My Heart

Some interesting things are happening right now. I feel my heart slowly warming up again and opening up to the idea of God and church and relationships. Things I’ve been closed from- really since I came home from N.Ireland (about 6 years). When Colin and I 1^st got married, I had no interest in going to church, although at my core, I have always desperately craved community and a very close group of people living life together. BUT- that means being vulnerable and open and real. Things I was not able to be, I think. But in the past 6 months, things have changed. We’ve been talking a lot about churches and visiting and such. I went with my sister when I was with her in March. All I wanted to do was cry the entire time, especially during the music. I talked about visiting churches with a couple of friends, but never got around to going. The other day I heard a song when Colin was listening to 91.1 (Christian Music- a station I really never listen to). The lyrics were so fast, but I remembered them and wanted to look them up. The next day someone pinned the lyrics on Pinterest. So I looked it up, and I found out the band live in Denver and have formed a church called Bloom. It’s basically a gathering of people who meet in house churches on Sun morning and then as a whole on Sun evenings, which is a model I have always loved. SO I told myself I wanted to visit. Colin and I did not go when he was still here though.

The day before he left, we had a party on Memorial Day and my uncle came over. There’s SO much amazing things happening with him and I love to hear his stories. They remind me of some of the things in N.Ireland (which seem rare here for some reason). But we got on to talking about churches and we brought up Bloom and he had heard about it and also wanted to go. SO him and I went this past Sunday. Nothing happened the knocked my socks off, and there were a couple things I am unsure about, but overall- I didn’t NOT like it, which is hugely positive. I LOVED the worship. We sang one of my favorite songs ever… and again, all I wanted to do was cry (in a good way, I think?) So I am hoping I can get the courage to go back on Sun by myself.

But on the way home, my uncle and I were talking about a lot of stuff and we started talking about my family and the things going on currently and the past, etc, etc. if anyone knows anything about me, you know my family is really complicated and there is a lot of pain and destruction. It’s always been hard for me. I was telling him I feel like I have two minds when it comes to it all. One part of me (the total judgmental part of me) can’t believe all of the stupid decisions and self-destruction and enabling and cycles. But the other part of me (which I think is my true heart), is just so incredibly sad about it and feels hopeless and lost and doesn’t know what to do, because it is so, so bad... and I cant do anything to fix it or make it better. He said a lot of things that affirmed me and my heart and the reality of the situation (which I tend to avoid and hope that it doesn’t go down the way it is likely that it all will). He also told me he thinks one of my gifts is Mercy, which I have never really had anyone talk about spiritual gifts with me before. He said the gift of Mercy is incredibly hard and painful to have, especially when you have had damaging experiences. He said that the next step is healing for me and then I will be able to get to a place where the experiences and pain will no longer be destructive and damaging to me and my heart. I’ve always known that healing is/will be the key for me… but what does that look like and mean?

So from that conversation and from what I know of myself, I think this is the place I’m in: I am an incredibly sensitive person, but I have made myself so shut down and ‘strong’ because I have not been able to manage any other way. There have been times where I’ve worked through things, but ultimately, I have so much pain and sadness. There were SO many things that happened in my childhood. Then I went to N. Ireland which is it’s own set of wounds. Currently there are again, a lot of things happening with my family, just in a different way.  When I came home from N. Ireland, I shut down and couldn’t even deal with anything. And since then, my sensitive spirit has been pretty contained, whereas my judgmental sprit is in full rage. It’s my defense mechanism. When I cant fix it or I cant handle being in the middle of it I shut down, remove myself from the situation, wont let myself feel anything, cut off the relationship, talk about it over and over (ruminate) and get totally angry (but not sad). I hardly ever cry, but usually when I do, it’s about animals, since that is about the extent of pain I can handle right now.

So the sad thing for me in all of this is, this isn’t who I am supposed to be and I am not living fully. It prevents close relationships-obviously.  I don’t know what healing means for me though. It feels like such a vague term. It’s incredibly hard for me to trust God. I’ve always felt on the outside of it all. Like I am not one of the special ones of His, like he doesn’t care about my heart as much as some other people. I am also incredibly afraid of pain. My greatest fear is losing my family, especially to death, especially with how things are right now. So, I feel like I’ve just ignored Him because I feel like, once I let Him in again, He is going to rip it all away from me, partly to ‘spite’ me, to teach me a lesson, and just because He can. In a weird way, I feel by holing onto it all myself, I am able to keep it safe. Obviously I KNOW this is not true, but that’s where my heart is.

My uncle also said something so profound about this. He had a dream where there was work being done on his property/house and there were tons of people around. Someone had stolen things from his property and house and he knew in his dream who had stolen his things. He went to the foreman and told them who took the stuff and demanded it back. Finally the person who stole the stuff started giving it back piece by piece. He said some things he gave back, he didn’t even realize had been stolen. He also gave back a picture album and in it was these carefully preserved pictures of our whole extended family and in his dream he knew that the album was so precious. The whole dream makes perfect sense to me and such an amazing picture. He encouraged me to pray about the things that have been stolen from me and demand them back and ask God to make Satan give them back. I’ve been thinking a lot about this and about what has been stolen from me. I’ve also been thinking about the picture album too, which I think is really amazing, considering my immediate family AND extended family and all the things that have happened.

SO that is where I am at spiritually. Feeling movement, awakening.