Prompt 1. Serve

My mother served my father dinner every night. He made her toast and tea on weekend mornings. He bought her flowers every Saturday from a local florist who sold flowers from a caravan in a trailer site. My father didn’t want my mother to work so she could look after us and him. She didn’t even have a bank card to get cash out from the machine. She ironed his shirts and made all our lunches and ate her dinner after everyone had been served. He made her quit her volunteer job as manager of St Vincent’s op shop. She loved that job. Writing about them both as complex humans makes me sad. I have forgotten why I don’t have a relationship with them and I just feel mean and horrible.

I wonder if I even know how to serve or whether I just try and serve myself. I used to be far more selfish and I still possess those qualities. Self serving. Do I serve God? Not really. I don’t know how to serve God, other than to pray and think of Him. Do your will not mine.

Is to serve the same as to be led? I am often leading so am I serving or being served? Now I’m just confused and wound up again with my own bullshit.

Prompt 2. Led by the spirit

Surely the prompt ‘serve’ is similar to ‘led by the spirit.’ I love the idea of being led by the spirit. Firstly, I love the supernatural nature of God. Not in a spooky, demonic way but in an empowering and awe inducing way. Gods strength and power and divinity excites me. It feels very strong and overwhelming in a profound way. I think as someone who has an addictive nature, I love the idea of being led by the Holy Spirit and “taken over”. Anything to get out of self and outside my skin. But I guess God isn’t meaning it like that. I have to be part of the process. I am willing.

Do I want to be led by spirit so I don’t have accountability? I don’t think it works that way. I think God is moral and ethical and just and good. Do I want to be led by the spirit because I’m lazy? No, I’m sure God is meant to put us to work.

Prompts: 1. Tempted

The devil tempted Christ three times at his weakest point. Christ had walked in the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights, hungry and weak. The devil came to Yeshua at his lowest and tried to tempt him to sin. But Yeshua turned to the word of God and prayed.

I am tempted all the time. With food, gossip, laziness, depression, irritability, sex. It’s hard to admit a few of these things as I know they are trauma responses and I don’t want to beat myself up for these afflictions. At the same time, I have a responsibility now to do better. Now that I’ve got some strong recovery under my belt, it’s up to me to be accountable and focused on doing no harm. That means owning up, not acting out, working on my fears and resentments and making the right choice. The right choice is not to harm others. To be loving and kind and forgiving. This means to myself as well as others.

Prompt 2. God’s Word

Okay that’s it. I’m done. I’m the worst Christian ever. I had to look up “what is God’s word” to respond to this. It seems God’s word is the bible and given I feel inadequate in my understanding of the bible, I am at loss with what to say. I believe in God’s word, but that doesn’t mean I’m not confused by His words. The amount of people who abuse God’s word is staggering. For example, I just finished watching a three part series on David Koresh, the cult leader of the Branch Davidians, an offshoot of the Davidian seventh day Adventists. David played a central role in the Waco siege and over 80 people died.

He knew God’s word, yet twisted it. Lots of people know and don’t know God’s word and twist it. His word feels dangerous and uplifting. His word feels mysterious and confusing.

Prompt: resurrection and an update

Ugh. Resurrection. This is a hard one. The resurrection came after the crucifixion and three days later, Christ resurrected from the dead and walked on earth. I think He eventually ascended to heaven but cannot recall how or when. The resurrection is cool. It shows the power of God to defy and transcend death. He is truly immortal. I’m not sure though what the resurrection means for humans. I need to do more study.

Update:

Processed some heavy interpersonal stuff today in therapy. I’ve recently lost a friend and it’s very sad. We laid our little figurines out on the table today and I talked to one of them. This little part was quite rocked by the incident and felt hurt and mistrustful. I managed to hold this part in the end and soothe her but then later the real feelings of discomfort started to arise. This part is covering memories of goo and slime and fear and disgust. It is all terribly sad and shocking and that’s all I can say right now.

Prompts: Truth | Awake

I always lived a lie. Lies of omission, minimisation, fabrication and denial. There were many reasons for this.

1. I was being deceitful. My lies were often rooted in me having affairs or secrets – in fantasy or reality.
2. I was taught to keep the biggest secret / the abuse / so I minimised most things, especially how I felt and I denied the truth.
3. I fabricated the truth – to deceive myself mostly. Perhaps not maliciously, but I overcompensated. I felt desperate to be better, bigger, stronger than I was and couldn’t submit to the pain.
4. I equated the truth to mean the abusers were right. I was bad, ugly, shameful, disgusting, dirty, filthy, stupid and worthless. I denied the truth because to sit with that truth felt too painful.

Now I tell the truth. Mostly. Always. I can’t think of when I last lied. I am sure I do lie, but not purposefully or in the same way as the past. Lies of protection? I want to be honest and transparent and truthful. That means believing that I am worthy, loved and beautiful in Yeshua’s eyes. His truth is not contestable.

AWAKE

Woke? I awoke a few years back discovering my internal racism, my cognitive bias’, my privilege and power. I became awake to a world beyond my injustice, to a complex maze of injustice and inequities. I am awake to what I have instead of don’t have. I am awake to the sounds of my dogs barking and their panting and gratitude when their needs are met. I ram awake to the aches in my body and the urge to be alive not dead. I am awake to the spirit within me that yearns to help others and make a difference. I am awake to my power. I am awake.

Prompt: grace

To forgive?

To put into perspective?

To act professionally.

To understand.

To empathise?

To walk away.

To let go. Forget.

To accept?

To hold your head up high.

To turn the other cheek.

Update

For the last six months I’ve been reducing my anti depressants to come off them. I am cautious of the side effects as Effexor is known to be hard to withdraw from.

I started with taking a full dose days (75 mg) each day for two days, then on the third day just a half dose (37.5), back to full for ten days, then half etc. I did this for months, then went down to one day full, one day half. I kept this up for a couple of months and have just gone down to a half dose daily. It’s only been three days and I thought I might have side effects but so far so good. Anyway we’ll see but I hope, I truly hope, doing it this way slowly and tapering off works.

I want to get off my anti depressant because I’ve been on them for ten years and I think they are inhibiting me from feeling emotions. I feel ready to handle more emotions. I have better resourcing in place to manage my mental health and want to try life without these drugs. I took anti depressants in my first year of sobriety. My depression was so bad and I felt at risk of suicide. I don’t regret taking them, I needed them at the time and feel like they’ve been an important part of my recovery. But things have changed. I have changed.

Prompt: wilderness

In my baby Christian days I met a wonderful vibrant psychologist “L” at the Baptist church I found myself in. L – a witty, irreverent, smart and kooky 60 year old. She believed in the supernatural. We’d joke about how woeful the music was at church yet how I still felt compelled to cry each service. We knew there must be something spiritual going on as it couldn’t have been the musicians.

I would go to L’s house for prayer meetups, which basically meant closing your eyes and waiting for a vision. L would trot her sister out who, when she prayed for you, experienced profound visions which she would share. I loved talking with L. We would spend hours talking together about God and Yeshua and ritual abuse and satanism. My favourite topics lol. L had her psychologist licence suspended because she spoke about God with her client. She broke the rules or code in her field about faith and ended up in a huge amount of trouble. I don’t think I realised how significant this was for L when I met her, but she was devastated.

One day L spoke about how she had spent six years in the wilderness with her faith. Testing God. Then something shifted and the fierceness of her faith grew stronger.

It sounds silly but I ended up marrying M on her approval, but after M and I moved out of town, L and I lost contact.

I’ve been walking in the wilderness for a while now and I often think of L. Her story gives me hope and courage that my faith journey is not lost. That there is much to be learnt and discovered in the wilderness.

Prompt: water of life

Giver of life. Water nourishes the earth, loose dirt stained fingernails. I once heard that when our bodies are dehydrated we stop knowing we need water. As giver of life, we stop knowing.

Replenish me. Wash away the gunk that covers my child flesh. Feed me. All. All I want is water of life. To fill. Fill my lungs. Keep me from submerging. Help me gasp for more than air.

Prompt: reconcile (a note to self)

Reconcile with faith, with unmet needs, with blank amnesia of past.

Restore goodwill through new commitments and resolve.

Settle misdeeds, sow love into the earth.

Accept the past and what it has given you.

Accept all that you have today.

Submit to a saviour greater than you.

Check your thinking against the inequities of others to restore balance.

Adapt to your circumstances and lean towards curiosity.

Accommodate the discomfort and disruption of what has gone on before.

Conform to the truth of your agency and power.

Own it.

Prompt: bread

Bread of life. I had to look up the symbolism of bread. During the last supper, Yeshua broke the bread as a symbol of the body of Christ. Bread was a sign of sharing, of nourishment and a symbol of the word of God. I love good bread. Expensive bread. Gourmet loaves. Olive bread. Olive oil and salt with baguette is one of my favourite things. I am pretty much gluten free. I say pretty much because I often defy this and I just grit through any discomfort.

I don’t think of Yeshua when I eat bread. I quite like communion now when I go to church. At the Baptist church I attend we only do communion once a month and it is very low key. Grape juice and a teeny bit of a bakers loaf. It is a gesture. I’ve never really thought much of it until now.

Prompt: pray

This prompt made me shudder. As though it was a demand. I don’t want to pray, can’t pray, need to pray, do pray, don’t tell me to pray, let me pray on my terms. Not because I’m obligated or because you say so but because I want to. I need to. I desire to.

Pray. Eat. Love. Sacrifice. Praying can be cruel, You are not cruel who I pray too but praying can be cruel.

Where were you? The same lament. Where are you? Why have you cast us off? Psalm 74.

I prayed when I became so desperate and you helped me. I prayed to withstand the pain. You relieved me. I must keep praying – for it to stop, for it to stop, for it to stop.

Pray. It’s an order. Pray. It’s an offering. Pray. It’s protection. My belief shot dead crumpled in a building lot corner. Behind a waste bin. Help me help others get out.