A Big Old Kick In The Butt

This past weekend we had our women's retreat. About 300 women head up to the mountains and spend the weekend together, eating, worshipping, hearing some talks, and just hanging out. This year the speaker was Jackie Roese and she talked about the Holy Spirit. As we went through the weekend I began to realize that although I get the idea of God being in me, I really don't get the idea of God being IN ME.


Let me just confess right here, I can be pretty self-absorbed. I spend way too much time pondering what I am thinking about or how I feel or what I think about how I am feeling, or how what you are feeling impacts me or makes me feel; you get the gist. As we talked more about the Holy Spirit I began to think about how it is kind of pathetic how weak I act and feel much of the time when I have the power of God in me.

If you have read any of my prior posts you know I have been dealing with some self-hate lately, well really not lately more accurately it seems to be just part of who I am. I know this stuff in my head does nothing good, but try as I might I can't seem to kick it. Saturday, we had some free time so I decided to go for a walk. None of my cabin mates wanted to go, and I could not find anyone else I knew to go with me so I went by myself. So, the walk started with a little pity party for myself as I passed all the other groups of women walking in their twos or threes, then I realized, oh yeah I'm not alone we've been talking about this Holy Spirit all weekend maybe I should talk to God (being on a spiritual retreat and all). So I started pouring out my heart, silently so as not to look like a crazy woman, just telling God how tired I am of feeling like this but how I can't seem to stop it because I know the things I think of myself are accurate. After I went on an on for a while I stopped and just tried to listen.

I know this notion of hearing God can seem pretty bizarre and I do not claim to hear an audible voice, it is more like the sound of my own voice inside my head, only kinder, and wiser. I don't know how it works for anyone else but this is how I usually "hear" from God. So, when I stopped and listened, what I heard God saying to me was: "You know Pattie, I really wish you would just stop being so hard on yourself. I can't do this for you, you just have to decide that you're not going to do that anymore and get on with the business of being who I made you to be." I thought about it, and I realized God was right. I think that sometimes I am waiting to "feel" a certain way, and God is more interested in my "being" a certain way. I want to stop feeling the dislike of myself, and it throws me into a spiral of self-hate. While it sounds way too simple, sometimes we just have to say no, I am not going to do that anymore. I don't know why, but for some reason it permeated my brain a little this time. Maybe it was because we were talking so much about how God already accepts us and loves us. He is not the one beating me up all the time. I do that.

God does give me a good old holy spriti kick in the butt every once in a while when I need it, and I did.

It Might Be Hope

Note: All excerpts are from the Song It Might Be Hope by Sara Groves

You do your work the best that you can

you put one foot in front of the other

life comes in waves and makes it's demands

you hold on as well as your able

I find myself drifting into the realm of cynicism lately. I have never been a person to have great expectations, but I think somewhere in the back of my head I keep hoping I am wrong. That God will come along and just surprise me one day with something amazing. But even without having a high set of expectations for what life would be, I am feeling disappointed lately. Life is harder than I thought it would be. Way too much of our time is used up in the pursuit of just making a living, doing what we have to to put a roof over our head and food on the table, and it just keeps getting harder. It is sapping me of my optimism and my joy. I keep trying to fight through by focusing on the small stuff, the things I really love, but in truth I am not always winning the battle. I don't like this cynical self.

You've been here for a long long time

It feels like things have been like this forever, it hasn't but it has been quite a few years. I thought that at some point there would be a sea change, that the struggle would get easier, that life would get easier, that there would be rest.

It's hard to recall what blew out the flame

it's been dark since you can remember

you talk it all through to find it a name

as days go on by without number

I remember the days when I believed anything was possible, when I thought that my one life could make a difference and that I could do or be anything. Somewhere along the way life has sapped that from me and left me feeling like the best I can do is just keep moving forward getting through the days as best I can. It leaves a dull ache in my heart.

Hope has a way of turning it's face to you

just when you least expect it

you walk in a room

you look out a window

and something there leaves you breathless

you say to yourself

it's been a while since I felt this

but it feels like it might be hope

I have been battling this cynicism, this idea that negative is the norm. A few days ago, I walked out in the back yard to check on my little lemon tree because it is one of the things that makes me smile, and I got a pleasant surprise. One of the the trees we planted in the fall that I thought had died had a whole bunch of new leaves at the top. Somehow, in the rains we have had the past few days the tree had revived. More than anything recently this little tree began to grow a seed of hope in my heart. If that tree that has looked so dead all these months could come back to grow and sprout new leaves maybe there is hope for me, that in this heart the seeds of optimism lay dormant just waiting to be watered by a little encouragement or love or a moment of joy. I am not there yet, but it feels like it might be hope.

Lessons from Jojo

One of the most popular movies in theaters recently has been Marley and Me, a story about a husband and wife and their very bad dog Marley. It really is a story about life, and learning to love unconditionally. I have thought for a long time that dogs are much better at that than we are, but even with dogs I am learning that the words we use have much more power than we think.

We inherited a six year old Yorkie named Jojo about six months ago. He was raised by an elderly relative, just the two of them together. She was ill for the last couple of years that she had him. When the time came that she was too ill to care for him we said that we would take him. Truthfully, no one else wanted him. I think because it was the two of them they adapted to one another but not so well to others. So when we got him you might say that Jojo had some issues. Just for an example the first moment I met him he bit me.

Since we have had Jojo, the standard issue phrase that now leaves my mouth when people enter our front door is "watch your fingers". Jojo acts friendly, he comes up and paws at your leg, and he really is cute so naturally people reach dpwn to pet him. Then he bites your fingers. Sometimes he just spazzes out for no apparent reason like the Tasmanian Devil on those old cartoons.

I have never had a dog who behaved this way so I really did not know what to do. I tried yelling no, or bad dog, I tried soothing him to let him know everything is OK, I have even given him doggy time-outs. Some of these worked with varying degrees of success, but not consistently. Finally, with a certain amount of urging from my husband who said I had to "do something" about him we decided to sign up for doggy training classes. I decided on private lessons given his unpredicatble behavior with people and their fingers.

I took him to Petsmart because they are close to us, and I read the brochure and their method does not involve choke chains, which I don't like. The very first week I learned a lesson which I thoink is worth the entire investment. The instructor told me that whenever you are training your dog, you always have to use a positive tone of voice when you are asking them to do something, and they have to be rewarded when they do it. When you call them, and they come it always needs to be a positive experience. It only takes one time of you calling them and then getting yelled at for them to remember that, then they never want to come again.

It made me realize how powerful the words we say to one another are. We can truly speak blessings or curses over the ones we love. Do we affirm the good that we see in one another or are we like the dog owner who calls their dog then beats them?

I have learned a lot from our little Jojo already. I believe that inside this little guy who growls is a good dog dying to show himself. I am seeing more and more of him each day as I learn how to reward that part of him.

Freedom Fighting

Shortly after the inauguration of our new president I was watching a story on the news about the Obamas. It was about Michele Obama's Mom moving into the White House with them to help with the kids, and they were talking about their relationship and how close they are. Her brother told a story about how they were raised by their Mom to"feel good about themselves". I found myself standing in my bedroom watching the story with tears streaming down my face.

 It reminded me of a friend at my Bible study. We were talking about the negative self-talk that goes on in our heads and she said "I don't do that. My parents taught me that it is not OK to say negative things about yourself, so I never learned to do that." It was the first time in my 46 years of life that I realized that it is possible to be that way. I had assumed that everyone had negative stuff floating around in their head about themselves like I do. To be honest, at first I didn't believe her, but after a while I noticed that she always spoke in a positive way about everyone in her family, somehow she really had been raised to be immune to the infiltration of the negative voices in my head commitee. I was stunned and amazed. I wanted that. The only problem is my commitee took up residence long ago so my challenge is how to evict them after the fact? I have tried but at best I have gotten them to take the occassional mini-break.

Flash forward to this session of Bible study where we are doing a series called beliveing the story. We are studying what God says is true of us.  I began to realize that if I could begin to get this stuff,and really believe it, maybe that would be the way to get rid of my committee.  So, I have made a commitment to contend for my freedom in this season of my life.  

I have to tell you it is not easy, I have found that the more determined I become the louder the negative voices scream at me.  I have had some really dark days recently, the kind where I wished I just didn't have to do this anymore, where I want to give up the fight.  I am trying to learn to tell someone, anyone, now when I get in that place, my instinct is to get quiet in myself and hide away.  I can barely stand to be in my own skin when I am like that and I don't want to subject anyone else to it.  It gets worse then.  When the darkest parts get exposed they lose some of their power.  The storm clouds cannot gather as strongly.  

I wish I could say that I had a sudden epiphany or that God reached down and it all became clear and I am leaping in this freedom.  Right now, I am doing all I can to stand firm to not lose ground.  Everything feels fragile and lie it could fall apart with too strong of a breath.  We may lose our business, we probably have to lay off most of our employees this week.  What we have poured our lives into and worked so hard for could fail.  We may be back to ground zero staring over, yet again.  I am so very tired and it becomes easy to see where I have failed all my flaws, fears and issues.  I can only look so far ahead and I do not see freedom on the part of the trail that is visible to me now.  My faith resides in the creator, not the one who is near, he is too ethereal at the moment.  

Sometimes freedom fighters just have to use everything they have not to lose ground.

Makes me want to scream

I have to get this off my chest somewhere.

I am not one of those grammar police people who feels it is necessary to point out every mistake I see, heaven knows I make plenty of mistakes myself, but some things drive me crazy.

Today has been a momentous occassion, watching the inauguration events has been moving and brought tears to my eyes. One thing has ruined it though. I cannot tell you the number of poeple who have said this is is an "historical" occassion. NO - IT - IS NOT. It is an historic occassion, that will be marked in the history books.

Just to clear it up for everyone:

Historic or Historical?
Historical normally means "having taken place in history" or "from the past" or "having to do with history."
Historic means "having significance in history." It usually refers to an event or person.
Historically is the adverb form of both words.

Thanks for listening you can go on to your dance now, just please do not say it is historical.

Resolving to resolve

It's that time of year again. You know, when you are supposed to examine your life and decide what you want to do, or change or be during the next year. I have mixed feelings about the whole process. I believe in setting goals, and self examination is necessary if we ever want to change but I am beginning to have my doubts about how accurate it really is.

Some of the kindest, best people I know can be really hard on themselves when they start looking inward. In general, I would say they are better than they see themselves and it got me to wondering how accurate are we when we self-assess? Have you ever noticed that it seems like the people who need to change the least are the ones that see all the things they need to work on while the biggest jerks see themselves as pretty darn OK?

So I started to wonder if maybe it would be better if we could have someone else make our lists for us. Someone who could be honest yet kind. If I could see myself through the eyes of a kind friend what would I see? Maybe it would be a little closer to the way God sees us, with full knowledge of our flaws yet a love so complete it surpasses understanding. I am hoping that this year I have eyes that see people that way more often, and maybe, just maybe get even a little glimpse of myself.

After writing this, I was talking with someone about resolutions, she had some funny ones. She had resolved to not work out in the winter time, and some other things like that. I am trying to keep my thinking in the positive mode these days but I decided I liked her idea of not making them about work, so here are a couple of my resolutions:

I resolve to be just plain silly more.

I am going to remember the nice stuff that happens in my life, even write it down so I can't forget.

That's a start.

Why I Love My Husband

There are lots of reasons, but one is that he is the only person I ever have conversations like this with:

Me: "So, how did they connect the pieces of the sectional together?" (In reference to our new couch which I was not home when they delivered).

Hubby: (After only the slightest of hesitations) "There is a monkey behind the couch holding the pieces together. His name is Coochallo."

Me: "So you're saying we have a couch monkey?"

Hubby: "Yes, Coochallo the couch monkey."

Me: "Man I can just see Jojo, going crazy with this, I will get you you crazy couch monkey!" (Proceed to break down in hysterical laughter at the idea of a couch monkey and how our crazy dog would react.)

Where do these things come from? I don't know. I love that about him.