Free to be Fearless

I've had a lot of incredible conversations, lately.  Conversations that skip the inanity of what the weather has done or is going to do, what's happening at work, or how the kids are doing in school.  Conversations that happen right inside the door none of us want to open.  Inside the door that fear and shame beg us to leave shut tight and locked up. 

When we are alone, the room behind this door is the coldest, darkest, and loneliest room we will ever inhabit.  It's the room where we sit with all of the lies we believe, chief amongst them being, "I'm not enough." and in some cases, "I'm too much."

These are confusing beliefs if you also believe that you are a child of God and created in His image.  "I am something other than what I should be" doesn't really seem like an idea God would build into His people.  So, did we learn it somewhere?  Where did we learn that? 

Most of us don't have to look far to find potential, probable, or unmistakable places and times these loud-mouthed, lying seeds were planted in very fertile soil.  I don't like to give the devil credit for much, but it seems he got around and didn't bother getting creative with the message.

Regardless of why or how those seeds took root and grew into patterns of thinking and ways of relating, they've become part of us.  We will often do anything in our power to keep people from discovering the truth about the lies we believe, wrestle with, or operate out of.

Since opening up about my struggle with insecurity and fear of abandonment in my marriage, I've had the comfort of hearing a lot of "me toos".  Sometimes, it looks exactly the same, sometimes different.  But, whatever the particulars are, fear and shame are at the root of it. 

Because my conversations keep circling back to the same things, because of the silent and devastating nature of the lies we believe, and because of our ever-increasing inability to get to places of honesty, vulnerability, and understanding, I want to invite you in and ask you to consider who you would like to invite in, as well.

That cold, dark, and lonely room is transformed by an open door, the light in the hall, and the presence of another. 

As a guest in my room, I want you not only to know my fears, but to know what helps me live with and conquer them, too.

I believe God created us to be FREE.  Free to choose thoughts, words, and actions.  

Free to be fearless.  

I believe that God has allowed the circumstances, which have fortified my imperfection.  My imperfection/brokenness/weakness, is no longer something for me to fix, but a springboard to the One who can fix it, if He so chooses.  I finally see my struggle as part of His Will and not something outside of it. 

I have noticed something about the saints.  Their prayers always boil down to the same thing.  They want to love God, love His Will, and quite often, to love suffering. 

So, I'm pretending to be a saint.  I've copied a page out of their prayer book and am praying like they prayed.  Lord, please grant me the grace to love You, Your Will, and to love suffering.  Amen.

I cannot convey how dumbfounded I am by the results. Is it really possible that three simple prayers can transform a life?  I think so... 

I say this tentatively, as I'm only about a month in practice.  I've been tried several times, but only mildly.  I cannot remember the last time I've felt so fearless and free.  If I could actually love suffering, I would no longer fear suffering, which means I could use all of the energy I spend to protect myself from suffering, to love others.  And that sounds heavenly.

For the first time in my life, I am treating my insecurity like the spiritual battle it is.  I am no longer asking for it to be removed or healed, but accept that it might be here to stay.  God's will be done. 

Any time I start down a road I don't want to be on or get stuck in a vortex of negativity, which looks like doubt, fear, suspicion, jealousy, resentfulness, worthlessness, etc... I call on Christ.  I remind myself that feelings of fear and of being bound are contrary to what God desires for me, and it is time to suit up and step forward.  I name what I'm feeling, renounce (refuse to recognize or abide by any longer), rebuke, and reject it in the name of Jesus, and cast it to the foot of the Cross, reclaiming the victory that has already been won over it.  I don't have to do anything, but claim what has already been done.   

In these moments, I see myself as a little girl wrapped around my Father's leg and clinging to it for dear life, pleading not for one more ride around the living room, but for peace and love for all that is good.  I mean, have you ever tried to shake a kid off of your leg that is determined to take one more ride?  It's like that...

And I'm okay with this.  

Running away doesn't work.  Looking back doesn't work.  Introspection doesn't work.  Ignoring it doesn't work.  And looking to your spouse certainly doesn't work.  

Looking up works.  Clinging works.  And once this sinks in...oh, man I hope this is sinking in...it seems like maybe, just maybe, Somebody has been trying to tell me this all along.  

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well.

Matthew 6:33 

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  

Matthew 11:28

Holding Why Like How

I just have a few thoughts I'd like to string together from the strange and wonderful world of chaplaincy I live in.  From hospital rooms to memorial services to nursing homes to hospice suites, the unexpected and perpetual inspiration are my constant companions.  I offer them to you, that you may share in my joy and wonder.

Several things stand out from this week alone.  The most surprising went like this...

I was doing my routine rounds on my floor, assessing and attempting to meet the emotional and spiritual needs of my patients, when I came to the door of a patient I met briefly in the lobby the week before.  At that time, he was in the admissions process, but looked highly uncomfortable, so I approached him to see if he needed help.  He said he really needed to lay down, so I checked with the unit where he was going, took his stuff, and then him, and that was all there was to it.  At least for me.
But, this day, about five minutes into our conversation, he asked, "What's your name, again?"   He lit up when I told him.  He said, "Oh!  You're Heidi!  We met in the lobby the other day."  I said yes.  He said, "You were my angel."  I wrote about you in my notebook.  I write down the names of people who take care of me so I can pray for them.  He started thumbing through one of the two notebooks at his bedside until he found the entry.  He read it out loud, beginning with, "I had just prayed to God to send someone to help me.  Then an angel came to me today.  Her name was Heidi...Thank you Lord, for my Hidy."

I know I am not an angel, but it doesn't hurt my feelings to be confused with one.  If there is an angel in this story, I'm pretty sure it is him.

Hebrews 13:1-2  Let brotherly love continue.  Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

To have met someone for five minutes and a week later to see your name in their handwriting, in their notebook, in their prayer of thanksgiving, there are no words (although, I'm using plenty of them, anyway).  How often are we used by God to answer the prayer of another, without our knowing?  I imagine this feeling to be a hint of what our introduction to heaven will be like, with many a "Huh! and "I had no idea!"

I think this language suits us very well.  We have no idea.  We have no earthly idea.  And I'm coming to the conclusion that this is an important part of the solution for living with any sense of peace during our sojourn here.  It seems that most believers have long accepted they don't know how God does what He does, on any level of creation.  As one of my patients recently told me, "I could give one of my students a million dollars and tell them to go into the lab and produce a seed, and they couldn't do it."   Anyone who has "grown" a child without knowing how can agree.  We know we can't so much as create a knuckle or a fingernail from our own knowledge or power.

If it wasn't so painful, it would be funny to realize that we who understand so little about how things happen, could be so demanding and insistent about why they happen.  What if we could treat why like how?  Maybe, we could at least try.  Resting only in the mind of God, they are equally beyond our ability to comprehend.

(I wrote a song inspired by this idea.  The link is at the bottom of the post if you'd like to spend more time with this idea.)

Sometimes, I get a glimpse into how limited my viewpoint really is.  Recently, I visited with a patient a couple of times before she died, and went by the church to drop off a card on the day of her funeral. Here is the limited viewpoint part...I was actually surprised to see a hearse parked out in front.  Even though I knew she died (that was why I was at the church after all), I was still picturing her in the bed where she laid, in the room where we visited.  I hadn't "moved" her out of that room in my mind.  And if I had thought to, what then?

I realized, not for the first time, that this is one of the harder things about being a chaplain.  It is easy to get stuck in a moment of suffering or death.  We don't usually get the rest of the story. We are "for a moment".  Of course, I realize the impossibility of having it any other way, but still.  I will rest with the words of a beloved priest and coworker, "It is what it is."

I guess that's what it all comes down to.  At least for the people who have lived a lot of life.  One of my nursing home residents, who has gone from regular attendance at worship and Bingo, to passing entire months in her bed, said it best in her prayer request... "To accept my life, as it is."  

So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.

Psalm 90:12

https://youtu.be/kJp3miZ2_Uw