The magical reality of prayer

Growing up, prayer was something I did and wanted to do.  I prayed, feverishly, from my little heart throughout the day, almost every day.  I loved prayer and loved scripture, but there was always a bit of downturn mixed in with it.  In my little plaid-and-knee socks Calvinistic world, the image I could not escape was that weekly offering envelope with the check boxes:

-Offering
-Church attendance
-Bible read daily

Now, I know this was completely well-meaning.  Keeping up with money and how many come to your church every week, and encouraging people to read the Holy Scriptures is in no way a bad thing.  But being a perfectionist and a rule-follower, I could not wait to check those boxes every week.  If I didn't actually read my Bible one day,  I'd jump through mental hoops to decide if hearing the scripture read at school actually counted for reading my Bible.  And if I checked the box in the affirmative, I'd feel guilty about it all week.  Wash, rinse, repeat.

So, prayer and scripture reading to me were good things; things I liked, but also a source of suffering.  There was an unattainable element to prayer.  It seemed like adults I heard speaking of their prayer lives, and later, teens in my youth group talking about their worship experiences were just out of reach to me.  I wanted to expirience Jesus the way they talked about.  I tried to.  I read the Bible and it left me with more questions and frustrations, anxiety over the way scripture was used to justify hand-raising in church or speaking in tongues.  I avoided certain books altogether (like Acts...I still haven't read that one!) because of the discord it caused in my heart.  And when I prayed, I would beg Jesus for peace and joy that never seemed to come.  I fear that I lived most of my religious life in a cloud of depression, until I was about 30.  What I wanted was always out of reach.  The phrase "beggar at the door of grace" really resonated with me.  Calvinism was my home because I never felt quite good enough for anything else, and people who were happy seemed suspect.  I was certain something was wrong with me, something not fixable, and that I just had to keep trying to get along the best I could.

When I became Catholic, I expected to think the same way but add in the sacraments and some Marian prayers and be able to take communion.  Boy, was I wrong!  The shift in thinking that I have experienced through the grace of conversion still surprises me more and more.  I have only been Catholic for almost 6 months, but I continue to change and grow and see things new ways.  I am being healed.  Thanks be to God!  New insights are abundant, but also I am more able to relax into my own skin.  I am more settled and calm.  I am more merciful, to others, it's true.  But where I needed mercy the most, God has provided.  I am able to rely on God's mercy to myself.

Prayer is one of the ways that my life is changing.  I don't pray any more than I used to.  I don't suddenly worship Mary or say 10 rosaries a day or skip praying to Jesus (if you are Protestant, know I'm not kidding about this!).  There is a simplicity of trust that now resides in my heart.  What enables me to relax and trust is this:  before I was trying to get somewhere in my prayer.  Now I am simply being.  I am being present with Jesus.  I am being present with the saints.  I am being present with myself.

Even if I get nowhere in my prayers and am nothing but a ball of anxiety, Jesus is not.  He's present with me through the grace of the Holy Spirit and my baptism.  And He is present, literally, in the Eucharist in which I take him into my body.  That is almost too intimate to write about, but it's real.  And in prayer, even if I feel nothing, I am assured of His love.  Even if I say nothing.  Even if I do nothing.  Even if I don't know what to say.  Even if all I have to offer are my tears.  There is nowhere to get to, nothing to attain, because He's already done it all.  All I have to do is come to Him.

Sometimes I offer my own words.
Sometimes I offer my tears.
Sometimes I offer His own words in praying the Psalms.
Sometimes I offer the words of the Church in the Liturgy of the Hours.
Sometimes I ask the saints to pray with me and offer their own prayers with mine.
Sometimes I just stare at Him like a lovesick fangirl.
Sometimes it's utilitarian.
Sometimes it's poetry.
Sometimes it's wishful when I can't forgive someone.
Sometimes it's painful when I face my own insecurities.
Sometimes it's boring.
Sometimes it's moving.
But always, it's with Him.  And it always works.
I have never seen prayer NOT do something.

If you are beginner, pray.  Pray: tell God you love Him and ask for what you want.  Then trust that He loves you and He will give you the very best things for you.  Thank Him for what He's given you.  Ask for the grace to manifest the fruits of the Spirit, and grow.  He will do it.  He loves you.

Sometimes I say that prayer isn't magic, but kinda is.  It is spiritual, emotional, and it gets things done...if you have the talent to see beyond right now or next week and into what you really love.  Love Jesus, and pray.  You can't go wrong.

It's a journey, friends.  I started off feeling sad and never good enough when I pray, and here I am...and who knows where I will be in 5 years?

But I know I'm sticking with Jesus.  And I know it will be good.
Just like He is :)

A Second Chance

I thought my world had come to a crashing halt a few days ago.

Things got rocky.  Really rocky.  I didn't see a way out.  It less than fun.

I was thinking back on 10 years ago when I had a horrible breakup about this time of year.  I got so depressed that I stopped going to work for a few weeks.  I would sit at home on my couch, all clinched up.  I was so incapacitated by anxiety and depression that I could barely breathe.  Or eat.  I lost weight (I liked that part!).  But life was grey and dark and I didn't see much of a reason to live it.

This time wasn't like that.  The world got dark for a few days.  But I realized, and my mom pointed out to me, how much stronger I am, now.  Granted, I'm ten years older.  But I'm tougher.  I got up, scrubbed my face and went to work, sans makeup.  I taught my voice lessons.  I went to bed and got up the next day and did the same thing.  Between those things there was a lot of crying.  The were was a lot of steering wheel gripping and whispering "God help me" as I put on my cheery voice and face for the next voice student coming in for a lesson.  But I kept going.  This is a big step for me.  I didn't let emotional turmoil take over my life. 

And in that vein, I'm kind of done with emotional turmoil.

I've thought a lot about it.  Growing up incredibly scarred by such a rough relationship with my dad, emotional turmoil has been my comfort blanket.  It feels safe.  It feels like home.  Crying and not knowing what to do is just that...it's not doing anything.  It's putting energy into not doing.  It's diverting away from facing the real problems of pain, disappointment, hurt, broken friendships, breakups, getting fired, etc.  And putting it into harming myself and those around me with a deluge of tears and anger.  It's not pretty, and I'm not pretty when I do it.  

The cool thing is that I have a choice, now.  I have tools to help me, now.  I have a way out.  

It doesn't have to FEEL like there is a way out for there to BE a way out.

It doesn't have to feel right to be right.

It doesn't have to feel right to be the truth.

If it feels like the end, it isn't always the end.

I don't need to self-destruct because the world will try hard to destroy me anyway.  I don't need to help it.

There is a man who I love, dearly.

And I harden my heart to him when I'm afraid.

I get angry when things don't go the exact way I want them to.

I close myself off to him when he messes up.

I try so hard to protect myself and get defensive when I get hurt.

When all the while, his love, kindness, forgiveness, hugs, and presence are the very things I need.  Emotional turmoil hurts me, but it also hurts him.  I am so angry at myself for reverting to this stupid childhood technique of coping with abuse.  He's not abusing me!  But when I feel hurt, I cover up with things that don't protect me.  Things that hurt both of us more.

For the very first time in my LIFE, today, I felt the healing of Jesus.

I have begged Jesus for years to heal my heart.

To heal my hurt.

To heal my brokenness.

To heal the ways I try to cope that hurt me.

To stop the crying.

To stop me from being hurt by friends and family.

And it never seemed to help.

So this horrible time I've been through the past fews days left me terrified that I was going to lose the very thing that I love.  It made me more scared and angry and just...an emotional hurricane.  And I heard Jesus asking me, once again, to trust Him.  I guess what?  I opened up just a teeny tiny bit and let go of my pride.  Just a bit.  Seriously..not much.  I'm NOT good at this trust thing.  And Jesus reset my heart.  I stopped crying.  I felt calm for the first time in days.  I felt like I got a second chance to love Him.  And to love Christopher.  And to love myself. 

I am NOT patting myself on the back.  At all.  Please don't think I am! 

I really am not good at this stuff and I hope I don't fall into sadness again.  But I want to praise Jesus for helping me in a supernatural way, and I hope He does it some more.  And I hope I'm not too broken to love.  I hope that I can just be calm and happy and mature.  And that God will prevail even though I'm a beginner in being merciful and trusting.  A beginner has gone farther than a skeptic.  

I volunteer to take another step, if Jesus will have me.  

The reasons we aren't married at 35 - Part 2

Idle Tears by Edward Robert Hughes (English, 1851–1914)

At the same time, blessing of blessings, He also gave me a man.  Oh, such a man.  A man I would never be worthy of in a million years.  A man full of intellect, and wit, and kindness, and sweetness, and gentleness.  And so handsome and pleasant to look at, and strong times a million.  But a sinner like me...we are so much alike!  We have both light and darkness and are aware.

And now these same things bite at my heels.  From years of changing, years of fear and wanting, longing and sins.  Years of war in my heart.  I am laid waste in many ways, while Jesus builds me up.  I wish I had more to offer him than a 35 year old heart which has been torn to shreds in every direction.  I am angry.  I felt like I had so much to give at the tender ages...18, 19, 20...before anger set in.  Before my parents divorced.  Before I was taken up by so many things.

But Jesus said I am His girl.

Do I trust Jesus with my soul but not my heart?
Can Jesus pull me out of Utah and folly and depression, but not pull me into Chris' arms?  My struggles to come to Jesus and my struggle to come relax into love are so similar.

I feel fully confident in my new-ish relationship.  I absolutely feel that it is meet and right.  It is blessed.  Even heaven-favored, but that's a separate story.  The story of me becoming a Catholic is intricately woven of late into the life of this wonderful man.  Jesus is speaking to me through him, my Christ-Bearer, sanctifying me and giving me hard won graces from His own heart.  He is changing me.

Fairy tales always seem like tragedies if you stop in the middle of the story.
Think about that for a minute.

Being in this amazing love story sometimes feels like being taken to the gym.  It's an awesome place with amenities: a pool and and sauna and free towels.  But you are there to work.  And the work makes you look awesome and feel amazing and be your very best you.  But some days you just wanna sit on the couch and eat Doritos and watch X-Files.

But we are better than that.  Jesus is better than that.  My relationship is better than that.

If I didn't have years of utter baggage behind me, maybe I'd be married by now.
If I had not been so terribly hurt by church, maybe I'd be Catholic by now. (Or Orthodox, or Lutheran, or Southern Baptist, or Presbyterian).
If I had only had a good relationship with a dad, maybe I'd have kids by now.
All of these things make the years seem so empty; such a painful waste.

But we can't live our lives in maybe, just like we can't live our lives in someday.
This is our time. It really is.  It's what we've been given, and what we have.  It's our gift from God.  It's our gift to God.  I'm getting a little better at it, very slowly, about trusting my Jesus with all those somedays and maybes.  I just want Him.

And I want him.  The best him I've known.  I'm a huge fan.  I'm so excited for my life with him.  I'm so excited about where Jesus is taking us, and how we will figure out the details.  It's so good.  Now to just get to that gym every day and not skip #legday.

Seriously though, y'all.  So in love.  We are babies in love, but oh...sweetness!  Kindness and hope are chasing me round.  Hold tight to me, my good sir.

The reasons we aren't married at 35 - Part 1

Nikiphoros Lytras

The Waiting

c.1895

This post is gonna be really honest.  Soul-baring, perhaps.  Maybe I won't post it.  Maybe I'll delete it later.  Who knows.

This past week I turned 35.  I can barely bring myself to type that number.  Part of living in our youth-obsessed culture is shame at being a relatively young "old" age.  Youth is the goal, and pretending to be young is the way we do it.  Memes about forever being cat ladies, eating pizza under a blanket on a Friday night, or dressing up like 19 year olds in mini-skirts and going to clubs at age 40.  Things like that.

We find molds and try our hardest to stuff ourselves into them.
"I'm a poor college student."
"I'm a tired mom."
"I'm a gamer."
"I'm a church girl."

Or, for me, "I'm an actress."

Or more accurately - "I'm an actress, I don't have commitments.  I am young and free.  I won't commit to anything because it makes me freer. So my life is a blank canvas.  I kinda want to belong to a church but am not sure which one so I just visit and float around between them.  I can argue various theological positions and I go with what feels right at the time.  Whatever guy I'm dating at the time is my world.  And when he breaks up with me, or I get sick of him, I recreate my entire world.  I am really nothing except whatever chameleon shade I morph into."

But who am I, really?  Who was I?  Who am I being to become?

I recently left one life for another.
I had morphed into someone that I didn't like.  I was chasing good dreams, but in the wrong way.  I was so depressed and trapped in my own pain and fear that I didn't know how to get away from it.  I drowned myself in my own tears for trying to swim out.  Then, a hand through the pitch black, Jesus himself pulled me out and we started over.  But this time, it was different.

He basically told me that I was His girl, and no more dating.  It was now or never.  We marry...or I was free to not marry Him.  But He told me I'd be so happy with Him and He'd take good care of me and always feed and protect and comfort me.  And LOVE me.  Love me fruitfully.  He never loves anyone without fruit.

So we got engaged.  I started letting Him court me.  Kicking and screaming and full of young loves' tears at times, I let Him love me.  I'd cry when I saw other married couples sharing physical communion, because I had to wait.  And I still wait.  And I still long.  It's so hard seeing people who aren't aware or appreciative of their marriages being able to share each other...while I wait for the okay to share in my Jesus.  But I'm waiting.  And someday soon I'll have my first Confession, Confirmation and First Holy Communion.  My wedding, so to speak.  To Him...I'm already His but I'm waiting.  It seems like forever.

I'm His girl.

He remade me into yet another version of myself, but without a silly man at the center.  HE is at the center.  He is my world, my King, my Love.  I get really really mad at Him sometimes for making me wait and for some of the deputy decisions made by his earthly court.  But I'm HIS, y'all.  Forever.  I don't get to remake myself anymore.  He reminded me that the core parts of me won't change because He put them there.  The virtues He has given me are who I am.  I just have to practice them.

So this is who I am.  I'm so glad to know it, and it won't change.  My church is solid and ready to welcome me.  I'm just waiting like a patient bride.

Jammin'

I've had a spectacular week so far.

Standing up for myself has proved to be really confidence-building.  I must remember this for next time.

On Monday I was taking a nap and my phone rang and woke me up.  It was the associate producer at one of the theatres where I auditioned this week asking me to come for a callback.  Total surprise, and I'm walking on air thinking about it!  I expect nothing, but it's a really fun script and I had a total blast preparing for the first audition.  So I'm looking forward to that...yay!

I am getting close to doing my instructor training for U-Jam Fitness.  This is a big step for me, as I've been dancing this format for 3 years and totally love it.  I see how happy it makes me, puts a smile on my face, burns a ton of calories, and makes me feel great the rest of the day.  I want to share that with people.  Fitness instructors change lives and that is something I definitely want to do.

(If you didn't know, which you probably don't, I weigh about 40 pounds less than I did in college.  I did it slow and steady, over a long period of caring about myself and my weight, getting help with my depression, growing up a lot, and learning how to eat and exercise.  You can do it too!)

I should be doing the training in the next month or so, and it will be the start of the steps to get certified to teach.  Yes!

I'm singing a lot over the next week for Holy Week at church.
Anglicans do the whole thing, and do it up right, bells and whistles and all!  I should probably blog about each day as it comes.  I never knew the depth and richness of this liturgical tradition until I started singing at this church.  I grew up Baptist and we sort of gave Anglicans the side-eyed sneer and ignored them.  I'm so glad this church gig fell into my lap at a time when I so needed God to plant me somewhere.  That's another blog post for another day.

I hope you are having a good week.  It's the middle of Lent...but Easter is just around the corner.  Don't forget that :)

Come at me, bro

Come at me, bro.

No, seriously.  You had me pretty upset yesterday, my ANON (as you shall now be called).  You had me in tears, heart pounding, and very upset.  I guess that's what you wanted.  Congrats!

Here's the bad news:  writing a letter to someone under the guise of an anonymous account is bad.  It's cowardly.  It's really kind of a rotten thing to do!  But probably the MOST serious thing is that you couched it in Christian terms under the cover of "I'm only saying this in Christian love".

Love?  Shall we?

From my favorite ESV translation of 1st Corinthians 13 -

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 
5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 
7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love?  Love is GREAT stuff!  Love is full of hope and wants the best for people.  Love doesn't tear down.  Love endures and carries on and is kind.  Love doesn't hide in a foxhole and snipe people while wearing a disguise.

There was no Christian love in what you said.

And I'm not gonna "get over it".
Since you read my twitter account, you know a lot of my weaknesses, and decided to use them against me.  Guess what?  I'm a growing, wounded, working through it daughter of God!  I've had some hard times which I've shared.  I've had some harder ones that I can't bring myself to share.  And that's okay.  God knows these things, and HE alone is my judge.  Not you.  So while you may derive some fine pleasure from setting up a Kangaroo Court here with your anonymous comments, God sees that, too.  He gets to judge.  Not you, not me.  I don't know all of your sins, and I'm fine with that.  Because God is working on you, too.  Let Him speak to you...work through it!  It's what we all have to do.

So while you upset me yesterday, it wasn't forever.
I realized that I want to act in LOVE and not as a coward.
I want to be HONEST which I have been, and not fake.
I want to be GROWING and experience the PAIN of growing, not of sniping people for where they are.
I want to continue in the GOOD THINGS that God has given me, and now worry about other people so much.
Look at yourself.  Ask God to show you LOVE, because you need it!

To my regular readers:
I've come too far in my journey with God to be so upset by internet cowards.  They are everywhere, guys.  I realized yesterday how it terrible it must be to have a huge, painful secret that isn't allowable for discussion in social circles.

To be Christian and think you are gay.
To be suicidal.
To struggle with intense depression.
To have failed your family.
To have an eating disorder.
To injure yourself.

Boy, those are heavy things!  I've dealt with a few of them.  At times I felt I had no one to talk to except the (anonymous) internet.  And I *had* to be anonymous.  Because if anyone ever found out I struggled, I thought they would pile layer upon layer of heavy judgement on me and make it worse.  And I was right.  This blog so far has been about my struggles in my own life with the depression that comes from really going out on a limb in the performing arts...to really GO for it.  And it's hard.  And it's depressing.  And God has been faithful.

And I tried to write my honest feelings here.  And boy was I punished for it.

I know so many who struggle turn to anonymous blogs or Twitter accounts or social media as a way to let out their feelings and cry for help.  They don't want their families to know.  They don't want their churches or schools to know.

Isn't that sad?  These are the social structures which God has given us for support, and we are terrified to use them.  We fear judgement.  We fear someone finding out how sinful we really are.  I wish we could all see each other naked, in body and soul.  Then we'd see how ugly and disgusting and real we all are, how gross and terrible are our sins, and how we need Jesus desperately.

Maybe we'd be a little kinder to each other.

So here's my pledge;  I'm going to continue to be real and honest here.  I'm not going to be a coward.  I'm not going to tell you about my life as much, because I need to put up a boundary and a safeguard against jerks like the one who attacked me yesterday.  But I also need to share my thoughts and feelings.
Know that this is a safe place for you if you want to share.  I won't attack you.  I will try to offer love and support.  God knows I need it.

So, ANON,  nice try.  Your mission from Satan has failed (even though you probably didn't realize that is what it was).  I'm still here, and stronger than ever.  And Jesus is with me.  Better look elsewhere for your trolling adventures.  I'm here to stay.