A look in the mirror...

I have been taking a detailed inventory of my life...like a long look in the mirror. The picture is really pretty good in certain ways. My husband is awesome! My girls are such a blessing, and they are healthy and smart! I have a great job that pays the bills...I have everything I need in life and pretty darn near everything I want as well.

In other ways the picture doesn't look as good. I have found that I don't have any friends my age, and I am not sure why that is. I have plenty of younger friends...but that is different...they look at me more like a mother figure or a favorite aunt. I don't get invited to game nights or anything like that. And, there are things that a mother or favorite aunt just doesn't share with you...things about her life that would just be too much information...right?

I also have friends that are older than me...some of them considerably older, like my mom or my grandmother, and there are things that you just don't share with your mother or your grandmother. In fact, with the exception of my husband...I can think of only 2 other people that I would know if there was anything major, any kind of crisis in my life. So, what happens if that crisis is with my husband? Who do I go to?

So, here is the question...why? Do I not play well with other adults? Do I try too hard? Do I lack certain vital social skills? Am I repulsive or offensive in ways that I not aware of? I think that I am a fun, loyal, faithful friend who is a good listener. But, if that is true, wouldn't I have more friends? Is it some thing about me? Am I too closed off? Do I keep myself at too much of a distance?

I used to have friends...lots of them in high school. After high school, naturally those numbers dropped to the really close circles of friends. For those relationships I can pinpoint, nearly to the month, when they ended. For the most part it was during the most difficult times in my life. When I was going through a divorce, or had post-partum depression. During these times, the closest friends I had thought I would ever have just dumped me...stopped returning my calls. I know that I am difficult to be around when I am in pain. I become very impulsive and I talk too much...I become sort of a raving lunatic and I probably share way too much information. I have also spent lots of time with lots of hurting people, and I know that most people are not that much fun to be around during those times. That is why they really need true friends during those times, right? So, perhaps it is them, not me. Perhaps, I was not a very good friend to them. But then again, if they were not good enough friends to me to put up with my post-partum insanity or the depression that I suffered after my divorce, are those even friends that I want? Were they good friends to me?

Then I begin to wonder whether there are very many grown-up that have close friendships like that? If so, what are they doing right that I am missing? I am not good at remembering birthdays, but you could tell me absolutely anything and I would not be shocked and I would not judge you. I don't give a lot of gifts, but if you ever need groceries and you cannot afford them...my pantry is always open, and I even deliver. I am a very good listener and prefer that over talking about myself any day!

So, what am I doing wrong? What is wrong with me? What is this distance between me and other people that I just cannot seem to bridge? I know that this is just a "therapy blog." I know that no one is really reading this, and that if you are you are my friend. If so, can you offer any answers to these questions? HELP?!?!?!?!?

A personal best

So, part of my year of living large has been to actually exercise...reguarly...strenously...and become a good steward of my body.

I set up a home gym upstairs...a treadmill, a yoga ball and my Fluidity bar. I started with a simple program. I would walk on the treadmill for one mile every-other day. In January, it took me nearly 20 minutes to walk a mile.

Then, I started pushing myself. I would jog on the treadmill for 30 seconds and walk for 2 minutes and so on.

Fast-forward to yesterday. Yesterday I was able to do 2 miles in 30 minutes on the treadmill by walking 2 minutes and 30 seconds, and then jogging for 2 minutes and 30 seconds. So, I decided that I would try the Reed High track.

To my surprise, I did 2 miles in 25 minutes...and it felt wonderful!

YAY for me!

What are you afraid of?

Fear, I think, is basic to the human condition. If you look at human suffering, injustice, tyranny...isn't it all, in some way, rooted in fear?

I remember life before I was afraid. I remember life before I was afraid of rejection or failure or that fear that deep inside there was just nothing inside of me worth loving. I remember what life was like then and it ROCKED! I remember believing that I was a good girl and worthy of love. I remember not being afraid to voice my needs and desires, confident that I would not be denied, that my needs would be met.

I also remember when I first started to become afraid. I remember starting to wonder if my daddy would always love me, or if I was good enough for that. I remember becoming afraid that I would end up all alone and that I would need to know how to take care of myself...I was five. I remember when I first began to realize that this world was not a very "safe" place and that bad things can happen, even to good little girls.

My mid-life crisis (for lack of a better term) began last May when I recorded a CD for Jes for our anniversary. There is a long story behind that which I will not bore you with here, but that experience startled me into the realization that I had allowed fear to change me, to imprison me in lots of ways in my life.

I had still been relatively "fearless" until I got married and started having children, and that is when all the fears of my mother started to creep into my life (fears about my adequacy as a mother, fears about my adequacy and role as a "wife", yada, yada). Those fears grew deep roots and began spread.

Ultimately, and most interestingly, I think the fear that was most paralyzing to me was the fear that I was a disappointment to God and those around me. Life marches on, things happen, and they usually don't end up the way you think they will...life is, well, disappointing... I began to ask deep inside "Am I disappointing too?"

Specifically for me was the issue of singing in my life. I had known that I was a talented vocalist since about my sophomore year in high school. Over the next 10 years I sang in all the school musicals, toured with Nevada Repertory Company at UNR during College, won several voice scholarships for various schools, sang in church all the time and for at least 100 weddings, etc. Then I got married and instantly became pregnant. Shortly thereafter, God very clearly called me away from singing and to ministry in Young Life. In fact, He thwarted my every effort to do any singing with the choir the worship team...anything. I took note of this, and seeking to please Him, I decided to give up singing, believing that was what God was calling me to do. I did not sing for 6 years (except for the nightly "blessing" or lullaby that I sung to the girls...and leading songs at YoungLife club, which one is hard-pressed to call singing).

By the time that I recorded the CD in May of 2008, nearly everyone I knew either did not know I could sing, or had forgotten. My voice was out WAY out of shape. Even when the idea to make a CD came to me, it was more of a "good-bye" to singing thing...more of a "I really should have some kind of recording of my voice, so that someday, Jes, the girls, someone will remember that I had this unusually extraordinary voice."

Okay...aside...I do have a very nice singing voice. It is not arrogant for me to say so, it is simply true,and it is very important that we learn to recognize what is true about us...and not just the bad things that are true about us...the things that others are quick to pointout and we are quick to condemn ourselves for, but also the good things that are true about us. It is true that my voice is extraordinary. God gave it to me. I had nothing to do with that and can take no credit for it...but I am responsible for what I do with it.

So, I was making an anniversary/goodbye to singing CD. I felt confident that this move was okay with God and did pray A LOT about it, asking God to provide financially for it, provide affordable airfare to Nashville, etc. He did.

I recorded the CD. It was a blast. It was way more fun for me than I had ever imagined it would be...it was way more fun for me to make it than it was for Jes to receive it (at least from my perspective). The problem was that it awoke in me the desire to sing that I had believed God had called me away from. Enter extreme spiritual conflict...enter fear!

I have struggled much in prayer since that time. God has opened my eyes to the many fears that had been eclipsing my awareness of His love for me...many ways that I was hiding from Him and from others who love me because of those fears. He has healed many of the wounds that caused some of those fears, and He has released me to sing again. There is much healing left to be done and there are many fears that I am still learning to face. As I step out into a new calling in my life, there are new things to fear. However, I have resolved this one thing... I will never again bury my head in the sand out of fear. I will no longer let life just happen to me because I am afraid of "what might happen." If I do not know the way that God is leading me, I will cling to Jesus for He is the Way. If I do not know what God wants for me to do with any particular area of my life, I will seek Jesus for He is the Bread of Life, the Living Water. If I am afraid, I will remember that God loves me (I need look no further than the cross for proof of that) and He will love me now matter what I do. I will let the knowledge of that love cast out my fear.

So, I am still afraid...but I am still loved. Someday I will live again in a place where no fear can reach me. I will live again in a safe place, where no little girls are hurt. I will live in a place that holds no rejection or disappointment. Until then I will boldly follow the One who loves me perfectly!

I am a person of extremes. I am also naturally impulsive and emotionally driven to the point that it is very, very difficult and can take every ounce of reason I have to discern between how something feels, and how something actually is (this might only make sense to those of us for whom it is true, and there are a few of us).



These, I have learned over the years, can be very dangerous character traits. It is not that I do not strive for the middle ground in life (for consistency; for moderation;for balance). I just cannot seem to find it, and when I do, I cannot seem to stay there for long; I swing by like a huge pendulum on my way to the other extreme, grasping wildly as I go by. I will work myself to exhaustion over a period of weeks, months, even years (my stint with YoungLife being a good example of this), and then spend weeks or even months barely able to peel myself off the sofa. I will be the biggest junk food junkie in the world (again, YoungLife), or you won't find any white flour or white sugar in my house. I am either completely in love with Jesus and every fiber of my being is alive with it, or I am completely disinterested and might even wonder if I even believe any of it. I am either completely undisciplined in my spiritual life, or I find myself a Pharisee.



I do not have bipolar disorder, but I have two very good friends who do. One of them once described her experience of it for me...when she was in a manic state, she believed that she could do anything, like the world would bow to her every whim. Then when she was in a depressive state, it was as though the sun has gone down on her whole world and the darkness covered everything, as though all was lost. That is how I would describe my spiritual life. I am "spiritually bipolar," and I just do not know of a treatment.



This week, this Holy week, has been a spiritually depressive week for me. I know that I should be moved by the fact that Jesus one Sunday rode into Jerusalem, the crowds hailing Him as king, and not a week later, was crucified...dying an excruciating death to wipe away my sins. I know that I should be stirred to some sort of spiritual high when I hear the story of the women weeping at the cross, or moved to repentance for my betrayal when I remember Peter denying Jesus. I know that I should feel my heart awake within me when we read of the resurrection. But this week....nothing. This week I am a white-washed tomb.



The verses about Israel's honoring God with their lips, but their hearts being far from Him...they are for me. The story of Moses being so impassioned for Israel's freedom that he murders an Egyptian slave driver, only to find himself so comfortable herding sheep in the desert that when he is called by God to fulfill that destiny, he isn't interested...that passage speaks of me. I also know, like Moses, that there are times when I frustrate God...times perhaps when, like Moses, He just wants to put me out of my spiritual misery right there in the desert on the way to Egypt..."just bring her home," I can almost picture the Father saying to the Son, or visa versa (however those conversations go amongst the Trinity).



This morning, on the way to church, the girls were in the back seat of the van. I overheard their conversation. They, like most little girls, play a lot of imagination/roll-play type games. This time they were practicing sharing the gospel with each other. Grace was apparently the "unbeliever" in the game, and Kate said to her..."You see, Jesus died to pay the price for our sins so that we would not have to." Those were my words...she had heard me say them many times before, mostly to teenagers. It was truly beautiful to hear her say them. Normally, I would have been moved to tears hearing her say them. I know they are true...even when I do not feel them, even when I am not interested in the fact that the are true...even when my heart is far from God, He is not far from me. I know all that. I know it...this week I just don't care that I know it.



So, that is how I arrived at church this morning. It was my Sunday to be on the worship team. I came because I said I would, because it was my week and because I have learned that I cannot just not do what I have said I would do when I stop feeling like doing it any more. I will not elaborate, but that did not go all that well either. There was only one line of one song that spoke to me, that stirred anything remotely like worship within my soul...it was God whispering to me, I recognized the sweet voice that I usually love so very much, usually thirst for like a deer after water...today, through my disinterest I did hear His voice. It was through a Matt Redmon song that He spoke, the title escapes me, but it does like this.



Your blood speaks a better word

than all the empty claims

I've heard upon this earth

speaks righteous for me

and stands in my defense

Jesus it's your blood.



It was Jesus saying to me, "Molly, My Blood has the final word for you, and that word is righteous."

It is not my heart, or the state of my heart that has the final word in my life. After all, tomorrow morning I might have the world's best quite time and find myself in rapturous love with Jesus again. It is not my obedience or rebellion that has the final word in my life, for tomorrow I might find that I once again delight in the Laws of God and His Word. It is Jesus that has the final word...His blood and His heart for me (which is always LOVE). Jesus is bigger than my heart and He has the final word! (I John 3:20)

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I wrote a song about one of my depressive spiritual states. If you are reading this, I would love to hear your thoughts on that song. It is entitled "Days I Don't Believe," and you can hear it and a couple others at http://www.mollystewart.bandcamp.com/. Eventually I am going to ask all you all to vote on which of those songs to enter into a songwriting contest I am competing in Nashville in July. You can be the first to vote on that. Remember, they are rough "live" type recordings and will be thoroughly worked up musically before I head to Nashville with them.