Soul Healing-The End

  It took me close to 4 months to read Judah Smith’s, “How’s Your Soul”.  I would read until something struck me deep and then I would stop and chew on that thing for as long as I needed for it to sink deep and God to show me what He wanted me to get out of that piece.  Some days I could get through a whole page or more before I had to stop.  Some days I couldn’t even make it past the first sentence in the paragraph and I would have to close the book and just sit with God and chew and wrestle.  That book followed me all through the house.  From my night stand, to my desk, to the kitchen and everywhere in between. Everyday when I would I walk by the book, I’d see the title on the cover and it was if God was asking me that question each time, “Hey Caroline, how’s your soul?”.  For the first few months my reply was, “not so great, but hey, thanks for asking” (for those who know me well, you know this was said with much sarcasm).  Yes, I would actually talk to the book.  No, it never talked back.  Rude book.  During the last month and throughout the last few chapters that answer slowly started to change.  I started to respond, “Well actually, my soul is feeling a bit better today.”.  And as I finished up the book and my 18 month period of God pulling me away from everything and resting my soul and teaching me, my answer became, “It’s doing pretty darn great. Thanks for asking!” (This time without the sarcasm).   I love how God used this random book that literally somehow just fell into my lap, to grow me closer to Him, to sanctify me, to rest my soul.

“For I know the plans I have for you”, declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.  Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.  You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart I will be found by you”, declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity.  I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.”  Jeremiah 29:11-14

Oh how this verse was an anchor for my soul to cling to during my 18 month healing journey.  I constantly had to remind myself that God had a plan for me.  He has great things for my future.  I knew deep down in my aching soul that God was not finished working on me or using me for His kingdom yet.  I didn’t have to know what His next steps for me were going to be.  I just needed to trust His word that the steps would be to give me hope and a future.  He called me to seek Him, not just for a little awhile, but constantly,  not just partially, but with my whole heart.  And when I seek Him, I find Him.  I find Him sitting patiently waiting for me to turn my focus off of myself and on to Him.  Oh how sweet it is to be so loved by God.  

How’s your soul today, my friends?  Is God calling you into a time of rest and healing?  Are you kicking and screaming and arguing with Him about it or are you heeding His call and taking the time to rest?   One of the most important things that I have learned is that soul rest is not a one and done thing.  It is something that needs to be ongoing.  I have learned the importance of taking the time out of my crazy life to stop and rest my soul and seek God with my whole heart so that I don’t lose sight of Him and His plan for my life.  

It has been almost 2 years since God called me away from ministry and counseling.  He has done so much in me through this 2 year period.  Looking back I wish I wouldn’t have fought Him so much on it all, but you live and learn and grace...He always has an abundance of grace to pour over me.  Over the last few months God called me out of my time of rest and has given me my marching orders. It has been a whirlwind the last few months and I can’t wait to share with you all what He has in store!  But, you will have to wait until next week.  Hahaha I know that’s not very nice of me, but I am still working on the finishing touches and want to get those done before I let the cat out of the bag.  In the meantime, go grab yourself a cup of tea or coffee or a Dr. Pepper and spend some time with God answering the question, “how’s my soul?”.

Soul Healing-The Middle

To be honest, I didn’t even know that my soul needed healing.  I didn’t even realize just how damaged it was.  God knew, though, and He was pushing me straight into this much needed time of soul healing.  About this time He brought a book into my life, “How’s Your Soul” by Judah Smith.  As I started reading the book I wasn’t thinking too much of it.  A lot of it was stuff I already knew said in a different way.  As I kept reading it kept sinking deeper and deeper within me.  It was like God was very slowly taking off blinders that were on my soul.  Well, at least at first I though it was blinders but what it actually was were bandaids and gauze and medical tape and all the stuff I had been slapping on my aching soul without even realizing it.  As the bandages were coming off the real pain started settling in.  The realization that I had neglected my soul for awhile now and it was a mess had hit me smack dab in the center of my face.  This was good though because admitting you have a problem is the first step, right?  Right. I had a problem.  My soul was in dire need of rest and healing.  

The next few months of my 18 month healing process brought about forgiveness.  There were people I had let down and people that I had hurt and I had to confess and repent to them and ask for forgiveness.  Some were close friends, some were people I had worked with and some were merely acquaintances and some were family members like my husband and children who I had neglected.  Asking for forgiveness is a very humbling experience, but an experience that draws you to closer to God and into deeper relationships with the people you ask to forgive you.  In our family you aren’t aloud to just say “sorry”.  You have to specifically name what you are asking for forgiveness for.  Confession is specific.  It’s so much easier to just “I’m sorry” and run off (I have a 7 year old and he loves to do it this way).  It takes God working in you and your heart to be specific about the sin that you have committed against another person.  

There were also people that had hurt me that may never ask for forgiveness but I had to forgive them anyways so I that could move forward in my healing.  Did you know that you don’t have to wait for someone to ask for forgiveness before you give it?  Sometimes, a lot of times, people don’t even realize that they have offended you so how are they even supposed to know that they need to ask for forgiveness?  If you sit there, though, and just brood over the fact that this person has sinned against you and think that you will just sit around and wait for them to ask for forgiveness, all the while you are becoming more and more bitter towards them, then all you are really doing is just ending up in sin yourself.  That’s not healthy at all.  We need to forgive those that have sinned against us just as Jesus did.  He didn’t wait for every person on the earth to come and ask for forgiveness before He died on the cross.  He forgave our sins while we were still sinning!  Romans 5:8,”But God demonstrates His own love towards us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Once I was able to give and receive the forgiveness that needed to happen  I felt this immense  weight lifted off of my shoulders.  Unforgiveness can really do a number on you.  It leads to bitterness if you hold on to it to long and that bitterness becomes an amazing stronghold for satan.  He loves to come in there and turn your thoughts upside down so that you end up just thinking hateful, angry things. Which is the exact opposite of what forgiveness is.  Asking for forgiveness cleaned my side of the street and got me right with God.  It brings us to a place of humility before God and the person we have sinned against.  Giving forgiveness to people doesn’t mean we are excusing what they did it means we are choosing to move forward in healing the hurt that was done to us.  It sheds the bitterness from our hearts and frees us from Satan’s stronghold.  

     After I walked through this time of forgiveness, the only thing that I had left to do was sit with Jesus and heal.   This was so very hard for me.  I wanted to get back out there and get back into ministry work.   I wanted to reach out to other’s and see how I could help them.  But God kept telling me “no”.  My prayers became focused on asking God what He wanted me to do next.  What opportunity did He have waiting for me just around the corner.  How did He want me to get ready for it.  His answers always focused on telling me, once again, that all He wanted from me right now was to sit quietly with Him and rest and heal my soul.  Just be still.   Well, obviously I’m not very good at doing that so this was a hard lesson for me.  

     Journal entry from 6 months into the healing process: “Not sure what I need to write about today.  I miss teaching people about the gospel.  I love spending time in God’s Word learning and researching and writing notes that God then turns into a lesson to teach myself and others. I love the feeling of the Holy Spirit working in me and through me as I speak His words. I can’t help but wonder when I’ll get to do it again. I won’t say “IF” because I can’t imagine God giving me the gift of teaching and then not using it. 

   

    In my studies lately I have learned so much about how wrongly I handled things in the past.  At times I start to beat myself down again with thinking “I wish I would have done that differently.”  But again, I need to remember Christ’s words of “Forgetting what is behind me and moving forward to what lies ahead of me.” (Philippians 3:13). How will I become a better leader moving forward? How will I not allow my self-loathing to affect me moving forward?  How will I handle people pulling me down moving forward?  How will I stand up for myself moving forward?  I cannot change the past. No amount of dwelling on it or replaying the events differently in my head will change it. I can, however, learn from it and take what I learn and move forward with it. This is what I choose to do.”

    I finally gave in and stopped trying to push my will on God and accepted His will of sitting in silence with Him and focused on healing.   This time of healing involved digging deeper into my soul and really understanding why the past hurts and self doubt got to me so much.  It involved growing up a little, maturing.  It was a time for me to focus on me, something I was horrible at doing but something that I so desperately needed to figure out how to do.   I had to learn to become okay with going into my room and shutting everyone and everything else out so I could rest in the Word, or literally rest while watching Netflix, or going and getting my nails done without feeling guilty about doing something for myself.   I know it sounds silly, but it was hard for me to be self-focused like that.   Over the months I have seen and felt the positive impact that comes from me taking the time to be “selfish”.  It makes me less grumpy, less tired.  It makes my heart happier when I do serve others because I have taken the time to refill myself.  Before I was working off of fumes.  I was constantly pouring out of my soul but not taking the time to refill my soul.   Have you ever been driving when you ran out of gas?  The car starts to make puttering sounds as it slowly creeps to a dead stop.  You just pray that it makes it to the gas station before it completely stops, otherwise you’ll have to get out and push it.   That was me.  I was starting to putter, but I didn’t even realize it.  God, in all His infinite wisdom and His amazing grace pushed me over to the gas tank (Himself) and began to fill me back up.  At first it felt like it was taking forever for the gas to pump.  You know how it is when you get that pump that you swear it’s just dripping gas into your tank one little drop at a time and you watch the numbers turn ever so slowly and think that you’ll be there pumping gas for the rest of your life?  Ya, that’s how I was feeling.  But the longer I stood there, still, getting filled by Jesus the more comfortable I got there and the more I enjoyed it.  I fell in love with the time of sitting at His feet and being with Him and being in the quiet....

Soul Healing-The Beginning

    I recently went though an 18 month period that was filled with so much pain and healing and growing.  It was a hard time to go through but a much needed time for my soul. During this 18 month period I shed many tears (surprise surprise), yelled at God a lot, talked through my own failures with Howie, asked for forgiveness from those I had hurt, forgave those who had hurt me, had a gazillion conversations with a few close friends about areas that I needed to grow in, spent a lot of quiet time alone with just me and God, rested physically and spiritually and matured a lot.  It was quite a fulfilling 18 months.   What started this 18 month journey was stepping down from a ministry leadership position and stepping back from counseling others.  I did this because I felt that God told me I needed a season of rest and to learn to focus on Him first and then my family.   It was such a hard decision for me to make as my heart’s desires is to minister to others through counseling, teaching and leading, but I was at a place in my life where I had no peace and felt like I was a chicken with my head cut off running into walls most days.   My family was suffering because I was so focused on other things, albeit they were good things but they were taking up more time then God wanted them to.  

    The first few months of “healing” (that’s what we shall call this 18 month span of life) I was angry.  Angry at myself mostly because I felt like I had failed people and I had failed at my jobs of being a leader, a counselor, a mom and a wife.   I felt like I had let so many people down.  It crushed me. I was angry at people who had said hurtful things to me or who I felt had just walked away during my time of need.  Angry at God for taking away my heart’s desire of helping people.   It was a tough few months.   I had to learn to take my angry thoughts captive all over again and lay them at the feet of Christ.  I had to think on whatsoever things are true, right, noble and just.  I had to get the enemy out of my head so I could hear what God was trying to tell me.  I had to get self doubt out of my head so I could remember who I was in Christ and that that was all that mattered.   It took me some time to believe the truths that God and others were telling me; “God only wanted me in that position for a season and that season had ended.’  “Lives were touched during my time in ministry.  God had used me in so many ways to reach His people.” “People were not out to intentionally hurt me.”  It was a huge battle in my mind that I had to fight daily.  I would work through the checklist of all the ways I had failed and all the ways I had let people down.  I allowed myself to beat my own self up.  Fortunately I have a God who is so much bigger than me and He began to build me up.  

My journal entry from one of the days during the first three months of healing-  “So much runs through my mind on a daily basis.  It feels like this constant battle with my thoughts.  I can’t seem to grasp at the truths in these thoughts and feelings that I’m having and it’s so frustrating.   A friend thinks that I’m hiding and avoiding friendships and yet it has been so the opposite of that lately and I feel like I have been honest and open in telling her that.  I feel that people think that since I’m not in a ministry ministering to people right now that that’s not okay.  Yet I am still doing ministry stuff, it’s just not out there for everyone to see like it was before and I am not up on a stage talking about it right now.  I help in the children’s ministry, I‘m on the worship team, I’m mentoring/counseling 4 different women, I’m ministering to my kids and my husband.  Someone recently told me that my story needs to keep getting shared.  Ya, I agree and it does ALL THE TIME.  I don’t have to stand on a stage or lead a group to tell my story.

Wait, wow, what?!  That’s exactly what I needed to tell myself.  I DON’T HAVE TO STAND ON A STAGE OR LEAD A GROUP OR AN ENTIRE MINISTRY TO SHARE MY STORY!  And I don’t have to share every great encounter I have with people or in my quiet time with God with people for it to mean something.  

This is a personal time for me, this season of my life.  It’s a time for me to reflect privately with God.  A time for me to share my story in private with others.  It’s not a season for shouting from the mountaintops.  It’s a season of sitting beside the quiet creek and hearing a still small voice whisper in my ear.

No need to stir up any pots or emotions right now, Caroline.  No you just sit here and quietly be with Me for as long as it takes.  Just be still, My child.  Let Me calm the chaos in your head.  Let Me pull back the waters that are flooding your heart.  Let Me bring rest to your sweet, weary soul.  Me... Me.  Can you hear Me, daughter?

Can you let it just be Me?

Can you let My voice drown out the rest?

Can you let My Words cover and push out all the lies?

Just be with Me?

Just Me.

Me.

You have nothing that you need to solve.  I’ve got it.  You have nothing that you need to do.  I’ve got it.  You have no battles that you have to go fight.  I’ve got it.  You have no one but Me you have to answer to. 

Be with Me.  Let Me fill you till you overflow.  Let Me love you how you need to be loved.  Let Me.  I’ve got this.  Lean on Me.  Let Me be in control.  Let Me do the worrying.  Let Me carry all your burdens.  I’ve got this.  Can you just give it all to me?  Can I be your everything?  It’s what I so long to be.”

That day was a breaking point for me.  A day when God pierced so deeply into my soul and showed me how much healing I really did need to do and that I needed to do it His way and not mine.  There was no magic formula or time frame for me to get through this season God had brought me to.  I needed to just be still, be patient and be with God and God alone.  I needed to share my deepest, darkest hurts and thoughts with Him, not with my friends.  I needed to cry on His shoulder,  not my husband’s.  I needed to sit alone with Him, not in a crowded coffee shop with strangers.  This was not a time for me to  be in community with people, it was a time for me to be in community with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  I could finally stop fighting the lies in my head and start believing the truths in my heart.   This was the beginning of my soul healing...............

How Great Thou Art

Healing Oils

   I had mentioned a while back that Gillian had received two new diagnoses and a new medication, our 9th anti anxiety medication  in a year (http://relatabletogether.blogspot.com/2018/02/id-like-to-sove-puzzle.html).  Well, that medication was not our golden ticket. It was terrible. It made her worse. I emailed her psychiatrist to let her know and her response was to take her off the meds for three days and then just given her half a pill a day instead of a whole one and then let her know how she was doing in two weeks.  Seriously?!  I didn’t want even a crumb of this medication in my child.  It was making her crazier then before so what, half a pill would just make her a little less crazy?!!  No thank you!  I was mad.  Mad at the doctor for not really helping us, for not giving us any kind of hope that one of the millions of medicines she had was going to help our daughter.  I was mad that she didn’t really seem to be getting just how bad things were for Gillian and how horrible our home life was.  I felt like she didn’t even care. We were just another patient to her, a medical record number and that was it.  

   I stood in the kitchen that night feeling just completely hopeless. My heart was in tachycardia (as it does after a stressful day), my body was exhausted, my emotions were exhausted, my brain was exhausted.   Chris walked in and I looked up at him with tears streaming down my face (again) and said, “If we don’t find something that helps her soon, I am going to die from a heart attack or a stroke.  My body can’t take this anymore.”  I was completely serious.  Years of stress has had a negative affect on my body.  Heart issues, adrenal fatigue, TMJ, back pain, neck pain, anxiety, complete exhaustion.  I was at the end of the rope hanging on by one little thread that was fraying really fast.  He asked me what I thought we should do and I told him that I thought it was time to get her a medical cannabis card and try CBD and THC oils.   He agreed.

    We had talked about trying cannabis oil on and off for the past year but never felt God leading us in that direction.  We had only heard great things about others using them for their special needs kids.  It wasn’t something new to us but it was something new to our home. I don’t know why God didn’t want us to explore this option sooner but when we had talked about it before I never felt a peace about trying it out.  A year ago I had all the appointments lined up to get Gillian a medical cannabis card and an appointment at the dispensary to talk to someone about what we would use.  Literally an hour before the appointments God gave me this totally unsettled feeling so I canceled the appointments and that’s when we started with our psychiatrist and our long journey of anti-anxiety medications.  Now, here we were a year later having exhausted almost every route but this one.  Suddenly I had an overwhelming peace that this was exactly what we were supposed to be doing.  

I kept Gillian home from school the next day and off we went to the doctor to get her cannabis card.  The doctor was a very kind man, who looked over the big pile of medical papers describing all of Gillian’s diagnoses and understood exactly why we were there.  He signed all the paper work and off we went to the dispensary.  In all honesty here, people, this was my first time in a cannabis dispensary and actually my first time even being near any type of marijuana.  I was so nervous when we walked in.  Here we were, a red-headed white lady with her chatty, disabled daughter.  What a pair!  At the entrance was a security guard and a “bouncer-type” guy checking people in.  He was a big guy with tattoos from head to toe and a long beard.   For those of you who know Gillian you know that this is just the type of guy she likes.  She immediately started telling him that she liked his beard and his tattoos.  I was telling her to be quite.  Geesh, child.  There was some logistically issues with our paperwork since I have conservatorship over Gillian and have to be on the paperwork as well so “bouncer dude” had to call the owner, Jason, out.  Honesty again here, I was shaking like a leaf at this point because I was so nervous and had no idea what the heck I was doing.  I was such a rookie.  Jason came out and I told him who I was (we have mutual friends) and why I was here with Gillian.  Oh my word, you guys, he was the nicest guy ever!  He told “bouncer-dude” to handle the paperwork because we were legit and then he took me to the waiting area where we sat and talked about all that had been going on with Gillian for over half an hour.  He got it.  He gets it.  He has a special needs child as well and cannabis has been a life saver for his child. 

Jason explained what THC and CBD do and what the difference is between them.  I was liking what I was hearing and getting excited about trying something new.  He then told me what the side affects are...eating, sleeping and being happy.   What?!  Seriously?!  So basically you’re telling me that this is going to help my daughter eat, which she was rarely doing much of these days, sleep, she has never slept though the night in her 19 years on earth, and be happy , which I would give anything just to see her happy again.  Is this for real?!  I laughed and told him that those are my kind of side affects.  As we were getting ready to leave Jason told me that he knew that this was going to be the start of healing in Gillian and in our family.  He guaranteed it. I was speechless.  No doctor had ever told us that.  No doctor had ever given us any kind of hope for Gillian to be happy and they never even cared about the affect it was all having on our family.  All we ever heard was, “ this medication has some bad side affects but maybe it will help.”   Hope, someone was giving us hope.  It was amazing!

Now normally after an appointment with the psychiatrist I would get in the car and cry because I was so stressed about trying another anti-anxiety medication and nervous abut the side affects we would have to endure.  When I got in the car after leaving the dispensary I cried tears of joy because someone actually cared enough to give us hope.  Someone had been where we are and they had found healing and now they were helping others find healing to and we got to be some of those people.  I immediately called Chris and told him about the entire wonderful experience and the little bottles of hope I now had.  I couldn’t stop smiling.  I was overjoyed that my family, our home, was going to find peace again.  

   It took about 48 hours of Gillian taking the oils and she was a completely different person.  Within a couple of weeks she was sleeping through the night (without us having to give her Unisom) and she was having only about 1-2 tantrums a week.  Peace was being restored in our home.  Laughter was back and everyone was just overall happier.  It was wonderful.  It is wonderful.  It hasn’t been perfect, we occasionally have days where it seems like the oils aren’t helping but she is nowhere near being that horribly anxious person she was before.  

        ___________________________

Now I have to tell you about how awesome all the people at Jayden’s Journey and Kase’s Journey are..........

As Jason, Gillian and I sat on the couch in the waiting area, Gillian kept waving to the security guard and calling him a police officer.  This was cracking every up who worked there and Jason proceeded to tell Gillian that he was just a rent-a-cop.  Oh my word it was hysterical.  They were all totally loving Gillian and commenting on how awesome her fedora was.  She informed them of how much she liked Michael Jackson and the next thing I knew, they had Michael Jackson blaring out the speakers in the dispensary and they were dancing with Gilly.  Remember “Bouncer-dude” the guy who totally intimidated me when we walked in?  Well as we left, Gillian was giving him a big hug and telling him once again how awesome his tattoos and beard were.   When we went back to the dispensary a couple of weeks later “bouncer-guy” saw Gillian and got a huge smile on his face and told her happy he was to see her again.  He’s really just a big teddy bear!  

The first time I visited Kase”s Journey, “rent-a-cop” was there and he remembered Gillian and I and got a big smile on his face and just laughed.  He loved that she called him a police officer and that we all got to joke with him about it.  The people who work at both of these dispensaries are the most amazing people who’s desire is to help people find healing and hope through cannabis.  They know their stuff and are always patient with me as I ask a million questions about the oils and the dosage Gillian is taking.  I now visit one of the dispensaries once or twice a month and they are both such welcoming places.  I laugh now when I think about how nervous I was that first time..  I am so grateful that God has brought us to the place of hope and healing and for the people He has placed in our lives who fight the fights for cannabis.  

Anger Management

I have anger issues.  I’m sure I’ve had them all my life but the first time I remember anger actually talking over me was when I was 18 years old.  I was angry and I picked up an empty box and chucked it across the room as I was running out of the room.  It felt good at the time.  Later I regretted it as I heard someone say, “I knew she had an anger problem”.  This person was looking for every bit of negative in me at the time and I just gave them more fuel for their fire against me.   It sucked.  Throughout my adult life I would continue to have anger issues which usually ended with me breaking something.    In our first year of marriage I put a hole in the wall.  Howie’s awesome response to that was, “you’d better call your dad to help you fix that because I’m not doing it.”   Talk about embarrassing....”ummm....hi dad.  I just put a hole in the wall because I was mad.  Could you come help me fix it please?”.   Fortunately my dad was a very kind, understanding man with very similar anger issues (ya, it runs in the family) and came over and patched up the hole.   

I didn’t start working on my anger issues until I was in my thirties.  It had really come to a head in the years that we were going through the worst times of our marriage.  I broke quite a few things, vases, pictures, cups, plates.   It always gave me this release when I would just break one thing, but every single time afterwards I would regret it.  While working through my anger in my early thirties I focused just on the anger and how I responded in that anger.  The Bible specifically says in Ephesians 4:26, “Be angry, and do not sin.” That was my focus, to not let my anger turn to sin.  To calm myself down before I started yelling and threw something.  I found verses that I could recite when I started feeling my blood boil:

-Proverbs, 19:11, “The discretion of a man makes him slow to anger, and his glory is to overlook a transgression.”  

-Psalms 37:8, “Cease from anger, and forsake wrath; do not fret- it only causes harm.”

-Proverbs 14:29, “He who is slow to wrath has great understanding, but he who is impulsive exalts folly.”

-Ecclesiastes 7:9, “Do not hasten in your spirit to be angry, for anger rests in the bosom of fools.”

-Psalms 103:8, “The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in mercy.”

-James 1:19, “So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak and slow to wrath.”

-James 1:20, “For the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.”

I wrote these verse on note cards and had them everywhere to remind me and to help me get control of my anger.  When I would feel the anger start to surface I would pray and ask God to settle my spirit down and then I would go over the above verses until I felt myself calm down.  It took a lot of work to get into this routine and get my anger managed, but God was faithful through it all and got me through it.  It’s been a long time since I’ve broken anything. Well, actually about a year ago I threw a glass and broke it all over the floor of our bedroom.  My rage had come out of nowhere and took me completely off guard.  I immediately texted three of my closets friends to have them pray for me because I was still feeling full of rage and anger and I was so confused about where it was coming from.  Turns out I was actually having a reaction to barium.  I had had a procedure the previous day and they had used barium and some of the side effects are irritation, anxiety and confusion. It was crazy and barium is now listed on my heath record as a drug I am allergic to.  Needless to say, I don’t count that broken glass as part of my anger issues.  I do still occasionally have moments when I feel the anger rising and I really want to break something but they are few and far between now and I always remember to go and pray and meditate on my anger verses and that always brings be back down to reality. 

Now I am forty and God has recently revealed a new side of my anger issues to me.  A couple of weeks ago the hubs and I had a bad week over a tough issue that brought up a lot of past triggers for me.  We spent the better part of the week going back and forth on the issue and I was angry the whole time.  I thought I was angry because he wasn’t hearing my side of the issues.  He wasn’t getting what I was saying nor was he understanding my feelings and this was making me mad. I said a lot of mean things and yelled in this time of anger.  It all came to a head one morning as we were talking and right in the middle of the conversation, right after he had said something that was new information to me, he abruptly had to go because he had a meeting to get to.  I hung up the phone and the flood gates opened (does it seem like every one of my stories involves me crying?  Geesh. I am an emotional gal.).  The tears flowed and pain came pouring out of my heart.  I was hurting because of this situation we were in.  All the triggers were bringing up past hurts and I just ached.  I immediately wanted to close the flood gates, shove the hurt back down, grab my phone and play a game to distract myself.  As I reached for the phone I heard God say, “nope”.  Ugh.  Really, God?  Now?  Do I have to?  Of course I do.  I not only had to I needed to.  I sat in the pain and cried it all out right onto God’s shoulder. And do you know what happened as I allowed the pain come to the surface?  The anger went away!  I realized that day, right there in the parking lot of the gym that my anger was masking my pain.  I was allowing my anger to push down the real feelings I was having.   It was easier for me, at least I thought it was,  to just be angry  then to feel the real feels.  But oh my goodness, I was a whole new person once I  let the pain out and the anger just rolled right off my shoulders.  

This past week I found myself angry again over a situation.  I allowed anger to consume for a couple of days before I realized that I needed to dig deeper and figure out what the anger was hiding.  It didn’t take long to figure it out.  I pinpointed the real feeling (It was abandonment this time) dug deeper into the feeling and all of its triggers and once again the anger just rolled away and I felt like a new person again.  

People, can I just tell you how freeing and how healing this new realization is for me?!  I wish I could go back to my twenties with this knowledge and re-do all the broken things I threw.  Take back all the angry things that I yelled that I never meant and find the real feelings that needed to come out.  But, alas, that was not God’s plan.  He chose to wait until I was forty to give me this illumination and I trust, I know, that His timing is so much better than my own.  So I take my new found information and I press on with excitement at conquering a whole new level of my anger.

What is your angry hiding?  How are you using anger in your life to fight against feeling the real feels and dealing with the deeper issues? In your anger are you sinning?  Yelling at your kids or spouse, breaking things?  Is it out of control?   Do you need to write the above verses down on notecards to help remind you to calm down and turn to Christ?  It might be. A lot of hard work for you to get your anger under control but let me tell you, IT IS SO WORTH IT!  

Spring Break Nearly Broke Me

    Oh, it was a week.   A week filled with ups and downs, smiles and frowns. A week filled with calm and chaos, peace and frustrations.  A week filled with laughter and tears, hope and hopelessness.  I never knew so much could fit into just one week, but it can.  Let me rewind a couple of months so you are all up to date.....

    We started Gillian on CBD and THC oils a couple of months ago (I will go into all the details on this decision in a later post) and she has become a whole new person.  Seriously, the change has been dramatic and beautiful.  She sleeps through the night now, her anxiety levels have dropped drastically and all of those tantrums she was throwing....gone. She doesn’t throw them anymore!  Peace has been restored within her body and within our home.  It’s been beyond wonderful.   Everyone has been happy and there’s laughter in our family again.   Amazing beyond words.  (I really will get into all the details in another post, I promise. ;) ). I was excited for Spring Break with Nolan and Gillian (Emma’s spring break is this week so she was at school all last week) and to actually be able to do stuff with Gillian now that she was this new, enjoyable person.  

    

    On Monday we went to Target.  Don’t all things fun start with Target?!  Ummmm....YES!   The kids got to pick out snacks, treats and lunches for the week.  This included for Nolan Lunchables, Hamburger Helper stroganoff, Doritos and Mountain Dew and for Gillian Limon chips, root beer and Lunchables.  Good healthy stuff!  We rarely let them buy junk so this was a special treat.   We walked all around Target for over an hour and everyone was happy and having a good time.  This was a miracle in itself because, honestly, I have not taken Gillian out to a public place like this for months.  It had become so disastrous and we’d end up having to leave after 5 minutes so I just stopped taking her.  This was a breath of fresh air.  We sang songs and had a dance party in the car all the way home (Emma was glad she had to be at school.  Lol).  Yep, this was going to be the best Spring Break ever!   On Tuesday we hung out at home all day and played.  Another great day!  Before Gillian went to bed Tuesday night we talked about how we were going for hair cuts in the morning and then going to the movies.  She LOVES Cortney, who has been cutting all of our hairs for a decade, and was so excited she was going to get to see her.   She slept great Wednesday night just like she had been doing for the past two months. 

    Wednesday morning I got the kids up to get ready to go get hair cuts.   I gave Gillian the oils just like I have for the past two months.   She started acting anxious.  She didn’t want to go get her hair cut.  She started shaking just like she used to.  I got her showered and dressed and made her a protein drink to drink on the way.  She didn’t want it and threw it in the sink.   “What the heck is going on?!”, I thought to myself, “This is not our normal anymore.”  By the time we got to Cortney’s she was in full blown tantrum mode.  I spent the next hour trying to calm her down while everyone got hair cuts.  She refused to let Cortney cut her hair and instead spun herself around in the chair while spitting on the floor.  

    I started going over everything in my mind that had happened in the past 24 hours, trying to figure out what had her so off.  When we left the hairdressers Gillian was asking if we could go to the car wash.  “Of course!”, I responded, hoping that this would get her back on track.  Nope, didn’t work.  Now she was mad that we were going to the movies.  I figured that once we got there she would be okay.  We got our popcorn and water and settled into our reclining chairs.  For the next hour and a half she told me about a thousand times that she wanted to go home.  The movie finally ended and home we went.   The rest of the day consisted of tantrums and tears.  She threw the tantrums and I cried the tears.   I was just beginning to exhale after our years of hell with her.  I was just starting to feel like a normal human being again, why was she reverting back?  I went to bed Wednesday night just assuming that she would be back to her new, wonderful self in the morning. We probably just had an off day and that’s okay, I told myself.  Tomorrow would be great again.  

    I could not have been more wrong.  Thursday was worse then Wednesday. In fact Thursday was worse then any of the bad days we had had before.  The tantrums were bigger then any she had ever had.  The yelling was louder, the stomping was more fierce, the spitting was nonstop.  It was horrible.  I couldn’t even get her out of the house.  Nor did I really want to take her out of the house.  I became a hot mess.  All I kept thinking and texting my husband was, “I cannot go back to this life.  I will have to find a home to put her in if she is going to be like this again.  I can’t do this again. My body can’t do this again.  My emotions can’t do this again.  My other kids cannot go through this all again.”  I was falling apart just at the thought of her going back to her old self again.  It was not pretty.

     Thursday night I messaged with the guy who runs the dispensary where we get the oils from.   He had me up her dosage for Friday and told me to get back to him.  Dosages we’re upped but there was no change.  I was feeling hopeless.  I thought, “this is going to be like every other medication we have done. They work for two months and then they stop working.  What do we have left to try with this kid?  Nothing!  We have nothing!”  Oh the thoughts just kept racing through my mind and then I started yelling at God, “why would you do this God!  Why would you give us a taste of a peaceful child and a peaceful home and then just take it all away?!  You have the power to just make her better so why won’t you just make her better, already!  I’m not asking you to heal all her disabilities, I just want you to take away her anxiety and give her peace in her body. That’s it!  That’s all!  Is that asking to much?!”  I was angry and I wanted to stay angry but the radio was playing worship music and God was trying to talk to me.  I didn’t want to listen. I just wanted to be angry at Him for a little while.  But His voice broke through my hopelessness and I heard Him ask, “Don’t you remember all My truths, child?  Don’t you remember how I work all things together for good?  Don’t you remember that I will never leave you nor forsake you?”  Ugh, yes, I remember all of that, God.  Can I just be mad though?  “Well what would be the purpose in being mad?”  Nothing really.  I just want to be mad...... I always love these conversations with God.  They only happen when I really need a good, swift kick in the butt because I’m being so stubborn and pig headed, but I cherish them and remember them every time they do happen. I was still feeling angry and hopeless but I was also clinging to God’s promises and remembering that He is a good Father and He does love me and He really loves Gillian.  And I may not see the purpose in the chaos right now but He’s working out something amazing that will glorify Him.  

     I texted my community people and told them what was going on and asked them all to pray for Gillian and to pray for me and my attitude.  I could never do this life without the community of amazing people that God has placed in my life.  I messaged back our friend at the dispensary Friday night and he had me up the THC a little more and then mentioned that there was a full moon happening and this could be part of the problem.  Sounds weird right?!  But it’s totally true.  Seriously, ask any special needs mom you know and she will tell you that her kid acts up when there’s a full moon.  Remember when we had the red moon a few months back? Oh my word, these kids were awful that week!   Not really sure what causes the full moon to have that kind of affect on them, but it does.   So I was feeling a little relieved when he reminded me of this.   Friday night I sat on the couch with Chris and just cried.  Poor guy got a lot of tears on his shoulder last week.  My anxiety had kicked backed in (it had been doing so well the past month) and I literally felt like my skin was crawling.  I wanted to just pull my skin off.  This made me sad thinking about Gillian was probably feeling the exact same way except she didn’t know how to communicate that to us.  How scary it must be for her sometimes to be in her body.  I know how she feels but I also know how to talk to others about it and how to talk myself through it, she doesn’t and that breaks this mama’s heart into a million pieces. 

   

    Saturday we started seeing a little improvement in Gillian.  She was calming down and not throwing any more tantrums. She woke up with a stuffy nose so she spent most of the day laying on the couch.  I’m sure her whole body was exhausted from the last few days. Mine was. 

I was selfishly worrying all day that she wasn’t going to be okay for Easter Sunday.  Our plans were to go have breakfast at my sister’s house, followed by going to Church, and then lunch at my in-laws.   I had been looking forward to this day for awhile now and in the back of my head I kept thinking that she was going to ruin it and I was going to end up at home with her all day.  You can send my Mother of the Year award to house.  LOL  I woke up on Easter Sunday at 5:30.  My alarm was set to go off at 6:15 so I laid in bed and just prayed for the next 45 minutes. “God, please bring peace back to Gillian.  Please just let her be okay today so the whole family can be together and enjoy the day.”  I kept sayin that over and over and over again.  I got Gillian up at 7:00 and she was in a pretty decent mood.  Yay!   We talked about how we were going to Auntie’s house and then to our new Church and then to Gramma and Papa’s house.  She was a little apprehensive about it all but we just kept pushing forward.   We got to my sister’s and she was in a great mood the whole time!  When it was time to leave for Church she didn’t give us any trouble.  When we got to Church, she walked right into her Sunday School class with a smile on her face and didn’t even bother to turn around and say goodbye and when we were at my in-laws she sat by me at lunch and put her arm around my neck and her head on my shoulder as if to say “I’m okay mom and I love you”.   It was a beautiful Easter Sunday.  It was an amazing reminder of the horribleness Christ had to suffer to get to that beautiful day of resurrection.  I failed miserably during the few days of “old Gillian” this past week.  I lost my hope, my patience and some of my faith.   But Christ never lost me!  He had His arm around me the entire time guided me forward through the crap and into the light.   Even when I doubted, He just held me tighter.  

    Gillian isn’t quite all the way back to the happy, calm person she was the last couple of moths.  But she’s no where near “old Gillian” and for that I am beyond grateful.