Hardware

"Help my mind to conceive what it is that You want to do," is what I prayed at the prayer group.

"I Believe I can fly." Remember that song?

Oswald Chambers said in his little great devotional book that we don't really know ourselves until we know of ourselves in the midst of relationships. There, in that connection between two people is a part of ourselves we don't otherwise know.

Maybe that part of ourselves isn't even there without the relationship touching it and making it alive, like a part of the body, of the skin that a blind person never knows until it is touched and it is discovered comes to life.

Are you a broken person? I am. Yet, as I have become strong, I have allowed my brokenness to be better seen. It is sad, but good also. The scars. The damaged skin. The pain that can be imagined when you look at the damage. A hurrican Andrew was here I guess, the visitors to Charleston say. I don't think I am a Katrina, so I didn't use that anaology. Don't want to be overly dramatic.

Yeah, I am broken, but not that bad, but actually, pretty bad too. And the "who I am" is the sum of three parts. There's me. Then there is the one who acts like she is me and gets everything done and does it well. Then there is the Holy Spirit Who watches over me and keeps it all working.

Someone saw the real me the other day, and I wasn't expecting her to see me that way, but she had been paying really close attention, and I guess I let my guard down, because I was trying to get to know her, and she got to know me. Funny how that happened.

I feel so pathetic sometimes. Do you ever feel that way? I am so pathetically needy. That is the way that broken people are, I guess. Well, the needy kind of broken people. It is really so pathetic, their broken lives, oozing with, well, brokenness and a desire for somebody else to make them whole.

Because Christ is my life, He has enabled me. He has given me a husband who has been a nourisher and provider for me. He has sent another friend who has been a listening ear and counselor to me by her acceptance and continual supply of love and empathy and encouragement.

I don't want to talk about what is really going on right now with any more specificity, but let me see if I can tie the ends together a little bit more.

I need God to open my mind to be what He wants and not just walk in the tradition of men. This applies for my work, my view of work and the world, and my relationships. God is working and changing and doing new things and I need to be transformed in my mind to understand it and walk in the light of it and move according to His Spirit.

I am not into positive self talk. However, there is a from of pride that looks like humility but it is really pride. When God gives a gift He expects it to be exercised, not to be quelched with a false sense of graciousness and humility. Sometimes flying may make others to think that you are full of pride, but people are frequently misdirected. I need to follow God, and for me I think that means standing up and claiming the land that He has given me and being bold. It is flying when there is a sign up that says, "your mother wouldn't like this" and flying anyway because I am all grown up now. It is flying when there is a sign that says, "Christian women aren't stronger than men in the community workforce." Go to hell, God told me to claim this damn mountain and that is what I am doing. Doesn't look pretty, but it is effective.

As far as the relationship thing and Oswald's book, I found new places in me, or drowsy, sleepy places in this new relationship that I have and it is pretty interesting. But it is disturbing because it touches parts of my broken insides, broken due to past relationships that hurt me, not all other people's fault (much). There were cirsumstances. I am a difficult person, too strong willed by nature, but God didn't do that by accident either (making me too strong for my own good sometimes).

Because Christ is my life, and because I have been in intimate relationships and have important ones, I can sit with the pain and not act out on it. I can sit here now and wish I didn't ache inside. Why am I aching? No particular reason, other than, the relationship aroused pain from turbulance - opened wounds that touched old scars and so it just hurts. If the pain could talk it would say, "hold me." But then, if held it would say, "Don't touch me." It is like one of those no-win situations. When someone says one thing but does the other and then doesn't even see the ridiculous nonsence that they do. Stupid stuff. Stupid pain.

People like me need to know that others don't really want to wallow in your irrationality unless they are irrational themselves, and then there is no way out or the sick and disturbed relationship (okay, exageration - there is a way out). It is best to be mature. Like when a wound hurts and the nurse in the ER says to sit still so she can clean it. Sit still damn it. Don't make a scene.

Then later, you can act like a normal human being with the person who trampled upon your Katrina back yard with the upside down truck sitting on the roof with the mold growing in the termite infested walls. You smile and remember how normal people act. "How are you today? That's good, and how was your weekend? Great, mine too. Would you like a bit of lunch?" Real normal-like.

"There, that wasn't too bad, was it?" Says the ER nurse. "Now give it seven days and we'll take the stiches out." "In six weeks the cast will come off and after the three months of physical therapy we'll take the halo off the neck. Next year the third surgery will remove the hardware. Have a great day."

"And in all things we are more than conquerors through Christ who loves us!"