The How To Guide for Destroying Yourself, Your Relationships, and Your Faith

A lot of things have been happening in my life of late but that just seems to be the norm in our household. We seem to reach a point of stability and then all hell breaks loose and we are left wondering what just hit us. I won't go into much detail, as that would be long and tedious for all involved, but I have had to repeat this little mantra of mine many times over the last month or so:

"I have Luke and I have Jesus, everything will be ok."

Now before everyone goes all theological on my ass, let me assert a couple of points.

1) if I did not have Luke I would still be ok. Distraught, but ok, because fundamentally it is Jesus who makes it all ok for me, but Luke is a nice bonus.

2) I am not saying "everything will be ok" like tomorrow will be sunny and full of fluffy bunnies, or that somehow holding on to Jesus makes my life stress free. But in the long run, even if something kills me, I believe that it will all be ok. Big picture stuff.

So back to my mantra. It keeps me sane knowing that I have a Saviour who loves me and a husband who adores me. It makes even hard things easier to deal with when I know that I have two amazing people to cry to and lean on. Doesn't make it fun though. Still sucks going through some stuff, especially when you see it hurting your partner.

Which is how I get to the title of my post:

The How To Guide for Destroying Yourself, Your Relationships, and Your Faith.

Oh yeah, I am a ray of sunshine today. Bear with me though, I do have a point aside from nihilistic wallowing.

I am a huge believer in confessing deep dark secrets in order to turn the light on them and sort them out. I have done it many times for many reasons and the response I usually receive is humbling, honest, supportive and loving. By being honest I have often given implicit permission to others to be honest also.

This is me being honest - gut churningly honest, this is not easy for me to admit to.

Most of you will know by now my issues with food. I can't hide my issues like some people do, I literally wear them. I have a fat suit that I have to wear everyday, look at everyday, deal with everyday. I have to acknowledge my limitations when I can't go as far or fast as others. I feel the pain in my joints when I walk. I find it hard to roll over in bed and have to wear a mask to breathe when I sleep.

I hate my issues. I hate that I have done this to myself.

But it doesn't stop me....and this is where my story starts.

I emotionally eat, so after the last few weeks I have been weaker in the self-control department. One morning I was talking to Luke about getting myself a coffee on the way to work. "Just a coffee" he said (because he knew where my head was at, not because he is a controlling deuche bag). "Of course babe, I wouldn't buy more." I said this BELIEVING that I wouldn't, DETERMINED I wouldn't.

1 hour later I was feeling sick from a binge on energy drinks and sweet treats. I felt guilty, ashamed, humiliated, angry....I hated myself then.

Then I went into bargaining mode with myself:

"It doesn't matter, know one will know"

"What about Luke?"

"He doesn't need to know, it will only upset him."

"But it's Luke, I tell him everything."

"He will be so angry [which he wouldn't] and would hate you [which he didn't] so don't tell him."

"But I feel like I am lying to him."

"It's only lying if he asks."

"What if he asks?"

Then I went into bargaining mode with Jesus:

"Look, I know I was stupid but please make it so that Luke doesn't ask because it would hurt him and hurt our relationship and you don't wanna do that to us do you?"

"I love you"

"Yeah yeah but could you just do this for me."

"Still love you"

I stressed about it all day. Worrying about Luke asking and catastrophizing it in my head. On the way home I kept praying that he wouldn't ask, don't make me admit to this to him.

(NOTE: as weight has been an issue for me and hiding food and binge eating have been real issues, hiding this from Luke is a problem. Not a little problem as some may think it is, but a real problem. You need to know the history to get it).

Luke asked.

He had to ask three times before I told him the extent of it.

The hurt in his eyes that I lied, the pain for me, and disappointment for all the work I had undone...all of these things crushed me. And I realised in that moment that you don't have to cheat or steal or physically hurt someone to ruin a relationship.

You just need to put something above your love for the other and your love for God.

It could be anything. For me it is food. It is an idol. I ruin my health, my relationships, my relationship with God over it. I would rather kill what has been given to me than to give up food. 

We all have that something that we love that is really destroying us. 

It might be something as obvious as drugs, alcohol, or cheating.

Or food.

Or maybe it is something more secretive like self-harming, picking at our skin, watching porn (or Geordie Shore *shudder*), reading romance novels at the expense of our marriages....I don't know but you do.

You, reading this, right now, have something that you know you can't control, don't want to control. It may even be your desire to control everything that is out of control!!!

Let me tell you this now:

It doesn't matter how trivial it may seem to the world.

It doesn't matter whether anyone else knows about it.

What matters is that it is controlling you.

It is causing you to hide it, lie about it, indulge in it, and it is destroying you.

Because you are not free until you give this up. You will never be free until it is gone. And when it is, when you don't have to hide anymore, your relationships and your faith will grow exponentially.

What would your life be like with this thing out of it?

What would it take to make that happen?

And are you prepared to do it?

Haters Gonna Hate (or Disposable Relationships)

My husband is 7 years younger than me. While this doesn't seem like much at first, when you realise that the same year I got married for the first time (at age 19) he was in intermediate, suddenly the age gap becomes very very large!

One aspect of this age gap is that, in this rapidly changing world, he grew up with technology that I was only discovering in my late teens/early adult years. This means that, despite having done my Masters thesis on video gaming, I am constantly hopelessly behind him when it comes to understanding technological trends of youth. I know I sound ancient right now, but it is true, and he laughs at me all the time about it (I would like to remind you all that I am only 30, but technology is developing so fast that having grown up with it as second nature gives you a distinct advantage).

But one trend I am on top of (yay me!!) is this overwhelming belief that relationships that don't work should just be ditched. This trend is particularly popular through quotes on facebook.

By and large these quotes - of which I have chosen a few of the lest offensive to display - are basically stating that if you have ever hurt me, insulted me, misunderstood me, made me angry, broken my trust, or any other infraction on our relationship be you a friend, a partner, or anyone except my children (who are always completely above reproach) then expect me to pull the finger and walk away whistling with no regrets for ending our relationship.

As someone who has divorced a husband and hasn't had contact with her parents for 5 years, I understand what letting go of relationships is all about. I understand walking away from destructive and hurtful situations, and I really do not hold anything against anyone who chooses to do so.

BUT....

I would never ever ever say that I have no regrets, that it was simple, or that these people have been dropped because they didn't treat me the way I deserved.

I do regret things. Every relationship breaks down because of things both sides have done. No one 
person is ever 100% in the wrong. There are always two sides to a story. I regret hurting people I care about, I regret not trying harder at times. I regret not speaking up sooner when I first noticed problems.

And it hurts. It hurt then and it hurts now. Though I am happily married to someone else, my divorce still cuts deep. It is a sadness in my very soul for the two people that we were and what we were able to do to each other. It is a grief for two young people, children really, that thought they could face anything together. It is a sadness for the loss of innocence and of love. It is mourning for family moments not shared and sadness over ones that were shared but went so wrong. There is anger there too and shame.

Would I choose differently now?No, I believe I acted in the best interests of everybody, but it wasn't because somehow these people were just haters who hurt me once, or even people that I was sick of.

Because relationships, even the difficult ones, are not disposable.

In a culture that moves so quickly on to the next thing, we have begun to treat our relationships the same way. Just as we line up for the newest iPhone when our old one is still working just fine, so too do we start moving on to the next relationship before we have even given our current one time to heal and to grow.

People hurt each other. There is no relationship you will ever have were you won't be hurt. My mother-in-law use to tell me that hubby would never hurt me, until one day I told her that that simply wasn't true. He would, already had in some ways (though not marriage destroying ways) and that it was OK because relationship is about forgiveness, trying to find solutions and working through tough issues. Otherwise it isn't a relationship!

If you are looking for family, friends, partners that will never hurt you then you are going to be disappointed. It is how we respond to pain and to hurt that defines our relationship. Flipping the finger and walking out anytime something bad happens merely shows how little you valued the relationship in the first place. It says more about you than about the other person. It takes time to work stuff out, sometimes years, but love is about the long haul despite the pain involved.

Jesus is the perfect example of this relational dedication. For three years he hung out with the same group of 12 mates. In particular he was ultra close to Peter. They were close in a way that makes me think of my husband and his best friend Kent. They are like brothers from another mother. Close in a way that makes me envious of what they have. At times they tell each other off but they are always there for each other for any reason, day or night.

Jesus and Peter live together, eat together, share every day together. They are close. And yet when 
Jesus is arrested Peter runs away and then, out of fear of being arrested himself, denies he ever knew the man.

Jesus reacts in a way that we should try to emulate. He forgives Peter. He returns to him after he is resurrected and embraces him. Peter then goes on to be the founding leader of the Christian church, which 2000+ years is still going strong.

Instead of reacting out of anger (which he would have been entitled to do!), despite facing torture and death alone and betrayed, Jesus shows grace and understanding. There was nothing but love and mercy for his friend. Perhaps as we meditate on Jesus this Christmas season we should ask for his grace to forgive and love those who have hurt us, and the opportunity to heal relationships that have been damaged.

May forgiveness be our focus this Christmas.

Note: If you are in a relationship that is abusive in any way - mentally, physically, sexually, or emotionally - then remove yourself from this. Forgiveness and reconciliation can happen at a distance, but the priority is your safety while you walk that journey. There are some things that we can confront head on, and others were we need the space and safety first. Please see my blog on forgiving family for more conversation around this.

Trudging when you want to Fly

I have this amazing friend who I love a lot. She and I are very similar in some ways and in others are completely the opposite. We use to live next door to each other and would see each other all the time for coffee and catch ups, but now we are in different cities and I miss seeing her and being able to chew the fat.

She is an incredibly talented and passionate woman, but she suffers from a debilitating illness. It is one of those illnesses that doesn't show on the outside so often people don't realise that is just a struggle for her to get out of bed some days. If she does make it out of bed, that is an epic win! But she doesn't feel like that. She feels like she is trudging when all she wants to do is fly.

Her and I were talking about it about it last night, and I really feel like I know where she is coming from. I too feel like I am just doing the daily trudge at the moment. Though I do not have an illness as severe as hers, I do get migraines that throw out my plans. I have to watch how much I do, how often I rest, and when I take my medication. I feel like my life is dictated by me head.

I also know how she is feeling when she asks me what God has planned for her and how it is possible. I sometimes feel like I have done all this study and research and now I am not using it or working in the field I am most passionate. I feel like I just live from day to day waiting for the opportunity to do something else, something more.

Our experience of church is very much dictated by our experiences of life; we both find it a struggle to go to church. We find it hard to do small talk with people who don't really know how we are struggling silently. We find the music often contrite and dishonest to how we are feeling. We can find the sermons boring and/or rip them apart mentally due to our theological training. So we tend to avoid church, or go very unwillingly.

We are trudging, but oh how we want to fly.

During these times it is the story of Joseph that really sustains me. If you know the story, fell free to let your mind wander as I summarize it for those who do not.

Joseph was the second youngest of 12 brothers. Though usually the eldest brother was the most loved, the most favoured, but Joseph, the first child of two children from the favourite wife of Jacob, was the most loved by his father. We was doted on and, frankly, was a little spoiled and outspoken to boot. He annoyed his brothers by telling the of dreams he had where his whole family would bow down to him. In a fit of rage, the brothers took Joseph, intending to kill him. Instead, they sold him to slavers that then took the young boy to Egypt to sell. He was sold to Potiphar, an important man, and he worked hard to please his master. However, his master's wife took a little too much of a liking to him and, when he didn't reciprocate, falsely accused Joseph of rape. Joseph languished in prison for 14 years, working hard and earning the respect of the guards of the prison in the process. When fate brought two men of Pharaoh's household to the prison, Joseph was given the opportunity to interpret their dreams and, in the process, asked them to remember him to Pharaoh. The dreams came to pass as he said, with one man being killed and the other being reinstated in his former position. It was another two years before Pharaoh had a dream and the reinstated man remembered his promise to Joseph. He told Pharaoh about the now fully grown man, and Joseph was released to interpret the Pharaoh's dream. He did so correctly, thorugh the Spirit of God, and was made second only to Pharaoh in all of Egypt. Eventually a famine struck the land for 7 years and Joseph's brothers were needing food. They went to Egypt to ask for grain from Joseph, who had been preparing for the famine for years after being warned in Paroah's dream. It was then that the dreams of seeing his family bow before him were fulfilled. Joseph forgave his brothers and brought his whole family to Egypt and died an important, wealthy and loved man.

That was a very brief explanation of the story. If you want more look it up in Genesis and have a read. It is worth it.

Anyway, back to my point.

It was 16 years before Joseph was set free. He didn't know if he would ever get out of prison alive. He didn't know what the plan was or how God would get him out of it all. He had a terrible experience as a child and now he was locked away for something he didn't do.

If I was Joseph I would have despaired. There seemed to be no hope, no light at the end of the tunnel, no justice.

Even though the story doesn't end that way, it is this part I want to focus on. The part where for 16 years Joseph trudged through everyday in prison.

He had dreamed he could fly, and was made to trudge with no end insight.

But it was he did in prison that impresses me so much. He worked so hard and so faithfully that the head of the prison made him his right hand man. He was put in charge of other prisoners and earned the respect of both them and the people paid to keep him locked up. He didn't give up, he just found another way to serve God.

This challenges me. So often I ask God what his plan is for my life and when will it come to fruition. But really, all God calls us to is to live faithfully in loving him and loving others where ever we find ourselves. 

Whether we are trudging or flying, our purpose is the same. Whether we feel defeated or elated, our response to God and to others is meant to be the same. We are meant to live faithfully in love. Maybe our circumstances will change, maybe they won't, but that should not determine how we live or what God is asking from us.

We may feel like we are trudging, but it is living out our faith in Jesus that brings us to flight, whether we feel it or not.

Remember that it is the sacrifice and love of God that makes us fly, not what we do or where we are headed. We may feel like we are in a prison and that we will be in it for life, but it is how we live and how we respond to God that will define us.

I look back at the last ten years of my life and see how far I have come, even though most of it has felt like one long trudging slog. I remember that this time a decade ago I was in an abusive marriage, was alcohol dependent, was in and out of psych wards and suicidal. Today, I am loved, happy, healed, and 7 years sober. It was a long hard walk, but I am flying, whether I feel it today or not. God's work in our lives is not dependent on our feeling it. However, it is our hope in God that keeps us going everyday.

You may continue to trudge, but remember that it is our hope that makes us fly.

Will we now abuse the abuser?

Hubby and I finally managed to get our act together and have officially moved cities. After an eventful move that included our truck tipping over on the motorway and our car getting stolen, we arrived in one place, found jobs, bought a new car, and have got ourselves a house. All that is left is the final unpack, buying a kitten or two (because...KITTENS), and finally sitting in our own home with a nice cold glass of something and curling up into the foetal position until the next time someone

needs us.

I have moved many times before, including moving cities on four separate occasions, so I thought I knew how this all went, and wasn't too worried about anything going wrong. 

Boy, was I wrong on that!

Everything that could possibly go wrong did. Though no one got hurt, the mental and emotional stress that we have been under is insane. Today, after we signed the contract for our house, both of us immediately felt exhausted. We had done it, but it had been a hard road.

God is good though, and through it all we have been blessed.

We have been blessed by the fact that we could stay with our parents and store our stuff for free in their garage while we sorted life out.

We have been blessed by the help we have received from family and friends in moving and through prayer and love.

We have been blessed that it really didn't take as long as we thought it would to get settled here.

Everyone, including ourselves, had predicted that it could take months to find jobs in a small town, and those jobs would probably pay a lot less than our jobs in the big smoke did. But this has not been the case. Both of us found jobs within a week of moving down and both jobs are at better pay than what we had previously!! In our minds this fact cemented that we are doing the right thing.

I am working now at a charitable trust for Maori. I process grants which help encourage the health and education of the local iwi/tribe. Though i may sit behind a desk, I find it very fulfilling knowing that I am helping a people that have had much work against them.

Hubby is working as a supervisor as the local Alternative Education centre. This is a centre for kids aged 13-15 who have effectively been expelled from the local high school and yet, by law, have to still be enrolled in school. They are all from rough backgrounds, most are related to gang members, and 95% of them are Maori. His job helps give my job even more meaning.

Needless to say, his work stories are far more interesting than mine, and far more heartbreaking.

He comes home with stories of drug use, abuse, crime, kids not having lunches, being picked up by the police, and getting in fights. They are hardened criminals, who also turn into excited little children when he teaches them ukulele. 

I breaks my heart when he tells me these stories. I mean, these are little kids and yet he laughs if I offer to invite them round for dinner. My instinct is to mother them. Yet, if I did that, we could/would be targeted by gangs intent of burglary or other devious crimes. They are children on the outside, and yet their lives have taught them only violence and crime as survival instincts.

I feel hopeless when I think about this. The reality is that these children are going to grow up and be, whether willingly or forced, part of a gang system that will feed them nothing but hate and drugs. And there is nothing I can do about it, because I can't get involved. Even hubby has limits as to what he is allowed to do within his role.

So how do you help a kid who you can't give things to, who it isn't safe to bring back to your house, and who you know is vulnerable and needs love? 

Does my safety trump bringing them home?

It messes with my mind when I try and bring my sacrificial faith face to face with the reality of what would happen. And I know what would happen. Hubby's mother works in the police down here and knows the families of these kids well. She knows what they would do. And it wouldn't be pretty.

So I pray, and I cry, and I physically ache for these kids. And I try my best at a workplace that would try and change the inevitable for these families. But mostly, if I am really honest, I try not to think about it. I don't want to feel hopeless and helpless, so I block it out.

Until I read an article like the one linked here.

If you can't be bothered reading the link, here is the cliff notes:

1. abuse is bad

2. here are some signs of how abusers act

3. abusers are out to get you so watch for signs

4. we will help you if you are in an abusive relationship

Now I agree with 3 out of 4 of these points. And point 3 is not explicitly stated, it is more the way that the author talks about the abuser, as if they were purposely acting in such a way in order to fool you.

I don't think this is the case at all.

When I hear about the kids at the AE centre, what I hear about are children who have been brought up in an environment perfect for producing an abuser.

They own nothing.

They lack love.

They respect no one (especially women).

Figures of love use violence.

Violence is how they solve their issues.

If they want something they take it.

This list is exactly what happens in an abusive relationship. But I don't think an abuser looks a someone and thinks "right, I want to abuse them, so I need to con them into loving me and then beat the s**t out of them."

Rather, what I think happens is that they are genuinely looking for love, it's just that they have been taught that love is possession and control. It's not that they necessarily WANT to hurt someone, it's just that they have no other tools in their emotional toolbox to deal with relationships, jealousy, love, anger, or anything. So they use what they know.

The sad thing about our society is that we demonise those that abuse. Yet they have often been at the hands of abuse for so many years that nothing short of extreme, extravagant, loving help is going to make any difference. 

But instead of help, they receive misunderstanding. Instead of compassion, they receive death threats. Instead of love, they receive hate layered on top of hate layered on top of hate. They are told they are devious and wicked, instead of being told that they too are a victim. They are told they are as bad as socio and psychopaths, instead of being nurtured into healthy communication. 

Society is trying to heal hurt and anger with segregation and hate.

It won't work.

And yet we persist in this kind of thinking and acting time and time again. Even if we go to something less extreme as abuse, and look at bullying, the same response dominates how we treat those who victimise others.

Case and point is the X-factor debacle that dominate NZ headlines recently. Cliff notes again, judges said nasty things to contestant, judges were fired. From that one, very brief, story, news agencies around the world went crazy.

And so did the responders to the judges. 

It is unfathomable to me how we can yell against bullying, but then do it by bullying the judges themselves!! Hate messages, mail and tweets poured out towards these two judges who, to be fair, had been told to be harsh to make good tv. What was said about them was worse that what was said by them at times.

Society thought it was permissible to abuse an abuser.

Why?

Why do we think that pouring out hate towards those who have shown hate can possibly rectify a situation?

Is it still a form of 'a tooth for a tooth' mentality? 

Because that is not what we are called to. Jesus refuted this way of thinking by calling humanity to something greater. Not a tooth for a tooth, he said, but love your enemies. Bless those who curse you. Turn the other cheek to those who hurt you.

I AM NOT CONDONING ABUSE IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM.

If you are in an abusive relationship then get out, so you can get help, and so that they can get help outside of the volatile situation that is your relationship. Neither of you will heal or grow if you stay where you are.

But as a society we are not called to defend the honour of victims by making more victims. We are called to show love and understanding in order to offer arms of healing. We can point out bad behaviour by refusing to take part in it. 

Be better than those who hurt others. Don't stoop to their level by showing only hate and refusing help.

I would like to finish with a quote by Martin Luther King Jnr. that pretty much sums up everything I want to say about this; why try say it better when a master has captured it so eloquently.

"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, 

begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. 

Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.

Through violence you may murder the liar, 

but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. 

Through violence you may murder the hater, 

but you do not murder hate. 

In fact, violence merely increases hate. 

So it goes. 

Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, 

adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. 

Darkness cannot drive out darkness: 

only light can do that. 

Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."

Which is more important....forgiveness or healing?

On my way to work in the mornings I tend to arrive at the train station about 10mins early so I can sit in my car and read my bible and pray a bit (I know, I am so holy and I put you all to shame). I do this so I start my day the right way, focused on God and not on how tired, grumpy, wanting to be in bed I feel.

Sometimes I just go through the motions. I don't really take in what I am reading and/or I don't really care (maybe not that holy after all). But sometimes what I have read really gets me thinking.

Like yesterday for example.

I was reading Mark 2:1-13. For those who don't know their bibles off by heart (shame on you.....you are going stright to hell, do not pass go, do not collect $200...jokes) this bit tells the story of a paralytic man. Jesus is chilling in a house, maybe eating some dinner or something, when the people of the town hear he is there. Like the celebrating swarming of the 1st Century, they all flock to see him, filling the house and the road outside and basically acting like people do around the Kardashians today, but for much better reasons (hopefully). 

In this town there is a paralytic man who is hanging out with his mates, who start to think to themselves that maybe they should get him to see Jesus and maybe something like a healing would happen (because by now stories of Jesus' healings have spread). So they pick up this guy on his mattress and start carrying to the place where Jesus is.

When they get there the doorway is full of people who are not gonna give up their precious opportunity to see and hear Jesus. Perplexed, these fellas start brainstorming and decide to climb up on the roof (which is flat in this part of the world, and usually has stairway access), and dig a hole through the roof (really hope the owner was pissed off that this) and then lowered the man, mattress and all, down to right smack bag in front of the great man himself.

Now I can imagine Jesus looking at the man on the mat, then looking up at the hole in the ceiling and breaking into a huge smile. He is really impressed with the faith and commitment they have all shown. So he looks at the man and says "your sins are forgiven." Some religious elders and stuff and kinda annoyed by this because in their reckoning only God has the authority to forgive sins and Jesus is a man. So Jesus (apparently reading their minds!!!) looks at them and says "which is easier, to forgive sins or to tell this man to get up, pick up his mat and walk. But so you know that the Son of Man [a title Jesus uses for himself] has the authority to forgive sins..." he looks at the paralytic man "stand up, pick up your mat and walk home." And the dude, who is paralysed remember, gets up, picks up his mat and walks out.

Now there are many amazing things about this story. I mean, the paralysed guy would have had muscles that were all shrunken and munted and yet he could get up and walk straight away! The full body healing that occurred here is mind blowing in medical terms. It is not just the cause of his paralysis that is healed, but all of the issues associated with that. All instantaneously!! Flippin wow!

But what struck me yesterday was not the healing. It was that the healing was almost an afterthought in the story. 

Jesus didn't heal the guy immediately. He forgave him first. And then he implies that it is harder to forgive sins than to heal this man.

The healing is not of the first importance to him!!

This made me think about the priorities I would have placed on this story. If I had been Jesus I would have healed the guy first then said something like "BOOM! Look at what I can do! Now believe all you peeps, because I am badass and,as a bonus, I will forgive his sins too!"

In churches I see the same thing. We pray often for people's healing, but how often is there salvation or relationship to God seen as more important than their physical ills. It is the mentality that says "show me a miracle first and then I will believe and ask to be saved."

And yet that is directly opposite to what Jesus does here. His main focus is on the spiritual ill of the man. He sees that the healing that had to occur between this man and God was more deadly, more disastrous than the physical disabilities he had. This reconciliation of man and God was the priority.

How would this attitude impact how we speak to people with disabilities and illnesses? If we adopted this attitude what would change in our hearts towards others? Would we stop seeing people with disabilities as something to be pitied but rather view the state of their faith as more important? Would their disability pale in comparison to their knowledge of God? Would we approach them differently? Would we approach our own issues differently?

I for one am someone who empathizes greatly with people who suffer from disabilities; I have been one and, but for the grace of God, would still be one. I remember feeling like if people prayed for my healing and it didn't happen, that I or they had failed in their faith. I stopped asking for prayer because I felt ashamed.

It was in the prayers of some ladies who prayed for God to be made known to me, not to be healed, that I was healed. They prayed for my salvation, and God, like in this story, forgave me first and healed me second. And the first was more important for me than the second. My shame and fear was lifted. Even if I had remained in my illness I believe that my experience with God in that moment would have changed my life anyway, even if not others perception of my life.

So when you pray for healing for others (and I am not saying not to) remember that of greater importance to God is that this suffering person would know the love and forgiveness of Christ. It is then that true, deep healing is found, that the broken is made whole, and the world is reconciled to its Creator.

Wanting to Belong

(the second part of "why I can't be a Muslim....ever" will be posted next time but will be taking a break for this post)

This weekend just gone I had the supreme privilege of being asked to go down to New Zealand's most Southern city, Dunedin, to speak about my experience with mental illness and how the church can take part in the healing and reintegration of people with mental illness back into the community. I was there from Friday afternoon til Monday morning and managed to squeeze in six different talks to a variety of groups and churches.

Apart from being absolutely shattered I loved my time down there. It was an awesome city with an awesome vibe and beautiful architecture. Below is the main talk I gave on the Friday night to a bunch of different church people (along with pics of my time in the beautiful city). I hope you enjoy.

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Mary was upset. A man that she didn't like was whispering nasty things in her ear and touching her inappropriately, and she didn't like it. She told him to stop it but he wouldn't go away. So she started to yell at him, screaming at him to leave her alone. When I found her she was lashing out at the man and screaming at the top of her voice for someone to help her.

Natasha knew that she was sick. She could see it in the mirror every day. Her skin was starting to fall off her bones. She could see where it was tearing and bleeding and she didn't know how to stop it. She had been to the doctor many times about it but they kept telling her that it was ok. She knew it wasn't ok, and by the time I heard her story she was in a panic about how to fix it.

Mary and Natasha are real women who both experienced extremely traumatic events. However, both these women did not receive the help they needed to process what they went through.

For any other people these circumstances would have warranted counselling, church prayer meetings for the women, friends coming alongside to console and advice. Hey would have received medical treatment for their experiences and gained compassion and love from every quarter. Mary and Natasha didn't received any of this.

Because what Mary and Natasha experienced were hallucinations brought on by extreme mental health problems.

Tonight I have the privilege of being able to talk to you about mental health and the church. I can't do that without first telling you a little about myself. I am 28 years old, have been married for two years, am completing my Masters thesis and am looking at doing a PhD in mental health and theology.

6 years ago my life was very different. When I was 12 I developed early onset schizophrenia. By age 19 I lived with full blown psychosis, was in and out of the psychiatric ward at my local hospital, and had attempted to take my life numerous times. At age 22 my parents were taking care of me full time, I had ballooned from 75 kilos to a massive 200+, and I had been told that there was no cure, that mine was a life long sentence.

Enter the little old ladies on the church prayer team. Their prayers that day 6 years ago completely changed my life and thanks to the grace of God I am able to stand before you today free from extreme mental illness, free from medication, and able to share my story and give a voice to those who are often unheard.

My life is a life of terrible suffering and miraculous healing. 

While I was unwell for all those years I was actively involved in my church. This involvement did become less the more unwell I became, but what also became apparent was that I was more UNWELCOME the more unwell I became.

No one ever said to me “You are not welcome here.” I was never asked to leave or told I couldn't join a particular group. I was always greeted warmly at the door every Sunday, and prayed over when I received communion.

I was included. I just didn't belong.

People ceased to ask me out for lunch or dinner. I saw numbers dwindled in my home group and heard the whispers that it was because I made people uncomfortable. I wasn't asked to group outings to the movies or the pools. In fact, between Sunday and Sunday I didn't see anyone from my church. I was alone at home. I was at home, lonely.

As my mental health deteriorated so did my understanding of social niceties. I was a difficult person to be around. I never stopped talking. I would speak too loud. I would fall asleep at church and snore. I would eat anything that stopped long enough for me to grab it and put it in my mouth. I was bad at personal hygiene. I was big, loud, smelly, and an embarrassment to the people around me.

So people stopped being around me. I don't blame them, I really don't. It is really hard to spend time with someone that you can't relax around. It is hard to visit the house of someone who smells bad and won't let you leave. I exhausted people. I drained them.

Natasha exhausted people too. I met Natasha in the ward. She was a sweet woman in her 50's who had experienced a psychotic break with reality. She truly believed her facial skin was tearing off. I avoided her like the plague when I was there. If she could corner you she would tell you non-stop about her face and you would be stuck there for hours. She would follow you around too if you tried to walk away. She was embarrassing and exhausting and so I went out of my way not to talk to her.

I didn't care that Natasha was genuinely concerned about her face. I didn't care that she needed someone to talk to. To me she was a crazy old kook who I wanted to stay away from.

I still think about her and wonder what happened to her.

While in the wards I was exposed to many more people and behaviours that, in my early twenties, I was completely unprepared for. I watched a heavily pregnant woman attack staff and have a fire hose turned on her in an effort to control her. I heard the same lady describe her unborn child as a demon. In reality it was her fathers. I met a 17 year old boy who was dropped off by his parents for suicidal behaviour. He remained there for a week with no visitors. I was verbally abused by a man who thought I was his mother, and I was confronted by nurses who were in equal measure compassionate and careworn. When not in the psych ward I was a daily visitor at the day ward with other mental health patients in the community. Though this was a much more pleasant environment I was surrounded by people I did not know, that were usually much older than me, and by community workers who were understaffed and overworked. The people there embarrassed me with their weird behaviours and I felt left out and alone.

One thing that these people and I had in common was we were all identified by our labels. I was schizophrenic, which meant that nothing I said could be trusted as real. Others were bipolar, which meant you had to watch out for mood swings. Others had extreme depression so they were kept away from anything sharp.

Diagnosis of a mental illness alone creates greater issues for the patient than suffering the illness alone. Diagnosis locates the illness entirely with the individual, apart from their family and environment. It claims that there is something 'wrong' with the person that defines them as outside the acceptable 'norm'. This reduces hope of recovery, creates stigma from labelling, and turns a person into a category.

Currently in NZ today it is estimated that 1 in 4 people will suffer from a mental illness at some point in their lives. It is estimated that 38% of europeans, 62% of Maori, 59% of asians, and 59% of pacific islanders will be diagnosed with a psychotic disorder, such as schizophrenia, in their life time

I find that when I speak of my experiences with mental illness I am met with 1 of four reactions by the listeners. The first is ambivalence. These listeners cannot relate, or don't know how to, and so are quick to change the subject and to move out of the area of a topic of which they have no understanding. They may think that mental illness is “all in your head” and something that can be changed by will power, or they may simply have no interest in the matter.

The second reaction is nervousness and confusion. These listeners mean well but simply do not comprehend what mental illness is or how to respond to it. They may look at you like you are about to pull out a gun and start a rampage, or they may ask to pray for you to release you from the demonic stronghold over your life. These are the listeners that will offer to pray for you but end up lost for words as they become confused as to what to pray for. They often super-spiritualize your experience in order to bring the conversation into a language that they understand.

The third group is perhaps the most interesting of reactions. They are the group that leans forward with eyes shining lapping up every word. When you have finished speaking they will say things like “that is so cool” and ask questions like “so, you could actually see people that weren't there? Was that freaky and what did they look like?” They are curiously excited by what is being said and can ask insensitive questions about experiences in the psych wards. They will also be the ones most likely to call people with mental illness 'crazy' or 'psycho'.

The last group is the minority. They are the listeners who will find you alone later, share their own experiences, cry and pray with you. They usually have had an experience with mental illness and have genuine compassion for what I have been through. But these listeners are few and far between.

Unfortunately mental illnesses have stigmas attached to them that cause reactions of fear, disinterest, and wariness. People buy into the stigma that schizophrenics, and other mental health patients, are WORTHLESS, DIRTY, INSINCERE, DELICATE, SLOW, TENSE, WEAK, FOOLISH, INCOMPETENT, NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ACTIONS, DANGEROUSLY VIOLENT and UNPREDICTABLE. It is my experience that these stigmas are found just as much within the church as from without, but the added labels of LACK OF FAITH, DEMON POSSESSED, and ANGRY. With these labels it is easy to understand why mental health patients find it hard to contribute in a world where the stigma of your illness is often worse than the illness itself. It is also easy to understand why mental health patients often talk of feeling isolated and rejected by their communities and churches.

The simple fact of the matter is, people do not know how to respond to mental illness.

Despite a quarter of the population having experienced one mental illness of another at some point or another, it seems to be a human issue that we cannot comprehend or relate to suffering that cannot be physically manifested. People will react out of fear and amusement, but very rarely out of genuine compassion.

And this is true of the church as well.

In the last six years I have had to relearn socially cues and behaviours, get use to being on my own with no other voices to keep me company, and to survive on my own outside of my family's care.

I carry with me the memories of people who have not been as fortunate as I. The haunted eyes of the lady that believed the baby in her womb was a demon. The dead eyes of the man that received shock therapy at age 8 and has been institutionalized ever since. The fear in the eyes of the lady who believed the skin on her face was melting off. The sadness in the eyes of the young teenager with suicidal tendencies. I hold in my heart the conversations we all had about being forgotten, rejected, hated by our communities. I remember the questions I received when I told the other patients I was a Christian as to why no one in my church came to visit me. I remember the loneliness.

Which is why when I met Mary I acted in a way that I had never previously acted. 3 years ago I heard screaming coming from over my fence at about 10pm. Concerned, I went over to see what was happening and found Mary, the mother of my next door neighbour, screaming at a man that I could not see, that did not exist. She had arrived to visit her daughter only to find the house empty, her daughter away for the weekend, and it was enough to cause a mental break with reality. In that moment I remembered avoiding Natasha at the wards and so I went and sat with Mary, listened to her worries, answered queries from other concerned neighbours, and called her daughter. I sat with her all night waiting for the mental health response team to arrive with her medication. I refused to let Mary turn into another Natasha in my memory.

Jesus is a friend to the broken.

I believe this with all of my heart. Yet is it so difficult to befriend a person who doesn't speak sense, who may not even notice your existence while you sit with them, who can act in a way that seems barely human sometimes.

Yet Jesus is a friend to the broken.

I knew this couple who had met in the psych ward, fallen in love and, against the wishes of their families, got married. Everyone expected them to spiral out of control mentally and end up back in the state's care. To everyone's surprise, they found a house, moved in, and, when I met them, had been happily married for 10 years. Their love and care for each other meant that they reminded each other to take medication and see the doctor. But the most profound thing that she said to me was “he makes me feel human, he doesn't care about my labels.” They had discovered in each other a person who saw and loved the intrinsic value that the other contained in simply being human. It was through this love and acceptance that they were able to move back into the wider community and form relationships there. Their mental illnesses didn't disappear or even get much better, but in being treated as human rather than as an illness they have been able to find wholeness and healing.

It was in their example that I saw a vision of what the church could be. Loving the broken is more than praying for their healing. It is more than listening to their stories. It is more than asking questions about experiences.

It is about teaching the church as a whole to view people as human rather than as broken. To value the humanness of a person is to see past the brokenness, the medical labels, the sad stories, and to see the heart of a person who longs only to be treated as worthy of attention. It is to act out the continuing mission of Jesus to all who are difficult to relate to and to understand and to reincorporate them back into the community.

In my experience I have seen this love of my humanness a handful of times. I saw it in my next door neighbour who would come over for coffee everyday and sit and listen to me ramble, help me clean my house, tell me off if I did something silly, and give me advise on my struggles. I saw it in a fellow student who discovered that I had difficulty in picking up social cues and developed a system of signals to tell me when I was doing something wrong. I saw it in one of my lecturers who let me breakdown in his office when things were getting on top of me.

These people listened, heard the issue, accepted it and worked with it, rather than trying to change it. For me, they were the church being lived out.

I still don't know how this love for the humanness of people works in churches. There is no 5 step program about reintegrating the mentally ill back into the congregation. But in a country where at least 1 million people will be diagnosed with a mental illness at some point in their lives, there needs to be a beginning of a conversation. And it is a conversation that includes those that it is about. They may be unwell, but they will be very aware of what they feel is missing, what they don't like and how they want to be treated.

It is hard to be friends with people that don't fit, that embarrass us, that are difficult to understand. But our mindset is fundamentally wrong. This was never about US. It isn't about our comfort or discomfort, but about loving people as the created image of God, as people who embodied the Holy Spirit, as people that Jesus came in form of and died for. If we get over our own embarrassment and start viewing all people, well or not, as as worthy of belonging as we are, then maybe, just maybe, people like me won't have to feel lonely anymore.

Family, Brokenness, and Acceptance

Wow, I just checked out my blog stats and I am nearly on 8000 views of this blog! A MASSIVE thank you to you, yes YOU, who is reading this and who keeps me writing. I am honoured by your presence here and the fact that you find me interesting enough to keep reading.

If you are new here I recommend reading my blog post 'My Story' in order to understand where I am coming from on various issues. I make a lot more sense with a little background knowledge going on. 

I have been pretty slack at these blog posts recently as I am currently writing my Masters thesis and that tends to take up a lot of my time. As well as that I run a small group for young adults (hence the various blogs with flowcharts) so the planning for that can (or should) take up some of my time too. But enough excuses, let's get on with the show.

I have up until today refrained from talking at length about my relationship with my family. This has been for several reasons.

1) I have felt that it is unfair to share my issues without them having a proper chance to respond.

2) Talking to a bunch of strangers (no offence guys) is perhaps not the best way to deal with some issues.

Yesterday however, I watched a Dr. Phil show that really hit a nerve. It was portraying a family of three children who were desperate to make contact with their dad but he kept making excuses. Though they all proclaimed love for their father they were furious at him and he couldn't understand why they kept yelling at him if they wanted a relationship.

That's not what struck me.

There was a young girl, 17yo, who said that if she could have anything it would be to be able to call her dad, talk about her problems, do fun things with him, and have him as her confidant. 

It was a heartfelt plea.

It was also a major cause of the problem.

I say this because I truly believe that the world has told us what a 'perfect' family should look like. I am not talking about a mum, a dad, and 2.5 kids. What I am talking about is the 'Simpsons' idea. 

Family is dysfunctional, the Simpsons tells us, but ultimately everyone will get along. By the end of the half hour dad will have realised his mistake and apologised, mum would've realised she loves the silly man after all, the kids will realise they are being little terrors and stop, and everyone will live happily ever after...well at least until the next episode. 

This is pretty much how every family works on TV sitcoms. It is what I grew up on, what most of my generation grew up on, and it has, I believe, warped our understanding of the nature of humanity.

See, people can suck. I mean really suck. The number of solo parent families out there would suggest that mum and dad, or partner, or whatever, don't always figure it out. The number of abused kids would suggest that parents don't always like their children. The number of runaways would suggest that kids don't always like their parents.

Because we are broken. Though we all yearn for the love of our family, we live a world where people are broken, where we are broken, and it isn't so easy to reconcile our differences. 

I love my family. Not a day goes by when I don't think about my parents. But I haven't seen or talked to them for two years. We have issues. My brokenness has affected them and their brokenness has affected me. My parents weren't perfect, but neither were they awful and neglectful. We just found that some of our difficulties were too big for us to be able to work through in a way that we both agreed on.

It breaks my heart that things ended up this way between us. I can't tell you how much I would love to pick up the phone and have a nice, happy conversation with my dad.

But that isn't our reality.

Our reality is that things are broken. There are no credits that will role after a family hug. There is no canned laughter that will play when we all realise that we misunderstood each other. There is no being able to run into each others arms in slow motion when we see each other again.

There is love, but it is a love tainted by our issues.

And that is what hit me about the young girls story on Dr. Phil. She had in her head this idea of what she believed was the perfect father-daughter relationship. But it was clear from the program that the father had no intention, or ability, to be this father. She wanted a fantasy instead of accepting the reality, no matter how painful that might be.

My mother-in-law once told me that relationships only work when we lower our expectations of people. We need to stop imagining what we want in someone and accept the reality of what our relationship with them really is. Sometimes it means walking away and letting the relationship go. Sometimes it means having to work damn hard at ourselves and at a relationship, but this is only possible if both parties are willing to try and work at it. And sometimes, in those wonderful moments, it means accepting what is and living in the love that is offered and accepted.

But let me get one thing straight: acceptance and forgiveness are NOT the same as reconciliation. We can accept the reality of a broken relationship. We can even learn to forgive the hurts and the pain that are caused within that relationship. But that does not mean that reconciliation will, or can, happen.

I have forgiven my parents for any hurt, real or imagined, that they caused me. I know this because I am not angry at them any more. For years I was. I was bitter and twisted about every little thing that I remembered them doing (or not doing). It ate me up inside. I would rant and rage against them for hours at a time. We would have screaming matches and things were said that I regret. Things were heard that I have now let go of. I learnt to forgive them and love them as human beings who did their very best to love me as they knew how. I pray for the all the time and hold them very dear in my heart.

But we do not have a relationship. The reasons for that I am choosing not to go into in this forum but I will say that it is because we have been unable to agree upon a 'safe zone' for us to work out our issues. Sometimes relationships need outside help, sometimes it is not emotionally (or even physically) safe to step back into the same situation without boundaries and safety being established first. Sometimes reconciliation doesn't happen. And that is ok.

Forgiveness does also not demand forgetting. The old adage 'forgive and forget' has done so much harm to people in relationships that are toxic. We CANNOT forget. It is impossible to forget. So what we are told to do is sweep our issues under the carpet and pretend they never happened. This leads to cycles of destruction in relationships. Ever wonder why an abused woman goes back to her abuser? Because she chose to ignore past behavior instead of letting it help her determine what will happen in the future. Sometimes the only way to find healing is to leave the environment that perpetuates old behaviors. And sometimes forgiveness cannot happen until we choose to NOT forget what has happened before and instead face it, address it, and, if need be, walk away from it until it changes.

It is ok to learn to forgive and not be reconciled. In a perfect world we could do that, but this isn't a perfect world and we are far from perfect people. We do what we can, we try as hard as possible, and then we have to learn to accept what is. And sometimes what exists is a relationship broken beyond repair. Or one that needs more time to heal.

You can forgive and learn to love without relationship being reestablished.

If you have a difficult relationship with your family members, you are not alone! There are so many of us out there who are longing for the love of parent/sibling/spouse/child. There are so many of us who weep for what we dreamed could have been and for the reality of what is.

We understand. You are not alone. 

My prayers are with all families. They are with every broken person who prays for a miracle and yet despairs that it will never come. They are with every person who misses someone they love because of the brokenness of their relationship.

May God give you peace and may you know God as your parent who loves you and comforts you. May you know Joy.