Rock Bottom

Tonight I put my fingers back on the keyboard and search out my heart, and be as transparent as ever with an audience I don't know … and perhaps an audience that doesn't exist - but the One that I need to start writing to once again.    This is the second night that I just can't sleep … and thoughts continue to run through my mind.  Thoughts of where God has me, thoughts questioning me and challenging me, thoughts that are difficult to share. 

The phrase "rock bottom" comes to my mind.  And I searched as to the meaning of it.  It often is referred to those who have somesort of addiction and they hit their lowest point possible in life and can't get any lower than where they are at due to their illness.  Another definition refers to be in a hopeless or difficult situation which makes you feel very depressed.  

That is where I feel I'm at.  I have hit my rock bottom. 

What do people do when they hit their rock bottom?  The internet suggests: 

1. Let yourself feel.
2. Take the time to reflect.
3. Have faith.
4. Be self-compassionate.
5. Engage in creative outlet.
6. Spend time in nature.
7. Listen to music.
8. Try new things.

And that is where I am at - at least some of them, and am doing it naturally.  I'm finally allowing myself to feel and sort through.  I'm trying to stand on what faith I have and hopefully it will grow through all this.  And as I write to you I hear my "prayer playlist" playing in the background.  

What does all this mean?  What am I getting at? 

No I don't have an addiction.  

But I feel I have hit rock bottom.  Duane and I have been enduing more than our fair share in a short amount of time.  We have pressed through.  And we are surviving.  Which means we are making it through.  Because of the circumstances, we have shared some but unable to share it all.  Our world has made it so we can't.  So we don't.  And many have walked away because the weight of it all is so heavy and frankly it is easier to just walk awy from it all. 

But someone like me … who needs to talk and process things outloud makes it hard to heal - and even hear from God when no one is there to just be a soundboard. 

As we go through the trials we are in, it is all wrapped in a name …that of lonliness.  We have our connections.  But do we have someone to call and talk to?  Do we have someone to hang out with?  Do we have someone to explore with?  Do we have someone to try new things with?  Do we have someone who will hold us accountable and pray with us as we walk the intimacy of these trials?  Not really.  We have held this wrapping for so long … I'm actually done with it.

I have hit my rock bottom. 

The thing about being at your rock bottom is that no one can bring you out of it.  There is only one - and I know Who that is.  I'm thankful that I have never left You far enough that I have to find You.  Or maybe I have. 

I don't know where it started … maybe the stress, the unknowing, the helplessness I have had when my dad was placed in assistant care for his Parkinson's   I honestly have feelings built up in this area that has been shoved in … because well, I have heard it isn't about me.  So I focus on his illness.  I focus on how my mom is handling it all and do whatever I could do to help … always feeling it wasn't enough.  I have focused on my daughters as they haven't dealt with a loss so close - at least one they remember.  

When I would visit my dad, he would mention others and didn't seem to have the same fondness for me as I have for him.  My dad means so much to me … and yet, as he has deteriated over the past year and a half I question as to what I mean to him.  My confidence has waivered. 

His situation only worsened as the world was shut down to the pandemic and then wildfires relocated him - which caused him bed sores so bad, surgery was the only solution.  And yet as I held my breath as I wonder if we would see each other again, he fought through it all.  He has been quarantined twice due to being in contact with those with covid, and just recently with another disease that was running through the facility.  And everytime he remains unaffected physically.  Yet he questions why we don't visit, and thinks we have moved on without him, and wonders about the love that covers him from his family.  His love for his wife runs deep.  Deeper than I have ever experienced.  I am grateful to see, and honored for the foundation I was built upon.  Yet, my confidence of his love for me continues to waiver. 

My heart feels lost.  I don't know how to show or express my love to him.  I want him to know how much I adore him.  Now today his mind is away - and I don't know where I am in his picture.  And it scares me.  It hurts.  And causes a lonliness that can't even be described.  

My mom started having some accidental falls after she had her knee replacement.  Concern filled my heart and I have tried to take the responsibility a child should offer ones parents.  My job had it's own demands and made me not the "best daughter" in the world, but I tried to make that 2 hour drive at least once a week.  It was at the very end of April that I heard of a bad fall that caused her to break her arm and I ran right down when I heard.  I made sure she had food and had a game plan; and was willing to be part of that plan if needed.  And then it was just a week later that I hear that she has fallen again - knocking herself out when her head hit the piano, waking to a pool of blood.  Eighteen staples was needed.  

I'm still worried about my mom.  She is all I have when I think of my extended family.  And we have gone through so much.  I have thought about her living with us - but know we don't have the ability in our home, and to give her a safe place without stairs.  Sometimes I'm mad because I have to deal with this - because I don't see her as old enough to need this care.  But most of all I'm trying to be the best child I can be and care for her - and because of my circumstances I am not even doing that. 

Last year, Duane has endured some medical issues.  Something that remains unspoken - completely   Something that we both have had to walk together.  Something that isolates us even more and something that has been a trial in our marriage.  As I tried to drift off to sleep with him tonght I know that part of our hearts are not dealing with the situation.   Ignoring it seems to be the easiest thing.  But is only a time bomb ready to go off to create devestation.  But it has made me so insecure - because lets just face it; men and women are so different.  He thinks with his mind, and I think with my heart and we just don't fully grasp one another. 

And then me.  Nothing too major.  Two concussions - within a matter of five days.  Something you would think would be easy to get over.  Fear has gribbed me as Alzeimer's has been spoken into my life for my future.  The seriousness of how I can not have anymore accidents or falls has paralized me.  The doctor says to rest for two months.  I have lost all freedom of driving and even walking by myself.  I'm thankful that my husband has been there to hold onto and for his extended hand of protection .. but also hate depending on him.  The symptoms that haven't left is frustrating because it has been so long.  I feel I have judgment from those who doubt it all - I wish they could see the world tilted in my eyes.  I am nauseous frequently because of the unbalanced motion of the world.  My home is my safe place.  I just found that I don't have cancer in the brain - and the thought they were even looking for that!  I wait for the specialist for another 1 1/2 months.  Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatments, vitamin B, a machine to get all the bad stuff out of my water, and rest fills my days.  I'm ready for normalcy.  

And tonight I reach out to you because I can't hide the emotions anymore.  I have hit the point so low that depression does greet me with welcome arms.  I long to just run.  I long to run away from California.  I long to run away from my church.  I long to run away from everything I know.  

I keep remembering that we know You are good.  Yet I think of all that I'm walking through and ask myself - Do I believe You are good  - even though you are gradually taking my dad?   Do I believe You are good - even though my mom continues to have falls and now is facing surgery?  Do I believe You are good  - even though I have been put in a silent room with an illness that hurts a husband and wife?  Do I believe You are good - even though the world is unbalanced through my eyes and not better yet?  Do I believe you are good in the isolation?

So tonight, as I reach my rock bottom, I searched to see if you have anything to say about the matter … 

    That person is like a man building a house who dug deep and laid the foundation on rock.  When the floods came, the water tried to wash the house away, but it could not shake it, because the house was built well. 

Luke 6:48

It has been around 34 years now that I have chosen you in my life.  I have built that foundation on a rock. The floods are coming, and doing everything to wash all that I have away.  But today I stand on You - my Rock and can stand in confidence the choice I made 34 years ago will get me through this these days and these trials.  I hate to say that my rock bottom, can even get more rockier … but I choose you to be the Rock that greets me in it all.  

The Lord is my rock, my protection, my Savior.  My God is my rock.  I can run to him for safety.  He is my shield ad my saving strength, my defender. 

Psalm 18:2

God, I confess to you I want to run.  I want to take things in my own hand.  Tonight you grab my attention as you won't let me sleep - and I reach out to you and see that I need to run to You - not away.  I've been grumbling about all that has hit us.  I'm thankful for the lives that you have put into mine.  I'm thankful that you have not isolated me.  I am thankful that my parents are with me and You have drawn my mom and I closer than we have ever been.  I am thankful that my husband and I are able to hold hands more than ever.  I am thankful that our love remains and how You have proven that the greatest is Love. I am thankful that when I opened this blog that as been neglacted for so long that an unposted message greeted me and refocused my direction.  I am thankful that through this time of waiting for "normalcy" I have the opportunity to seek you even more.  

So are You a Good God?

You have remained.  You are faithful.  You make ALL things good and use even the brokeness to your favor. You heal.  You redeem. 

You are Good! 

Resurrection Sunday

"Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. 

He who believes in me will live, even through he dies;

and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. 

Do you believe this?"

John 11:25-26

In my spirit each year I want to learn more of Jesus and what Easter means.  I don't want to miss anything.  But this year I wondered if it was just too late.  Even though things are good, there are things on the back burner, simmering.  It is only a matter of time when they will come to a full boil.   

With a recent sickness, travels and trying to hold onto the demands of work and school, the Easter decorations just never came out.  This was the first Palm Sunday we missed, and I felt we missed the triumphant entry of our Savior.  I know that I could rise from the couch and shout my own "Hosanna!",  but it just wasn't the same.  This was the first year we didn't do our Resurrection Eggs, as everyone's schedule couldn't bring us together.  It was Thursday, when we usually recognize the last supper that I just gave up, threw in the towel and just accepted defeat as this was the first year in twenty that I missed whatever tidbit Jesus had for me to learn more of him and what this season is all about.  Sadness grew in my heart.

It also didn't help that Easter egg hunts seem to take front stage, homework demands are great (as we are used to celebrating Easter break, not Spring break weeks ahead), and not the recognized day I remember as a child.

I asked Duane, if we could celebrate Good Friday a little different by seeing a movie; God's Not Dead.  The name alone brought a recognition to what we were about to celebrate on Sunday.  It was that night we talked about what impacted us in the movie or about this particular Sunday.  And I made my claim.  God's not dead ... not in our circumstances, not in the pot that seems to be simmering on the back burner. 

I continue to wait and watch when Jesus will turn our circumstances in a different direction.

Easter Sunday came.  We didn't hear about the stone being rolled away, or how they found the tomb empty, or even the time Jesus spent here on earth before going to be with our Father.  It wasn't the usual Easter message.  But instead in the passage of the death of Lazarus (John 11:1-44).  I am still chewing on the words I heard, and ponder them more and more. 

It was pointed out in verse 6 how Jesus stayed two more days, after hearing about the one he loved (verse 3) was sick.  He didn't rush in.  He didn't even speak words of healing.  He waited. 

Jesus soon arrived, but after Lazarus had already been dead for four days (verse 17).  Martha, the one that was caught being too busy to sit at the feet of Jesus because of kitchen duties ran out to Jesus.  Pastor Todd encouraged me by stating "when things happen in our lives and it feels Jesus hasn't shown up, don't run from God but to him".  He also mentioned that it is easy to trust Jesus when things are going well, but God is an "even now" (verse 22) God, and we aren't to limit Him.

"The Resurrection isn't an event, it is a person!"  It is Pastor Todd's thought that Jesus isn't weeping because of the sorrow of Lazarus' death, after all, Jesus knows what is about to happen, that he isn't going to be dead much longer, but he weeps because his people don't fully know who He is.  Jesus says to Martha "I am the resurrection and the life.  He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.  Do you believe this?"  (verse 26-26)

And for the first time I read these words differently than ever before.  For the first time ever, I experience hope and even joy. 

Do you see it?  I don't know your circumstances, but let me a little candid with you.  Perhaps because there has been a stirring in my spirit for the past week, a knowing that God is getting ready to put something new before us.  Every time I experience the excitement, and choose to trust the belief that the Holy Spirit is trying to share with me, a major tragedy comes forth.  There is almost a battle going on for my faith. 

But I choose to still believe. 

I believe in the One who is the Victor as well as the Victory.  I believe that the One who has never left me or forsaken me in the trials before, is the same in the trials now.  I believe in the One who loves me more than anyone has.  I believe everyone and everything has to surrender to His authority.  I believe that there are no surprises to God, and His plan will come forth.  I believe in the One that has my back.  I believe that I am His creation, and because He has taken the time to create me, there is a purpose and a plan.  I believe in the One that is ALL GOOD.  I believe that all the mistakes and things I get wrong will be made right by the One who is all knowing.

And with a full belief and claim in the God I know, I read these verses again.  Jesus is the resurrection and is the life.  And because I choose to believe in him, I will live - even though I may die.  And because I live in Him, believe in Him, I will never die.  I will live as we face a lay off, even without our finances being in order.  I will live through the challenges in rearing three teenage daughters.  I will live as I watch our daughters make poor mistakes.  And because I believe in Jesus, I will never die.  All these challenges in our lives have no power to overtake me, they have no power to drown me...even though it feels like it some days, but Jesus has ALL the power to overcome.   And because He will overcome - we will live! 

We watch the death of a job come to an end.  We watch a child grow more distant from us and make choices we taught otherwise.  Jesus didn't rush in to save Lazarus before he died, but after he was well dead, so then it was clear that only Jesus could take credit for such a miracle.  Jesus could have walked away, and just simply comforted the mourners.  But instead, He showed who He is and the authority He has. 

So as I watch the challenges that come to unfold in our lives, my eyes are fixed on Jesus.  He will come.  He will bring life in the midst of our death.  And He will resurrect all of our circumstances and lives for all to see ... where He can get all the credit!