Tag Archives: Christianity

Fulfilling Dreams

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GradIt was May of 2001. A full year had gone by since I had fallen down the stairs, broken my neck, and gotten addicted to pain medication. I had spent so much time at home in bed that I felt isolated from friends and from participating in any kind of life. One night I tossed and turned due to pain and depressive thoughts. I finally fell into a fitful sleep…and dreamt.

There were the three of us, seated alone in the stands overlooking a huge Olympic-like running track.  My mother was seated next to me on my left, and a close friend of mine on my right. Below us, walking along the dirt lanes of the track as if in a parade of some sort, were thousands of people, all dressed in Biblical costumes. I knew that they were portraying the history of man, from the beginning to the end of time. The “end of time” was going to be portrayed way off to my right, farther than our eyes could see. I felt comforted by my mom’s presence. In the back of my mind, I remembered that she had died of cancer at 56-years-old in 1986.

“Were you in the processional last year?” my friend asked.

“No, last year I broke my neck,” I answered.

“I was in it last year,” she responded. I already knew this, because when I picked up the flat crystal pendant attached to the gold chain around my neck, the circle of glass, the size of a fifty-cent piece, afforded me a glimpse into last year’s parade. I picked it up and watched it again, and there she was, walking the track, just as she had said.

I glanced over to her to say something and noticed she had a bouquet of “Lily of the Valley” in her hands.

“Can I smell your bouquet?” I asked.

“Sure.” She handed me the bouquet and I buried my nose in the tiny fragrant white blossoms, inhaling deeply.

“Ah, that smells intoxicating,” I said as I handed the flowers back to her.

My eyes flew open and I realized I was flat on my back and staring at the ceiling. What a dream! It seemed significant, but I had no idea what it could mean or if I had just eaten too much pizza the night before.

A few days later, thoughts about the dream returned as I was worked around the house.

Last year you could not participate (in life) because you broke your neck.  This year you cannot participate (in life) because you are still recovering. But in a year, things are going to change.

I thought about the comforting presence of my mother in the dream and the bouquet of flowers. I remembered the lyrics of a hymn by William Charles Fry written for the Salvation Army long ago, “He is the Lily of the Valley, the Bright and Morning Star.” I thought about how I could inhale the fragrance of His presence and it was sustaining me in this time of healing. I wondered if I was right in thinking that the dream meant something was going to change in a year.

A year is a long time to wait for something to change, and as weeks crept into months, I really stopped expecting anything to change much at all. Then came another May, with summertime just around the corner. Lily of the Valley grows rampant next to my backyard fence, so as usual, I picked one or two tiny white flowers and crushed them between my thumb and forefinger, bringing them to my nose before I dropped the petals back into the flowerbed.

Later that day, a friend of mine, a therapist, stopped by for a visit. She had a surprising agenda.

“Linda, I want to ask you something. I believe that you have a real gift for counseling others and if you would go to college and get your degree, I would love to take you into my practice.”

“That would take me ten years!” I answered.

“No it wouldn’t, and even if it did, so what?” was her retort.

As if on cue, the dream of the procession of the history of man seemed to have been pulled out of a file cabinet in my brain and placed into a Blu Ray player. My heart skipped a beat.

Later on, I relayed my friend’s suggestion to my husband.

“You should go for it,” he said.

Since I had been kicked out of high school years ago, my first wobbly steps were to enroll in an adult education self-paced class to relearn high school math. Then I took a course on “how to study.” I thought I was as ready as I would ever be.

Four years later, at almost 55-years-old, I graduated Maxima cum Laude with a B.A. in Psychology from one of the top ten best four-year colleges in the western United States (according to US News and World Report).  I proudly  “walked” on graduation day and threw my mortarboard in the air with the rest of the young graduates. I had had my “do-over,” and now I was on my way to grad school.  I had been one of twenty-five who had been accepted into a Masters of Social Work program at the University of Montana.

But look at that picture above again…because unbeknownst to me when I was smiling for the camera, something insidious was lying in wait, lurking in the deep recesses of my brain. Soon God was going to have change the plans of two neurosurgeons who told me I had one year to live if I was ever going to fulfill my dream.

“But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. II Corinthians 2:14″

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posers

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PoserHave you ever tried to fit in by changing something about yourself? I have been reflecting on my perpetual state of loneliness lately. Most of the time I do not recognize it. When I am with people, no matter whom or no matter where, I do not experience it. I’m a “people person.” Being with people can make me forget about chronic pain, heartache, or fear. But when I’m alone, and experiencing loneliness in all its glory, I realize that I have never felt like I fit in.

Back in 1975, I began going to a little white church in a suburb of Los Angeles. I came in the front doors one sunny Sunday morning in October, but my heart was not filled with sunshine. I had lost my much-loved brother to suicide two months before. I was mentally ill myself. I had been living a hippie lifestyle and thought people who played by the rules of “the establishment” were just plain ignorant. But I was grabbing onto a lifeline.

Within a very short period of time, I got myself a Dorothy Hamill haircut (Dorothy was an ice skater whose short shiny locks literally skated across her face with each toss of her head). I bought dresses and high heels. I began wearing makeup and I even shaved under my arms. I saw a picture of myself from back then the other day and I looked older than I do now! I had a huge mother of pearl cross on the chest of my blue turtleneck sweater and a stern look on my face. But, although I tried to fit in with the ladies, I was asked to not return to a prayer group because I did not have enough faith to “name it and claim it.” They needed real believers!

A few years later we moved to Carlsbad, New Mexico, and I began attending a somewhat large church there, full of ladies I hoped would befriend me.  I had long, curly hair and wore bell-bottomed jeans. Again, in desperation to fit in, I cut my hair and bleached it. I wore bandanas around my forehead like Olivia Newton John. “Let’s Get Physical” played on my stereo at home almost daily. I put on darker lipstick…did my nails. And soon I was accepted. This time I noticed it though, and it made me angry, so I grew my hair back out and took my own self out of their prayer group. I took my toys and went home.

We went to Fox Island, Washington for a couple of years and began attending a large church there. Same thing. I attended a women’s retreat (again, in desperation) and sat there alone and anxious. A woman said to me, “with you, what you see is what you get.” She was referring to my personality, and I hoped it was true, but judging by how hard I worked to fit in, I knew I was not being authentic. I couldn’t figure out how to navigate the system.

I’ve lived in Helena, Montana for over 15 years now. I have felt that same sort of “left out” feeling that I had in 1975. I’d be lying if I said I’ve never felt part of a church fellowship. There have been two or three times I’ve felt at home. But it’s been rare…and it is not happening for me here. I have some wonderful women friends that do not go to my church though. They pray for me and we are committed to our relationship. We remember each other’s birthdays and spend many holidays together. It’s enough, because it is true community in heart.

One day I was walking through a park. There was a group of older teenagers. One of the boys had on a pink chiffon prom dress and painted fingernails.

“Hi there,” I said. “What are you guys doing, putting on a play or something?”

“No,” the young man answered. “We’re just fooling around.”

“Oh, well you look pretty!” I answered, laughing. There was a part of me that wanted to stay and hang out with them. “No,” I told myself. You need to get home and feed the fish.”

I walked to my car and thought, “Most people wouldn’t have said that, Linda. Most people would think he was “weird,” and should be shunned or made to straighten up his act.”

One day during an election cycle  I walked into my polling precinct and told them I wanted to quit the Republican party. “We don’t have formal parties in Montana,” I was told.

“Oh,” I said, turning away. I felt stupid…and disappointed…different from almost every Christian I knew, and getting a little worried about myself.I’ve always believed that being a hippie ruined me from being a Christian. I can’t seem to conform in my mind.

I just finished Donald Miller’s book Blue Like Jazz. I thought, that’s me! I’m Donald Miller in drag! It’s not that anyone is shutting me out. It’s that I have a hard time relating. I sort of walk to the beat of a different drummer. There’s a part of me, even at 61-years-old, that would dye my hair purple, get a nose stud, and more tattoos, if I was really trying to express the weirdness of how I think. But there’s another part of me that just wants to fit in…attract rather than repel. I’m glad God knows me well and loves me the way I am. What I want to do, more than get more friends is to be a better friend, no matter how different people are from me or how different I am from them. That’s the quickest cure for loneliness I know. That and knowing there’s a Donald Miller walking around on the planet.

 

 

Dazed and Confused

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Further Confusion

Further Confusion (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When I was fifteen I had a couple of experiences that would shape my expectations of how God works in the lives of those who love and follow after him.  On a warm spring Sunday morning in 1967, I asked Jesus to come into my heart in the living room of a woman everybody called “Gifford.”  About ten of her followers were gathered around me, their arms lifted, their heads jerking and shaking, most of them moaning and praying in tongues.  Gifford, being the homeowner and leader of this band of exuberant worshipers, had come up with her own brand of Christianity, and to say it was a little “off” is an understatement.  In the Bible there is a little scripture that packs a powerful wallop.  Romans 3:4 proclaims “Let God be true and every man a liar.”  So, whatever Gifford’s belief system, she did love and trust God, and He tends to show up wherever he’s invited.

A little later that morning, I walked off of Gifford’s front porch and out into the California sunshine feeling light as air, as if some heavy weight had been lifted off my shoulders.   I felt a deep sense of profound love for every person on the planet.  “How beautiful and wonderful people are!” I thought, wanting to hug strangers on the street.  It didn’t quite fit in with Gifford’s theology that everyone, except Catholics and African Americans, were worthy of this love, and so naturally I began to wonder about her belief that her church was one of the few that held the Truth.

A few months later I was going through a mandatory “foot check” in my physical education class at Morningside High School in Inglewood, California.  I was lucky enough to have a sore on the bottom of my foot that was alarming enough to get me sent home from school immediately.  Later, a podiatrist diagnosed it as a papilloma, and surgically cut it out.  He warned me that it could grow back, and if it did, I would have to have another surgery.

Sure enough, by my three-week post op appointment, the darn thing had reappeared.  I didn’t really care one way or the other.  It had gotten me out of school one time, and maybe it could get me out of school again.  But then Gifford got wind of it, and during a Wednesday night prayer meeting at her house church, I found myself once again in the midst of the group, rocking and rolling, shouting and moaning, and praying for my foot like my life hinged on the thing.  My foot was anointed with oil and hands touched and jerked back, fingers vibrated over my toes and one particularly fired up prayer warrior played the top of my foot like a flute.

When it was time to get myself off to the podiatrist that next Monday, my mother was, shall we say, “unavailable” to take me to the appointment, so I walked, which caused me to show up very late.  By the time I arrived, the podiatrist was irritable but I had a hard time feeling any remorse.  The guy just did not know what I dealt with.

Hurriedly, he pulled my foot up onto the stool, ready to inject Novocain into the area of concern.  He seemed puzzled as he carefully studied the bottom of my foot and glanced at my chart.  He picked up my other foot, took off my shoe and sock, and stared at that foot.  I watched as he looked from one foot to the other, several times.  Finally, he looked up at me, both feet in his hands.

“It’s gone!” he said.  He seemed stunned.

“Oh!  Well, I had my foot prayed over last Wednesday night!” I said, as if that should explain everything.

He continued to stare at me for a moment longer, and then told me he had just felt the hair on his arms rise up as if in protest.  I couldn’t wait to tell my mom.  She didn’t like me going to that “Bible thumper” group, so now I had solid proof that my participation had actually saved her some money on medical bills.

A lot happened in the eight years following my encounter with Christ within Gifford’s faithful group of followers; a lot of terrible things.  I ended up dazed, and confused, but I had not forgotten those experiences at her house church.  Because of them, I believed Jesus could do ANYTHING!  So it was not out of the realm of possibility in my mind that since I had come crawling, broken and contrite, back into the fold, I would be healed again toot sweet.  All fear, all sadness, all grief, all pain; it would all be lifted out of my brain as quickly and easily as the papilloma had disappeared from the bottom of my foot.

I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.

~ Jack Korouac

I had a plan, and that was to escape hell, both now and in the world to come, as quickly and easily as possible.  The Lord had a plan too, and upon reflection, his made a lot more sense.  He wanted healing for me more than I wanted it for myself.  But he knew an instant healing would have been a temporary fix.  I would have just “thought” myself back into the same set of symptoms.  And besides…I had more trauma and heartache coming.  Being God, he knew this, and he got very busy preparing me for what would come next.

His Eye is on the Sparrow

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SPARROW

I had been pacing around the apartment for days.  Once again I walked to the window and peered through the glass, hoping I would see Robert, walking up the sidewalk.  I told myself that it was possible a mistake had been made, and that my brother, as soon as he woke from a coma in the body bag, would slip out of the morgue at the hospital, and just to be funny, come knocking on my front door.  I seriously thought this was possible.

At other moments during the long days at home alone, I sat on the floor, arms curled over my head, just rocking back and forth.  If I denied the truth of my brother’s death long enough, maybe I could somehow undo the last two months.  I felt myself losing ground, though.  My precarious handle on reality was slipping away and a part of me wanted to let it go completely.

Later that week, I sat across from the pastor who had performed the service for Robert.  “Is God real?”  I asked.  “I believe He is very real,” he answered.  “Do you think Robert is in heaven?” I ventured.  I was afraid of this question, more afraid of the answer.  My stomach was at a roiling boil, and I knew the wrong answer would feel like a blow to the gut.

“I think God cares very much about people who are mentally ill,” Wilber answered tentatively.  I didn’t push it.  Just a glimmer of hope was enough for one day.  “I need to find God,” I told him.  “I don’t know how.”  I knew instinctively, for me, in that moment of my life, that if there was no God, I was dead.  I was laying it all on this one man to guide me to Him.

His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he’s watching me.

-Martin and Gabriel

“Linda, there is a pastor of a church here in town that I think you would like.  I want to talk to him before I send you over there.  Give me a week, ok?”  Fear of rejection filled me as I left his office.  This was unknown territory.

I got the “go-ahead” from Wilber and entered the sanctuary of the small church in El Segundo, California on a beautiful October day in 1975.  I had brought my brother’s widow along for moral support.  Even so, I felt alone.  I grabbed onto her arm and felt myself shaking.  I was sure that the pastor was going to know whom I was and ask me to leave the building.

Everyone looked so nice in his or her Sunday best.  I knew I stuck out like a sore thumb.  At five feet, five inches tall, my eighty-two pounds barely covered my skeleton.  My hair was long and stringy, and my clothes were patched.  The Jesus Movement was going strong in this area of the country but this church was obviously not used to those like me, with my hippie garb and vacant stare.  As the pastor began to speak, my mind raced ahead.  I looked around for the exits.

The pastor was young, close to my age, I thought.  He had looked right at me a couple of times, and I quickly glanced away.  He finally closed his sermon and asked us to bow our heads and close our eyes.  I wanted to be part of this group, this faith.  I didn’t know how to begin and I really didn’t think I would be allowed to belong.  As the last hymn was being sung, the pastor walked down the center aisle and opened the front doors, letting in ocean breeze on shafts of light.  Turning, he waited to greet each parishioner, hugging each one as they said goodbye.  I made it to the door, looking for an escape route through the crowd.  Pastor Don was not about to let that happen.  He grabbed me by the shoulders, gave me a big hug and said, “We’re so happy you are here with us, Linda!”  I forced myself to look up at his face.  I saw compassion and concern. My legs felt funny, and I swallowed hard, nodding at him.

That next week I ruminated.  I feared that once Pastor Don knew more about me, he would regret being so welcoming.  I wrote him a letter.  I told him about how mentally ill I was, how messed up my life was, how I was living with my boyfriend, too ill to live on my own.  I told him about my brother, and about my broken heart. I told him I didn’t think I could come back to his church, but I wanted to.   I slipped the letter under the church doors and ran home. I wanted to get the rejection over with.

Later that afternoon, I got a phone call from Pastor Don.  He told me that he had spent the morning making phone calls and gathering the people of his little church together to fast and pray for me the following Tuesday.  He invited me to be there but told me he understood if I didn’t feel I could make it.  They would be praying for me anyway.

I felt as if someone had handed me a life raft.  I could only cling to the side right now, and attempt to hang on to the ropes.  I had no strength to climb in.   The sea was too rough, and I would be tossed about for a very long time.  But there were others now, grabbing my hands, lifting me up every time I was about to sink.  And sometimes, when I came closer to drowning than He would like, God Himself would step in and take it from there.