Deep Reflections from a Shallow Mind

I am sitting on my bed, Indian-style, trying my best to shut my brain up. Fat Chance. I have been toying with the idea of mediation for about a week now…well a few days…okay 2 days. I watched a popular movie about a woman who essentially runs away from her problems and learns how to re-connect with herself through meditation. Now, I have no interest in other religions. My interest is solely in the quietness, the stillness, the peace that people seem to achieve through mediation or “contemplative prayer” as Christians like to call it. I wasn’t even sure at first if something like meditation had a Christian cousin. I had to look it up. That in itself should red-flag a couple problems I need to be working on as well.

A couple of years ago I confided in a friend that I was incapable of being quiet, not just with my mouth, but also in my head. There is a constant string of thoughts that are assaulting me daily. Yes, it feels like assault. Add to that, that there is also a song constantly stuck in my head like a theme song to my thoughts and it’s no wonder why I’m so tired all the time… it probably explains my desire for wine as well. It’s one of the only ways I can shut the noise up. My friend was a little worried about what I was telling her. She said that I should be working on that because apparently she viewed it as not just the inability to endure quiet but also the inability to withstand peace for any length of time. Hmmm…I hadn’t thought about that. I thought about that for a few days and then pushed it aside. I have so many other things to think about, right?

The only problem is that she’s right. I am uncomfortable with quiet…painfully uncomfortable. In fact, those who know me well know that the TV or radio is always going in the background in my house, even when I’m not watching or listening because it soothes me…noise soothes me. In my younger years, teens and twenties, I couldn’t even sleep in the quiet. In my teens the radio played all night and in my twenties I bought a sound machine with little chirping birds, rain patter and ocean waves. I justified the sound machine by saying it was relaxing. My poor husband has just, in the last 5 years, been able to sleep in a soundless room. Another example is a little more extreme and a little embarrassing to me personally. When our pastor prays during our church service he takes a second or two to “quiet” his mind before beginning the prayer. It goes something like this:
“Let’s pray ..............................................................................................................Dear Heavenly Father…”
I wanna scream every time he does it….Every. Time. That’s sick right?? Inside my head I am groaning and shouting silently, “GET ON WITH IT GENE!”.

I know…that’s pretty bad. In an effort to teach myself the joy of quiet and of just “being”, I have taken to turning off the radio when I’m in the car. I try to turn off the TV when I’m home by myself after I realize that I’ve turned it on without thinking. I think I am learning to like the quiet little by little, but my brain is a different story all together. Even when it’s dead quiet in the house or the car, my brain is going 90 miles an hour. It’s exhausting. It doesn’t help that I work in the noisiest and most chaotic environment known to man: the Emergency Room. Bells, alarms, overhead PA, nurses shouting, doctors calling, phone ringing, patients questioning, people talking, families crowding, babies crying…I could go on, but my blood pressure is going up just thinking about work.

I just want quiet…peace and quiet…peace most of all. I have to learn a new way to cope. Coming home from work and drinking is effective at shutting up the brain but only by way of incapacitation. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t come home and tie one on…usually. A drink…One Drink… is the norm for me. A glass of wine, a rum and coke, occasionally a beer stolen from my husband, is not unusual. Problem is, I’m not in my 20’s anymore and it seems like even the one drink leaves me with a headache the next day. I gotta find a new trick at taming my thoughts.

So, all of that leads me back to where I am now: sitting on my bed listening to my ceiling fan rotate, trying not to look at my bedside clock, and desperately wishing that my brain would shut up…just this once. I tried to find something to focus on to take my mind off of its mindless rambling. My heartbeat, my breathing, the face of Jesus…I even tried the “Om” thing. Don’t laugh, I told you I was desperate. Finally, I just sat and tried to imagine what I might look like in the future if I achieved what I am chasing (even though I am not totally sure what that is right now). I remembered a conversation that I had with my husband just yesterday about us both being miserable at our current jobs and wondering what God has in store for us. I sent up a silent prayer to God to help me see what it is that he wants me to see about myself, in myself, or what he sees that I don’t see. I don’t know where God is headed with me but I know that at the core of it, where ever God leads me, I want to help people find Him, I want to write and I want to talk or speak to people either in groups or individually. Those three words just hung in the air of my mind for a minute: Help. Write. Speak. They just… hung there, like a wet sweater, dripping on the floor. Looking sad and pitiful. My brain says: 'You are too screwed up to help anybody. You have no talent or education to write anything. What are you going to say to people that is going to help them in any way?? You cannot make a career out of talking incessantly the way you do, Melanie. That is an idiotic idea.'

Help. Write. Speak.

They still hung there. I tried to imagine what that life would look like. I didn’t see a location, a home, a position in life or a lifestyle. I just saw my own face. It was smiling. Happiness. Confidence. Joy. Peace. Love. Things that I attempt to have now but which I fail at pretty miserably. Even when I am projecting these things now it’s a lie. Just beneath the surface, were anyone to scratch at it, lies doubt, worry, regret, insecurity, apathy and fear. Fear most of all. And the fear is mounting. My oldest son turns 16 this year. I should be joyous but I’m not. I am deeply sorrowful and angry. Angry at myself for letting so much of his childhood pass without being present in it. Sorrowful that I missed so much of it working or being too tangled up in my own junk and problems to enjoy it. Being the oldest son, he has lived most of my junk out with me.

I was 15 when I gave birth to him. The year before he was born I was: raped, became heavily involved in drugs and alcohol, tried to commit suicide twice, was ostracized at school, beaten by my father, thrown out of my home by my mother, moved into my boyfriend’s house, had gotten pregnant, went my entire sophomore year in maternity clothes and ended up moving back into my parent’s home with my boyfriend. To say it was rough would be a gross misunderstanding. It took me at least 15 years to recover from that one year…his entire life up to this point. I had used this child’s entire life, entire childhood, on MY recovery, instead of on him. Yes, I have loved him and cared for him and provided for him, but I could never see past my own pain enough to fully be the mother he needed. In fact, there were times that he went to live with my parents (voluntarily) so that I could try to function. Function is all I ever learned to do. I still don’t think that I’ve ever learned to live. So, now at the age of 31, I am facing my failure to be fully present and my anger and sorrow at missing so much and I have had enough. I am done with “functioning”. I want to live.

I WANT TO LIVE.

I don’t know where I am headed. I don’t know how long it will take. I have no idea if the path includes the education I am trying so very hard to achieve right now. I have no idea how it will happen.

All I know is that it has to. It has to happen and preferable soon or I may not be able to withstand it anymore. I am exhausted, I am depleted, I am used up, I am …tired of waiting for what is coming. My whole existence right now is in waiting for what’s to come. There is a scene from that movie where the woman’s boyfriend looks down on her while she is face down on the floor in misery at her life and he says, “Stop constantly waiting for something to happen!” I think that might be the wisest thing I’ve ever heard.

I can’t spend my life waiting. What am I waiting for? The life I am living right now, the life with a messy house, a dog who scratches the floor and isn’t fully potty trained, boisterous boys who don’t clean their rooms correctly, a husband who forgets I exist periodically, a job that forces me to pray everyday just to get through it and laundry baskets that are possessed by the Devil…this life…this is the life God has given me. And I am wasting it. I am pushing every single day aside to get ready for the next one, and the next one and so on until one day I’m going to run out of “next one’s”. My mind is ever on “what’s next?” instead of “right now”. Life is lived in the “right now”.. not in the future. I can’t live a life that doesn’t exist simply because it hasn’t happened yet! So, this is what I learned from my attempt at meditation this morning… “Get off the bed”. Sitting on my bed, imagining a life that could be, is keeping me from living that life the already is. Okay, so I don’t know where God is taking me. So what? No one does. Not one of us have any clue what the future holds. The need to control even the parts of my life that haven’t happened yet is keeping me crippled to the life that I can have right now. Everyday.

Glorious Day

I have a reason to celebrate today.

This morning I made a public declaration to God.

Today I got baptized.

It was a personal thing, something I had wanted for a long time, something that had never been offered to me as a child. I stood by and supported Hubby and The Sweet One two years ago when they got baptized. The Mouth recieved Christ this past year, so when the baptism was announced, I thought 'We'll do it together.'

So this morning with 12 other people, we took the plunge. The worship music was moving, the mood was festive and the water was warm.

I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine - Song of Solomon 6:3


Pictures will come soon :)

The Ongoing Evolution of Me

Well, this post ain't what it used to be.


I spent a good hour last night writing this post, and one second before I was finished the entire post vanished. Poof! Gone with the Wind.

The only thing left is the title.

The only thing I can say is that it makes me sad. Anyone who writes knows that writing is a purging of thoughts. Once those thoughts are out onto paper or computer screen they no longer reside in your brain. You remember the topic you wrote about, the idea you were trying to get across, but the actual words you used are a jumble. No two posts are ever alike.

Yes, I will re-write this post. Will it be the same? No. The good news is that since you didn't read the last one you have nothing to compare it to but I digress.

The point I originally set out with was this: I have decided, after about a year long dialog in my head with God, to return to school. I thought that Nursing School was my last foray into education. Apparently I was wrong, as God has informed me anyway.

Over a year ago, I had an experience that since then has pretty much changed my life. I wrote about it in A Heart Response. The 15 minutes I spent with that girl sparked something in me that I cannot for the life of me explain to other people.Believe me I've tried. The closest I can come to explaining it is by describing it like a light bulb coming on, or an alarm going off. I spoke with my friend, who also happens to be my pastor, recently about all of this and told him that it feels like Paul's Damascus Road experience in the New Testament. Paul was blinded until another Christian touched his eyes and things like scales fell off of his eyes. Then he could see and he spent the rest of his life seeking to serve the Lord. I spent about a year prior to this in counseling of sorts with my friend, the pastor, healing over my own pain and abuse. The growth was extraordinary but exquisitely painful. After that, I feel like I can see things that I could not see before. I see pain. Everywhere I look, everyone is in pain of some sort. Everyone of us has gone through something that has left it's mark...some sort of damaged idea that we carry around with us. Some lie that tells us something about ourselves that isn't true. Everyone... and I can see it. God, for some reason, has given me the ability to see past the "face" that we put on for other people and I can see for the first time just how much everyone needs him. It's staggering. Now I'm not talking about some sort of mystical "aura" or something crazy, I just mean that when I talk with someone now, I can just about pinpoint where their pain lies. What lie they believe about themselves. It's actually a little painful for me to pretend that I don't see it and continue having the conversation while restraining the urge to speak with them about it. It's a little like someone with severe OCD walking into a room with a crooked picture frame and not being able to straighten it. You can't concentrate because the whole time you want to say, "Excuse me, I'm sorry. I can't concentrate. I just need to fix this. Thanks." I feel a little retarded actually. So after about a year of God pushing, I finally decided to call his bluff. Without telling anyone, even Hubby, I applied to a local college's Undergraduate Program as a major in Psychology. This week I received my acceptance letter. Two days after that I received a Pell Grant.

Ok God, I'm listening.

Here I sit, full-time Nurse, full-time Homeschool mother of 3 boys (one of which is beginning high school in August), full-time wife, chief cook and bottle washer....now full-time student. The whole admission process is not complete yet, but close and I'm not sure if I'll start this term or next. The only thing I know is that God directed and I obeyed. Beyond that I'm lost. I have no idea what happens next. I have this hazy idea that I might become a Christian Therapist. That was good for a few days, then I started looking into what that involved. In the great state of Alabama, counselors and therapists alike require graduate studies. A Master's Degree plus a clinical component that can take another year or two to finish after the degree is completed. Here, the only difference between counselor and therapist is the amount of clinical time. Soooo, I don't know. Am I suppose to convince my family that after my Bachelor's, I have to return for my Master's? Hubby loves me and is supportive but admits that this whole things sounds crazy to him. He feels a little like I'm wasting the education I already have. I understand and respect that. So far I haven't found a college in this whole region that offers the clinical component that I would need, so I find myself wondering what God is up to. Maybe therapy is not where I'm headed. Ok, so what then? Teaching? I'm lost. So far, all I know is that I that I feel like I took the step I needed to take. Now, I just have to wait for God to tell me where the next step is.