How My Life Fell Apart, part 1

I wrote this essay/blog entry a day before yesturday. I did not post it because it did not feel like the right time yet. Now more has happened and it does seem like the right time to talk about my feelings I had then. I will write more soon, and tell more.

When I wrote a research paper in the ninth grade I did it because I suspected I was depressed and I knew next to nothing about the subject. The first sentence of my paper was a quote: “Depression is like a murky pool.” I never understood the quote at the time but I thought the imagery was neat. For years I thought it meant that understanding depression was like groping around in a murky pool, you never knew what was underneath there. Now I understand, years later, that being depressed is like being in a murky pool. You are alone, you can’t see much. You cannot see the light above the surface clearly, if at all, and you can’t breathe. You are being weighed down with lead weights tied around your ankles. I was in that pool for years.

The main reason I got out was my husband’s help and support. He made me feel a love and acceptance I had never experienced before and in that positive environment I felt like I could be myself and slowly those lead weights came free. I did not even notice the ropes slipping free and how I began to float towards the surface and for the first time in a decade I was able to take a breath and see clearly in the free light and air with my head above water.

The terrible thing in this story of beauty and triumph is that in my wonderful recovery I hurt my husband a great deal. All those days, months and years of living with a depressed person, wondering if they have hurt themselves or will you find something worse when you come home, is very draining. Your life starts to revolve around that person’s disease. You lose yourself and you chop off little pieces of yourself to take care of your sick loved one. That is what happened to my husband.

He not only became burdened down with the weight of my lead weights he forgot who he was and forgot why he even did it. I was like a vampire or a parasite slowly sucking away his happiness and sense of self to gain those things for myself and I never noticed that. We were happy. We loved each other. Our marriage, despite all the financial and social things, was the real consistently good thing in our lives. Or so I thought. I projected my happiness onto him. I thought: I have become a better person in the course of this marriage; he influenced me for the better. I must have done the same for him. We grew together.

Well, that is what I thought. It felt amazing to be liked, loved and accepted by someone so completely, warts and all. I did have this nagging suspicion in the back of my mind, somewhere in the worst fears section of my brain, that he did not like me as much as I liked him. I figured it was just my old low self-esteem talking. I mean he was so great, kind, patient and nice. He was so talented, capable, funny and smart. I was a loser with no real talents or skills. My IQ was painfully average, my humor was often bristly and mean and not nearly as funny as I thought. On top of that my youthful good looks were not nearly as youthful or good as they had once been. Come on, that is just my old self-esteem and fear. I am great, people like me, I like me etc. I had all this new found self-esteem and he told me he loved me like a million times a day, of course he liked and loved me. 

Wrong, so wrong, I had created my happy marriage as a work of one sided fiction. I just really wanted this wonderful person to love me. It turned out all those little worrying red flags I had experienced really were signs that not all was right. My husband’s occasional signs of depression and not being able to keep friends very actively. He was feeling like an old loser after he had stopped doing things and hanging out with people because he felt he needed to just take care of me and cater to my needs. There was the way he never complemented my personality, intelligence, sense of humor or anything internal like that and how all the compliments on my looks just stopped coming, even when I specifically asked for compliments. I figured he did not need to do that, he loved me anyway and it was ridiculous to need compliments, I needed to have my confidence standing independently.

Now here I am, I have to peer to the surface of the murky pool and stare the plain truth in the face. I am a loser. People like me only when they don’t know me. The one person who truly knows me does not like me and this not liking has worn down the love over the years making his responses of “I love you.” as hollow and empty as a looted tomb. I just fell off a cliff, how are you doing?

LGBTF

I am back for the moment. I never said it was forever. I am probably not here to stay but might pop in at some point. I am sneaky and mysterious and all that. I just had something I wanted to write and here it is.

I have always been such a huge fan of the civil rights movement. I have always been more of a Rosa Parks type of a fighter for freedom, than a Freedom Rider. I will stand up for what is right when I need to but I am not actively courageous. I wait for my moment to stand up for what I believe in. I am still waiting for my opportunity because then I could say, look at me, these are my principles, and this is what I believe in.

In today’s world racial equality is a given. That does not mean racism is not live and well but it is not systematic, widespread and accepted. I keep thinking: What is the today’s equivalent of the 1960’s segregation? My answer is there is not an exact analog but in my life but prejudice against Muslims and homosexuals comes close. I face both in my spiritual community. The prejudice against Muslims is the reason I have effectively left my former church. As much as I love the people I spend time with there, their attitudes against this particular group of Semitic people are too much for me to take and so I left. I mean I work there. I have committed to certain tasks which I can’t just leave barring something absolutely egregious.

The subject of gay rights is another thing all together. I believe it is a human rights issue to allow them to marry, adopt and have the same legal rights as couples of the opposite sex. Adam and Steve all the way, so to speak. This is actually an issue I cannot even take up to defend in a community of faith, or among most of my family. I am an ally of the LGBT community. I am a Christian. If I can justify women having the same rights legally, socially, and within the church it is not hard to justify acceptance of homosexuals. What is the justifying of a few verses versus a whole boatload of crap declaring women are as unto animals?

I feel like on this blog I have been too accommodating of differing opinion on this particular topic. I mean, I still allow for differing opinion when it is done politely 100%, it is the ground on which this is built. What I mean my expression of the issue. I think I have been molly coddling the bigots by expressing my opinions in a watered down way.  I must speak the truth. I cannot in my heart believe that homosexuality is a sin. We cannot help who we love and are attracted to. Not all of us are suited to the lifestyle of celibate monks. We are not all Paul. “Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do.” 1 Corinthians 7:8. I am a person made to be with someone. I am made to be in a couple with my husband.

It was our anniversary, Friday May 3. We have been married for nine years. I am prone to loneliness and could not imagine making it through life without someone at my side. I cannot deny that for a person who is predisposed to form a pair bond with a person of the same gender. If someone can live life single, great for them, do that. It frees you up for other, more important things. So if you are gay and can remain single, fine do it. If you are straight and can do that I absolutely encourage it and use the time you have free and untethered for the benefit of others. Go out, change the world, write a blog and let me live through you vicariously.

I am still waiting for a Rosa Parks moment. I am also dreading it because I really do not feel comfortable coming out to friends and family as an ally. I have said that I support gay marriage because I do not believe that the government should legislate morality but no one knows that I believe it is possible to be gay, Christian and a good person at the same time. I feel ashamed of this. I want to live in a way that I can say this so that is why I am waiting for my Rosa Parks moment. I am waiting for the moment I cannot stay silent. I am waiting for the moment that something happens and my inner sense of justice forces me to declare the truth. I want that because then I could say: “I am living according to my principles, I am not a coward. Let the gays into the church and into fellowship with us.”

 http://youtu.be/1eTgwOe5_q8

Hi, and bye again, see you later.

So, I am sorry I dissappeared for so long. I am not here to promise more posts soon, in fact I am here to say my blog will unfortunately continue its hibernation. It is not dead but in a coma. I am sorry to my three readers. Luckily I set my stuff to outo filter spam comments and those that make no sense in the context of the blog because I came back to a bunch of those. Nigerian spammers are into spell casting now. Here is a sampling, minus links because you don't want any of that.

"my husband left me 4 months ago and move to another state leaving me 2000 miles apart from him . I have tried everything possible i am very sad and hurt suddenly he started to hated me it seems one sec he love me the next he hate me when ever we connect he gets really angry for no reason and in a big rush and can't breath around me and as soon as were apart he is fine he says i am very hot and it makes him uncomfortable to hold me all i know is i sleep sleep sleep when were together cant seem to wake up when he is away i am awake something is wrong.But just some few weeks ago, someone introduce me to this spell caster on [somescammer]@gmail.com and the spell caster did a reunify spell for me, just as i am writing now, if my husband dont see me in a second he would rather do everything to meet me. I really want to thank the spell caster for his great works spell. i owe him.you can met with him on [somescammer]@gmail.com."

Can you understant that. I really can't. Not only is it BS, it is unreadable and from what I can tell turns into a story of a human rights violation in the next post.

"My Name is Alex..I never believed in Love Spells or Magics until I met this special spell caster once when i went to Africa to Execute some business..He is really powerful.The woman i wanted to marry left me 2 weeks to our weeding ceremony and my life was upside down.she was with me for 3 years and i really love her so much..she left me for another man with no reason..when i called her she never picked up my calls and she don’t want to see me around her…so,when i told the man what happened.he helped me to do some readings,and after the readings he made me to realize that the other man has done some spells over my wife and that is the reason why she left me..he told me he will help me to cast a spell that bring her back.At first i was skeptical but i just gave it a try…In 5 days,she called me herself and came to me apologizing..I cant believe she can ever come back to me again but now i am happy she’s back and we are married now with lovely kid and we live as a happy family."

If I believed this I would be terrified. This is worse than the Mormons babtising the dead. Creepy. I will make you love me with magic because how could you not love me? I mean that must be some crazy lesbian black magic and shit, cause I am so awesome.

From the US, you say? Skeptigirl is so very skeptical.

"My name is Diana Rossay i am from United States, I was in a relationship with Ben and we loved and cherished ourselves for 3 good years and every thing was going on smoothly but February 14, 2012 a day i can call a lovers day we both had misunderstanding because i answered a call from a guy that is asking me out for a date but i refused,and he told me that the relationship is over and that he is fed up with me and i begged him because i love him so much but he refused me i was so down cast and i felt the world has come to an end for me but my friend told me about a spell caster that helped her sister out in getting her relationship back,a good job and favor in any of her endeavor but at first i was scared but i have to give this man a trial because i love Ben very much and i am not willing to loose him to any woman,so i ordered returning my love spell from this great spell caster that made me a happy woman again to say it all my ex came back to me with much love and a caring heart."

Well, go read something good now to cleanse your palate. I recommend snopes.com, it is a classic and  http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/ is on point and giving useful information.

Chick-fil-A, I Jump In

I try to stay out of most current issues on this blog because they incite feelings that are not in proper perspective yet. I have been hearing about this Chick-fil-A thing over facebook posted by my American friends. I am really shocked by how incapable of empathy the Christians involved are. I do not believe they are doing this out of hate but ignorance for the most part. I would like to help my fellow Christians understand what they are in fact doing by asking them to imagine. I would like to point out I may not know all the details because I am not actively following it, too lazy to research. Also I have a massive headache today and my focus is a little divided but I really wanted to write this.

Let us change the name of the franchise really obviously, Pork-fil-A, the other white meat. They are proudly Atheist owned they have been promoting values of personal freedom for years and as a result discriminating against Christians because they believe in authoritarian values that go against their deeply held company philosophy. A prominent kid’s show partners with them by providing toys for their kid’s meals, both profit. The prominent kids show pulls said toys at a moment’s notice saying it is because of Pork-fil-A’s discriminatory practices against Christians. The owners of the kids show are pro-religious freedom and cannot abide with partnering with a company that discriminates against people due to their religious affiliation. Pork-fil-A openly claims it was not due to the values issue but because kids were getting hurt by the toys, people argue about it.

Two camps are formed: One Atheist saying those toys were dangerous and Pork-fil-A has a right to not encourage those hateful, crusading, personal freedom denying Christians. Religion is a choice, they choose to believe in bigotry and hatred and endangering the values of personal freedom this country was built on. The other camp is those Christians so much persecuted since the Roman days feeling pushed down again feeling like the kids show had stood up for them and their rights to believe what they want and live how they want. After all religion is not a choice, really, when God speaks you listen and follow. How could you deny God? It is their identity after seeing the living God they can’t help it. They realized Jesus was the way and against oppression and unbelievable prejudice and possibility of persecution they came out of the religious closet and declared they would not live a lie anymore and be honest about who they were. Then the Atheist activist camp decides to support this brave company and all go there and buy sand witches en masse. I mean they are good and support the cause of personal freedom they believe in so much and they need to be supported. Meanwhile the Christians feel persecuted because the company that is anti-God, anti-Christian is being so publicly supported for their discrimination of who they are. They see it as an act of hate against them. They live in a society that says: Be quiet about who you are and what you believe in because if you are honest you will not be given the rights to be who you are, but Crist told them not to hold their light under a bushel and they want to let that light shine and not to live a lie. These people are rallying at Pork-fil-A to say: Lie, don’t be who you are and suffer the depression and anxiety that comes with being a closet believer.

Well, maybe that helps. God gave us the ability to see the other side to walk in the shoes of others. Jesus went and ate and talked with sinners and Samaritans and got to know them and to understand them as people and why they were the way they were. Why shouldn’t we? If we are unable to see why homosexual people are feeling discriminated against by the dollar vote we are not looking at the issue as Jesus would have. We are ignorant and doing hateful things out of love, twisted isn’t it.

'I thank you, God, that I am not a sinner like everyone else.' says my church

Luke 18:11 Seems to be the attitude of my church.

As I have mentioned I am in the middle of a project to live in faith. It was going really well, I was feeling happy and balanced and I felt like I was making some real progress in my efforts to be more forgiving and getting rid of all that anger I have stored up inside of me from all the times I have been hurt by other Christians. Then I stopped praying every day and I started getting angry again and stopped being productive. During the time I was praying every day I was able to keep my house clean for the first time in my life. I read a ton and not just the Bible either. I started writing a novel and got to 30,000 words. 

Then I stopped and my house went to hell in a hand basket, and I have harder and harder time working on my novel. So here I am feeling like my experiment was successful and I want to go back to it. The worse side is now I really cannot stand my church. I had been avoiding going so I won’t  get triggered but today I had to go to the service and the guy preaching was the dude who keeps contradicting himself and I really have no idea if I disagree with him or not. It is infuriating. One moment he says all the rules of the Old Testament are still one hundred percent valid and should be followed and we cannot pick and choose, like the liberal Christians. Then the says we need discernment in knowing which rules to follow and goes on to explain how the rules are still valid. Is it just me or is there something missing? The worst part is this is exactly what he preaches every time he gets in the pulpit. He also says some of the most insulting things. He implies Muslims are evil, instead of just misinformed. There is a huge difference there, one is okay to say in a church and can be said with love, the other is not okay and has no love in it. Also when the tsunami happened in Japan he said it took place because there was so much idol worship there.

He is not the only one who says these things in service. Last week I did not go but a guy preached on how HIV was a punishment from God for immorality. I cannot bear this. I just cannot seem to gain anything of spiritual value from majority of the sermons at my church. There are a few people who preach and they are good but when there are just as many a**holes up there it just does not seem worth it. I have very few other churches available to me and the morning service in Finnish is just as bad. The last sermon that was delivered by the regular pastor was on the homosexual agenda.

Then I saw this posted on my church’s facebook group (presented in its original form all spelling and grammar original):

Dear friends and prayer partners in Christ vineyard,

This is very sad news, but I have to tell you about it. On August 2nd homosexualists want to organise the gay parade in Jerusalem. When I got this info my heart was so sad! How can it be in Jerusalem – the holy city of King of Kings?! Our role is to be high priest and to prepare the way for returning of the King of Glory!

If you are jealous for Jerusalem and the atmosphere in the Holy city please join us in the prayer for Jerusalem! We are going to meet on July 23 in the evening at 19.00 in the center of Jerusalem. I have some info about where the gay parade was pland to be (in which streets). We can walk the same streets and pray and proclaim the word of God and to devote these streets to God that unclean spirit can not touch this land and holy city! We are called to stay in the gap for Jerusalem not only in the physical world, but also in the spiritual world. It doesn’t matter which language you speak, but if you live in Jerusalem or other cities of Israel you are welcome to come and join us!

Our role as the high priest is to pray also for forgiveness of these people, who are homosexualists, and to confess their sins before God, because our war is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. (Eph.6:12) And more that this, we have special authority from God to do it! "Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will injure you (Lk.10:19).

You can invite your friends to pray with us in the streets of Jerusalem. If you do not live in Israel or if you can not come to Jerusalem, we want to encourage you to pray alone or to organise a special prayer meeting with people from your church in this day.

“If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget her skill. May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth, If I do not remember you, If I do not exalt Jerusalem Above my chief joy.” (Ps.137:5-6)...PLS INCLUDE THIS IN YOUR PRAYER CLOSET ...Thanks

I am just absolutely overwhelmed by the ignorance and intolerance. This parade is actually an annual event that has been going on for over 13 years and has seen its share of violence with participants having been stabbed and otherwise attacked. I will be praying for the safety of the participants.

I feel really stuck. I wish to belong to a church but living in Finland I do not have a whole lot of choice. I have not joined this church for the reasons complained about above. The community is wonderful, I love the people.  The woman who posted this is a wonderfully sweet woman but so willfully ignorant I might die from contemplating it. So is everyone. I like the sense of belonging to a community of immigrants that is so close knit but I cannot be truly honest with them.

What are the alternatives? Home churching? Well, home churching is done by creepy fundies.  Also the Bible says we need to be a part of a faith community. Here are my other options: Baptists, Methodists, Freechurchers (The Evangelical Free Church of Finland), the Quakers that meet only once a month and not in the summer, Lutherans and the traditional Pentecostals. From what I have heard, one the Baptists churches is even worse around here, also we checked out their website and there were a ton of red flags. I suppose we could give the other church a try. I could try the Methodists, I know the pastor. I have translated some teaching materials for them. Also I could try the Freechurch. The Quakers are a little different brand of Quakerism and I really fear we would not fit in there spiritually like we did in our old church that we still belong to, but we could still try. The Lutherans are fine, I suppose, but they have a tendency to be a little spiritually dry and not committed, let’s just say they are a really respectable institution. They are exactly what you would expect out of a state church of a free and democratic nation. The Traditional Pentecostal church, we they are traditional, like they don’t let women preach, at all.

My immediate plans are to get back to daily prayer and reading the Bible. Then I will attempt to go church shopping to the Methodists and the Freechurch and see if there are other alternatives.
 

A Demon Haunted World (or not)

Is a tittle of a book but it is also a world view some people have that I don’t. Some people see the world, literally, as a battle ground between the forces of good and evil, angels and demons. People like this hear demonic voices whispering to them. Everything wrong with everyone is cause by demons. Think Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis.
 

I have a friend who sees the world exactly like that. She sees herself as exceptionally sensitive to the spirit world, maybe she is. I cannot feel what she feels or live in her head. I kind of find this infuriating because this gives power to all the self-deluding charlatans claiming spiritual powers and it is the antithesis of how I live my life.

To me the existence of demons and angels and of this battle is irrelevant. I read a short story once. I cannot remember where or what it was called but it was about a boy who lived in a medieval world and in that world everyone else saw angels singing hallelujah to the Lord as the sun rose and people were healed, curse, helped, by magic spells. This was a disability that set him apart of the rest of the world and was seen as defective. He wondered things like: What makes the sun burn? What is the source of its fuel? The moon and the sun must have different fuel because they have different light? What is the moons fuel? It also turned out he had an advantage over all the others. Sure, he could not see the wonder they saw, he could not be blessed or healed by supernatural means but he was also immune to all spells, curses and supernatural devices.

I feel like him. I don’t see these demonic powers neither can they hurt me. I don’t feel demonic voices in my head. Not that I don’t want to live in this fantastical world full of wonder, I just don’t. I think I know why my friend believes so readily in these powers. She used to be consumed by guilt because thoughts popped in her head that did not go along with the beatitudes. She looked for answers and thought it was just her, defective her, and she was consumed by guilt. Then she realized it was demons and she was absolved of guilt and self-loathing and now she just tells them to be quiet and it works. 

I was just the same, thoughts that I did not want crowded my head, I was besieged by desires and I could not stop them and I was consumed by guilt. Then I realized that Jesus had not been only crucified for my past sins but my current sins and all my future sins. He forgave me so I forgave myself and realized that quilt was not necessary. Repentance did not have to follow intense guilt because forgiveness had already taken place. Acknowledgement and conviction was all that was necessary. My guilt left and so did all those desires and thoughts. My guilt made me obsess and now that was gone and so were uncontrolled thoughts. I was free and so was my mind. She accepted that demons were whispering to her and I accepted that I was forgiven. Both resulted in a feeling of freedom and control. We indeed are very different.

True Forgiveness

When I was praying the other day, before writing about my experiment I believe I felt the presence of God and also that I got told to go to the prayer meeting, Other stuff happened too actually. I addressed my resentments with the church to the Lord. I felt Him telling me I should be more patient and loving and forgive and as that happened I realized that I had never forgiven. I always thought I did. I merely forgot about it but at every reminder the resentment bubbled up. True forgiveness is not given for the sake of the other person but for the sake of our own wellbeing and I realized that I am not sure how to forgive. The list of grievances keeps growing and none are taken away through genuine forgiveness on my part and it is poisoning me and stopping me from enjoying the benefits I can receive through genuinely forgiving the wrongs I have experienced.

I am a particularly bad case because I take offence for impersonal things. Someone at church makes a racist comment about Muslims, well, I take it personally because I seem to have internalized the Martin Luther King Jr. quote about injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere so they might as well be talking about me. I felt the need to pray for the ability to forgive, because I am not sure how, and they keep in bits poisoning me. I cannot truly learn from the experience until forgiveness is brought about, then I can use my past experience in an impassionate way and know how to enact change.