Saturday, February 20, 2010

Betrayal







Betrayal.... ugly, ugly word. Oh and it hurts so bad, doesn't it? When someone you love dearly, trusted completely, someone you let into your most vulnerable spaces betrays you....the heartache is so real and painful.



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Matthew, chapter 26. In the Bible. I was so sad as I read how Judas was betraying Jesus. How could he do that, I thought. Little tears welled up in my eyes. Then, several verses later, Jesus goes away to pray in the garden. He tells his friends, the disciples, to stay and watch out for him. Actually, He says more than that.... He says, I am deeply sorrowed, please stay and watch for me. But they fall asleep.....3 TIMES! Jesus comes back and warns them twice to stay awake. The 3rd time He comes back, He asks... "still sleeping?", "still resting?". I can hear the implication.....despite my warnings you are still sleeping? --- Well, now the betrayer is here!


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How could they do that? How could they just fall asleep?

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We---I, am the same! Ignoring the warnings, brushing off the gentle nudgings of the Spirit. "Sleeping" so to speak. It's quite convicting to me to admit that I allow the betrayer to enter the gates of my life because of my selfish "sleeping".

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Breaking Free (pt 2)

I didn't think about my drinking very much for a while after that 1st night I wrote about in the last blog post. I would reason it away and ignore the nagging feeling that I probably drank too much.
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In January of 2005, the church we were a part of announced that, as a church body, we could take part of a 21-day fast. If you aren't familiar with fasting, it is simply a time when a person either limits or eliminates all meals for a certian period of time to consecrate themselves to prayer, meditation and seeking God's direction. My husband and I decided to take part in the fast and also decided that our fast would be from all food, we limited our intake to water, juice and broth soups only. I secretly reasoned to myself that once our fast was over, I'd probably quit drinking altogether. I didn't drink any alcohol during the 21 day fast. And, it wasn't a problem either. I didn't find myself craving wine. In the 1st few days, I probably missed it because it was a habit. But drinking was non-negotiable at that point so my brain didn't argue with itself.
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The 21-days came and went. It was an amazing time of prayer and worship to God. And I came out of that time feeling very close to and very in love with God. Knowing even more confidently that having an intimate relationship with Him was something I desperately wanted and needed. Knowing that I never wanted anything to seperate me from Him, ever.
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I'm not sure, but I'm pretty positive, that it was probably only 1 or 2 days after the fast was over that I drank again. And I really didn't like myself for doing it.
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I gave myself plenty of reasons why I did it....everyone does it, it's only wine so what's the big deal, and heck, with all that I'd been through in my life, I deserved to drink and "relax" whenever I wanted to....and so on and so on. I guess I had started realizing deep down that it was most likely too much. But I didn't know what to do about it. I liked drinking. It was part of my life. It made me comfortable. But it was starting to make me uncomfortable.
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I think sometime several months after the fast, I decided I was going to quit drinking. When I thought about it, drinking didn't serve any purpose in my life. There was no reason for it. So I decided I'd stop. Probably, it was one morning after waking up feeling like crud because I'd finished an entire bottle(the big one) of wine the night before.
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That decision lasted until I was in my car driving home after work that day.
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And that began the cycle of trying to willpower myself out of drinking.
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(to be continued)


Thursday, February 4, 2010

Breaking Free

I guess I'll start at the beginning, that's usually the best place to start. Trying to pin point the actual beginning of this story is difficult though. I mean...it's a big story. And even though it's happening to me...I'm not even sure when it *really* started. But all I know is this, I gotta get it out of my head and heart before it fades into oblivion. The story will never fade..but the details they will, some already have I'm sure. I trust God will bring back every single detail that needs to be told.


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I'm broken. In a lot of places. The biggest break was in my heart. It was so big that I'm not sure I could see it...like it spanned outside of my vision it was so big. A cave...no, more like a black hole, because it sucked in everything around it to try to be full.


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The breach in what was comfortable about my brokenness happened few months after I realized my deep need for true love, realized my deep need for redemption and rescue, a few months after I reached up for the hand that was reaching down for me, a few months after I realized my need for a savior and I gave my life over to Jesus Christ.


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I had walked in my brokenness for so long, a lifetime in fact, that I'm not even sure I realized I was wounded anymore. I had gotten pretty comfortable with the hiding, the covering up, putting on my mask everyday. Most of the time, even I believed the lies I portrayed to everyone else. And funny enough, I thought they believed it too. Now, I'm not so sure I ever had anyone fooled.


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The breach, the crack that started the shifting in my foundation of lies, happened on a normal weekday night at the end of day that was not out of the ordinary in any way. Normal day, get up, get dressed, go to work, come home, start dinner, blah blah blah. But God had something much more planned. He was about to begin the process of bringing me out of my normal and into His extraordinary.


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Even though I talked a good game of having my life under control, inside I was a mess. Deep down I guess I always believed that the emptiness that existed in my heart and soul would be filled by something outside of myself. I was always on a search for what made me feel satisfied, worthy, useful, better. When I was young, school aged, I just knew that if I had the right clothes, the perfect hair, the best grades then I'd be okay. That's where I found my value. As I grew older, those things didn't fill the void any longer. I searched everywhere. What I can put into to words now that I couldn't then, was that I really believed that if I found the husband who loved me enough, the job that fulfilled me enough, the children I was raising well enough, friends that were loyal enough then that is when I would be complete. The emptiness would disappear and I'd finally be content.


In all the searching and in the trying to fit in and in the trying to cover up all the empty feelings, I started drinking. At first, it was an occasional social drink to calm my nervousness of always feeling like I never fit in anywhere. Drinking made me feel more at ease, more able to crack a joke and clown around like everyone else. It also made me stop worrying about every.single.thing. I did and said. I was always so worried about what people thought about me. I wanted everyone to like me, so I constantly replayed everything I did and said over and over in my head and then I'd berate myself for not being perfect. The drinking made that go away. I'd stop worrying and then if I did do something really stupid, I had the drink to blame. It was perfect!


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I met the husband who loved me enough(and he still does!), I had the job I really loved, I had the children I was raising well enough, I had many amazing friends who were not only loyal, I mean, they really liked me! Inside, though, I was still a mess. What a really lonely, disturbing, awful day that was when I woke up to the fact that I had all that I had always thought I needed to finally be full and content and happy. And yet, when I looked in the mirror at myself, I still saw yuck! I still felt empty, void, useless, worthless.


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So I drank. It made me forget. For a little while. And like I said before, I got really good at walking in my brokenness.


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So, back to the night the things began to change. I came home from work that night, poured a glass of wine, and got dinner started. I decided I'd read while I waited for the darling husband to come home and the dinner to cook. I got my Bible, sat down at the kitchen table, put my glass of wine right next to me and opened up to Proverbs. Seemed completely normal to me at the time. I mean, hey, I always enjoyed reading a good book with a glass of wine. As I read though, this nagging feeling came over me. At first I didn't really understand it, I felt odd, out of place. I remember, I stopped reading and kind of looked up and around and thought, what is going on? And then, I looked over at the glass of wine and I heard in my heart...because it wasn't an audible voice, just a knowing in my heart....Dawn, you can't read my word with that stuff. I thought...WHAT? Again..a little voice in my heart...Dawn, you know you can't read my word with that wine here. I sat still for a minute and didn't think or say anything. And, like any good sinner....after a couple of minutes I started reading again. But the feeling wouldn't go away. And after a few more minutes, I started to get indignant and mad. Thinking in my head....really, just who does He think He is? I *always* read with wine. Seriously, who does He think He is telling me that I can't have it? (Can you see me? Just shaking my head, getting all high and mighty thinking no one, not even God, has the right to tell me I can't have a glass of wine.)


So, I turn off those thoughts in my head and put my eyes back to where I was reading. And read.... "My child don't ignore it when the Lord disciplines you, and don't be discouraged when he corrects you. For the Lord corrects those he loves, just as a father corrects a child in who he delights." (Proverbs 3:11-12). Seriously, my eyes just about popped out my head! What? What, did I just read? So I read it again and you know, it just connected with me, the Lord was speaking to me through His Word, right then. I had heard people say that the Word is alive, that it is living and breathing. I never understood what they meant until right then. It spoke to me....I promise you it was like a person was standing in the room with me and spoke it out loud. I didn't hear it with my ears...but hearing something with your heart is much more audible!


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I immediately picked up that glass of wine and took it to the kitchen.....


...........and put it in the fridge to save for later.


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Remember, this is just the beginning. That was 5 years ago. And that was the first crack in the foundation of false security I had built for myself over so many years. I didn't know it then, but it was going to take some serious demolition to tear down the walls I had built around myself. Heck, my walls were so big and shielded me from so much that I didn't even know I had them...that's how in the dark I was!


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(to be continued)