Job Well Done

Dec. 21, 2012

Sitting here in the midst of my pity party (party of 1) with a pup by my side growling and woofing at me to get her dinner (when there is a houseful of other people who aren’t busy), I strain to make some sort of sense of what has been going on lately.  It’s overly dramatic to say I feel a bit like Job, especially when blistery, itchy, yucky bumps (Kelsey said, “they look like a ton of fire ant bites”) started coming up on my arms, hands, legs, and feet a couple of days ago, but I have to admit I’m sick of it all.  I don’t want to get into listing all the things because I am trying not to focus too much on the specifics, plus, not all of it is something I want to be public knowledge.  The short answer is that there simply is no sense in it all and I am forced to trust God and His greater plan.  So, in lieu of an answer that really makes me feel better, I’m trying my hardest to reflect on things that are upbeat, positive, and make me feel good.

I finished up a busy semester of teaching three classes at DBU.  In addition to teaching in the classroom, I invariably get to know a few of the students through emails or sitting and chatting after class.  I got one of the coolest comments from one of them this semester.  She saw me in the Patriot café on campus and came over and sat down and said, “I just wanted to tell you that I love our class and you are in the top three of my favorite professors in college.”  It’s stunning to hear that.  We talked more and she said that she is always so shy that she doesn’t like to talk in class but that in my class she always felt safe to speak.  She attributed it to my being a counselor and knowing how to create a safe environment for sharing.

At another time, a student came up to me in class during a test to ask a question about something on the test.  I replied, “Well, what do you think?”  She said, “Are you doing counseling on me right now?”  I burst out laughing right there in the middle of the test.  It made my day.

Another favorite comment I received this past year came from a client.  He told my boss, who had seen him and noted that he was doing better, that “When I started coming to Audra, I was spiritually and emotionally constipated.  Audra was my bran muffin.”  HAHAHA  High praise indeed!!

There is no doubt that it has been a tough year, especially the last few months.  Disappointingly, I have allowed it to negatively affect my mood and attitude.  I have focused more on the negative than on God’s blessings which are many.  I am blessed with an incredible support system that has not ever even come close to letting me down.  I am blessed with a husband who loves me like none other, even when I have my meltdowns.  I work in a counseling center that is so great I don’t feel like I’m going to work.  I teach which blesses me in hanging out with the students and keeping my skills honed.  And, I am blessed to write which helps me process the crud that goes through my mind and always helps me feel better.  And, of course, there are my kids.

I admit I have a bit of Job’s wife in me.  She advised Job to just curse God and renounce his faith.  Be done with it.  I’ll be honest, I have cursed God.  But I refuse to renounce my faith.  So, beyond all other blessings, I am blessed to have a God who will take it from me, who wants it from me, and who can look beyond the anger and see the hurt, the pain, the disappointment, and the frustration……and see my love for Him.

Dreams Come True

Dec. 13, 2012

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had dreams – things I want to experience, things I want to accomplish, places I want to go, and even things I want to have.  I think dreaming is so important in life because it reminds you what is possible.  I’m not sure if I totally go along with the adage, “If you can dream it, then you can get it.”  But, the converse is absolutely true, “If you don’t dream it, you won’t attain it.”  Because, without the dream, how do you make a goal and a plan to reach it?

Last weekend, I was honored to witness a dream come true.  My beloved Rachel married her dream man.  So many prayers were lifted for this day to come.  She stayed faithful and so did God.  I’ve never seen her look more radiant.  I have no doubt that she and Quenton have many dreams for their new life together.

In a conversation at the wedding reception, someone so wisely said that you have to feed your dreams to keep them alive.  Feed them by taking steps toward that goal.  Sometimes, they are just little steps that keep the desire alive.  In applying this to me, I realized that in some ways I am doing this already.  I have a dream to take an anniversary trip to an all-inclusive resort somewhere in the tropics in the next couple of years.  I’ve started selling my lace painting again to help fund the trip but it also feeds the dream.  Every time I complete a project, I know I am one step closer to that resort.

One of my lifelong dreams, well actually for almost as long as I’ve been a mother (I was saved when I was pregnant with Kelsey), was for my kids to have a close walk with our Lord and Savior.  I don’t ever want them to experience the desert in isolation like I have.  I want them to know not just the joy of a rock solid faith, but also the contentment that such a faith provides.  I want them to know that they have a constant companion who loves them no matter what, who loves them simply because they are.  I want them to have that solid sense of self-worth and confidence that only comes when you truly grasp that love and know the cost of that love.  I want them to know with every fiber of their being that they are good enough simply because God created them and bought them with the blood of Jesus Christ.  A wise, old soul in a very young body once said to me, “I want to be so wrapped up in Christ that any man who wants to pursue me, must pursue God.”  I want my kids to be that wrapped up.

How do I feed my dream into someone else?  The obvious first answer is prayer.  That is a given.  The next obvious answer is by my example.  Living and simply being according to my faith sets an example to my kids.  Yesterday and today, I failed.  I allowed my usual Christmas “bad-itude,” which feels like it is on steroids this year, win.  I say this now not to excuse it but rather to expose it to the Light.  Otherwise, darkness continues to grow.  Dreams, especially this dream, grow in the Light.

A Glimpse of the Other Side

Nov. 27, 2012

I cried in session today.  It doesn’t happen often but today as I heard the recounting of a God-moment my heart was touched to a point of tears.  Obviously, for confidentiality reasons, I cannot go into the details of this story.  This, by the way, is one of the downsides of being a counselor.  I see and hear so many cool things and I can’t really talk about it.  I will tell a tiny part, just barely enough for you to get the gist.  I heard a story of evil and its subsequent tragedy thrust upon a family to such a magnitude that you could never even anticipate or imagine such a thing.  Hearing the story was heart wrenching.  But, hearing the God-moment was heart inspiring.

Over the past couple of weeks, a theme of heaven has been running through my counseling sessions.  Questions such as “Will I know or recognize my loved ones in heaven?” and “Is there awareness between here and heaven?” have been asked of me more than once.  I don’t think the bible answers these questions.  So, we are left to surmise what we can based on our knowledge of God and his character, the few things we can draw on scripturally, and personal experience.  I’ve always had an interest in near-death experiences and within the last year I’ve read a couple of books that were interesting on that subject.  I whole-heartedly recommend reading Heaven Is For Real which recounts little Colton Burpo’s story of visiting heaven.  Proof of Heaven is another interesting read because it adds an extra twist: the author went to hell first.  Yes, there are contradictions from book to book and there are theology differences, too.  But, there are common threads woven through the stories as well.

When I hear a grieving mother tell me she prayed for God to give her a glimpse of the other side so that she can know her daughter is okay, my first thought was “That’s a cool prayer.  I don’t think I would have ever thought to ask that.”  When God answered her and said, “She is closer to me than she has ever been,” I got chills…and tears.  She is in heaven, right there with God.  You can’t be any closer. 

It’s comforting to have the assurance that your loved one is in heaven communing with God.  It’s a thought that could make you long for heaven.  Until today, though, I’d never taken this to a point that says, “If I commune with God through worship and prayer, and the departed commune with God through worship and heavenly presence, then, aren’t we also, in that moment of worship, all communing together?”  If everyone and every being in heaven praises God and we, here on Earth, are worshipping too, then doesn’t that bring a closeness between us and the ones who have departed and are now in heaven?  If being in heaven means I get to commune with God, then am I not in a form of heaven when I worship and commune with Him now?

To wrap it up, today while driving the three different times I drove today, I heard three times the song, “Your Presence is Heaven to Me.”  God certainly has a way of adding the bow to the wrapped gift.

 

You Just Never Know...

Nov. 8, 2012

On Tuesdays, I teach two classes at DBU.  I have one student who is in both classes.  This past Tuesday after my first class, she walked and drove with me to the International building where I teach the second class.  I love interacting with students like this.  She explained to me that she also works in the International building and as we walked in together, the International students (Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese, etc.) all knew her and greeted her.  After one young lady hugged my student, I looked at her and we both recognized each other at that moment.

A year ago last August and one week into the semester, I was walking out to my car after teaching my class.  There is a secluded place along the sidewalk that has a couple of benches and tall shrubs around.  When I passed the benches I noticed a young Asian girl sobbing all by herself.  I stopped and told her that I couldn’t possibly just keep walking by and I sat down beside her.  She smiled a beautiful smile and had such a gentleness and innocence in her eyes.  Keep in mind that I am horrible with understanding accents and I really get embarrassed when I have to ask a person to constantly repeat what they are saying because I can’t understand them.  So, reaching out to her was easy, understanding her was incredibly difficult.

Through her very broken English, I learned she had just come to America to go to DBU two weeks earlier and she was incredibly alone and regretting her decision.  She felt so lost.  I remember asking her why she decided to come to DBU and she said she had been told that DBU is a place where she could be who she really is.  But, she didn’t know who she really was.  I asked if she had made any friends in the short time she had been here.  She hadn’t.  I encouraged her to spend time at the International building, get to know people, and talk to her advisor.  I asked her if she wanted my number so she could call me and we could meet for lunch the following week.  She walked with me to my car and I got a business card and gave it to her.  As I drove off, I looked back at her and she was standing there hugging her books in one arm and grasping my card in the other and waving good bye to me.  She was smiling.

She never called me and I often wondered what happened to her.  A few months later I saw her in the library and she remembered me and greeted me and gave me a hug and said she was liking DBU.  I hadn’t seen her again until this week when I was walking into the International building.  Her English was remarkably better and she looked genuinely happy.  My student was surprised that we recognized each other and the girl (I still don’t know her name!) told my student, “Without her (pointing at me), I wouldn’t be here today.  She’s the reason I stayed.”

Geez Louise!  What do you say to that?  Like a dork I said, “Really??!!”  She just beamed.  Pretty cool.  It just goes to show that you can never be sure how you are impacting someone.  You may never know.  But, we don’t have to know.  The importance lies in our walk with God and how we demonstrate that to others.

Looking For Healing (in all the wrong places?)

Nov. 7, 2012

Over the last two and a half years, I’ve prayed for healing.  I’ve prayed for it like I never have before.  It’s a prayer that honestly, at this point, feels discouraging.  Yet, I pray.  I pray because I need that connection to God.  I pray because I recognize He is the one in control, especially when I feel like I have absolutely no control in this at all.  I pray because I know so many other people are praying and it motivates me to continue.  I pray because I am instructed to (“Is anyone among you suffering?  Then he must pray.” James 4:13).  Actually, it is really a command to pray.  So, I pray.

I’ve not seen healing.  Kelsey still struggles.  It’s so hard.  There have been times during this time (I hate to call it a “season” as so many people do because, to me, it romanticizes it.  It tries to make it seem better than what it is.) that I have felt spiritually strong, emotionally strong, spiritually weak, and emotionally weak.  I’ve also had my times of anger.  Now is one of those times.  I HATE that this is happening.  I find no rhyme or reason to it.  It feels so senseless.  And these things fuel an anger in me that makes me want to pound something – a lot.

So, to battle it I try so hard to stay more cognitive and less emotion-focused.  Yes, that is the counselor in me.  Plus, I don’t have a punching bag anymore and my ankles can’t handle kickboxing anymore either.  In my effort to stay cognitive, I’ve wondered in times such as these if healing can occur that is something other than the physical healing I’ve been praying for.  If so, what does that healing look like?  Would I or can I be satisfied with that?

My first response to it is to recoil because I hate the idea that God causes things to happen so that we can learn from them.  I just don’t believe He works that way.  The Bible clearly says that God is not the author of chaos.  Certainly He allows consequences from our actions to discipline us but I simply cannot believe that He brings calamity just so I can have a learning opportunity.  I absolutely think, though, that it is our job to learn from all situations.  The greater tragedy would be to learn nothing at all.

My next response comes from Sharon.  When I posed the healing question to her, without hesitation, she said, “yes.”  Six weeks ago, she and her husband Ralph were in a severe and traumatic car crash.  As Ralph continues to recover from his traumatic brain injury, he has changed.  No longer burdened by work stress and with a newfound recognition of the fragility of life, she explained, he is back to “the man I fell in love with.  That is a sort of healing.”

I’m left wondering, if I am to be totally truthful, if I am just searching for some way in which my prayers have been answered in an effort to abate my anger.  I just don’t know.  I understand the point of Sharon’s response.  I had an idea of my answer when I asked her and we agree.  Maybe the healing I see so far is a deepening of my faith.  Never until now did I have to confidence in my faith to express my anger to God.  Never until now did I have the unwavering confidence that God is still with me even when I feel alone.  That is all well and good and I am glad that I can honestly profess these things.  But, if I am being that honest, then I have to admit that I am not satisfied with that healing.  Plus, with that answer, healing becomes about me and not about Kelsey.  So then I am back to square one with my prayers being unanswered … for now.

Divine or Not Divine

Nov. 1, 2012

I’ll be honest.  I’ve had difficulty over the past couple of weeks seeing God’s work in my life.  And yet, when I admit that, I feel guilt.  Is that a true or convicted guilt or is it a false guilt?  False guilt is that guilt you feel when you inappropriately blame yourself or take responsibility for something that is not yours to own.  Convicted guilt is the guilt you feel when you have legitimately done something wrong.  I think it is the Holy Spirit prompting you to right the wrong.

What keeps coming to me on this is that it is a convicted guilt because I must be missing God’s work.  Why would He suddenly stop working in my life?  That makes no sense.  Or, am I seeing His work and attributing it to something “non-divine?”  So many times I have explained to people that God can fulfill all of our needs.  But, how can He fulfill my need for touch?  How can He fulfill my need for person-to-person companionship or comfort?  Through other people.  God uses people to minister to other people to fulfill those needs.  He uses people to administer His blessings, too.

I recognize this and believe it fully.  I know that my sisters (biological, chosen, and in Christ) are delivery systems for God’s comfort during this time of pain, unanswered questions, uncertainty in medical decisions, and illness.  When Lisa listens so intently to me when I talk about this struggle, it is so comforting not just because she cares but because I know she is listening to discern exactly what to pray for.  Having great belly laughs with them lifts my spirit.  Knowing they are praying earnestly for all of us because they love us props me up.  Seeing them get emotional with me lets me know I am not alone in this journey.

Additionally, if I refuse blessings or gifts offered to me and my family, I am refusing the opportunity for God to bless me through these people.  This one is so hard to accept.  When we found out that we were going to Mayo in Minnesota, so many people offered us either money or airline flights for the trip.  People that I rarely even talk to came forth in this.  I turned them all down.  Then my sister found my soft spot: she paid for a deep clean house cleaning.  She knew that I neither had the energy or the time to do my own housework.  What she didn’t know is that my usual cleaning goddess was out of state to care for her sick sister and couldn’t clean my house.  But, God knew that.  It’s harder to accept the “bigger ticket” things because we are not in the poor house.  Pride is also a factor.  So much so, that in even discussing this, I feel like I have a hand out asking for something.  What I need to work hard to remember is that God can well be using these people to bless us.  Someone else, out of the blue, approached me and offered us her ranch house for a weekend.  She didn’t say why.  She just did it.  I know why.

So, when I come back around to my original statement of not seeing God’s work lately in my life, I think it comes from a place of timidity.  I hesitate in saying that this is always God’s handiwork.  Why is that?  Why do I resist the idea that God would consistently work this way in my life?  Or maybe I am just scared of you getting tired of hearing the same thing over and over again.  I’ve talked several times already about how God has ministered to me through other people.  So, there is the guilt.  It stems from a refusal or hesitancy to openly, consistently, and gloriously proclaim God’s blessings as indeed divine.  I’m caring more about what you think than what God thinks.

It is time to repent!  My dear family, sisters, prayer warriors, and friends, you have most assuredly been used!  God uses you to minister to and to bless me and my family through your continuous, thoughtful, and specific prayers.  God uses you to generously bless us emotionally, spiritually, and materially and in ways I never thought of.  God uses you to teach me humility.  God uses you to show me his lovingkindness and steadfast faithfulness.  Thank you.

Write On!

Oct. 26, 2012

I started writing this blog for one reason: to remind me to look for God’s presence in my life regularly, if not daily.  I need this reminder because that process isn’t natural for me.  Historically, I’ve been one to feel so distant from God during times of struggle.  Or, to be more accurate, God always felt far from me during those times.  But, I recognize the old saying is true: “If you feel far from God, who moved?”  God is ever-present so if He truly is everywhere all the time, then how can He move away from me?  So, of course, that leaves the migration to me.  To combat this feeling that is actually a lie, I look to see how God is with me.  When I see Him, I can feel Him.  He is tangible.

I’ve realized a few great side benefits to my writing.  First, it makes me take a little time to do something that is just for me.  It is a time that feeds me intellectually.  There have been many times that I gain a new insight about myself, my situation, my faith, or whatever during the process of writing.  It is a time of personal growth.

There is something different about going a step further and writing about seeing God working rather than just making a mental note of it.  It’s going deeper still (high 5 Bible study sisters!).  Writing not only feeds me intellectually, it feeds me spiritually.  When I see God work in my life, it is rock solid proof that He loves me.  God is outside of time.  Time is an earthly concept that is tied only to the Earth’s revolution, both of itself and of its part in the solar system revolving around the sun.  But God is not bound to just Earth; God is everywhere.  So, because God is outside of time, then He sees all time at once.  He sees past, present, and future all laid out before Him.  So, if you think about it, God sees all that ever was and all that is and all that ever will be at the same time.  And, in all of that, He sees little, tiny, SIGNIFICANT me.  I know I am significant because in all that He sees, past, present, and future, He works in my life and makes Himself known to me.  That concept alone feeds my spirit.

Finally, writing has become my therapy.  There have been times when I couldn’t sleep or times when I just needed to express what was on my heart.  Sitting down and writing calmed me.  Other times, it has served as a form of “talking myself into it” when I needed to hear that God was still here with me and that He cared.  Writing is also a sort of self-validation because there are certainly times when I re-read certain posts because I need to hear it again.  I need to remind myself.

So, my little jaunt into the blog-o-sphere has served me well.  I never thought this would be so fruitful for me.  I’ve grown personally, my faith has deepened and solidified, and I’ve even heard that others are enriched by it too.  A great win-win!