Wow!!! That year flew

I am laughing!

I knew it had been "a while" since I had posted anything on my blog, BUT I am a bit surprised myself that it has been a year.

A crazy, wild, painful and glorious year. Well - honestly - it doesn't feel like anything really glorious happened. Mainly, just life.

The kids grew up - I regressed. (smile)
Carpets got cleaned and then were dirty (way too quickly)
The garage was organized (mostly) and then got messy
Ideas were tossed out and some tossed away.

If I were to title this year it might be "Feeling betrayal, experiencing loss and finding myself".

* Confusion in friendship - some resulting in going deeper in a most precious way, some resulting in feeling betrayed by what you thought you perceived.
* Sorting through a house and selling most of the stuff in that house for some dear friends who had left for South Africa and are not returning.
* Watching my father move closer to death due to lung cancer and farther away from the Lord due to choice.
* Lack of integrity in some business dealings with some fellow brothers and sisters in Christ that never got resolved in the right way.
*A major stab in the back from someone who worked with us in our business. Knowing that it was out of his own childhood wounding and so trying to give grace, but feeling like our tails were really far out in the wind.
* Still having no contact with my only sibling who, because of my relationship with Christ, cannot seem to be in relationship with me.
*Watching one of my best friends walk through death and loss herself and not be able to be near her and feel her pull away to try to cope.

Some of the feeling and finding has just been a part of the ebb and flow of life lived in a broken world. Some because of realistic expectations dashed, but ultimately, I am discovering that the deepest pain, the greatest betrayal I have felt, has been by my own hand, my own heart as I have reached out for dreams and come up a bit empty.

I am not even sure how to articulate it well.

I think I am just starting to walk around everything I am weakly expressing. I am trying to give myself space to feel the pain in such a way that it propels me to look deeper into myself. I want to do it without obsessing about it. I want to explore with honesty and integrity without finger pointing or blame shifting, yet also give myself the freedom to admit that people fail us. We fail each other. I want to discover wisdom and use it to walk away from some old habits, old cycles, old thoughts AND use it to walk into greater things.

I know...I am talking all mystical and vague. Partially because I want to process, but I want to protect. Partially because the details don't matter, it is where I end up in my heart that will mark me.

I have a raw idea. When we feel betrayal or rejection by another it is either because:

a.) we got completely bamboozled by someone who was really good at snookering people. Usually this entails tangling ourselves up with a narcissistic personality. (a part of my experience this year)

b. ) we kept giving "that person" or "that situation" the benefit of the doubt and never confronted (really...who LIKES confrontation? ). Fairly quickly the quirks or hairball oddities, or sins, that were not healthy, became the norm. There comes a point where we either say "What is the use with saying anything...I have lived with it for this long. Why bother" and in doing so condone a thing into acceptance in our silence.

c.) ultimately - the real betrayal TOWARD us is usually felt because it is allowed, BY us. In essence, we betray ourselves. Swirling around inside of our souls are tipping points. Moments where we made a choice to adjust in order to be around a certain person. The adjustments were not wrong....we all make small changes in relationships to accommodate personality, quirks, likes, dislikes....This is normal. I am talking about the changes we made that went in direct conflict against what we hold to be true, loving or genuine. What is not healthy is knowing down in your gut that the way a person is undervaluing you has become a common theme in your interactions. What is not healthy is involving yourself in more of a word based relationship then action based....they say they value you really well, but they do not show it....the use of the word friend is strong, but the priority of being a friend is low. What is not healthy is when the value scale is unbalanced...when there is always a reason or excuse for why they can't be healthy. I find myself here and frankly...it is awkward and painful.

Maybe, maybe, maybe....maybe if you find yourself here.

Maybe I will write more about the problem with finding yourself after you have taken a sabbatical from some of the truer parts of you.

OR, maybe I won't write for another year.
Maybe...because it is too raw or too real.

Reality is - A LOT of wonderful and good and poignantly beautiful things happened in the last year. Things I am grateful for. Events I wouldn't trade. People I hold close to the heart.

I do remember those!