation, I took Zibby to a friend's house. My poor dog went completely bonkers. She raced around the living room like an Indy driver, banking off of the sofa and barking her head off. My friend's dog just sat on the sofa, staring at my insane little dog.

Without other dogs to help her self-monitor her behavior, Zibby is having a difficult time learning how to adjust her emotions. We're not much different. Like dogs who learn best in a pack, we thrive when we can mirror others' behaviors. We learn how to adjust ourselves by checking in with other people.

God designed us to live in community with others.
After God made Adam, he said, "It's not good for the Man to be alone; I'll make him a helper, a companion." (Gen 2:18 MSG) Even though Adam had the companionship of every animal God had created, he was still lonely.

Like Adam, it is not good for us to be alone. My dog may provide me with some companionship, but she is certainly no subsitute for the company of other people.

If we find ourselves isolated from others as a result of our home's location, our work environment, or our own self-imposed prison of loneliness, we must make changes as soon as possible. If, for some reason, we can't get out of our house, we need to make sure that someone visits us regularly.

As we can see by the research above, social isolation leads to a documented form of mental illness. Unless we take steps to interact with other human beings daily, we are at high risk of losing our sanity. And there's no better way to destroy our confidence than to isolate ourselves from the rest of the world.

Today's Challenge
Have you been isolating yourself because it is so painful for you to go out into the world? The longer this goes on, the harder it becomes to change. Open the door today and step out into the world. Find someone, anyone, to say hello to. Do the same thing tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. If you want to thrive and restore your confidence, you need other people to help you self-monitor and adjust.

Shake Off Old Labels

We continue with my series, Confident in God's Hands. Today, we take a look at labels and how they shape our actions.

What labels have been stuck on you?
For many of us, abuse has been an undercurrent throughout our lives. It may have begun at home, where unkind words, harsh punishment, or sexual molestation left us feeling frightened and powerless. When we went out into the world with our insecurities, the bullies around us picked up on our weaknesses and stuck labels on us.

We all know about labels. Kids are pros at looking at a person, sizing her up in a heartbeat, and giving her a label. Over the years, labels stuck to me, almost as perceptible as sticky notes clinging annoyingly to my skin. I was called skinny, monkey, four-eyes, buck-tooth beaver, pizza face, goody two-shoes, prude, and many other unkind names. Eventually, I felt as if I were wearing a sign on my back that read, "Abuse me. I'm an easy target."

With all of those names attached to my soul, it was difficult to develop much courage. Many of us go through our entire lives, acting as if those old labels accurately describe us.

God has labeled us as beautiful, peaceful, joyful, patient, kind, gentle, faithful, and good. It's time to start believing in his labels and forget about the inaccurate, ridiculous, unkind ones of our childhood. We must consciously identify what our old labels are, rip them off, and replace them with better ones.

Label yourself like Jesus.
The apostle Paul tried to encourage the people of Corinth to look at themselves and the labels they were wearing. He urged them to throw them out and label themselves Christ-like.

Each of us is now a part of his resurrection body, refreshed and sustained at one fountain—his Spirit—where we all come to drink. The old labels we once used to identify ourselves—labels like Jew or Greek, slave or free—are no longer useful. We need something larger, more comprehensive. (I Corinthians 12:12 MSG)

We must take a long, hard look at the labels we've been operating under all of our lives. It's imperative that we give up acting as if we are those things that have been pasted to our personalities. We aren't victims, losers, clumsy oxen, bad children, or anything else ugly that has been attached to us.

We are free in Christ to label ourselves something beautiful and strong. What words would you use to describe the real you?

Today's Challenge
Identify inaccurate labels which have been clinging to you for years. Shake them off and put on a new label as a member of the body of Christ which has been refreshed in his Spirit.

Listen to Your Heart

We're learning how kick aside insecurities during my series, Confident in God's Hands. I believe that to be truly confident, we must follow God's leading for our lives. When we listen to our hearts, we find more successful outcomes than if we follow paths that the world believes we should.

Your money or your life!
All my life, I have wanted to be a writer. At times, it doesn't pay well. Truthfully, it often pays nothing, other than the satisfaction of knowing that I've crafted something beautiful.

Whenever I allow money woes to take precedence over the dream God has planted in my heart, I hit a wall. My efforts end in frustration, and they frequently cost me more time, money, and aggravation than they're worth.

On the other hand, when I'm in agreement with God's plans for my life, things just seem to fall into place. For instance, I've been asking God to help me figure out how to market, manage, and pay for the distribution of my upcoming novel. Out of the blue, a very old friend offered to handle the distribution of the book at no cost to me!

Usually, our worries about making a living by following our heart's desire are based on our lack of trust in God. When we let anxieties hold us back from our dreams, our confidence takes a hit. Why? Because confidence can only grow with successes. Every time we set aside our dreams, we're setting ourselves up to feel like losers, because we never arrive where we know we should be.

If God has given us a job to do, surely he'll provide what we need along the way! We must trust him to make our dreams come true, and in the process, our confidence will grow.

Go back to Start
When playing board games, we frequently land on a space that directs us to go back to the place where we started. We usually see this as a setback, but when it comes to following our dreams and gaining confidence along the way, returning to our beginnings can put us on the fast-track to success.

King Solomon had a dream of ruling God's people. When God asked Solomon what blessing he might give him, Solomon asked for wisdom and knowledge to lead God's people.

God said to Solomon, "Since this is your heart's desire and you have not asked for wealth, riches or honor, nor for the death of your enemies, and since you have not asked for a long life but for wisdom and knowledge to govern my people over whom I have made you king, therefore wisdom and knowledge will be given you. And I will also give you wealth, riches and honor, such as no king who was before you ever had and none after you will have." (2 Chronicles 1:11-12 NIV)

We can see from the passage above that God showers his people with blessings when they follow their heart's desire. Blessings beyond our wildest dreams usually follow when we take our focus off of money and put it back on God's plan for us. Solomon became the wealthiest, most highly respected man of all time, because his dream honored God.

If we return to the beginning of our dreams, can we say that God put them in our hearts? Or have we been wishing for something outside of his will for us? We must choose wisely, as Solomon did, when asking God to bless our efforts. If we don't seem to be making any headway, perhaps it's time to go back and start over. Maybe we need to examine our heart's desire and make sure that God planted it there in the first place.

Today's Challenge
What has always been your heart's desire? If you haven't achieved it, take time today to pray about it. Ask God to show you whether or not that dream was his or something the world told you to do. If you feel certain that your dream and God's plans are in alignment, follow that path to success and greater confidence. If you determine that you're on the wrong path, ask God to send you back to start over on a dream that will honor him.