Beyond Circumstances

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding." - Proverbs 3:5

I am definitely finding myself in situations where what I'm learning is being tested.  NOT what I wanted.  But, I only have so much control over my circumstances.  Two people close to me have become angry at me in the last two days.  Their type of anger and communication is very difficult for me to handle.  It hurts.  They are both very similar in how they relate and communicate and I'm considering this.  I've known them both for years and this is certainly not the first time I've been at the receiving end of what feels very painful.  Monologues comprised of resentment, criticism, temper, anger and blame.  They both are a "prickly" sort of person staying clear of making their softer sides known.  They don't make it a habit to apologize and are rarely, if ever, take responsibility for their behavior towards others.  They explode.  In a nutshell, they have great difficulty being vulnerable.   Do I play a part in the situation that leads them to feel upset?  Well, of course I'm sure I do!  But, I do think to a smaller percentage in this situation.  But, if perception is reality and in their minds I'm largely to blame, their communication style doesn't lend itself to mending misunderstanding.  How can I change what I don't know to change?  That is what I don't know what to do with.  This is where I'm tested in my faith and beliefs.  How do I walk peacefully and communicate with gentleness and love when I'm being criticized and judged and neither of them seem amenable to working through the situation?  I think that is why we're in this situation again...  because each prior mishap is not resolved and they harbor resentment.  They don't to the core of the situations, don't let me know what they need, but instead focus on incidents that are only symptoms of the real upset.

"Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God;  and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

 Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things. The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you." Philippians 5:5-9

Let my gentleness be known to all?  This is so difficult as I feel treated poorly, but I know that's why we're told to do this.  Why would we need instruction to treat people gently when we are not struggling with them?   I have a desire to talk to these people and tell them my side and my truth because they won't allow me.  I have a desire for them to communicate in my way.  This is about control.  This is me wanting to lead the situation on my terms and seek relief.  This is me seeking to change who they are.  I can't change them... only God can.  A gentle heart in myself doesn't come about through my will and I certainly can't will someone elses heart to soften.  So, my challenge comes in the face of being hurt, criticized and misunderstood.  It comes from their lack of understanding of what grief does to a person.  It comes from them having no idea what Amy and I went through the last 2 1/2 years of her life... the physical and emotional pain, isolation, stress, worry, fear and depression.  They have no idea what has complicated my grief this last year since her passing.  But, it is still my job to treat them with gentleness and I am not to return their behaviors with like behaviors.  I am not to deal with the situation by puffing myself up and making it all about how they are flawed.  I already expressed gently the fact I cared for them.  I expressed being sorry if I hurt them unintentionally.  I handled the interaction pretty well I think.  I now have to guard myself against sadness and feeling misunderstood, mistreated and a bit abandoned when I am just now making attempts to reconnect with friends and give more.  I have to guard myself against being rendered inert by depression.  I have to remember how God defines me... as beloved.  I have to continue seeking connection regardless if people have an understanding of what I've been through.  I have to meditate on what is good and seek the peace and comfort of God that surpasses my understanding. 

A Power Greater than Myself

The second step in the 12 steps reads, "I come to believe that a power greater than myself can restore me to sanity".  Do I have a problem accepting there is a power greater than myself?  No!  But... while I have never doubted the existence of God, I have spent the majority of my life believing God was largely "absent" from the world.  Removed in a sense.  That He created and then looked upon His creation as we chose to live well or not well.  This fit in very nicely with my idea of self sufficiency and how I had learned to move about in the world.  Although I'm not fighting an addiction, any person believing in God who loses a loved one and falls into grief is faced with having to struggle with the first 3 steps in the 12 step program.  So, here I am on my knees almost a year after losing Amy realizing that my own efforts to take care of myself, heal myself and fix my emotional state have just made matters worse.  I got desperate.  I guess one could say I hit my "emotional bottom in grief".  I cried uncle.  I may have been complaining for months about the God not working for me or not showing up for Him.  I may have prided myself on my patience for God, but the whole while I have prevented God from working for me, not allowed him room to work and He has been patiently waiting for me.

This has been a complete shift in how I relate to and think about God.  My theology has shifted significantly and I trust it's a real shift as it's coming from experience and not abstract ideas or nicely thought up constructions.  It's also biblical. God is becoming personal.  I'm getting to know God and understanding my dependence on Him and my severe human limitations.  It's humbling.  It's frightening, but as I slowly let go and accept this, it's also comforting.  As I've mentioned before, during this lent, I am practicing to "let go" and surrender.  And, a significant wedge between me and God is myself.  I am attempting to fall into God's truth by letting go of self reliance.  It's a messy project and I'm sure my attempts aren't too graceful in God's eyes but I am certain He loves my attempts.  It's the irony of "trying to not try".  Every time I get scared, wake up or start to become depressed, am filled with loneliness, am gripped with fear, or find myself sitting with apprehension I try and get out of my head where my ideas want to plan the way out and breathe into God.  I, at that point, try and rest my thoughts and my mind on God and remind myself that my peace and comfort don't depend on the circumstances of my life, but rest in God's grace, promise and the possibility of peace and comfort while I am faced with difficulties in life.  Trials in life with come and go, but God remains consistent.  Which will I choose to focus on for stability?  Circumstances are tied to "self" and self-will as I will forever be in a struggle to control.  God is linked to nothing and everything... He is timeless, forever present and never changing.  With God, I'm not in control and simply need to learn to let go.  I need to learn that so often my methods are faulty and the solution is simply a matter of surrendering to the ways of God even if I don't know understand them and feel terrible.  My emotions may lead me to want an immediate release from my situation, but that will usually get me into trouble.  I am trying to let God take me out of my feelings and circumstances the way He intends.  So, far it's helping.  In just a few weeks, I'm doing much better than I've done in 11 months with me at the helm. 

How else but through a broken heart may Lord Christ enter into it?

"How else but through a broken heart may Lord Christ enter into it?" - Oscar Wilde

I miss her.  She was my salve for daily sores.  Even while ill, she comforted me.  Just her presence was a security.  I miss her humor, smile, gentle presence, strength, and impeccable character.  I miss having my best friend to speak with whose integrity I could always depend on to guide me if I was confused about a situation.  I miss my best friend who would talk me down from my trees.  I miss her calming presence.  She could make the toughest situation feel doable.   I miss having that person in my life whom I trust completely... who would never lie to me, deceive me, or abandon me.  She was my rock.  But, she did abandon me at no fault of her own.  I found out just how human she was.  Her body gave out despite her fighting so hard.  All that I loved and depended upon vanished with one last strained and quickened attempt to breathe.  It was so surreal... she was instantly "gone".  How would I ever have guessed that the beautiful, striking, glowing, strong, radiant and charismatic woman I saw would through a door 10 years prior would be laying in bed a shell of her former self taking her last breath in such a compromised, weakened state. 

There will never be another Amy in my life.  Yes, everyone was unique, but Amy was an outlier far from the bell curve.  And, everyone who knew Amy agreed.  She was one of a kind.  I am so grateful to have been with her for close to 10 years.  So blessed to have that kind of love in my life.  Real love.  I don't think most people ever get to experience the type of love that feels so safe, exhilarating, secure and healing.  I was always excited to go home to see her.  We had fun when she felt well.

I try and foster gratitude but I'm also trying to acknowledge all I went through.  And, as the Psalm above illustrates, the grief and experience I endured have caused my "eyes to grow weak"... the sorrow has prevented me from seeing joy or hope.  The sorrow has altered the lens through which I see everything. My vision is faulty.  My soul and body have likewise grown weak and tired.  I feel spent and exhausted a great deal of the time.  I feel older and slower.  The sprite and energy which I always had are absent.  I had looked to Amy for many years as my source.  She was my everything.  God was always in our relationship, but Amy was tangible, flesh and blood and a joy.  I am now forced to look for and to God.  I am in a situation where I realize I cannot heal myself.  No person can heal me, and if they could I understand their fallibility as they can be so swiftly taken from this life.  I'm powerless against this grief and my own ineffective ways are dominating.  I am trying very hard to lean on God, surrender to God and listen for His direction.  It's very difficult to let go of myself during this time.  Hard to fall into God's arms when I'm not sure where they are.  For many, the voice of God seems silent during grief.  Part of me knows this trial and hardship is not in vain... there is an amazing opportunity for me to know God better and establish in life a source which will not abandon me.  I will see Amy again and I have confidence she sees me through her perfected lens of peace, health and the joy of God whose arms she rests.

 "Be merciful to me, LORD, for I am in distress; my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and body with grief.  My life is consumed by anguish and my years by groaning; my strength fails because of my affliction, and my bones grow weak."

I did what?

It's becoming more clear lately how I have completely lost myself over the past several months, possibly several years.  Amy was terribly ill for 2 1/2 years and it's been almost a year since she has passed.  Since her passing, my confusion and grief has been overwhelming and I've been grasping at anything I thought could bring me a bit of relief and validation.  Anything which led me to somehow feel connected to something other than what I had just gone through and the state of feeling utterly lost, and in many respects, abandoned.  This led to a lot of avoidance and unhealthy behaviors.

Amy's cancer turned a serious corner overnight while she was visiting her mother in Arkansas.  Her staunch Southern Baptist mother who despised me and the "sin" she thought I brought to her daughter was more concerned about the "nature of our relationship" than she was the fact her daughter was in grave condition.  Amy's family essentially thought she was going to die and Amy was weak and ineffective.  They tried to bar me from seeing Amy.  Here I was in Arkansas in a terribly time sensitive situation knowing that Amy would decline if she didn't return to the hospital where there was more sophisticated treatment options but she was too weak to travel.  Typical of Amy, she had a burst of strength and will which gave me a window to fly her back to San Diego.  This hospitalization resulted in us having to move almost immediately from our home in the desert almost 3 hours away to where she could receive medical care in San Diego.  My parents' home was in escrow so we could only have a short stay there.  We had no place to live and I found myself back in San Diego with no business since I had moved and grown my business up in the desert.  I had to find a foster place for all our animals as well including chickens and a horse.  So, I'm placed in a situation where we have no home, I have little income, spinal tumors are growing in Amy's back and the pain is becoming unmanageable.  I'm having to continue paying mortgage on the desert home but I somehow orchestrate using it successfully as a vacation rental for almost a year until it became unfeasible as an absentee owner.  I then had to swallow my pride and short sale our home that we had put so much time and effort into and where so many memories were built.

Meanwhile, my parents are moving because my father is declining physically and mentally.  We move out of their home since it went into escrow and attempt to stay with a friend in their RV but it's too isolated and my commute to work is almost an hour.  So, we stay with another friend for 3 months.  What a wonderful friend.  Amy had to have radiation on her spine during this transition cause the tumors were growing and morphine couldn't control the pain.  She is thin, weak and previously was hospitalized in ICU for a pericardial effusion after the Arkansas hospitalization.  We are running out of treatment options also.  I'm constantly thinking about the plan for treatment, trying to grow my business, manage the house in the desert, and always worried about Amy's emotional and physical well-being.  The anxiety and overwhelm is simply indescribable.  I didn't realize it when I was in it.  As a caregiver for someone you love, you just do it.  When I think back to that situation I get knots in my stomach.  I lived that way for more than 2 years. 

We get an offer to house sit a wonderful home for 3 months and leave my friend's home where we were staying.  This was a nice break.  Amy is undergoing a different treatment and she has significant side effects but the cancer is not growing.  She is far from herself.  She never feels well any more.  She can't exercise.  She is sad and I am terrified most of the time.  But, we make do.  We find pleasure and joy in simple things like a hot tub and watching a TV program together.  We continue to laugh and appreciate one another.  People are largely absent as they think "everything is fine".  After all, Amy had been fighting melanoma for about 7 years at this point.  They had no idea what we were going through.

Our house sitting is coming to an end and we need a place to live.  My business is a bit better, but not great.  Money is so so tight.  I find a trailer on a 83 ranch about 45 minutes from San Diego that we can rent.  Amy loves the ranch.  We take it.  The hoops I had to jump through for the short sale are mostly complete and I'm just waiting to hear on that.  Our dogs, horse and chickens can return to us.  We move in.  Shortly after that, Amy starts to worsen.  She starts to fall... her legs are getting weak and giving out at times.  We get the dreaded news... "your tumors are growing in your spine".  If memory serves me correctly, we tried another treatment that had worked in the past... an infusion treatment over the course of 3 months.  It didn't work.  By then, Amy is getting really bad.  I can't remember when she had radiation but she had it twice on her back.  I can't remember a lot of details.  I do know that while at the ranch my father was put on hospice and we helped care for him at my parents' home and my father passed away.  Amy, who was struggling with cancer, helped care for my dad.  That was just like her.  He passed in September, 2012.  It was right after Christmas that year when things declined ever more.  The tumors were causing pain that couldn't be controlled, her weight was at an all time low and she was in a wheelchair because the tumors had compressed the nerves so badly.  I did research and found a clinical trial out of UCLA.  We got her in and started somehow despite all the medical hoops which had to be jumped through.  The trial decreased the size of the tumors for about a year, but she never got very good use of her legs, walked with a limp, had digestion and elimination problems, significant numbing and pain from from severe neuropathy.  During the trial, I knew we had to get closer to support so we again moved... this time into our own home near my mother and brother.  Amy loved the house.  We found ourselves around wonderful neighbors.  We had "peace in our valley" as Amy would always describe a quiet, secure feeling piece of land in which you find yourself. 

The clinical trial stopped working in January, 2014.  The tumors were again growing in her spine.  We found out it metastisized to her liver.  I won't describe the rest.  The journey we went through cannot be put into words.  It was horrendous.  I don't know how Amy fought like she did.  I don't know how I did it.  I don't know how I held up as well as I did.  No wonder I am having such a hard time.  I really didn't sit to reflect what all I had gone through until recently... and it's almost a year since she passed.  I have not taken the time to heal, reflect, soothe myself and as God for healing.  There is a lot to repair, restore and make better.  It's going to take time. 

Getting Lost

Knowing how to grieve is difficult for me.  Letting go is harder.  The two are intrinsically linked, I know.  I've always gravitated and held on to formulas... grades... processes fashioned from precise steps.  I'm too often observing myself from above critiquing whether I'm performing appropriately.  As a consequence, I miss the experience.  I'm detached and removed.  A spectator observing not even a sport, but a vacuum.

"God, the relationship I had with my loved one was one-of-a-kind.  when I worry that I'm not grieving the right way, help me understand that I don't need to be anyone but the person You created me to be."

Operating and acting in that void feels beyond uncomfortable.  Saying I feel scared and disoriented in it is an understatement.  Saying I don't trust a process where there is no outline and performance check is mildly put.  The irony is that removing judgment and protocol from my action feels pointless yet there is a deeper understanding which knows the transformation happens right there.  In my heart of hearts, I know God speaks in that void where I've given up relying on all things constructed by me.  God is that "still, small voice".  God moves in the space where I let go of myself, my certainty, my formulas and outlines.  God will work on me when I stop working on myself.  I have to be willing to feel lost, confused and disoriented.  I have to surrender to a state which forces me to rely on Him as a consequence of having given up relying on myself.  I know I need to be willing to feel utterly alone and release the attachments to which I feel safe holding.  Surrendering attractions, distractions and rote memories that all serve to separate me from God.  Of this, I have an understanding.  Of how, I'm unsure.  And, I suppose that's the point.

Free falling

Letting go of control is admitting I’m not the best person for the job.  It’s an admission of needing help.  It's terribly humbling as well as frightening. Ugh.

I get antsy when I start to feel a little relief.  I have had a few “decent” days lately and have a tendency  to move upstairs into my head and formalize it… “figure out” what has led to it and crystallize it.  It’s hard for me to live in uncertainty.  Certainty leads me to believing I’m in control.  I feel a sense of temporary relief because I believe I’m at the helm.  If I know what led to something, I can keep it in place.  Well, how many times has that worked?  None when it comes to my inner emotional world.  It’s only moved me further away from where I need to be… which is in a space of uncertainty and reliance on God.

It’s hard for me to step away from the role of leader.  I’ve never had any real practice relying on others to large degrees except for Amy.  I see something, I want it, I figure out a way to get it and I usually succeed.  Surrendering control to God is the hardest thing which I’ve faced.  Not only surrendering to Him when I feel bad, but even when I feel better.  Knowing that in ALL circumstances it must be He I look to for guidance.  I have to move forward careful to not try and usurp control.  Because He will let me have the wheel anytime I choose.  Circumstances are often happenstance, but the movement through the circumstances is where I either allow God to speak or I silence Him.  The response to circumstance is where either grace exists or greed as an expression of my will.  God is the still, small voice I’m pretty sure.  My efforts silence God.  

God has given me free will to learn, respond or fall.  It’s my choice whether I invite Him to lead, or whether I push Him aside.  Inviting Him in is hard… the pain, anxiety, depression, grief and loneliness attempt to hide His light as they coax me to tighten the grip and take the lead.  I have a choice.  I can attempt surrender and look to Him for guidance and direction or I can continue relying on my own broken efforts and understanding.  Intuitively, I know I must make humble efforts to strip myself of the beliefs, behaviors, defenses and patterns which propel me to take charge and to which I’m habituated.  Intuitively, I know it's necessary to make an effort to repent, surrender and submit to hearing His voice… trusting He will lead me safely through this wilderness.  Trusting He will care for me and not lead me astray.  It’s important I remember that God’s love for me in not reflected in my circumstances.  Instead, I believe God’s love and presence may or may not be known depending upon my response to Him in the midst of my circumstances.  It’s the irony of letting go when I am faced with hardship that produces a stronger relationship with Christ.  That, I believe, is most likely the “peace that surpasses all understanding”. The choice to feel the love of God and hear His plan for my life lies in my choice to respond to Him with either certainty or surrender.   It’s having enough trust in God to surrender my lead.   It’s having faith I can only understand his love, presence and will for my life if I give up the leadership position, and listen for His voice in the wilderness of my fears and grief.  It’s having faith that surrendering and letting go will bring me to a much better place than I can produce myself.  Being bold enough to have a little hope in a sea of  overwhelming circumstance. 

Losing pain through feeling pain

Here it is Shrove Tuesday and tomorrow lent begins. How appropriate. It's almost been a year since she has been gone. And, i've increasingly become worse. I'm wondering if depression is replacing the grief. I'm not able to distinguish one from the other. At times I feel I will never return to the sharp, confident, energetic and hopeful soul I used to be. It feels as if this blanket of grief has cloaked me with a heavy layer too burdensome to remove. But, this last week I've been having a mild shift. I suppose the change came about because the pain became too great. My behaviors almost became unrecognizable when held against the person I knew myself to be. I had attached myself too tightly to a couple of people I unknowingly hoped would take away my pain. I was, without understanding, looking to them to remove my pain and grief and simultaneously replace an attachment reserved for my most intimate relationship which is gone.

 With this wake-up and finding myself feeling utterly alone and not able to lean false replacements of intimacy, I had to make a decision. I intuitively knew I was at a crossroads and there was a lot at stake. There still is. I've barely moved from where I was just a week ago. I came to understand how I have put God aside during my attempt to heal and have been relying on myself and my own ideas as a way around grief. I have used my intellect, my denial and other people as a means to beat grief and God has been pushed aside. I didn't realize God had been pushed aside but sometimes God lets you know your ways aren't working by letting you suffer the consequences of your own actions. He has always been here. He has not left me. I simply chose to bypass Him and rely on my own methods and understanding. No wonder I haven't heard Him nor felt Him. I had moved away from Him. I thought I was exercising a patience with God, when I think the whole time God was being patient with me.

My idols. My distractions. the fist is my intellect... I can so easily escape pain, fear, grief and loneliness by moving upstairs in my head and coming up with some idea, construct, plan or scenario that gives me some form of relief, even if only temporary. It becomes an endless game of mental constructs to extinguish the latest pain that arises and as soon as I get relief I'm having to perform the same task again as it arises fresh in a new form. It is easy to live in my head. But, terribly exhausting. I was basically brought down to my knees this last week and had to take a hard look that my cognitive attempts were doing no good. In fact, they were harming me. The second method I use to avoid is denial. Yes, I know my partner is gone from this world, but I have made my home and my memories a catacomb of sorts. So many behaviors reminding me of what we had and using those memories to gleam some reminiscent feeling from a past no longer present. Refusing to feel the reality of loss, I continue to use the past as a way to live fictionally in a world in which I no longer know how to live. Thirdly, I have used people as a method of distraction. I have attached myself rigidly to a one person in particular to whom I developed an emotional attraction. I was looking to her to feel loved, cared about and taken care of. I looked to her as a way to feel connected. I used her as a means to avoid the reality that I was and am alone. I avoided the grief but increasingly became discontent and depressed. I eventually pushed her away as there was an anxiety in me always knowing the edge was close. Even in the midst of my desperate behavior, I knew it wasn't real.

So, God let me fumble around misguided and alone. He let me call out for Him while looking right past Him towards others. He let me do it my way. He stayed firm and steady. I can't say what shifted, but one day it came to me. I realized, "I'm not leaning on God to get through this... I'm leaning on my own will". I understood very quickly that the pain I have to let go of is the very pain I have to embrace. I know the fears I have to move through are the fears I have to feel. But, the biggest insight I have is that during my pain, loneliness, fear and anxiety I have to go to Him for relief... not rely on my mind, my past or other people. It's clear to me that surrendering to Him will get me through this. Yes, I need community and support, but they need to be ancillary. My main guide, main support, and main rest must be God.

So, as tomorrow brings forth lent, I will be attempting to give up these idols and distractions. I will attempt to let God do the work and surrender to Him as my guide and healer. I will attempt to get out of God's way. So, whenever the pains of grief hit, and they are so very constant, it will be my reminder to let go, breathe deep and say a short prayer and ask Him to help. I'll try and step back to make room for Him. The pain will be a reminder for me to be very conscious of not letting my mind fix on the distractions that simply lead me astray or numb me. I will do my best to just sit in the pain and invite God in. To let Him do the work He needs to do and let Him show me how to heal, where to proceed and who I will be. As my pastor says, it's not about the destination, but about the journey. I cannot let my walk be dependent upon knowing where I'm going. I have to have faith in God that He will take me where I need to go. My faith can't be dependent upon circumstances or feeling. So, wish me luck as I embark on a very different way of relating tomorrow.