Sober

Sometimes I still feel like I might be dying, like I could just black-out,
collapse, and that would be it.
When my heart is noticeably beating, causing physical pain in my chest.
Ok, well perhaps dying is a little dramatic,
At times it's more like I might snap.
Just completely flip out,
and it's at those moments I'm a little scared of what I might be capable of...physically, emotionally, reputably!....If I did it would seem to be a point of no return I would imagine, so instead, I implode on the inside and deal with the consequences of the inner wrath unfolding.
and deal with it i do, and in a much more improved way than last year 
and all the years before that, thankfully.


It has been One Year since I hit the wall and slid down it into a miserable heap at the bottom, requiring eight months of weekly psychologist appointments.
One year of complete undoing and re-building,
of learning to do life differently.
Almost One Year of not wanting to hurt myself, cut myself & of allowing myself to sleep properly without lying on top of my own hands for fear I might hurt those closest to me in the night hours.
A year since those I'd desired to nurture and have in my care under church ministry had to be gently, excruciatingly and necessarily pried from beneath me and into other's capable, stable hands. A time for the microphone to be put down also, 
for a new song to sing was to be written.
IS being written.
A year since I drove alone a few hours away for four days with a suitcase, a bible and some pills that could have finished it all. A year since I could fight no more but just roll with current of the ocean I was drowning in.

"Have your way here, keep me afloat cause I know I'll sink without you. Take this ocean of pain that is mine. Throw me a lifeline." 

-from Brooke Fraser's "Lifeline"

Welcome to my ugly.


A few posts ago I vowed to write about 'the darkness'...well I hadn't forgotten about it, 
quite frankly I wished you had!
I mean, how does one write about something so ugly?
So consuming,
so evil,
so incapacitating,
so sick,
so deep,
so dark,
so lonely,
so powerful,
so *insert vomit sound here*,
so....well...almost
Normal.
or so it seemed.
Depression had taken up residency from a very young age with me, I knew no way to function without it. So instead I lived in a bubble for years, kept afloat by an array of things I thought were important, or expected of me. But last year the bubble burst and I ended up popping it myself because i was suffocating inside of it. The very life was sucked out of me, I had nothing left to give. In some ways it could sound like I was actually better off in those days back there,
where I used to cook & bake more often, organise my family life with meal plans and shopping lists, decorate this and that, host parties, sing, sew, have a booming social life...and while I usually love all of those things (ok perhaps not so much the organising part)...I was doing much of it in the hope that the responsibility of ministry, marriage and motherhood would grow me up into the person I thought I had to be.
Oh what an undoing this year has been,
EVERYTHING has changed.
Starting with just me,
and it's had to be from scratch.
With the help of my God, my husband, my Christian Psychologist, my church & close friends I began a journey to Whole and made it to the other side. The gate is shut on that side of life...and although certain things attempt to jump the fence from time to time I am better at booting them back out.
I'm gradually discovering things I like, things that make me, me. Growing a backbone, gaining strength, adding and subtracting from life where necessary -(who would have thought I'd ever be good at math?!! hee hee)... Seriously though, a major part of the professional therapy I received, and put here now quite plainly is that I've been a little girl stuck in a big girl body! I had to come completely undone, there was no other way. I had to go back and meet 'her', that little girl 'me', to love 'her', nurture 'her' and take her to a place she could climb up on her Daddy's knee and sink into His loving arms. (our Heavenly Father that is!!)
I wrote a lot during the dark days, during my breakdown,
my Sweet Release, I would call it, as it spilled out in words over the paper.
Perhaps i might share some snippets here someday.
But as for now, it's been a year 
a bare, raw and lonely one at times 
but from the level and depth of darkness i was dwelling in, I'm glad to report, 
a stunning redemption awaits,
Mine.
for I am Sober.

"He will rebuild you on a foundation of sapphires" - Isaiah 54:11

Residue

"I wonder, 'Will I ever make it -

arrive and drink in God's presence?'

I'm on a diet of tears,

tears for breakfast, tears for supper.

All day long people knock at my door,

Pestering,

'Where is this God of yours?'" Psalm 42 (The Message)

Sorry to have to say it but, well, I have been down in the dumps this week. I have taken a few knocks, one hit after the other. 


We just have those weeks, do you know the ones, where every one wants a piece of you?
There were things said and things not said that gave me an uncomfortable anti-clockwise stir within, going against my fairly clockwise life...or so it seemed.

"Why are you down in the dumps dear soul?

Why are you crying the blues?

Fix my eyes on God-

soon I'll be praising again." Psalm 42:5

So during the chaos of housework, cooking, assignments & jobs I couldn't do much more than re-acquaint my knees with the carpet (thanks Brooke Fraser). It was here that God the Kind revealed some residue that 'the old girl' (the 'me' before I emerged to the better side) still had clinging on.  Mostly in the realm of boundaries, 
or lack of.


It's safe to say I had and still have from time to time a struggle saying 'No' and I have finally seen the repercussions of this, and unfortunately so have some others.


Allow me to share the revelation that came during the copious amounts of tears lost a few days ago. 


By not having boundaries, we dishonour God because we let people down around us. We disappoint, hurt and potentially make life difficult for them as well as ourselves - not a becoming trait for a Christian! By not having boundaries we put pressure on ourselves to perform, we say yes to try and do it ALL and then ask God for the strength and grace to actually get through it! Although He is faithful and His grace is sufficient, if we're not true to ourselves we can't be true to Him.


Boundaries protect us, protect our devotion to Him and protect others from being hurt by our broken promises or half-hearted attempts. 


Following this light-bulb moment, came my prayer,


God, Thank you for showing me how important boundaries are in honouring You. 
Help me to not be over-committed or make promises I can't keep.
Release me from unreasonable expectations placed there by myself and by others and help me to live in your light, divine timing and seasons with your all sufficient grace and mercy.
I forgive others who have expected too much from me, I forgive myself and Lord I ask that you forgive me for false promises and trying to tackle things in my own strength. 
I pray Father that you help them to forgive me and release me from any grudges still residing from me letting them down. Help them to let go of disappointment so that we can start over again, happier.
In Jesus Precious Name,
Amen.


Perhaps unlike me, you're really good in the boundary area, I have many friends who are. So here's where I now repent from jealousy too coz gee I can really suck at this! (but I AM getting better!!!)


To add to this week's yukkyness I did a little comparing.


*insert shrieks of horror here*


I know, I know, we should never compare right? But in this case I wasn't actually comparing myself with anyone else, just myself in fact. You see, I'm on the other side of a deep journey - like I said earlier, the better side, only this week it didn't feel like that. In so many ways I'm back at square one and for the first time lately I saw that as a bad thing.


I let my mind wander back to not that long ago where on any given Sunday I was Worship Leader, where I used to proudly sit front row, where I was announcing the Notices and Welcoming New People from the pulpit, where I worked in the church office during the week, where I was striving to be and do it all...
yes, striving for His attention, for His love,
for something I already had.


I could relate my particular circumstance and thoughts at that moment to what the psalmist also wrote,

"These are the things I go over and over,

emptying out the pockets of my life.

I was always at the head of the worshipping crowd,

right out in front,

leading them all,

eager to arrive and worship.

shouting praises, singing thanksgiving -

celebrating, all of us, God's feast!"

-Psalm 42:4

And as I lay on the floor in a mess of tears and snot, emptying out my own pockets of my life to God, I cried out, "where is she? Was she ever me? Who is that girl?"


And it's answers like these that stop me in my tracks,
"She is healed!"


I wouldn't say I'm back,
I'd just say I'm better,
and the good stuff is catching up, only in healthier boundaries and timing! I happily await the time I will lead others in worship once again with my voice, but for now I hope to do it in words! I will be ready to step out however God requires me to and I'll enjoy the season He has me in now and quit the comparisons!

"He puts a smile on my face,

He's my God."

-Psalm 42:5

Sunday Girl - Part 1

If I know the way home and am walking 

along it drunkenly, 

is it any less the right way because I am staggering 

from side to side? 

- Leo Tolstoy

And so it begins. My Story.
Being in my early thirties there's a bit of ground to cover so it could take a while...consider this the first instalment!


I always knew I was adopted. There was never a time I remembered being sat down and told, I had known it all along, my parents were open about it. They took me home at 2 months old and I was theirs.
That's it.
The End.


Ok, maybe not. So I knew a few things surrounding the mystery through which I came to be, that I had a Maori heritage, I knew 'they' (my birth parents) were hippies, hence naming me Sunday Peaches, I knew they were into organic gardening, I knew I wanted to find my birth mum one day, I knew that could be a scary thing to do, I knew my adoptive parents couldn't have kids naturally, 
I knew in one sense that I was wanted 
-well my head did anyway, 
 in the heart-sense I wasn't convinced.


There was also much I didn't know, but thought a lot about.
Was my Birth Mum still alive? Was she going to knock on the door one day and want me back? If she did, would I go? Some days the thought of that seemed exciting, but mostly petrifying. 
Why didn't she want to keep me? Did she remember my birthday? Did she hold me? Did she see me? Why Birth, not abortion? Was she a famous movie star with such a successful career she couldn't raise a child? Had I walked past her on the street and not even known? Was she lurking around my life? Did she watch me in the school yard? What did I look like as a newborn? What time was I born? How much did I weigh? What's my health history? Do we look the same? 


And then there were some absolutes, so I thought.
I must have had something wrong for them to not want me. 
I never looked like anyone around me.
I felt like a forced-fit, a jigsaw piece in the wrong space.
I was a mistake that someone else happened to benefit from.


Don't get me wrong, my parents are amazing, incredible people with huge hearts. They gave me and my two adopted brothers a fantastic childhood. We have a great family and I love them and I now know they were God's idea for a family all along. Growing up on a 10 acres of rural bushland, we had cubbies and secret hide-outs, trees to climb...and space...lots and lots of space. It was awesome! I did dancing, gymnastics, figure skating & modelling to name a few.


But for years I had all of those thoughts, mostly unspoken, swirling around in my mind, wondering if I should search. 
I never had really questioned whether or not my Adoptive Parents would be ok with me meeting 'her' someday, they had often told me I would have their full support if I wanted to find my roots. On my eighteenth birthday my mum presented me with a box full of all the adoption information that she had so that I could use it for my search. To me, it was a licence to go ahead....and I did.


That's when it all changed. I don't want to go into all of that here, but the reality of 'the search' was clearly unwanted from that moment on, but it had already begun and until then, I thought my folks were fine with it.


At 19 I moved away, down south to Margaret River. Some space to breath, to find who 'I' was, to rest my wounded and doubly rejected heart and to wait for the news I knew would come. And it did, I discovered my Birth Mother had married my Birth Father and I had a full-blood sister who was a year older than me. They had kept her. It was another year later that the agency had actually tracked them down when searching all records throughout Australia had been exhausted. They were eventually found in New Zealand.


At 20 years old I got THE call and I was 4 months pregnant. My strong religious upbringing had me convinced by now that I was doomed and going to hell for being unmarried, pregnant & with a divorced man. Shame and disgrace and rejection was like a cloud that loomed and I was constantly trying to duck from beneath it. Thankfully I now know you are never too far gone that God can't find you!


My Birth Mum told the agency she had been waiting for their call and would love a letter from me. I had mentally noted what I would say for years, but when the paper and pen was before me I was stuck for words. It was the hardest letter of my life, until I finally began by thanking them for choosing to give me 


Life.


To be continued... (this is long enough & I may bore you!!)
Next - The Reunion.

A picture I drew in a book when I was little,

A Mummy & Daddy Kangaroo with a Baby Teddy Bear.