On my Tail

Dear Reader,

I beg your forgiveness for the lack of fodder for you to read!  If you’ve ever taken one of those “stress” tests (or evaluation) you might recall all the lists of antagonists to the stress you may under…like “have you had a recent move,” “job change,” “ recent death in the family…?”  I remember taking one of those when my daughter was about three or four years old, and scored just ten points below the highest score possible.  Not really a contest one should aim to win, but I’m special.  Lately, I realized I’m at just about the same level I was back then, and am much more conscious of the stress today, so as to strategize ways to deal with it more effectively.  Despite my best efforts, though, I still feel like I’m walking up the “down” escalator! 

I think there are lots of you who could sing the same song I do…. “Where have all the minutes gone (to the tune of “Where have all the Flowers Gone”)?  All the juggling leaves me bewildered, and when the dust settles from last storm, I find myself wondering how I could life better.  It’s been a question running around in my head for some time now, and while I was ruminating on this I started to see a recurring theme.  See if you don’t have the same conclusion….

Yesterday, for example, I started the day very early (5:15 AM!) looking for subbing assignments online, and trying to do some online training simultaneously for an organization I volunteer for.  Click “refresh” for the first screen.  Wait to see if anything comes up for two school districts.  Nothing.  Click “refresh” for the other school district.  Nothing.  Click again for the first screen, then the second.  Nothing.  Click on the training site.  Read legal ease for Department of State regulations on Secondary School Exchanges. ( Yawn)  Click school sites again.  Check phone to see if the ringer is on.  Continue online reading.  Take the test...and fail it.  Note to self: learn new information for the purpose of retention and evaluation only after chocolate intake and enough sleep!  Don’t forget dinner for six tonight, with dessert.  Maybe I should bake the cake now.   It’s 5:45AM.  Put roast in the crock pot.  Go back to searching for a job.

My morning goes like this until I give up and go back to bed for an hour-and-a-half.  I decide I would use the remainder of the day to get as many chores done as possible, and maybe, just maybe I’ll have time to write!   Yeah.   I should have gone back to studying the State Department info instead. 

Ever have one of those days when you feel like the devil’s on your tail?  The phrase makes me think of time I was in high school, trying to climb a set of stairs in a sea of people, and no matter what, I kept tripping.   In exasperation I looked back to see my twin brother (about 6’4” at the time) grinning from ear to ear, because he’d been simply reaching out to grab my ankle at intervals…just to see if I would catch him!  I was minding my own business, completely unaware of him being there, but he decided to keep me from climbing those stairs, just because he could.  I think the devil is that way too.  We make the decision to become more Christ-like, and that’s when the devil gets his antennae up. 

Anyway, I’m so psyched about our abnormally warm weather that I take my dogs for a nice long walk, and notice on the way back home, coming into the driveway, a bunch of white bits in the street… right next to the car of our “adopted” hockey son, who’s left it parked in front of our house while going home to see his mom and dad for spring break…and now it has egg all over the side!  So, instead of going to mop the kitchen after our walk, my daughter and I try like crazy to scrub the dried mess off.   No key to move it if the “eggers” coma back.  Rats!  Then, put away heavy duty, 500 foot hose so it doesn’t kill husband’s beloved grass, and make sure to pull out at least two solar lights on the way through!  I decide maybe it’s safer inside, so I attempt to frost the aforementioned cake, so I could watch the frosting take off the top. (Devil’s Food.  I’m not kidding.) 

A rational person would stop there, grab a coke, and go read a book.  Not me.  I like punishment.  I kept right on going through my list of gotta-do’s until it was time to put the finishing touches on the dinner for six to be delivered to the hospital before 6PM.  Again, I’m just minding my own business, trying to have a servant’s attitude about it all, when just as the alfredo sauce is coming t a boil (very critical timing here), the rest of the meal is packed, and the dogs go berserk!  Three lovely young ladies would like me to partake in their fundraiser (while I’m trying to keep my nutty dogs from chewing through the door to get at them).  Rescue the sauce!  Then the phone rings…..

 Tell me what woman alive has not had this scenario (Ok, one like it) happen to them?  It’s the devil, on our tail, tripping us up, just to see if we’ll catch him.  Are we gonna lose it or remain in control of ourselves?  Are we gonna yell or take a deep breath instead?  What comes out of you when the devil puts the squeeze on?  Half the battle is recognizing that it’s happening.  Then it’s part submission to God’s Holy Spirit (so you don’t slug the rude kid in the mall), and part defense.   I know the next time I see what the devil’s up to, I’m gonna flick him in the nose...and then yank my tail back!

Are You Crazy?!?

Are You Crazy?!?

To those who know me well, they know that I have spent most of my adult years battling depression. As I work toward my goal to becoming a speaker, I have been doing hours of research and “e-learning” thanks to Tina Hollenbeck (http://tinahollenbeck.blogspot.com) and Sheila Wray Gregoire (http://www.sheilawraygregoire.com).  Today, some of my research led me to speaker Joanne Goodwin (http://www.joannegoodwin.ca/home.html) who speaks on depression, and how many Christian women are affected by it.   I love that someone can share so well, a topic that is so painful for so many of us.  I say painful, because unlike those who take medicine for high blood pressure, diabetes, or migraine headaches, if you take medicine for depression, you get scolded by some for being less than spiritually sound.  Believe me when I tell you that I would be the first one to admit that there are definitely spiritual reasons for depression, but there are also clearly physiological ones as well.

As a matter of fact, I had to write my final paper for an Anatomy and Physiology course in Massage School, on the “Anatomy of Depression,” and I don’t think a lot of people know how it works.  I can testify to having run on empty for so many years that I drove myself into depression.  What I didn’t know is that you can die from it. Now I’m not trying to be dramatic. What I mean is that, you can run on “exhausted” for long enough to cause the body to shut itself down, in order to protect the nervous system and its organs.

I’ll put this as simply as possible and leave you, dear reader, to research further if you like. 

The body has a natural “fight or flight” response to anything that the brain might feel is dangerous.  Even in circumstances when the body cannot flee a situation the mind feels is harmful, the body emits adrenaline anyway. In our current world, that environment may be the workplace, home, on the highway, or anywhere we feel “danger” most often.  If you don’t use said adrenaline to “flee,” the body stores it because the body has no way to be burn it off.  If the body is under stress for long enough (i.e. new baby, stressful job, tough marriage, abusive relationships….) and the body continues to build the adrenaline, this causes the chemicals in the liver to get off-kilter, which in turn sends a message to the brain saying this human needs to go “on vacation” with or without a boarding pass.  The human then shows signs that others may or may not notice, or they may simply dismiss the symptoms as attention-getters for the sufferer. 

There’s so much more to it than that, but for those of you who have known someone in clinical depression, you’ve seen that they may have no appetite, may move slowly (or not at all), they may cry a lot (or just stare into space), and they have a difficult time making decisions.  The list is long, and if you are also “blessed” enough to have the oft-accompanying anxiety to go with it, you may have symptoms of unexplained fear, an inability to eat (even if you have the desire to), and the simplest question may put the depressed over the edge.

I suffered my first bout of clinical depression at age 11, after the death of my mom’s best friend, and later after back surgery (a common occurrence in brain and spine surgery patients).  Then, a very close friend of mine went through a horrible time in her life, which required an army of women, from two different churches, to help out.  When the dust settled, the armies had pulled out, there were just three of us standing.  We were exhausted, our families were lonely, and our relationships were frayed.  At the time I was in college full-time, raising my own family, and had a household to run, even when my husband had to be out of town.  Add an asthma attack, requiring steroidal treatment, and the recipe for a nervous breakdown was written.  My heart raced to a point where the doctors feared I would go into tachycardia.  I couldn’t sleep, stop crying, or eat a bite of food.  I also developed an inability to breathe without hunching myself out over my knees. It took so much effort to breathe, that even when I regained my appetite, it was too tiring to eat much.  My five-foot-ten-inch frame plummeted to 128 lbs., a weight I was not able to attain even in the laxative years of ballet dancing.

It’s been nine years since then, even more years than the doctors had originally said my recovery would take, because stressors don’t take a day off, and life happens… If it were not for medical intervention, I might not be here today, but I have learned that depression is an illness, whether it’s spiritually or chemically rooted (or both).  I also know happiness is a choice, and because I am a child of God, I can smile, laugh, and do life, in His power.  It’s just another way we as Christians can defy the world’s view of normal, and glorify His name in the process.

    

Audience of One

Today I’m begging the question of whether or not we should behave as though we have only an "Audience of One."  Recently I heard one of the best sermons ever on how our behavior affects the decision of those around us for or against putting their faith in Christ.  It was very motivating, by being presented in such a way that each and every one of us listening has impact, positive or negative, on the people around us.  The parting challenge given to us was whether or not we would live in such a way that people would see something different in us, or if we would be seen as being like the rest of the world, and cause people to want nothing to do with Christianity.

That left me re-evaluating the phrase I’ve often had to consider when performing.  I first learned it when I was on a worship team in Phoenix, where I learned the importance of “holding talent loosely.” That means that no matter how much time has been spent in rehearsal or how much you have personally invested in a piece of music, a drama, or sketch…that if it was decided that something needed to be suddenly dropped, replaced, or re-scheduled, that it was because whoever is in charge has been led by God to do so. There was to be no whining, tantrums, or pouting.  We were also not to take the decision personally.  Let go and let God kind of thing, you know?

So, that said, where does the idea of us performing for an “Audience of One” (which is God) leave us? I mean, I've also learned that as a Christian, when I'm performing I should be mostly concerned with what God thinks (not necessarily what I think of the performance).  I’m seriously asking for a discussion here.  If we are performers in any way, are we the only ones who should keep this in mind when we’re performing? How are we to make sure to hold our talents loosely and/ or behave everywhere else like we are faith walking and –talking people, but remember we have only and audience of One?  Got any thoughts?

Semper Fi

It has been a while, and I’m way overdue for giving you a story.  I promised in my introduction that I would share “insights” from the journey I’ve been on, but today I’m gonna brag a bit.  I know, Paul says in the “-ians” (you know, Corinth-ians, Ephes-ians, Coloss-ians…) that we should only boast about the Lord, but I think it’s good to brag on our loved-ones once in a while.  In this case, it’ll my husband. 

I was just recently at the dentist, where the front desk ladies were telling me how they had just met my husband a couple of days before, and how nice they thought he was.  When I added that I like him a lot, too, one of the ladies said she found it refreshing that I would say that about my husband… in a day when so few couples stay together.  Oh, they don’t know the half of it!

We were nineteen and twenty when we married in 1990, and I’m sure there were lots of doubters attending our wedding (Who could blame them?).  By today’s standards, that’s really young. We were each used to having different things, but one thing we had in common was our desire to attain unusual goals by working our tails off.   See, I was working to be a professional dancer, and he, an airline pilot.  It’s not often that you meet sixteen-year-old boys who know exactly where they want to go, and what it will take to get there.  He was working in the same restaurant I was, to pay for his ice time (High school hockey can be an expensive habit!) and the fuel he used when flying his father’s airplane.  He had never met an aspiring ballet dancer before, so we became fascinated with each other. We spent lots of late nights and weekends closing down the restaurant together, telling stories, and laying out the plans for our futures.  No one believes me, but when he joined our team (I began working at age 15, and was already 17 when he started) I didn’t like him at all!  He was brash, angry, and had a chip on his shoulder the size of Texas.  Truth be told, I was a little afraid of him. 

It didn’t take long though, after getting to know him, to get to the bottom of the anger and the chip on his shoulder. Besides, it gave us something more to talk about. Because of that, we formed a friendship of mutual respect and admiration, and it wasn’t long before we became a couple.  I was excited to see him become a pilot, and he celebrated my performances with me…even drove me to classes (45 minutes each way!) for a time.  He would patiently wait during class, which lasted an hour and-a-half, and then drive me home, before making his final trek toward his home…another half hour up the road!  Crazy boy!

We got engaged the week of his high school graduation and were married a year-and-a-half later, continued working in the restaurant business, and kept inching toward our dreams.  Being in the throes of youthful bliss, we would have never guessed we would celebrate our first anniversary with one of us in a wheelchair, and a very uncertain future ahead.

Well, I was the one who lifted the overweight bus-tub full of dishes, which made my future aspirations history in seconds.  It took only the distance between my hefting hands to the floor, where I deposited my load, to change everything I knew.  I remember only a feeling of my back muscles twinge like the string of a plucked violin, before a horrible burning sensation started. Like most athletes, I ignored the pain and assumed it was something that would work itself out.  “It” turned out to be three herniated discs, damaged to the point of no return, and impeding my ability to walk…ergo, the wheelchair. 

After surgery the doctor informed my husband, then 20, that the damage was more than the MRI’s or CAT scans showed, that I would probably never walk again, and that we should be looking for a wheel-chair accessible apartment. Can’t imagine what must have been going through his mind at that moment, but I was quick to offer him an “out”.  I volunteered to give him a divorce so he could re-marry a woman who would be able to “do” life with him the way I would not be able.  Because he was so young, and always had been into things like skiing, skating, climbing, and such, I felt it wouldn’t be fair to expect him to stay with me. Un-detoured, he reminded me that he vowed “in sickness and in health”… and meant it.  Completely blown away, I decided I would spend the rest of my life saying thank you.

I walk today, (and remind him often how lucky he is that I do), but I still look back and remember that as being such a devastating way to start our lives together, and continue to find ways to show my appreciation for what I have been given. 

Not long after surgery, I was told I would probably have to have another procedure done, which would cost almost twice as much as the first.  Without the education to have jobs that would provide insurance, we had to consider what we would do next.  Mike’s choice was to join the Marine Corps, something he had wanted to do for a long time, but now had even more reason to do so.  It would provide the medical care I needed, an income for the short term, and an opportunity for him to get his degree for the long term…all of this in an effort to take care of me, and us, and adhering to the Marine Corps statute of never leaving a man behind (even if it is a woman!). And this is Semper Fi, “always faithful.”

Stupid is as Stupid Does

Nothing like wind-driven snow on freshly applied make-up, two over-zealous dogs, and miserably cold temperatures to bring out the ornery in me!  And the idiot!  The house was empty, which left the responsibility of walking these two today, a chore I’m usually happy to do, except it has been unbelievably cold, and as one dog was whining to walk, the snow had just begun to fall.  I wasn’t looking forward to going out in the snow, since I had already prepared my hair and face for the day, and wanted to keep from having to re-do everything before a get-together this evening, but I was looking forward to being able to sit and write, undisturbed by whimpering puppies.  So, into the snow we trekked.

Not until I had turned the corner, into the wind, when the icy snow whipped my face and melted my mascara did I start to grumble.  Then after I stumbled over my blind dog, which had suddenly stopped in the road without warning (for the second time!), I started to fume.  Finally, as I was rounding the last curve, muttering under my breath about how much I hate winter, I slipped on some ice.  I pulled myself together, looked up into the sky and asked aloud, “Really?” 

It was ridiculous!  The cold was causing my eyes to tear up so I couldn’t see, my lashes were dripping black streams down my face, and there I stood talking to the sky…after I nearly fell on my “kiester.”  See, what would be a simple accident to some could be life-altering for me.  I had a very serious back injury when I was twenty years old, and was told that a fall on ice, a ski-hill, or whatever, could sever my spinal cord...and that would be the end of my walking days. So, I wear these military-style contraptions on my boots, which consist of webbed rubber and springs. And yet, I slipped.  I could have gotten madder than I already was, but  like a slap on the face of the hysterical, it was the shock I needed to be reminded that even when everything seems out of control, I have the Creator of it all…being sovereign. Even over the orneriest idiot!