Transparency…

Have you ever noticed that although you can see through plastic wrap, it distorts whatever is inside?  Things look crinkly, or funny when viewed through it.  When you look through glass, there is no distortion though, or if there is, I’ve never noticed it.  Well, through my glasses things are distorted, but in a good way!  ;o)

I’ve been thinking a lot about transparency lately.  What does it mean for a person to be transparent?  How are we to be that way?  As a Christian, shouldn’t I strive to be more like glass than plastic wrap?  When we go to church, do we put on our plastic faces, or are we like glass, sharing and showing what is really going on in our lives?  I’ve worn the plastic face before.  Most of us probably have.  We don’t want to admit our brokenness.  Our need for God.  So many people today seem to think that since they are a Christian, they must not show that they are human.  We almost seem to want to show everyone else how wonderful things are, even when we hurt.  We all hurt.  We’ve all got trials.  Why not share them with your brothers and sisters in Christ?

In order to be willing to share, a person must feel safe.  That they can share.  That they won’t be judged or looked down upon.  In order for that to happen, they have to know that other people are hurting too.  That other people are just as broken and challenged in they are.  Not necessarily in the same way, but in one way or another.  We know that the Bible tells us all people have sinned, all people fall short of the Glory of God. (Romans 3:23)  I cannot speak for everyone else, but I tend to forget that.  As humans, we see the outside, we do not see the heart of other people, but we should.  That is part of being transparent.  Seeing a person’s heart, but in order to see it, they must let you.  They must be transparent, opening themselves up to show one another what their problems and trials are.  How they fall short.  How they hurt, how they are broken.  That goes back to feeling safe with one another.  It’s a vicious cycle.  How can I trust you, if you don’t trust me, but how can you trust me if I don’t trust you, etc. etc. etc.  Someone has to start.

I’ll go first… I’m human, I hurt, I fail, I struggle.  If you’ve read my blog before, you know some of my trials… I was in an abusive relationship, I’ve struggled with depression and anxiety, my son struggles with bipolar disorder, my husband was very ill earlier this year.  There is more than that though.  I struggle with prayer, making time daily to go to the Lord with praise, with hurts, with needs, for others.  I try, but I don’t always succeed, that’s part of my humanness.  I struggle with food.  In my first marriage when my husband turned angry, I would eat.  Not just over-eat, but binge.  I would drive through a fast food place, get several burgers, eat them so fast it would make your head spin, then go home and eat dinner so that no one would know I had already eaten, and so much.  I struggle with my self image.  Am I good enough?  Do people look at me differently because I’m over-weight?  Does that matter?  I struggle with reading the Bible as I should, I’m lazy, I don’t always do what I know is right.  Sometimes I do things for the wrong reasons, not putting God first, but putting my own needs and desires before His.  I spend too much money, not being a good steward of what God has given me.

This post wasn’t intended to be a confession of all my faults, but to encourage others to be transparent, to go to their brothers and sisters in Christ, and ask for whatever help they need.  Whether it is prayer, friendship, finances, whatever it is you are struggling with, take it to the cross, and take it to your brothers and sisters.  Part of being a family is helping one another, lifting one another up, supporting one another, and being that safe place for one another.  Family should be the one place that we can turn, when it seems that no one will understand, for support and help.  We cannot help one another if we aren’t transparent.  If we always put on our plastic faces and don’t let anyone see who we really are, and what our needs are.  What are your needs, how can your brothers and sisters lift you up, support you, and love you as Christ does?

in Him,

Tricia

What was she thinking…

So Jonathan made a covenant with the house of David, saying, “May the Lord call David’s enemies to account.”  And Jonathan had David reaffirm his oath out of love for him, because he loved him as he loved himself. – 1 Samuel 20:16-17

God has given me the most wonderful gifts of friends.  I am truly blessed!  My first and foremost bff is Jesus.  He is my all in all, my everything and the one I can turn to for anything.  Secondly I have my husband, who is truly the most important person in my life.  I know that I can tell Donovan anything and he loves me so much in spite of my human-ness.  Thirdly though, I have my “Lucy”, aka Dawn.

Dawn and I met at church.  We were in the same Sunday school class about 3 or 4 years ago.  I don’t know exactly when, so much has happened and time flies so fast!  She has 6 darling little girls, my one daughter is right in the middle of them.  Two of her girls are my A’s bff’s according to her.  We have so much in common.  She can talk to me on the phone and brighten my day, she can text me or im me and it’s like the clouds have lifted and it’s bright and sunny, it’s truly a blessing from God to have her in my life.

We weren’t always this close.  That happened about a year and a half, maybe two years ago.  You see, I almost blew it.  I had another friend, at least I thought she was a friend.  She had some problems that no one was aware of, including a drug problem, but we’ll get to that.  This other friend used me, and lied to me, and told me some horrible things about Dawn, and to my shame, I believed her.  So when money started coming up missing during our stampin’ events, I was conditioned to blame Dawn.  I even spoke to our pastor about it, not knowing what to do, Dawn is my Stampin’ Up! downline, and I felt responsible.  I couldn’t imagine this other person being the one to take the money, after all, she was at my house all the time, she watched my children during the summer, I couldn’t fathom how someone I trusted so explicitly would be that kind of person.  I guess I always had my doubts about her, but being the trusting person I am, I just couldn’t imagine her doing it.  It wasn’t until a blatant mistake on her part that I actually believed that she had done it.  It took two other friends confronting me to make me realize that it was this other person, this so called friend, this woman that I had trusted who was stealing from our customers and other demos.  I was devastated, ashamed, remorseful, and so very hurt.  I had believed her lies, I had trusted her, and worst of all, I had taken what she had told me, and unwittingly spread false rumors about another person, who was completely innocent, my Lucy.  You see, I had talked to friends about what I thought was happening, and of course, even though you ask them to keep it in confidence, it gets talked about and spread around, we are human, that’s what we do.  I was devastated by this.  Dawn never waivered.  She never said anything negative to me, she never even acknowledged if she kenw it was me.  The Spirit really worked on my heart during this time, and I felt compelled to apologize to Dawn for what I had said and done, and the part I had played in this whole drama.  It was at a jewelry party that I found the nerve to speak to her about it.  I tried so hard not to cry, I wanted to be strong, but I believe that some tears slipped through.  I just told her how sorry I was for what I had said and done, for believing this other person, and for any hurt I had caused her and her family.  Being the beautiful woman of Christ that she is, she simply hugged me and said she forgave me.  What???  I was so moved, still am really.  I am awed by her beautiful spirit.  I was forgiven, truly in the spirit of  love and of Christ.  It took me a while to accept that forgiveness, I couldn’t fathom how she could just say she let it go, and really let it go.  People don’t do that, people don’t really forgive and forget, that’s a God thing.  But she did, she did.

Dawn has watched my children, she has come to my aid in the middle of the night when I was having anxiety attacks, she has visited me in the hospital in my darkest hours, she has held me as I cried and wanted to run away from my life, she has convinced me that I am worth the life God has given me.  We’ve laughed together, cried together, really really lived as friends.  She is my Jonathan, she is my *bff*, she is my angel here on earth, she is one of the greatest gifts that God has ever given me.  She has shown me the true meaning of grace, love, friendship, and honesty.  I know that I can call her at anytime, and she will be there for me, in spirit if she isn’t able to be here physically.  Our friendship has survived me moving across the country, it has survived so much, I know that we will be the little old ladies at a Women of Faith event bouncing up and down and praising Jesus for what wonderful lives we’ve lived and the friendship He has gifted us with in each other. 

We’ve never spoken a covenant with each other, never made an oath or any such thing.  We’re not blood sisters or any of that stuff from jr. high and high school, but I know that there is a covenant between us, stronger than blood, it is a covenant of friendship that is based on our love for Christ, and what He has done for us.  What could be better than that?

in Him,

Trish aka “Ethel”

Oh, why Lucy and Ethel you ask?  Well, when Dawn signed up as my Stampin’ Up! downline, her hubby said we were like Lucy and Ethel, always coming up with one scheme or another.  ;o)  It stuck, what can I say, I’ll always be the Ethel to her Lucy, and she’ll always be the Lucy to my Ethel.  It’s just how we roll!  ;o)

It’s a God thing…

So, I’ve been struggling. I’ve felt so disconnected since we’ve moved, well, before that even. Just with everything going on, I haven’t made time for me to be close to God, and I’ve been feeling it. This weekend we tried out a different church than the one we’ve been attending since we got here. They have so many programs, and so many different groups, it seems like it might be a better fit for our family. We loved the service, it was awesome and such a great word. We filled out the first time visitors card, because well, we were first time visitors. One thing we checked off was interest in finding out more about their Women’s Ministry. So today I got a call from someone in their office who was just as sweet as she can be. We talked about the different groups and she’s going to have someone contact me from a couple of groups I’m interested in, they have a card making group, awesome, and a scrapbooking group, woohoo! They both meet monthly, which is awesome, and I can’t wait! Now, for the amazing part. They are also doing a Beth Moore Bible study on Tuesday nights. I’ve endevored to do a few Beth Moore studies, they’re awesome and so just amazing to participate in. I’ve never managed to make a whole one though, something always comes up or happens and I have to drop out. Well, the one they are working through right now is Believing God. I was so excited, because I really wanted to do that one, but didn’t even make it to the halfway point and something happened. So, she said she’d have the leader call me. I jumped off the phone and started digging around for my participant book and found it. I got through week 3 last time, that’s it. Week 3. I figured they’re probably already past that, but that’s ok, I’ll just start where they are and finish. Well, the leader called me within like 5 minutes and we talked. It was like talking to an old friend, she was so sweet and so nice. Then, she tells me, we just watched the week 3 video last week, and I burst into tears. I was so floored, is this not a work of God or what? This study is all about believing what God tells us, and I so need to remember to do that. Then, what does He do, but put me right at the perfect place at the perfect time. What an amazing God we serve!

The neatest thing….

My friend Accidental Poet has a nest of baby robins on her back deck. They have set up the neatest thing, they put a webcam out there, and she’s been blogging about it! It has a LOT of awesome pictures/videos, go check it out if you get a chance…

And Then There Were Robins

Hi there…

It feels like it’s been forever since I’ve had a moment to sit down and write on here. It has been almost a month now, and wow, things sure do change!

My mom went Home to be with the Lord on April 24th. We were on our way there when I got the call. I guess God knew I couldn’t have handled being there, so He took that option away. I wish in a way that I had gotten there, but in other ways I’m glad I wasn’t there, kwim? Her funeral was Monday, the 28th. You know that saying, whatever can go wrong will go wrong, well, it almost all did. The night before the funeral, at the visitation (viewing) they were playing the wrong pictures on the screen at first, then there was no one there who could figure out how to work the computer, so the first hour there were either wrong pictures or no pictures. At the funeral there were 3 or 4 times where there was just this long awkward silence. The funeral director apparently couldn’t get the cd to play. I couldn’t believe that they hadn’t tried the cd’s before hand. It was very upsetting. Then, at one point, she stuck her head in the room and passed a note to the pastor. Talk about unprofessional. I got up at one time to go tell the manager that there was no music and everyone was just sitting there looking around at each other. It was so upsetting. Our family had enough to stress about, we weren’t supposed to have to stress about that too, but God knows what He is doing, and it all came together and it was overall a nice service. I read a poem, my cousin said a few words, and a good friend of my mom’s spoke as well. To top it all off, my step-dad’s sister had sent a plant, which did not arrive in time for the funeral. My sister called the funeral home several times asking about it, and they kept saying that they had not received it. After 2 weeks, the plant was tracked, and it was confirmed as delivered to the funeral home. *sigh* They replaced it, but not without us having to track it down and confront them with the fact that they received it and either *lost* it or did something else with it. Then, the *owner*/managing partner, asked us to please use another funeral home for our future needs. Can you imagine???

I colored my hair, and put pink streaks in it. It looked really cute! I say looked because the pink is almost all faded now. It fades really quick, but I have nice highlights where it bleached it for the pink left though. lol I don’t think I’m going to do it again, but I do have a Pampered Chef Help Whip Cancer show coming up, maybe I’ll do it for that and then be done. We shall see. If I do it again I will definitely get pictures though!

B started the partial hospitalization program on May 1st. So far he’s doing well there. Last week it was a rough week in the evenings at home, and Friday he would have gone inpatient if there would have been a bed available. There wasn’t, and we made it through the weekend. There have been some med changes for him. They took him off the lithium, and started him on Abilify as a mood stabilizer as well as starting him on Buspar for his anxiety. Just waiting to see if there is any difference or not. He’s also going to school there, which has been good for him I think. I’m hoping that he is able to finish out the school year there, as homeschooling has not been working for us the past month or two. We did the first part of his psychological testing, but he refused to cooperate when we went back to finish up on Friday. We rescheduled for this Friday coming up, the 23rd. If you have a moment, please pray that he is willing to cooperate when Friday gets here. He says that he doesn’t need or want help. We can’t do it for him, so right now our prayers are that he comes to the realization that he needs help so that he can function at a somewhat normal level, whatever normal is.

Mother’s Day weekend we went to my sister’s and that Saturday, we buried Momma’s ashes. We placed her between my grandmother and my sister’s baby she lost. I think Momma would have been happy with the small prayer ceremony we did. Nothing fancy, just our family, the Lord’s prayer, and a few words about her. What my cousin Shannon said really touched me. She spoke of a conversation she had with Momma the week before, about her faith and salvation. It was a blessing to hear the details of that from Shannon and know that she was so concerned and loved my mom enough to ask her and touch her in that way before she went Home. After the ceremony, we had a picnic on the church grounds. It was nice. I should have some pics ready to post in a day or two and I’ll get them up here for you to see. It’s really pretty out there, and the kids had a great time running around and playing.

I’ve had med changes too. The doctor took me off the Lithium as well, and put me on the Abilify to act as a mood stabilizer. It seems to be working ok. I’m still quite anxious at times, and get quite upset easily. I’ve also been a shop-a-holic a lot lately, and that is worrying me quite a bit. I’m seeing her this afternoon, so we will have a talk about that.

Oh, one other thing, I got my nose pierced yesterday!!! I had lunch with my best girlfriends to celebrate two of their birthdays and that one got an A in her last class. Afterwards, we went to the tattoo place and I got my nose pierced, one got her ear cartilage pierced and one got a tattoo priced. She didn’t go through with it though. It was so much fun just being together and having fun. Silly girly stuff, we need to do it more often girls!!!

I’ll try to post tomorrow maybe, we’ll see what all is going on and how my appt goes today!

Love ya!

It doesn’t matter what you call it…

If you’ve read my blog before, you know that the past month or so has been stressful, to say the least. You might say that last Sunday, my last thread finally snapped.

There were issues when we picked the kids up from their dad. I became very distraught, and eventually just lost it completely. When we got home, I had decided that everyone would be better off without me, and I wanted to leave. Donovan wasn’t buying into my thoughts though, and wouldn’t let me go. Instead, he called one of my friends over to help me. She came, and talked, listened, prayed, held me, let me cry and rant, then prayed some more, until finally, I calmed down and came inside. At which point, another friend called just to see how I was doing (she knew how stressed I had been) and when Donovan told her what was going on, she insisted on coming over for us. I was calm by the time she got here, well, calmer, but just knowing how much she cared, that she not only called just to check, but then came over, late at night, just to make sure and see if she could do anything for us!

Monday morning, Donovan called my psychiatrist for an appointment, and we got in to see her that afternoon. She could see how agitated I was, and after just a few minutes of talking knew that medication changes were needed. As upset and anxious as I was at that time, she suggested that I be admitted to a treatment center while my medications were adjusted. So, that is where I was from Monday the 31st until Saturday, the 5th.

I spoke with the treating psychiatrist on Tuesday morning, and he suggested that we take me off the anti-depressant that I was on, and try a more aggressive medication. He put me on Lithium and Invega starting Tuesday night. Being hospitalized while this was going on, they were able to take me off the anti-depressant VERY quickly. Normally you have to step down slowly, but by Friday I was no longer taking the anti-depressant. I’ve seen a difference in my moods and anxiety since probably Thursday. It’s getting progressively better. Lithium can take a couple of weeks to reach a constant therapeutic level from my understanding, so I’m still anxious at times, but I’m coping with it better and better each day.

I saw my outpatient psychiatrist today, and she immediately commented as to how much better I look today than I did a week ago. Tomorrow I go to have blood drawn. With Lithium, they have to draw your blood somewhat frequently at first, to check the levels. There should be a certain level of Lithium in your blood, what they call the “therapeutic level”. When they checked them in the hospital on Thursday, I was a little low, but since the med has to build up, it should be about right now based on previous experience and knowledge of the medication. If the levels are good, I won’t see the doc again until next Monday, if there is a problem, she’ll call me to come in sooner.

We discussed diagnosis with the psychiatrist today. When I was hospitalized back in 2005, the diagnosis they gave me at that time was *Bipolar II*, how they explained that was bipolar without full blown mania. My outpatient psychiatrist wasn’t convinced of that, and tends to lean more towards PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) because of the abuse, anxiety and major depression. This time I left the hospital again with a diagnosis of *Bipolar II*, however, I have a better understanding of what that is because of all the reading I’ve done due to B’s diagnosis. My outpatient psychiatrist still isn’t convinced that I meet diagnostic criteria for a Bipolar Spectrum Disorder, however, she said today that it doesn’t really matter what you call it, you treat the symptoms that are present, and base the treatment plan on the symptoms and such, not on just a diagnosis.

God has so blessed us with such wonderful friends, through this whole ordeal, my friends have been so amazingly awesome! You all know who you are, but I have to say how wonderful you all have been and continue to be. From watching my children, homeschooling one of them for us, making arrangements for them to be picked up from school, calling the church to let them know what was going on, bringing dinner, being here, calling and checking on us, and most importantly, praying, non-stop. Without even being asked at times, you have known what we needed, and been there no matter what the request, how big or small. You truly are what friends are, and you totally get what it means to say, “it’s in the job description”!!! Thank you to each of you, more than I can ever express. God truly blessed me when He brought each of you into my life, and I am so thankful!

Mission to Mars

When I left, besides clothes and some toys for the kids, I took two things. I took my Precious Moments collection, because I knew that he would destroy them when he got home and I was gone, and I took my computer. It was my lifeline and I also knew that he would have taken a baseball bat to it as well. He had told me as much.

In 2000 we got our first computer. I had worked at A&M while I was pregnant with A and discovered the internet. Wow, I was enthralled! After she was born, I was back to staying home, and we decided that it would be good to have a computer. So, we bought an HP computer at wal-mart. We put it on lay-a-way and when we picked it up, I was so excited! I’ve always liked computers, and now I had one of my own! From the beginning, it was my computer.

We got online, dial-up, with at&t. I was so excited! I had an e-mail address. Excuse me, WE had an e-mail address. One e-mail, after all he said, why did I need one separate from him, was I hiding something? Of course not, so *we* decided together that one e-mail was all we needed. Anyway, we were living about 100 miles from all my family, he was working as a truck driver gone 3 or so days at a time, and I had this wonderful machine. I discovered usenet! At first, when I opened outlook express the first time and it asked about newsreaders, I thought, “oh, that’s neat, I can get the newspaper in my e-mail, how nifty!” Then I slowly discovered what it was. I found a haven, alt.mothers. It was this group of mothers who posted about all things relating to motherhood and mothering and mothers. I loved it. One day though, this *place* changed. Trolls, nasty little people who post arguments and nasty ugly things trying to get people to fight appeared and invaded our little place. We tried fighting back, but that didn’t work. So, someone suggested we should all just leave. If there was no one to post to, and no one replied, then the trolls would leave. So we did.

Someone, I forget who exactly, and I apologize if it was you, set up a message board somewhere and our happy little group posted there for a while. The joke was that since we had just abandoned the usenet group, we were all going to Mars, and Marsmoms was born. Once things settled back down, several moms left and went back to alt.mothers. There were about 20 or so of us who stayed though. We set up a yahoo group to send our messages. It was this wonderful amazing thing that happened! A few more left, but there was still probably 15 or so of us there. We developed friendships, love for one another, and this amazing thing was happening to me, I was discovering that I had worth, that people did like me, and that I wasn’t just this loser with no education who would never be anything without this hurtful man to take care of me. More people left, some of us had babies. Some of us got degrees, some of us got jobs. We had problems and hurts, and we all cared for each other. It meant so much to me to be able to log onto yahoo messenger at any given time and know I had a friend there to talk to. I learned how to properly say “Crikey” and what it means, I had late night chat sessions with friends in Canada, England, Australia, Hawaii, all over the US. These women cared about me. When I hurt, they listened. One of the Marsmoms was having problems with CPS and another one came to her rescue, she contacted a housekeeping service in the town where she lived, and had them come clean her house.

During this time, he slowly realized that these women were really becoming friends. He tried to alienate me from them. He would read the e-mails and interrogate me, what does this mean, what does that mean? Why are you chatting with that one more than the others, are you having an affair with her? He would tell me that he should just throw out the computer, I was becoming a different person and he should just bash the computer with a bat. Do you really think they would like you if they *knew* the real you? What he didn’t know was that they did know the real me. For some reason, I shared everything with these women from the beginning. I told them things that troubled me, that hurt me, that I was scared about, at first, I expected them to ostracize me. To reject me and say, “we don’t want you here, you are a lousy person.” They didn’t though. They hugged me (virtually of course), they loved me, and all that time, they were slowly helping me to realize that what I was living was not what I deserved. That I was/am a good person, and I deserve happiness and peace.

One night, a Marsmom posted a picture of herself with a black eye. Her husband had punched her in the face. She kicked him out. I was amazed. I never would have thought that one of my friends could possibly be living the same horror I was. She & I talked, and I told her that I truly understood what she was living. Eventually, she let him come home, and after that, she drifted away from Mars. I was sad. I started reading about domestic violence. I learned that most women will leave 7 or 8 times before they make a final break. I still had not told everyone about my biggest secret. The fact that I was living a nightmare. I soaked up the love from these women though. These sisters who loved me for me, because I was and am always honest with them. I never hid myself from them. They are the first *true* friends I have ever had.

After one fight with him, and this was very close to the time I left, I remember posting something to the effect of how do you know when you have had enough and can’t go on? I was referring to my marriage, but I still remember the frantic phone call from one Marsmom asking if I was ok. She read my message and thought I was suicidal. She was terrified that she was to late, that I had done something. Shortly after that, I left. Those wonderful women gave me the courage to do the right thing for myself, and for my children.

When I was living with my family, I didn’t have internet access at home, I went to the public library to post to mars. I got phone calls from them all the time. Cards in the mail. They even took up a collection and sent me gift cards to do something fun with the kids. I don’t know if they will ever know how much their friendship means to me. They TRULY saved my life, because I have no doubt, if they had not come into my life and helped me realize my worth, I would not have left, at least not until I was in a body bag.