Don't want to waste my life...

Notebooks, pens, conversations and scribbles on paper is howwe dream. We call it our Dream Notebook. Every idea, dream, vision, hope orcreative inception is written down on one of many spiral notebooks that stackin my room. The reality of those dreams is an entirely different dimension ofthought and action, however. When I process the amount of time, effort, faithand resources it will take to accomplish a dream, the thought almostdebilitates me. Not because I have fear or don’t believe it can be done; on thecontrary, I know it can! It is the cost that keeps me from moving forward withanything that comes my way. The cost of time, the cost of friendships, the costof investment, the cost of loneliness, the cost of ridicule, the cost emotions,the cost of material things.

I know the cost. I know how much a person can lose forfollowing a dream, personally. I have seen a dream come to life and thenwatched in horror when that dream died. It cost my family everything. That iswhat keeps my husband and me from rushing. That is what keeps our feet firmlyplanted on the ground. So we question ourselves as a result. Do we have what ittakes? How will this affect our family? Will people come to Lord as a result ofthis vision? Where do we start? Will people support us? Will people believe inwhat we are doing? Will we be doing this alone? How will we get youth to come?

The chatter in the mind is loud and we are trying to keep itquiet. It is amazing how words of encouragement can sustain even the weariestsoul, the most doubtful mind and the loneliest souls. Feelings of inadequacies constantlyrise to the surface and I must tell them to be silent. All we can do is walk,one foot in front of the other, believing that we are doing what God has calledus to do. Believing that he will equip us, believing that he will show us theway. Trusting that He will pay the price when the cost is too great for us tocarry.

We take one step and then another and another. It lookslonely so far, it looks impossible. Yet I know my God can comfort, I know thewith God nothing is impossible! Those are the things I hold onto. Those are thereasons we take another step toward the dream, on this adventure.

“This is the promisethat empowers us to take risks for the sake of Christ. It is not the impulse ofheroism, or the lust for adventure, or the courage of self-reliance, or theneed to earn God’s favor. It is simple trust in Christ-that in Him, God will doeverything necessary so that we can enjoy making much of him forever. Everygood poised to bless us, and every evil arrayed against us, will I the end helpus boast only in the cross, magnify Christ and to  find in our own experience that it is betterto lose our life than to waste it.

Therefore, it is rightto risk for the cause of Christ. It is right to engage the enemy and say, ‘Maythe Lord do what seems good to him.’ It is right to serve the people of God,and say, ‘If I perish, I perish!’ It is right to stand before the fiery furnaceof affliction and refuse to bow down to the gods of the world. This is the roadthat leads to fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore. At the end of everyother road--secure and risk-free—we will put our face in our hands and say, ‘I’vewasted it!’"

John Piper – Don’t Waste Your Life

The Abyss

And then it hit me... in the quiet of my home, I felt alone.
So alone. Not the kind of alone when no one is around you.
Not the kind of alone when you are all by yourself.
The kind of alone where you can be in the middle of a crowd and feel isolated.
The kind of alone where you can be in church with friends surrounding you and feel distant.
The kind of alone where you feel as if God has forgotten you.

When you get here, people tell you, you are not alone, I am here for you. They tell you scriptures and quote songs about God never leaving or forsaking you. When you get here it is desolate and quiet. It is black and white with no color. The sounds are white noises that blend into the atmosphere. It smells like death with a stale stench that lingers.

I am not this person. I am the happy, outgoing hospitality person. The one who always sees the bright side; the one who will gladly carry others burdens; the one who hopes and believes with everything in me. I am the one who listens and prays and fasts. I am the one who surrounds those who feel alone.

But today I felt it. The cold shoulder of lonliness. I wrote a poem when I was 19 years old that said, "Lonliness eats at me like acid from the tongues of hate." I was there once before. I remember. It was like this, only not as deep. I can not even tell you how or where it came from or how I got there. All I know is that I want out. I want out of the lonliness.

It is not to say that I do not have family or friends who love me and cherish me. They do and I am blessed. They walk besides me in great love to ensure I do not fall off the cliff. They hold my hand and sometimes carry me, when I am too weak to carry myself. I hate that they do that. Not because I do not value thier love, but because I can not do it myself. How does one become so weak? How did I become so broken and alone that I can not even carry myself? I am not that person. Or am I?

I desire more. I worship in obedience, hoping to be filled. I pray in obedience, hoping to be answered. I pray in the spirit, hoping to be heard. Where are you Lord? Where have you gone? I can not even sense your presence. I can not even hear your voice. I do not see, like I once did and I feel lost.

My mom asked me how my kids feel about her; are they okay, scared, worried? I told her that the older 2 boys pray for healing but are fully aware of what may happen if the Lord does not heal her. But Carah just believes. She believes God will heal her. There is no alternative, there is no other way. She does not grasp God not healing her. Why wouldn't he? She is fully experiencing the presence of God. She is physically understanding answered prayer in little things, like going to Disneyland. She prayed for months that God would let her go to Disneyland... and BAM... as I write this now, she is in Disneyland, all expenses paid with my good freind Charleen. So if God can do that, why not heal Nana? Her faith is strong and unrelenting and mine is dwindling. Her trust in her Jesus is sure and mine is waivering.

How did I get here? Let me stop and think......

I see a picture of me, standing on the shore of the ocean. The waves begin to come and hit me on my legs, over and over. Then they get bigger and hit me on my waist, over and over. Then they get bigger and start to hit me on my chest, over and over. I am trying to keep my footing, but the sand beneath me is moving and the power of the waves is forcing me to be off balance. Then the waves grow bigger and begin to hit my face. I am trying to stand and gasp for air and eventually the tide takes me. Into the dark deep sea. It is quiet and dark.

The waves of life.

So I am here in the quiet, alone.

I remember praying with someone once. I had a vision of being in the abyss of the ocean. Perhaps that vision was for today and not then. It was around that movie Abyss. The theme of the movie was to get to the deepest, darkest place of the ocean floor and see what was there. They had invented some sort of liquid oxegyn that they would breath in. They would put on their suits and this liquid oxegyn would begin to fill up their helmets. They would gasp and try to take the helmet off, because it felt as if they were drowing. They were, essentially, only the very thing that was drowing them, was going to give them air and fill their chest cavity up so it would not collapse under the pressure of the water.

Upon seeing this vision, initially, I remember hearing the Lord say that he was going to drown me. That I was going to feel the same way, like I was dying. But it was only so that I could go deeper. Perhaps that is were I am now. Being filled up with something new, that feels like death, but really is bringing about life. I am there... gasping, trying to take the helmet off, because I feel like I am going to die. But the Lord wont let me. Perhaps that is why He feels so far... because I am thinking... how could you just stand there and watch me die in this Lord, and worse, how could you hold my hands back to keep me from trying to save myself.

I hope that is the case. I wish I could say, I believe this is the case... but I can't. I can only hope at this point... and there is not a whole lot of hope left inside of me. If it is the case... help me to stop fighting, and just breath in the very things that make me feel like I am going to die... If you promise me Lord that I get to go deeper with you... If you promise me Lord that it is for a greater purpose and that it is not in vain.

So I sit... in the quiet, typing... alone....

hoping to go deeper.

Believing

July 21, 2011


I am turning 37 in 2 days. I have seen a lot in those 37 years, hurt, loved, felt abandoned and rejected, loss…I have overcome a great deal to stand on solid ground and I have been wrong about a great many things. Mostly I have loved my Lord, who has walked me through this process of life. I am at a stage in my life, where life sucks. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be that person who looks at life with fogged glasses, yet in my attempts to clean those life glasses, I only seem to scratch them and mess up their alignment. So my eyes have a hard time beholding the beauty that is around me. Help me Lord Jesus, help me.

Yesterday was a hard day with my mom. In the past when I spoke those words, it was because she and I butted heads, or she did not meet my expectation, or I did not meet hers. In the past, I would tell my mom I was upset and she would tell me I was over exaggerating or that there was a miscommunication. Yesterday was a hard day with my mom, because for the first time in this process it seems she is dying. I have been told that she was for months, and I have not believed anyone. Not because I am in denial, but because I believe God is going to heal her. I believe my God can heal her. Becky shared a quote with me from John Wimber where he said that he would go to the hospital and pray for people and believe God would heal them, and they would die. But he kept on praying. And sometimes people would live, but no matter what the outcome, he was going to keep on praying. I am a warrior. I pray and fight and fast and pray some more. I have seen God move and defend and protect and heal and give. Recently, I have noticed that I am not a warrior; I am a broken, sad, grieving girl who feels like God forgot about me.

So I travel down my life road, wondering how I am going to make it. My mom’s body is deteriorating right before my eyes. Her face and eyes are yellow, her ankle and stomach are swollen. She moves slow and sleeps a lot. The hospice chaplain came to talk and pray with my mom. He was there about an hour and then left. When he left, my mom began to sob uncontrollably. I said, maybe he shouldn’t come anymore mom. She held me tight and said, “No, it is okay Teresa, he helped me today. He helped me to understand what is going on with me emotionally.” I took a deep breath to brace myself for what she was going to say next. “I am grieving,” she said and started to cry again. “I am grieving the loss of my family. I am going to leave them and I am grieving that. I don’t want to. I am not scared or angry with God, but I had this feeling I could not figure out, and it is grief. I am grieving the fact that I won’t be here for my family and my husband and my kids and grandkids.” I hugged her with a fierce embrace and a weight came upon me. I cried with her and felt exhausted. She asked me to come with her into her room and sit with her, and so I did.

About 5 minutes went by and she opened her dresser drawer. She handed me a pouch and asked me to open it. The pouch was pink satin and had a snap and zipper on it. I unzipped the pouch and pulled out a pearl necklace. It was beautiful. My mom took my hands and put the pearls in my palm. She said, “You are my pearl. You were like a piece of sand, rough and irritating at times, but God turned you into a beautiful pearl. Look at the luster and beauty that came from a little rough piece of sand. It is shining and smooth and beautiful, just like you. I want you to have them to wear or for Carah to wear when she gets married.” Tears welled up in my eyes… I want you to be there for Carah’s wedding I thought. I want you to be there. Grief weighed upon me at that moment. But there was more. Inside the pouch was a gold ring with a small diamond in it. It was the ring I bought for my mom for Christmas the first year I started working. I was 17 when I gave it to her. She said, “I want you to give this to Carah when she is 16, so she has something from me that came from you. I want it to be passed down so that she can remember me.” At this point, I was sobbing. I have only been an adult for 20 years. I had kids young so they could be around their grandparents and experience life with them. I expected my mom to live into her 80’s and even 90’s, giving me 30 or more years with her. I was expecting my mom to die when she had white hair and lots of wrinkles. That I can understand and process, this I cannot.

People tell me all the time, when I tell them that I believe God will heal my mom, “well what if He doesn’t?” I respond quickly with, “It is not my job to know if He is or is not. It is my job to believe, and so that is what I am going to do. Whether my mom dies in 2 months or 20 years, I have to believe that God will heal my mom, and that is all I have.” Some people think that I am in denial. The reality is that I am in faith. I believe God can, I believe He will. I have tried hard not to grieve. By grieving I feel like I am not walking in faith. I have tried to be strong and hopeful and positive. My mom handed me a beautifully decorated box with tea cups on it, when I put the pearls away. Inside was a tea cozy for a tea pot, her tea lid holder and a spoon from Holland. I pulled out a box that had a dazzling bracelet in there that sparkled with brilliance. My mom assured me of its monetary value and the value of the pearls. I continued to open neatly wrapped treasures in this box and unwrapped a baby dress that was mine when I was an infant. And finally, I came to the most valuable thing of all… a sewing pattern. It was the pattern my mom used to make me a doll when I was 5. She did not have much money, had me, my brother and was pregnant with my sister. I have the doll, still to this day. She sits in my baby doll cradle that has my name carved in it that sits in the corner of my room. I opened it up and saw the directions and all the pieces neatly cut out. She said, “I thought, maybe you would want it, so you can make a doll for Carah that matches.” Grief!

I was crying and told my mom thank you. She pulled me close and prayed over me. She asked the Lord to bless me and my kids, to give me life and prosperity. To help me overcome my hurts and to bring restoration to the relationships that are broken in my life with my father and brother. She asked the Lord to protect my family and blessed me in my writing. She prayed for my marriage and for my health. She blessed me.

It felt as if she was passing a torch to me. I did not want to take it. By taking that torch, I was taking on the responsibility of matriarch. I did not want to touch it. I want her to keep it. I want my mom to hold on to it. She is the matriarch in this family! I just lost my Nana, 5 years ago on my mom’s side and my grandma on my father’s side just passed away 2 months ago. I DON’T WANT IT!!! She hugged me and told me that it was going to be okay, this life is only temporary, and she reminded me. We are just strangers passing through. She called my daughter into her room and prayed over her. She prayed for her gifts and her purity. She prayed for her husband and her children that she will have one day. I was sobbing… Carah was overwhelmed and was trying not to cry. My mom gave her a box too. Inside was the tea cup that she had that matched one she gave me. She gave my sister and me tea cups that were different and she had the matching ones at her house. She told Carah that she can have it and do tea with me and think about her. Carah hugged her tightly and told her thank you and that she loved her. Carah came over to me and hugged me and said, “Are you okay mama?” I knew she was more concerned about me than she was about herself. I felt like a bad mom… I didn’t want her to worry about me. I wanted her to be in the moment with her Nana. But my daughter has seen me emotionally deteriorate this last year and has a deep concern for me. I told her I was and that she needed to focus on what Nana was saying. My mom continued to bless her and took Carah’s face in her too feeble hands and pulled her close to her and kissed her. Carah started to cry and told my mom she loved her. We packed her tea cup up and went into the living room. We sat down on the couch and my mom sat down on her chair and we all fell asleep.

It was emotionally overwhelming. I know that I am not the only person who is going through this. I know that there are a lot of people that have fought cancer, been around cancer, and lost someone they love to cancer. I know that my siblings and dad are experiencing their own grief. I know that death is a part of this life we live in… But I feel so abandoned by God right now. I do not hear Him, I cannot feel Him and I wonder if He is going to answer our prayers. I still pray, I still worship Him and I will always love Him, but I feel so far from His presence. I don’t know if I should grieve or not. It is upon me and I am fighting it.

 I believe my mom is going to be healed!