Reading from "Love, Life, & God: Getting Past the Pain"

Broken People

I recently heard on the radio (K-LOVE) and read on a website that God uses broken people to administer to others.

I first became aware that God had bigger plans for me in 1995 when Santa Claus (or an angel) came to me in a dream and told me I had everything I would ever need in life the night I found out my 1st husband had changed the lock on our storage space and I couldn’t get in to get my son’s & my things after we had split up. I rebuilt my life again and we did eventually get our things back.

In 2008, I experienced another mystical experience one morning just before a car accident. I saw 2 “etheric” beings when I was leaving Walmart. (They were not solid like human beings. I had seen these same 2 guides (angels?) years before in a spiritual class to learn how to stop being empathic so I recognized them. On my way home, I took my eyes off the winding road to catch the tote bag on the passenger seat that spilled over. My truck ended up in the ditch. A block of time disappeared between grabbing the bag and ending up in the ditch. One moment I was in a state of despair, the next I felt like God had just told me everything in my life will be OK. I believe those beings wrapped themselves around me to keep me from getting hurt as I did not have a single bruise or scratch and a block of memory was gone. Maybe they even took me out of the truck. I have accute memories of every second in other auto accidents, but not this one. All I felt was a gentle tap as my left shoulder touched the window then every loose item inside came flying at me. The truck was totaled. This was significant because I had been tripping and slipping a lot on the farm where I was living at the time and each time I was injured.

Last July (2010), I heard a voice in my head tell me to go to a Laundromat when I didn’t have to do my own laundry. I met a woman who turned out to be a counselor. After talking to her, I took a leap of faith and stopped taking 11 medications cold turkey. On the 7th day, the withdrawal process was complete. I felt like the Holy Spirit got in, cured me of all my afflictions, and filled me up with a purpose.

Two months later the afflictions came back, along with the side affects of being on anti-depressants, Klonopin, muscle relaxers and pain meds for 15 years. (See blog entry of March 15, 2011)

I have realized that I have survived everything that I was afflicted with. Once again, God has picked me up, brushed me off, and sent me out into the world again, forcing me to grow and evolve. This time, life involves other people.

Some days I have to curl up and stay in bed. Some days I am dormant. Then there are days when I feel adrenaline rushes and feel compelled to go to a specific store or other location at a specific time where all the people I need to talk "just happened" to decide to go at the same time. Or the perfect website will mysteriously appear on my computer screen.

Life is a journey, not a destination. I want to talk to people who have lived long journeys to know what it’s been like for them. I want to stop isolating myself.

Perhaps broken people fall, split into hundreds of pieces so that God can re-assemble them into a new jigsaw puzzle of His creation. After all, God is the creator that brought us into existence to begin with. What does God want to create through me?

For many years I felt helpless and alone. No one seemed to understand me or what I was going through. I searched endlessly for meaning in every aspect of my life, while others were just living and doing. Perhaps I have always been clinically depressed most of the time. More recently, I’ve felt like I am on a non-stop rollercoaster on “Groundhog Day”.

I desire to learn how to find peace in the simple things in life. I don’t like living alone but I need to be alone. When illness and muscle pain flare up, I start to feel helpless and overwhelmed. I know better than to try to figure things out or make changes when I am completely exhausted, and I am trying to break this pattern.

I’ve already moved 41 times since leaving home, so my first reaction is that I need to move again. My tendency is to run away (move) every time my life feels stressful or uncomfortable. Then I feel overwhelmed by the thought of moving. Recently I talked to 3 other women who also have FMS & CFS who have done the same thing. They couldn’t deal with any stress so they up and moved (out of relationships, marriages, misc. living situations, etc.). It’s not just me.

I thought owning a motor home would be a good solution… that when I needed to move, I could move my house. This motor home turned out not to be the solution I thought it would be. It is 27 years old and it would require repairs and much work (along with gas) to get it mobile, not to mention all the packing I would still have to do because I am attached to my nic nacs, books, & projects.

Once again, I must let go and let GOD. I must return to BELIEVING the way I believed 15 years ago when I wrote 'Appearances.'

Off to the Races

After I stopped taking antidepressants, Klonopin, muscle relaxers, & Hydrocodone cold-turkey (after 15 years), my mind and body went into hyper mode which included two months of euphoria. When the ephoria subsided, my mind started collecting every negative thought I ever thought and sending me crashing into anxiety attacks and tears. If I had indeed “fractured” from all life’s traumas, each of these “personalities” started to fight with each other… and I definitely thought I would lose my mind. However, maybe it would have been a blessing if my mind did get lost for a while.

The opportunity presented itself for a lot of healing. For months, trauma after trauma surfaced… some in gentle waves and some like cyclones. One of my sisters began her training as a Life Coach and I let her use my situation to do her homework assignments. I also participated in a weekly discussion group on the topic of life cycles. Another ingredient was reading a lot of books written by other people who had gone through similar progression from dysfunction to fully functioning people. I found motivational speakers on Facebook, and I am re-learning to express myself with a new vocabulary.

I believe I completed years worth of work in merely six months, but life is a journey, not a destination and, apparently, I am on a very complex one.

I came up with a way to deal with the racing mind thing. I divided my life into several college type classes such as Psychology, Philosophy, Religion, Natural Medicine, Outdoor Living (you get the idea). I trained myself to focus on one “class” at a time. It is not a good idea to be everywhere else but your car when you are driving.

Today is a new day and I live one day at a time. I got through yesterday, I can get through today. No matter how bad it seems, it’s temporary.

Matthew 6:25-34 "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life..."

It's been five months since I've stopped taking meds. I thought I was cured. When you take SSRI's & other meds for 15 years, they can have the same affects on you as doing hard drugs. I started falling apart. This is my story in prose
In July 2010, I cried out to GOD "PLEASE MAKE IT STOP!"

No more pain! No more medication! I WANT MY LIFE BACK!

I heard a voice in my head say go to the WELLS Laundramat.

This was not one of the hundreds of voices I hear in my head.

I went. Rafi was there and spoke to my heart so I did what she said.

She saw straight through my soul, said I was asleep, it was time to “WAKE UP”.

I wondered what she meant but I had reached the end of my rope and had enough!

I went to her house and she prepared me for what would come

She loaned me “Nine Faces of Christ” to read alone in my room til the process was done.

I read about a fictional Christ who endured endless trials of all kinds.

He kept me company while I endured the withdrawal and thought I would lose my mind.

All those trials prepared him for the Crucifixion and the final rush…

On the seventh day, I felt crucified and got zapped by GOD with a gush.

My brain chemistry shifted. Suddenly, I felt free.

Free of pain, free of anguish; I was energetic, strong and could clearly see.

The earth became my stomping ground after years of staying in bed.

I went out to discover all the people and hear what they said.

I pulled “Appearances” and my poetry out of their boxes,

New books started writing themselves while I detoxes.

I met musicians who played along with songs I’d been writing

And more angels appeared to show me how to make my life exciting.

But God wasn’t finished with me… two months later it all left.

All the sabotaging voices returned to mess up my head.

In “Questions” I had written “I am a seeker, a seeker of truth”

I searched endlessly for every piece of good news.

I began to struggle with money, and every trauma and fear returned.

I got amnesia, I crashed, and couldn’t remember anything I’d learned.

Religious confusion from many sources swarmed in my mind

I searched in all the wrong places (again) for peace I could not find.

I kept meeting more people who each said something I needed to hear

Seemed like post office parking lots were a favorite place for them to appear.

I met doctors of Natural Medicine who suggested alternatives to drugs,

Found out about vitamin deficiencies and started working out the bugs.

I met people who studied biology, psychology, philosophy, and believed in the Lord.

My racing mind tried to process every piece of information - I wasn’t bored.

One person said to reread “Appearances” the book I wrote when I was forty years old…

That the answers were in what I had already written... in the story I already told.

I went to talk to that person again another day searching for more.

He said “you still have a VOID” and I mentally fell through the floor.

I studied "Appearances" and reread all my poems.

I had detached from my soul which is why I had no memory of what I was shown.

I was trying hard to control my own life,

I had gone back to the old patterns of creating my own strife.

I called my soul back and within days of realizing this simple cure

More "angels?" began arriving to usher me through a new door.

A little unexpected money began to appear…

And a Jewish man called upon his Rabbi to declare my worth in a prayer.

It was the second time I was told to read about trusting God in Matthew 6:25-34

I used to know this all so many years ago and more!

Next a woman who majored in Psychology thought I had fractured from all life’s traumas--

If so, no wonder I was experiencing so many drama’s!

Include the traumas I had empathetically collected from my family and peers.

No wonder I was feeling so totally weird!

The next day a Christian woman told me I had taken on the burdens of all the ones I loved…

But Jesus died on the cross for us and it wasn’t my job!

She then said while I had been working frantically to pull all the weeds of despair

I left all the roots to grow back while I cried life wasn’t fair!

She suggested I read: Matthew 6:25-34
and put all my trust in the Lord!

I wish to encapsulate these solutions in a pill I can take

with all the other vitamins I’ve been given to swallow each day.

Breathing

I am choosing, for now, to live without medication. I have come a very long way in recovering from being sedated for (15?) years, and now I have trouble going to sleep due to pain, discomfort, and a racing mind (no more drugs to sedate me). If I do succeed in falling asleep, my bladder wakes me up and once up, my mind goes off to the races again (a symptom of withdrawal from anti-depressants).

One night recently, I thought about Genesis and how we were created from dust. I thought about what it would have been like for God to breathe life into me and felt my lungs fill with air. Each time I exhaled I released tension in my body. I felt really peaceful doing this and slipped right into sleep. Then I took it a step further. I inhaled the strength of God and exhaled weakness, inhaled the unlimited power of God and exhaled helplessness, and I inhaled health and exhaled illness. If my mind is going to be filled with thoughts, better it be these. I eventually fell asleep.