Retreat

                I’ve been avoiding writing another blog entry.  I could say that I’ve been too busy – that working on my relationship with my husband is taking up a lot of time that I used to use for writing.  There is a sense in which that is true, but it is also true that I have been playing a lot of Scramble with Friends and Hanging with Friends and reading Agatha Christie novels. 

                The truth is – working on my marriage is hard.  It is highly emotional and leaves me exhausted.  I have a lot of things to process, and less time by myself to process them.  It’s been a difficult month. 

                I’ve taken that exhaustion and emotional stress and retreated into myself (and my iPod).  That’s not healthy.  I know it.  And yet I’m still doing it.  It’s valid to need a break.  But withdrawing and avoidance puts distance in relationships, leaves my responsibilities underdone which affects others, and doesn’t even really help me resolve my emotions or reenergize. 

                At church on Sunday I realized I was just going through the motions.  I was singing words with my mouth but not with my heart.  I was there in body, but my spirit was still retreating.

                I don’t want to be that person.  I want to be present – body, mind, and spirit.  I don’t want to get stuck in retreat mode and miss out on the joys that are right in front of me.  I don’t want to be sloppy in my responsibilities and force others to step in and pick up the pieces.

                So I guess that means my retreat is over.  (Insert heavy sigh.)  It’s time to muster what energy I can and head back into the fray.  I’ll still need breaks, but hopefully I can figure out some healthy ways to reenergize instead of just avoiding…everything.

No, wait – I’ve got a Scramble game waiting for me.  I can stop retreating tomorrow, right?  J

Year in Review

            Flashback to January 2011:  My husband and I had gone to marriage counseling in the fall.  I had more hope than ever that his porn addiction was a thing of the past.  Business seemed to be picking up, as well.  Our marriage had a brighter outlook than ever before, and our business had a brighter outlook than ever before.  I expected 2011 to be our best year yet.

February:  My husband was arrested on February 9.  All my expectations for the future were gone, lost to an overwhelming uncertainty.  I grieved hard and had no idea how to move forward.  It wasn’t one day at a time; it was one task at a time. 

March:  My husband was in jail for his birthday and my own.  I hit several low points, including one that made me want a divorce.  I had to deal with selling the business assets and wrapping up other business affairs, which was incredibly stressful.  The future was still completely unknown, but I was beginning to stabilize.

April:  The absolute highlight of the year was my son’s birthday party.  Watching him dance up and down the aisles at Chuck E. Cheese and then stop to whisper in my ear, “I’m so happy,” are memories I will cherish forever.  I began counseling both with a counselor and with the Hidden Hurt group.  I began to have peace about the situation, even though my life was still in limbo.

May:  My husband began to change.  He lost his defensiveness and gained a new love for God.  I changed from wanting a divorce to wanting a separation, to see if these changes would last when he rejoined “the real world.”

June:  My husband was released from jail on June 10.  The rest of the month was pretty rough as we handled some tough conversations and dealt with fresh hurts.  My sister’s family flew in from out of town and we enjoyed some great visits.

July:  We had even more time with extended family.  I rejoiced in actually having a summer!  Working a part-time job instead of 45-60 hrs/week over the summer was heavenly.  We filed our bankruptcy in July, which was actually a lot less painful than I expected.

August:  Things got rocky in my marriage again.  I didn’t let go of hope, but uncertainty didn’t let go of me, either.

September:  My son started kindergarten and loved it!  My husband began proving that he could sustain his changed behavior over time, and I regained some of my hope for the future.

October:  My son was finally reunited with his dad!  To me, this was the biggest step forward so far.  We had a wonderful weekend at the coast with my parents and grandparents, and I realized I wanted a second chance to have a future with my husband.

November:  We began marriage counseling again.  The process of restarting a marriage is pretty tricky, and we definitely experienced ups and downs.

December:  Our separation ended six months after my husband’s release, when he was allowed to move home over weekends.  Just in time for Christmas, he moved home permanently.  My son is very excited to have his dad home again.  We are now trying to figure out a new pattern of life that incorporates the regulations that come with being a registered sex offender.  We are still working out how to live together again, and with healthy communication and boundaries this time.  We’re making lots of mistakes, but we are moving forward.

2011 is undoubtedly the hardest year I have ever lived through.  I have experienced more pain and loss and uncertainty this year than ever before in my life.  And yet I’ve also experienced more growth.  I feel freer, more alive, more at peace than I can remember feeling before.  I think I’ve learned more about myself and about God than ever before.  This has been the hardest year, for sure.  But am I crazy to say that, in some ways, it’s also been the best?

So what will 2012 hold?  Who knows?!  I’m pretty sure there will be pain.  Definitely some struggles.  Hopefully not too many more losses.  Hopefully a renewed relationship with my husband.  Definitely some laughs with my son.  Definitely some love to share with amazing friends and family members.  Hopefully a closer relationship with God who never ceases to surprise me.  And probably a few more blog entries.  J

Happy New Year!

Confession Part 2

                In my last post I discussed the need for confessing to other people as a way to deal with our guilt.  The concept came from Andy Stanley’s podcast series, It Came from Within, which encourages us to focus on our hearts as the source for everything we do.  I ended with the challenging statement that most of us don’t have a safe place to confess.

                Generally speaking, churches are not safe places for confession.  When a “good Christian” hears a confession, he recoils in disgust at such behavior.  He demands that the behavior change immediately.  He questions the “sinner’s” salvation, since you can’t be a Christian and do that. 

                Here’s how Nate Larkin puts it in his book Samson and the Pirate Monks:

You’ve probably seen that poor fellow who decided one day to be honest in a Christian meeting.  Maybe he’d been caught in a sin, so he really had nothing left to lose, or perhaps he was so plagued by guilt that he decided to take the church’s rhetoric about grace and forgiveness at face value and bare his soul in a desperate bid for freedom.

I remember a guy who did that.  As soon as the fateful words were uttered he looked around, hoping somebody would say, “Me, too,” but all he heard were crickets.  After a pause, a curious investigator launched into spiritual cross-examination.  Then a few concerned “ex-sinners” gathered around him and preached a series of sermons disguised as prayers.  Finally, a helpful brother prescribed three Scripture verses to be taken in the morning and at bedtime.  Later, the guy was assigned to a probation officer – excuse me, an “accountability partner” – who would check in on him for a few weeks to make sure he had actually turned around.

In all this religious activity, he heard this message loud and clear:  “You have lost status, boy.  For the foreseeable future, you can forget about being a leader in this group, or even a trusted member.  Maybe later, if you can demonstrate that you have been fully rehabilitated and if you promise never to speak that way again, we will consider reinstating your membership.”

To make matters worse, as he left the meeting that poor guy was struck by the realization that he had just volunteered to become the church’s new topic of conversation.  Suddenly he knew that telephone lines were already humming with the latest “prayer request.”  Next Sunday, his suspicions were confirmed.  The sidelong glances, the awkward silences, the careful distances kept by his former associates, their wives, and others, verified that his disclosure was now common currency in the congregation.

                This story makes me so sad.  Mostly because I know it’s true.  I can see myself in some of the church members represented.  Can you see yourself, too?

                Confession is tricky because it opens a huge can of worms called “Christians who still sin.”  How do we deal with that?  Which sins are acceptable to work on for a while, and which sins must be changed immediately?  Do we pray for the person, offer advice, demote him, carry on as usual, lecture him…???

                Samson and the Pirate Monks is the best book I have read so far that deals with this topic, even though you would have no clue from the title.  The first half of the book is Nate Larkin’s autobiography.  He was a pastor’s kid, and everyone considered him a saint.  But in reality, he just had a really good filter for a pretty ugly heart.  He became a pastor himself, but had enough sense to change careers after he hired his first prostitute.  He struggled with sexual sin throughout his kids’ entire childhoods, and he never told a soul.  He finally sought help from a sex addicts support group after his wife threatened to leave him.  The relationships he formed in that group transformed his heart and his life. 

                The second half of the book explains in some detail about the Samson Society, which he and several friends created at their church and which is now a nationwide fellowship.  According to samsonsociety.ning.com, “The Samson Society is a fellowship of Christian men who are serious about authenticity, community, humility & recovery - serious, not grave.  Samson guys are traveling companions on a great spiritual adventure, not grim pilgrims on a death march to personal holiness.”

                Basically, Larkin and his friends created a safe place for men to confess and journey together – honestly and authentically.  No guilt attached.  No demands for immediate change.  No lectures or demotions.  A place for men tired of carrying the weight of their guilt to finally hear other Christian men say, “Me, too.”

                I was very inspired by the book and would highly recommend it to anyone.  It is a very entertaining and engaging read; one of my favorite sentences is, “To make matters worse, I farted in church.”  Ha!

                So, to tie all these thoughts together, let me ask:  Can we change the culture of today’s churches?  Can we remember that the heart is what counts, not the behavior?  Can we agree to look past the repulsive behavior and look into the heart?  Can we acknowledge that someone brave enough to confess their ugly behavior has their heart pointed in the right direction?  When someone confesses, can the first words out of our mouths be, “I am so proud of you for having the courage to confess?”  Imagine the healing power those words could have on a heart that has long been burdened with guilt!

                If we condemn destructive behaviors upon hearing a confession, we are really encouraging the “sinner” – and everyone who is watching – to continue in secrecy and dishonesty.  This of course has the opposite effect of what we intended; instead of ceasing those behaviors, the “sinner” learns to hide them better, and he is even more trapped than before, his burden is even heavier than before, and his guilt grows faster and more terrible than before.  The same is true for every “sinner” who observed the first guy’s misery.

                If we want to be agents of change in this world, we must find a way to provide safe places for people to confess their porn addictions, prostitution habits, homosexual urges, petty crimes, not-so-petty crimes – anything that will destroy a person from within.  If we can acknowledge that confession is necessary, then let’s work at making it possible.  Maybe for your church that means a Samson Society.  Maybe it means an FMO group or other type of support group.  Maybe it means something completely different.  Whatever it is, let’s figure it out and make it happen.

                As a side note, I would just like to say once again how thankful I am for the people of my church and all my friends and family, who reacted with compassion and love to the disclosure of my husband’s sin.  Thank you for not lecturing or condemning.  Thank you for loving and supporting us through this journey.  I am so blessed to have you in my life.

Confession Part 1

                In my last post, I wrote about the importance of focusing on our hearts instead of our behavior.  I talked about Andy Stanley’s podcast series, It Came from Within, which is the same subject matter as his book Enemies of the Heart.  Most of the ideas in this post come directly from Stanley’s podcast.

                The first “enemy of the heart” that Stanley covers is guilt.  Guilt creeps into my heart when I wrong someone else.  Guilt is anger and disappointment with myself.  I messed up; I let myself down; I let you down; I let God down; I failed.  That anger and disappointment become a weight that I carry around, and if I don’t resolve my guilt, that weight will follow me into every future relationship.

One way that guilt manifests itself is that it’s difficult to please a guilty person.  A guilty person subconsciously says, “I let myself down.  And since I didn’t meet my own expectations, I can’t allow you to meet my expectations, either.”

Another way that guilt manifests itself is that it often keeps us trapped in destructive behaviors.  Stanley gives the example of a student who cheats on a test.  If the child keeps his action a secret, how likely is it that he will cheat again?  It’s definitely a good possibility, even if the child feels a lot of remorse over his previous action.  But if the child chooses to confess that mistake to his teacher, what are the chances he will cheat again?  Not very high, right?  Facing the consequences of his poor choice will change his heart and his future choices. 

I believe that unconfessed guilt plays a huge role in porn addictions and other addictive behaviors.  The small amount of research I’ve read so far is consistent in saying that you simply cannot break an addiction on your own.  You must confess.  You must involve other people in your journey.  Keeping secrets will condemn you to failure again and again.

If you haven’t guessed it yet, confession is the spiritual discipline that resolves our guilt.  As Stanley says, “Guilt grows in the darkness and is dissipated by the light.”  James 5:16 says,  “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.”

The modern church has stressed the importance of confessing to God and forgotten the importance of confessing to other people.  Of course we need to confess to God and make sure that our relationship with him is clear of secrets.  (Yes, I am aware of how silly that sounds.  But we all like to pretend we can hide things from God at times, don’t we?)  The confession that brings about life change, however, is made to another person.  Bringing secrets into the light breaks their power; keeping secrets hidden requires dishonesty, deception, and duplicity, and the secrets just grow heavier as time goes on.

Confession to other people is essential to breaking the power of guilt.  But there are a couple of issues that make confession very challenging. 

First, we don’t want to confess because we want to avoid the consequences of our actions.  If we confess something “big,” there will most likely be a lot of relational pain and trauma.  There may be financial repercussions.  In the example of the student who cheated, there might be suspension from school and receiving a poor grade.  We can usually predict the consequences of our actions, and we dread them.  We work hard to avoid them.  The thought of voluntarily facing those consequences is foreign and seemingly insane.

However, if we truly want to change our behavior and – more importantly – heal our hearts, facing consequences is necessary.  Every parent understands the importance of consequences.  They teach us and shape us.  We learn our lessons in life by “reaping what we sow.”  If we truly want to be the best people we can be, we must volunteer to face the consequences of our poor choices head on.

Consider, too, that the consequences of our actions are usually tangible, immediate, and impact a handful of people.  Compare that to the consequences of concealment, which are intangible and therefore often difficult to predict or observe.  It’s easy to pretend that concealment is not having any effect on us at all.  But guilt that lurks under the radar, undetected and/or ignored, impacts most of our relationships throughout our whole lifetime.  It lingers, and it decays, slowly and steadily.  Our secrets eat away at us, day by day, year by year.  Which set of consequences is better?

                But even when we realize that facing the consequences of our actions is truly better for us than concealment, even if we find the courage to face those consequences, most of us don’t have a safe place to confess.

                And that is a topic I will discuss further in my next post.  J

Heart

                The other day I called a stranger an idiot.  Sometimes, I cuss without even having a good reason.  And there are times when I speak pretty rudely to other drivers.

                Of course, the other drivers can’t hear me.  And I was also in my car when I observed the idiot, so he didn’t hear me either.  And I don’t actually say the cuss words out loud; I just think them in my head.  So – no harm, no foul, right?

                I recently listened to a podcast series by Andy Stanley called It Came from Within.  The underlying premise is that our behavior is driven by what is in our hearts.  All those things we do that make us say, “I don’t know where that came from!” – they come from our hearts.  Matthew 12:34:  “For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.”  Proverbs 4:23:  “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”

However, we give most of our attention to our behavior instead of what’s going on in our hearts.  Andy Stanley calls this practice “applying a filter.”  We all know that calling someone an idiot is going to lead us into trouble, so we have a filter in place that prevents us from doing so.  But as soon as we are removed from that person, the filter goes down and out of our mouths come the words that our hearts have already applied – “What an idiot!”  A disturbing example of this is that, according to a survey quoted by Andy Stanley, a large percentage of people would murder someone if they knew they could get away with it.  (?!)  Their filters keep them from committing murder because they understand the consequences of such an action.  But their hearts – their hearts have it all planned out already.

This concept really informs the issue of parenting.  Ironically (providentially?), I began reading Shepherding a Child’s Heart by Tedd Tripp right after listening to Stanley’s podcast.  The book is based on the same premise, with a specific focus on parenting.  When a child misbehaves, do we focus on his behavior or on his heart?  If we don’t teach our kids to examine their hearts, we run the risk of teaching them how to form a really good filter for their really ugly hearts.

I am not satisfied with a good filter, for me or for my son.  I’m glad I don’t cuss out loud, but I don’t want to cuss in my head, either.  I want a pure heart, from which flow kindness and respect, even for idiots.

This concept is what makes Christianity so freeing.  Christianity is not a long list of do’s and don’ts, despite the many variations of such a list.  Christianity is not a long checklist of good deeds necessary for membership:  random act of kindness (check, moving on), give 10% to the church (check, moving on), forgive someone who hurt you (oops, better skip this one for now)… 

Christianity is about giving your heart to Christ.  End of checklist.

Christ is not interested in filters.  He is interested in hearts.  He doesn’t care about changing your behavior.  He cares about changing your heart.  He knows that if you will allow him to transform your heart, your behavior will follow because, “everything you do flows from [your heart].”  Your heart is primary; behavior is secondary.

This is freedom!  This is the gospel of grace! 

It’s that simple, and yet so complicated.  It’s done in an instant, and yet it won’t be finished after a lifetime of progress.  It’s not a list of things that you HAVE to do, but a list of things that you will begin to do naturally as your heart is transformed, piece by piece.

You see, when we give our hearts to Christ, we imagine that we have given him the whole thing.  But each of us has some things lurking and hiding in the dark corners of our hearts.  We might not even know that those places are there, much less be aware of what is hiding there.   Those behavioral slips – those breakdowns of our filters – can be keys to showing us what we are still holding back, unsurrendered to Christ’s transformative power.   

We can use our behavior to monitor our hearts.  When that cuss word pops out, examine what’s going on inside.  If you can’t break your porn addiction, examine what’s going on in your heart.  If you really don’t like a particular person, ask your heart why.  You can try to improve your filter if you’d like – “I won’t cuss.  I won’t cuss.  I SWEAR I won’t cuss!”  But if you focus your energy on merely improving your filter, your battle for better behavior will never end.  (See Colossians 2:22-23.)  If we instead turn our focus onto our hearts, we can address the underlying problems and our behavior will change accordingly.

Note that I said “if you will allow him to transform your heart.”  It is Christ that transforms us, but it is our job to surrender.  And surrender can be hard.  Those hidden vices are stubborn and don’t like to be scrubbed out of our hearts.  Andy Stanley’s podcast series talks about four enemies of the heart and the spiritual exercises that are required to get rid of them.  The remedies are spiritual exercises, disciplines that require dedication and perseverance.  They aren’t easy, and they aren’t quick.  But they are absolutely necessary if you want to fully surrender your heart to Christ.

In addition to the podcasts, Stanley wrote a book on the subject, called Enemies of the Heart.  I downloaded the podcasts from iTunes, but it doesn’t look like they are available anymore.  However, my pastors have been doing a sermon series based on the book, which you can listen to at westportchurch.org.  I would highly recommend pursuing any of these resources to learn what the four enemies are and which spiritual exercises correspond to them.

I will tell you that the first enemy is guilt, and I plan to blog more about the subject in my next post.  J

Reunion

                After 8 months and 12 days, my son got to see his dad last weekend.  Yay!!!!!!!

                I really expected that there would be some sort of negative backlash – anger, regression, fits when it was time to say goodbye…something.  But there wasn’t.  My son was just really excited to see his dad, didn’t ask a lot of questions, and took the new way of life in stride.  He is amazing.  God is amazing. 

                God has been so faithful to protect my son through this.  I can’t believe how resilient he is and how well he adapts to changes.  I know that part of it is childlike faith and innocence, but I also know that part of it is supernatural protection from God.  Thank you all for praying for him – I am confident your prayers have made a difference in his little life.

                The first reunion was actually two weekends ago.  This past weekend all three of us were able to go to the beach with my extended family.  It was a fabulous trip!  The weather was so mild that the water wasn’t too cold (although we didn’t get wet on purpose – but that’s another story!  J).  There was no wind; it felt more like a lucky summer day at the beach instead of the last weekend of October.  Amazing!  Again, God is so good.

                This reunion is a huge step forward in our journey, but the journey continues.  I will keep you updated as we go along, and again, THANK YOU for your prayers!!!

Rhythm of My Soul

     This is a song I wrote in college.  I stumbled across it last night and thought I would like to share it.  I don't remember the tune, though.  :(

Lord, how do I say what I'm feeling right now?
I'm lonely; I feel like I've lost you somehow.
I long for your arms to hold me so close
that your heartbeat is the rhythm of my soul.

Lord, I long for your voice to calm all of my fears. 
And I long for your hand to dry all of my tears.
I long for your sweet breath to fall on my cheek,
and to rest in your presence, humbled and weak.

     The only part of the song that I've remembered throughout the years is the imagery of being so close to God that his heartbeat is what motivates my soul.  If we all march to the beat of a different drum, I want my drum to be the one pounding in the heart of God.  May his concerns be my concerns, his passions be my passions, his music be my music, his heart be my heart. 

     So close to God that his heartbeat is the rhythm of my soul...that's what I want to be.