Radical Acceptance and Yielding to the Joy of Suffering

I have recently had some rather amazing breakthroughs, and I don't share this to be self-congratulatory, nor am I trying to prove piousness or anything like that, but to try to get closer in my search for TRUTH...to be living proof that there is hope even in what seems like the darkest of circumstances or mental spaces. Also, if I'm going to write a book to help people, it would only be right of me to be honest and authentic about the impactful points of one's spiritual journey. And to be an example of God’s “light” (Nehara) in this world.

I've been going through quite a lot for a long time, and my whole life has been marked by suffering in ways not all people experience. A few months ago, I was thinking about not wanting to be here at all anymore. I have gone through many phases in life, but this is different. I've come to a point of radical acceptance... of where I am, who I am, and of my sufferings. Not only accepting, but enduring with joy. My circumstances have not changed, but my mindset has shifted. My heart. I certainly expect that things can, and even will, get worse, but I know it will be okay because I trust God. I can endure. I can accept my reality and my fate. I'm not resisting or fighting against it all. I may even die alone in the worst way possible, but I'll accept it… because of what Jesus did for me. He did all of this and more, and I love him, and I can endure for Him.

I'm focusing on the people that the Lord has graced me with to serve. Giving all of myself to them. It seemed to happen overnight—Suddenly, I yielded. But I didn't "give up"...I kneeled down and lowered myself. Not as an act, but in joyful service. In the most physical pain I've been in for a long time, I gave hand massages (and a foot massage) to 5 of the memory care residents... just like when I was a massage therapist. I literally got on my knees before each of them on the floor, set a towel on their lap, wrapped their hands in hot towels and then used a nice peppermint massage lotion and allowed them to feel present and cared for by someone with a genuine heart for healing. I'm so grateful to have been called and given this gift to be able to use MY gifts to serve those who the world sees as lowly and useless and forgotten in this society. I believe God puts us places we are meant to be and where we are needed. Where we can offer our unique wisdom and experiences. And these aren't just nice words, because for the past week or so in particular, I have been smiling more (and genuinely), I have been kinder, happier, talking to more people, going out of myself and helping more people out in the world. Showing love and giving my attention, even when it’s inconvenient. I have been more creative and I am pursuing new ventures. It feels like the world is opening up to me. Just because I said YES... to where I am, to who is before me, to loving others, to being present, to BEING love.

Recently after experiencing all this, one of the higher-cognitive residents who was having a really hard time with agitation, isolation and frustration found comfort and peace with me and talked with me for over an hour as lucidly as I've ever heard him speak. (Though, he thinks he's in love with me, which is a whole different can of worms that is a very real and heartbreaking difficulty of my job, but I'm just glad that he feels safe, seen, peaceful, and calm when around me.)

The veterans I work with all have pretty advanced dementia. Please pray for them!

Also pray that I keep persevering and deepening my relationship with the Lord. It’s not coming from a fear of not knowing enough, but because I want know Him. Deeply and personally. I think I'm on the right track. I got back into the routine of praying the rosary every night before bed, and I notice a real difference!

Some of what I've been experiencing is hard to explain with words and to contextualize, but I feel it. I feel more myself than I have in a very long time, too.

I'm not sad about not finding the "right person" or overly focused on that anymore, either. I know that if I really wanted to date, I would. I want the right person or nothing at all. I'm not desperate and have no need to settle. I have been single for almost 4 years now, and it's not because I'm the ugliest person in the world. I'm focusing on other things. Like getting my spine issues taken care of... and I've pretty much been on a 4-year long date with God. My entire lifetime, He’s been trying to “woo me”.

...

Working with the elderly population with dementia can be difficult mentally and emotionally in ways most people wouldn't realize or understand.  It really is essential to have a strong foundation and a strong support system of people who love and listen to you and care. It can be isolating to have the same conversations over and over with people who don't remember your name. You can feel like you're connecting with someone, as we do when we converse with one another, but this is very isolating because there really isn't that reciprocated receiving that we do when relating to others. When you spend 40 or more hours a week only having these types of conversations and relationships and you go home to yourself and start the day again... it can be extremely draining. Self-care and self-knowledge is very important if you're going to do this type of work. It's also heartbreaking to watch them decline, knowing that they are all at the end of their lives and that the disease will take them and their dignity and all of who they were. You can't help but form friendships and love them. You will smile and laugh with them. You will love them and care for them, and you will watch them die and you'll be by their side as they cross over to be with the Lord. It is also a great blessing.

I am dangerous

God tests us so that we better understand ourselves and our own hearts. The more He tests me, it seems that I'm getting weaker and that I must surely give up soon. But no, no. 

I have NOT given up yet. I'm still here. I still have a grain of hope that I cling to. And that PISSES the devil off.

I am a threat. My heart is still soft and not hardened. I still hear God's voice and I still muster up enough energy to pray, especially for others. I still give of myself in service to the forgotten and sick. I am in pain. I mourn. I keep taking hits, and I KEEP GETTING BACK UP.

I haven't been looking at it properly. I am dangerous to Satan. He wants so badly for me to take my own life because I have kept my promise to God. I still have faith. And I still have a story to tell. If I rise again after being knocked down another time, it surely makes the evil one shiver. There's no possible way someone can endure for so long and not have given in. But I will rise again. I will tell my story. I see that I'm stronger than I ever gave myself credit for. I believed the lies far too long. God surely is closest to the brokenhearted.

I am dangerous.

Puella Aeterna

Far too long were the years 

Puella Aeterna

Waiting to be saved and sulking in the shadows

Watching your ghost live a life you could never reach

Dazzled by the stars above you,

the shackles dig deep grooves into the flesh

sitting on a cold stone floor.

Where is your great love?

He never came.

When you look at your reflection

Do you see a child or an old woman? 

Puella Aeterna

You never found your place 

never found peace.

Resigned your purpose for another

But nothing was taken

You never knew what to do with it on your own.

Has your life just begun or are you closer to death?

The lines in your skin grow deeper... 

Is it from the smile you put on to face the world?

or from the frown when you sit alone?

Yet still you wish...

And still you wait...

Puella Aeterna

There's a black void within that's heavy and aches

Wandering to find the missing piece.

Weeping over the time that wastes away endlessly

Sad, small Puella Aeterna... will you save yourself?

Will you ever remember your wings

and fly 

like all the Boys that were as Lost as you

who soared away from your disintegrating bones.

Woman, teach yourself to fly.

*(It may help to look up the term “Puella Aeterna” in Jungian psychology.)

A Prayer for Blessings Upon Myself

For a long time, I had been allowing things to block me from receiving blessings and what is truly meant for me. I neglected loving myself... and when in prayer, I neglected asking the Lord for blessings upon myself and my life. I recently have been learning true surrender and detachment (without being cold or stoic).

I put up a lot of resistance at first, especially since I have a tendency towards anxiousness and wanting to control outcomes. But recently it's become easier for me. I feel that when you're present and live from the heart, there's no need for control because you exist with God in his love... the opposite of stress and worry... and move forward effortlessly in His flow.

This life is hard. Healing takes time and courage to change.

In prayer lately, I have been asking for specific blessings, and for the Lord to bless my body and what I use my body for... ultimately to glorify Him.

I know I deserve good things.

Lord bless my feet, that I may walk with purpose and connect with the earth and the goodness that you have created. That I may place complete trust in you as I move forward within your will.

Bless my womb and sexual organs, that they may be healthy and fruitful, ordered toward their design. That my desires and what I create may be in order with your will. May I desire what you desire for me.

Bless my stomach and digestive organs, that they may be healthy and work according to their design. That any dysfunction may be healed and balanced and may I love myself so that I do not hold fear or shame in this area in the form of weight. 

Lord bless my heart. That I may keep it open and love you, others and myself freely. May my heart function normally and in healthy balance, keeping my cardiovascular system functioning well and keeping my body alive. Fill my spiritual heart with gratitude every day, and with peace so that I can share your joy and healing with others.

Bless my throat and my mouth Lord. That I may speak truth and love. That I express myself clearly and only speak good things upon others. Keep my throat and mouth healthy. Keep my thyroid gland balanced and well. Heal dysfunction in my cervical spine and heal that area from chronic pain.

Bless my eyes, that I may see through your eyes. Grant me the grace of the Holy Spirit to see with spiritual eyes and see things as you see them. To see others through your eyes and to see situations and things in this world in your ways, not the world's ways. Grant me spiritual vision and the foresight to make wise choices. Keep my physical eyes healthy and well.

Bless my mind and my brain. Protect my mind (and heart) Lord, and keep my thoughts holy and pure, with no negative thoughts of others. Allow me to think positive thoughts and not negative thoughts. Allow me not to dwell or ruminate or catastrophize. Keep my mind from being addicted to negative thoughts and patterns. Deliver me from the addictions of anxiety and depression. Deliver me from wanting to control outcomes. Plant thoughts of hope and a positive vision of myself, my life and my future. Bless me with awareness to stop feeding the thoughts that damage me.

Lord bless the space around me. May it be holy and surround me with your golden healing light.

May those that I encounter be blessed by this light and may it shine upon them, directing them to you.

Lord I thank you for this day. For this life. For this opportunity to ask for blessings.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. 

I love you.

Amen.

This Month's Word is "SURRENDER"

Last month, my word that the Lord laid on my heart to focus on was "Hope". Now I am being called to practice surrender.

Something that many of us do is cling on tightly to the way we want things to be. We try to exert our control over circumstances and outcomes and people more often that we would like to admit. Control is something I struggle with, and while it's something that I try to have over things, what actually ends up happening is that I have a lack of control DUE to my trying to control it. Ironic, but that's how it works. And that is why learning surrender is so important. This lack of control over the thoughts that create unpleasant feelings are actually indicative of an undisciplined mind.

For several days over the past week, I found myself in a very dark place mentally and I felt the spirits of hopelessness, fear, depression and desperation seeping into the cracks of my foundation. I had been praying prayers of deliverance for someone else, and it almost felt like a direct attack the way it hit me. 

I've been telling myself these stories and believing them for a while deep down. I just never had the discipline to rewrite these stories and start feeling the feelings I'd RATHER feel so that I could be more receptive to the good things I actually want in my life. After those few days that were particularly difficult, what made me pivot in my thinking was one significant moment when I was lying in bed feeling horrible and thinking about past memories, catastrophizing about the future and believing untrue realities about the present. 

Suddenly, I realized and said out loud to myself, "I don't like the way I feel right now!"

And so, I stopped and started feeling the way I'd rather feel, even if I had to create a delulu scenario just to feel that feeling.

I know it's starting to sound like woo-woo manifestation stuff now, but there definitely is some deep truth to all of it as far as what you believe being so important. What I was choosing to believe and the reaction my body was having to the terrifying thoughts was no different than choosing to watch a horror movie and feel your heart race during the scary jump scenes as if it was really happening to you. Your body still registered a threat and believed it was real, even though you were sitting there immersed in a fictional movie.

Be very careful about what you choose to believe.

Do not control like trying to grasp tightly onto Jell-O... Be soft and receptive. Believe the things you want and then you'll feel the associated feelings, and then things in your life will have to follow suit and align with the person that you are.

I'm going to work more deeply on surrendering in my life. And every time I feel a need to control something, I need to remind myself to relax and let it be, because what is for me will come when I release my grip and settle into a state of BEING.

Stop. Breathe. Surrender. (Repeat, repeat, repeat.)

On Men...

When I was a broken young girl, I thought all men were pieces of💩who would hurt or disappoint me. I found pleasure in making them kiss my boots on their knees and I had no interest in respecting them or trusting them on a deep level due to fear. I always thought I wanted love, but that inability to trust and allow myself to be soft got in the way. Now, I fully realize how wonderful men are and am so grateful for the male friends in my life who are honest, prayerful, caring and check in on me. Male energy is magnetic rather than repelling and I actually get along better with men now than ever before. I don't put myself in a position to be used and I never feel used... even if they aren't always able to resist impure thoughts. Men are absolutely beautiful in their nature, and I find fascination in their differences and celebrate them rather than try to be more masculine to be on the same level. I find my interactions with men different now that I'm different than I used to be, and I receive their giving energy for all that it is rather than try to shut off or be cold. The more I let go of the old negative stories I used to tell, the more I free up room for new or exciting experiences. Focusing on being joyful and loving truly brings about positive interactions... and positive people.

I realized today that this answers the question I had years ago about whether it's possible to heal father wounds and approach the Heavenly Father in a healthy way or whether the healing would be a lifelong process that needed to be assessed often. I think this is a wound that actually has had deep healing, and I am able to approach our Father with love, receptivity, gentleness and trust. Over the past couple years, in deepening my relationship with the Lord, I also trust men more, and that in turn, helps me approach the Lord in a healthy way, too. Also, without wounds from codependency. It's like it just happened and I realized it suddenly. This was such a hot button and pain point for me a few years ago and now I'm in a totally different place. 

Yes, it is possible to heal this kind of wound fully. I have experienced this healing. I am so grateful. 

My relationship with the Lord is very pure and childlike, I'd say.