Ruthlessly Real

It is Good for You to BE and to BE who you ARE

2011-12-02T07:26:00.001-08:00

A Dose of Real on A Monday Morning

2011-07-11T09:21:00.000-07:00

In 1992 I was diagnosed with an auto-immune disease. In the last two years I have fully faced the reality that I was actually dying of malnutrition as a result of being an overachieving perfectionist mom, teacher and volunteer in my church. For me it wasn't about being thin because I'd been thin all of my life. It was all about meeting perceived expectations from others and being successful in their eyes. In the process I totally lost sight of my own self.

My daughter went into treatment for her own eating disorder in 2003. In the devastation of that experience, I was able to clearly acknowledge that I too had eating disordered tendencies. I knew that when stressed, I would cope by not eating, or simply be too busy to eat with my full schedule. After years of being an advocate for eating disorder recovery and promoting Health At Every Size and Intuitive Eating, it wasn't until I faced some unexpected weight gain that I really had a "come to Jesus" moment with the reality of my own illness.

In December of 2009 I had a complete hysterectomy that resulted in weight gain from the removal of my ovaries (I'm told estrogen is stored in the fat because our bodies still need it once they are removed). My eating habits didn't change but my metabolism clearly did and the pounds steadily came on. For the first time in my life I began to experience the reality of larger numbers on the tags of my clothes, shifting styles as one goes from misses to womens sizes. I've spent so much money trying to find clothes that I like and that fit well on this new me. To say the least, this struggle greatly embarrassed me after all the work I had done to promote a new mindset in our culture. EVERY decision to purchase the correct size was a conscious choosing and one where I simply had to trust the higher wisdom of those who had gone before me in this battle. I am beyond grateful for the tools they have given me and at present have committed myself to health at this size.

If you know me, you know that I am committed to fully facing my life and living with authenticity. That said it is certainly not a journey of the faint at heart. I am newly aware of the rewards in this culture for starving ourselves and being thin at all costs. From the latest styles flattering the thinnest among us to the attention paid to us by men when we are thin and considered more attractive (seriously, I've had a professional man tell me that certain teachers have more influence over students simply because they are thin and attractive-get's your dander up as a female doesn't it?), it is not an easy task to be comfortable in your own skin when you are larger. BUT do that I must!

My body continues to do amazing things for me and if it has to be a conscious habit to approve of it as it is, I will do it until I die. I love my life so very much and am SO thankful for God's gracious outpouring of resources for me (us- ALL of us!) to heal.

I'm fifty and life is JUST beginning!

Hard Day

2011-06-30T15:38:00.000-07:00

For whatever reason I have been blessed with a daughter with mental illness. She was born three months early almost 25 years ago. Below the surface of her mostly "normal" childhood was a brain severely compromised by her stress-filled beginnings. As adolescence hit her, so did severe brain chemistry dysfunction. A girl we didn't even know emerged from the light and went down into the darkness of Major Depression. So major that the pscyhiatrists add /severe after depression when they write down her diagnosis. She'd been in a mental world we knew little about.

So much parenting took place with her older brother all throughout his last 6 years at home with us before he went off to college. Those same years with our daughter were spent spent hovering somewhere between life and death. At 14 she started outpatient therapy with a local psychologist. The young woman living in our home with us at that time barely reflected the one we'd watched grow up there. The sessions with the psychologist though helpful at times, were quite grueling with much of the rationale for her dysfunction seen as her family's dysfunction. So we did what good parents do, we tried to learn from it.

As what little light remained was leaving her eyes, we made the tough decision to put her in the an eating disorder program in Omaha. As we sat down after her initial evaluation we go the shock of our lives. We brought her in on the edge of life. The psychiatrist said, she is seriously depressed suicidal. We've come within hours of death with our daughter several times. Many times.

Last month after a couple of years of doing pretty well, we were called and told she had entered the emergency room at a local hospital and were asked to come see her. She gave the doctor permission to speak freely to us and there we were told once more of things under the surface we'd been oblivioius to. Some familiar things, some not so much. No parent ever wants to hear difficult things about their child's struggle no matter how old the child is. In the hearing you also want to hear how to heal the situation because you crave the solutions for her. Instead, what you are usually told is that she needs a more serious intervention and you agree to a plan you barely understand.Numbness begins to take over as she's taken by ambulance to a behavioral health unit in a city hospital.

The next day you get to visit. Your stuff is taken and the door locked behind you. Flashbacks of earlier inpatient times hit and numbness pervades your being so that all you really know how to do is exist while you are there. You try to be strong, to pay attention, to be present, but as you sit among other mentally ill adults and see that the world outside just goes by, it's very difficult. After a short chat, we left her there and went home. Something we've done since she was born, and oddly familiar feeling.

After a couple of days we were asked to participate in a family session. This time, I had to work and couldn't go - last couple of days at school. I'm told and I KNOW that it is essential that I live my own life since Hannah is and adult etc. but it never feels quite right not to participate in something like this. My husband went for both of us and hard things were discussed. As he reports back to me, I just feel this immense hopelessness at the reality that no one can follow the directives but her.

Days later my daughter let me look over the discharge papers. Diagnosis: Major Depression/Severe, ED NOS. At this point numbness returns and I realize the years have gone by and though others have gotten well, WE are still in the battle and this may be something we just have to LIVE WITH rather than conquer. No clue as to how to process that.

As the days go by, I feel the sting of life lived on the blade of a knife. I realize that she is kept there by wonderful advances in psychotropic medications because without them she would have died long ago. I know I should feel grateful and I am, but I also feel the realities of this delicate balance living life on this edge with my adult daughter. It's clear that I cannot control a thing. I can't determine what she does on any level. If I think I can and I try, I become codependent and develop my own mental health issues. Living my own life is somewhat frightening because at any moment everything could change.

She loses her phone, changes her plans, and I can't reach her. Everything slows down and if I'm not careful it stops until I hear from her again. Today was one of those days. I've pictured all sorts of things today. Being home and having unstructured time on my hands, I worried. Then I cried, really sobbed for awhile as if several levels of pain needed to get cried out. Then I slept. I worried some more and went through that cycle several times today. Clearly last month's hospital stay had something to do my inability to cope with not being able to reach her.

All is well now. Well, atleast it's gone back to normal. She sent me a text me at 4:15 telling me where she was and that she just found her phone. It does feel a bit ridiculous that I reacted so catastrophic like today. At the same time it feels like it was really just a way for me to get some bottled up tears out and wake me up to the present moment a bit more. Whatever...this is my life and onward I go.

Spring of 2011

2011-04-30T13:39:00.000-07:00

Today as I sit down to put some thoughts in print, I am once again in awe of the tenacious grace that envelops my life. Last night I was totally exhausted from a very intense week with several students struggling to make it through to the end of the school year. Turning the calendar over and seeing the word May brought great relief. On Thursday I left my classroom at 7:30 in the evening (school dismisses at 3:10) because it took that long to complete the necessary paper work from all of the behavior issues I dealt with that day. When one finishes a week like that, one expects to be fatigued, emotionally drained and ready to take a good break. One does not however, expect to find a well spring of life emerging from deep inside to bubble up and elicit nothing but thoughts of deep gratitude. Thus the state I found myself in as I was resting my head on my pillow at 8:00 o'clock last night while every inch of my physical body hurt like what I imagine hell might feel like. In the midst of it all I was never happier.

The theme of my blog is from a quote by Florida Scott Maxwell. It reflects the process of heart transformation that I have been through since 1992 when I was first diagnosed with an auto immune disease, forced to leave my beloved elementary teaching job and deal exclusively with my shadows. Shadows of which existed because though I knew God, I had very little knowledge of my own self.

David Benner in his book The Gift of Knowing Yourself says that, "Christian spirituality involves a transformation of the self that occurs only when God and self are both deeply known. Both, therefore, have an important place in Christian spirituality...We have focused on knowing God and tended to ignore knowing ourselves. The consequences have been grievous--marriages betrayed, families destroyed, ministries shipwrecked and endless numbers of people damaged...Leaving the self out of Christian spirituality results in a spirituality that is not well grounded in experience. It is, therefore, not well grounded in reality..."

In the late 70's I encountered a version of the Christian gospel entitled, "The Four Spiritual Laws". It was a neatly packaged little gold booklet; a modern version of the ancient story of Jesus Christ's gospel message. Within its pages were four simple and "absolute"truths: 1- God loves you, 2- you are a sinner, 3-Jesus's death on the cross is the only provision for your sin, and 4 - If you want to go to heaven, you must individually receive Jesus by praying a short prayer written on the following page. So simple. At the time this little book offered me the perfect solution to my all encompassing sense of guilt, shame and general badness. I believed it immediately and prayed the prayer fully expecting to be relieved of the burden of being me. Those presenting me with this message assured me in myriad ways that this meant that I was instantaneously forgiven and set free because Jesus Christ now lived in my heart. I moved on in life after this experience with a passionate zeal to let everyone know how easy it was and how they too could discover this formula for peace, safety and relief from life's pain. I gave it my total devotion.

In the early 80's as I went off to college, my one and only goal was to get the easiest four year degree possible so I could go on staff with the ministry that created the little gold booklet. Prior to this experience I had always wanted to become a teacher. In fact, several times growing up I remember having a sense that teaching kids was what I was born to do. Therefore, I decided to go for a BS in Elementary Education thinking I would never really teach but it would be fun to learn how to. My focus was on evangelism and saving the world. Being a student leader for the ministry on my campus while going to school was a wonderful experience. In spite of my less than half-hearted devotion to my studies, I was able to graduate with a 3.0. I loved my education classes and teaching came naturally to me. Even so, I had no intention to ever do so.

Dean and I met our senior year in college. He too had found this version of the gospel message at 16 when he went to a Bible camp over the summer. He also found it liberating and personally freeing and gave his heart to it in earnest. His journey led him to the same campus ministry and it was there where we connected first as friends, then as soulmates eager to join forces and head off to the darkest part of the world armed with our little gold booklet in hand and heart. We married and fully planned to join the ministry together on a full time basis. But, as a proverb so rightly says, "Man plans his way but God directs his path," our plans fell to pieces and we ended up on a very different path.

Dean and I discovered shortly after our engagement that our two school loans combined together would prevent us from being able to work with the ministry we were so passionate about. In order to be on staff with the ministry,, people are required to seek pledges for donations from others. We were not allowed to do that as a result of our debt. At first we were a bit lost but before too long determined that our best solution would be to find a church with the same belief system as our own and locate there. We did that a few months after our wedding and planned to be there for a couple of years, work and pay off our debt. Both of us were so young and naive that we thought Dean would find a job quickly, we could start our family and still be able to pay off our loans in that two year time frame. Of course, that didn't pan out and our delusional thinking quickly began to unravel.

We had our first child about 18 months after we were married. Shortly after the pregnancy, I began to experience a great deal of pain. I had surgery and endometriosis was discovered. We were encouraged to have our next baby sooner rather than later. We got pregnant again when our son was 15 months old. His sister was to be born right before his 2nd birthday. She came 3 months early after a long, stress-filled and costly pregnancy. She spent 2.5 months in the hospital before coming home only to spend the next 9 months in and out of the hospital for various issues associated with her prematurity. Needless to say, our dream of becoming missionaries in Africa was put on hold indefinitely. We found ourselves deeper in debt and unable to even consider the missionary option.

The church we attended had started a Christian school shortly before we arrived and I was drawn to it like a moth to a flame. I had been asked and accepted a position as a half-time Kindergarten teacher. I was SO looking forward to that but again...my plans vs. God's plans came into play and a week before school was to start the enrollment in the 3rd grade class had grown to the point that the school needed a new full-time teacher. A dream situation - 13, 3rd grade students. I was offered the job and though the salary was much lower than I would have made in a traditional school, the health insurance plan would take Hannah on without any riders AND it provided 100% coverage for all of us. It looked like a very proactive way to pursue paying off our debt and moving closer to our goal of missionary work in Africa.

That year was incredible and solidified my LOVE and passion for teaching. It was clearly where God had placed me, a very natural fit. The paradox was that though I loved it and felt most alive when I was teaching children, I hadn't come to the church to do that. I was there to be trained in ministry and become a leader in the church. Though the church valued my leadership in the classroom and my work with the students, it was not considered sufficient enough by the church leaders to allow me the freedom to forgo additional leadership requirements within the church's leadership training ministry. In fact, in order to be allowed to teach in the church's school at that time, many other leadership commitments were also required. In my case they were required, that is, until I started to become ill and unable to meet them.

As one by one my commitments diminished I kept teaching because it was after all, my job. As I look back now, I shudder to say this but the psychological grip on my mind that led me to believe I was truly in the center of God's will, was tightly fixed. Amid days, weeks and months of sheer physical agony, I continued to be counseled to obey without question and keep going. Then one day everything stopped when I was diagnosed with systemic lupus (a chronic auto-immune disease), Hashimoto's thyroiditis, pernicious anemia, and sjogren's syndrome. I was a very sick, underweight woman. I was in the six week of my sixth year of full-time teaching when my doctor told me I would never be able to teach again. I cried like a baby the day I left the students with their new teacher but I was honestly so ill, I was quite relieved to just stay in bed day after day. Obviously, I didn't fully buy into the "you will never teach again" determination.

The reason all of these memories come back to me today, is because last night was a rough night. I have overdone it the last two weeks and I am paying for it. This weekend it's an abrupt halt and lots of TLC, take care of Jane time without one shred of guilt. I know this current fatigue is temporary because it's May and in my work with kids with emotional or behavior disorders, perseverance to the end of the year is difficult and their problem behaviors increase because they just want to get out of school. Paperwork and meetings also increase. The reason I can endure it now, is because soon, school will be out. When it is out, I won't be leaving with 15 others on a ministry trip to Mexico but will instead come home and bask in the loveliness of my full life for some much needed refreshment before heading back in the fall. I will play in the gardens, take walks and drink in the beauty of the north woods in my Minnesota neighborhood and love every minute of it. So with that awareness, I know that it will be okay to suffer a little more right now.

I have learned so much since those dark days in October of 1992. I have come to accept that I cannot know God and dissolve my self. It has taken so many years, so many books, conversations and 3 years working with some amazing psychologists in an eating disorder treatment center to realize what the truth was. I got sick because my body knew what my mind couldn't comprehend, that illness was the only way out, the only way to break the mental grip of trying to be the perfect good girl, the perfect missionary and perfect leader in my church. It was the only way out of the grip of anorexia nervosa. In the years before I was diagnosed with everything, my diet consisted of right around 800 calories a day and not one doctor ever asked me about it. Not one. I was most assuredly slowly dying and dying of an eating disorder as much as any diagnosed illness. Anorexia nervosa is a disease rooted in the loss of one's self, one's core, one's will to decide for one's self.

Over the years since those darkest of days, I really have found my self. In the midst of that discovery, I have come to understand and realize that resistance to control is not always disobedience. It is a God-given means designed for humans to be able to protect themselves from evil by giving us the opportunity to stop and think about our choices, to count the cost so to speak before we move forward. The alternative is to acquiesce and allow others, all too often religious and insecure authorities, to control us with our blind and often unconscious devotion.

I am a passionate teacher. It is my calling and I know that because I'm most alive in the midst of it. And the gospel? Where does that fit into my life now? I continue to be fascinated by the life of Jesus Christ. That said, I believe that Jesus lived His own full life in alignment with God the Father and the Holy Spirit. Now, I believe that it's our turn (Dallas Willard)to do the same. I believe that God wants me to live my own life too living it in alignment with God's intention for me. It has been and continues to be a profound journey.

Naked Spirituality - My Journey

2011-04-16T17:00:00.000-07:00

Have you ever read a book and felt like the author very literally looked into your own life and wrote it? Naked Spirituality by Brian McClaren is that book for me right now. I'm only on page 44 out of 240.

Consider this:

"If people resolve the tension on the side of immanence or nearness, G-d becomes too much the chum or mascot or even guard dog, a genie who comes obediently when summoned by the magic words. When this happens, prayer is like rubbing a magic lamp or commanding guard dogs to attack an intruder. One's religion starts looking a lot like superstition or witchcraft. And magical religions in this mode too easily turn homicidal and genocidal because, quite conveniently, "God" hates the same people its adherents hate and is happy to share their malice.
Naked sprituality differs from magical religion as love differs from lust. Where magical religion tries to harness cosmic powers so that "my will may be done," naked spirituality seeks to be yielded to God that "God's will may be done." Where magical religion tries to possess God for one's own benefit, naked spirituality seeks to be yielded to God for God's will, the common good." page 44

As I have left the mainstream of Evangelical Christianity the above two paragraphs pretty much describe why. As I grew in surrendering to God in the here an now - the present moment, I began to realize that my faith in Christ is so much more than wielding the Bible as though IT were Christ. As I pondered Jesus describing himself as "The Word made flesh", I thought about a Sunday School teacher who once told me that if I dropped my BIBLE, I was dropping Jesus. I never did really believe that. As time went on and life's events felt crushing to my soul, I finally let myself entertain the possibility that the authors of the Bible were human beings like me. I realized that their inspiration was given to draw me toward Jesus, The Word of God.

As that paradigm of thought solidified in my mind, I realized many things and one of those things is that proving moral right from wrong based on one's particular interpretation of the Bible is a rather precarious business. I've seen many, many moral positions come from Bible verses neatly put together by each student to determine the one right position on an issue. I've also seen very sound minds be put on pause, if not completely on hold, when the person was considering a moral dilemma because their particular Christian bent had determined that the verses meant one thing or another. And I have also felt the shear terror of those trying to defend a position to the death because if what they believed weren't absolutely the right thing, they would actually have to think and that terrified them more than anything else. It is often been so difficult for many in my circles to accept that much of life truly is a mystery and therefore, at our very best, one's interpretation of the ancient texts is at best a speculation no matter how confident one appears to have it down. I discovered that this resistence to mystery in my own heart was very much intertwined with my egoic need to perceive that it could, really could, be perfectly right if one just understood the Bible - rightly.

But no more, my God is no longer within the pages of an ancient book, though that book is as precious to me as ever. God is not within a specific church, but IS in any place where seekers are coming...but guess what? God IS also where no one is even looking for God. God IS. And IN Jesus, I personally find God IS very much among us.This I KNOW with every breath I take.

My Healing

2010-07-29T16:37:00.000-07:00

And when He had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, entreating Him, and saying, "Sir, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering great pain. And He said to him, "I will come and heal him." But the centurion answered and said, "Lord, I am not qualified to for you to come under my roof, but just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I too am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to this one, 'Go!' and he goes, and to another, 'Come!' and he comes, and to my slave, 'Do this!' and he does it." Now when Jesus heard this, He marveled, and said to those who were following, "Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel…And Jesus said to the centurion, "Go your way; let it be done to you as you have believed," And the servant was healed that very hour. Matthew 8:5-13

Jesus didn't say these things to encourage people to mindlessly follow authority as evidence of our great faith. He was simply saying, this guy gets the fact that I am the Christ and have been given authority over the powers of darkness. As I read this portion of the Bible last week, it hit me with a profound impact because I had been taught that this man's great faith came as a result of his being "under" authority. It's taken several years of being removed from the modern day evangelical world to recognize the mistaken interpretation of these verses. Reading them at face value, it's pretty clear that the centurion simply got who Jesus was because of his own life experiences as a soldier. His faith is great because he recognized that kind of absolute authority in the spiritual realm as he witnessed Jesus performing miracles of healing.

Unfortunately, rather than trusting my own wise-mind's interpretation of the Bible and reading these verses to be drawn closer to the Messiah, I bought into the idea that others who deemed themselves more spiritual than I was by their positional authority in the church, had the right to control my life. This is what I now believe Jesus calls the "leaven of the Pharisees" in another passage.

As a result of this misinformation, I surrendered my will to a great many others in almost every area of my life, being admonished that if I were "under" authority, my faith would be great and I would see miracles like this centurion saw. What I saw instead was the complete destruction of my authentic self. The self that God created and wanted to live through. Instead of living water, the daily dose of this teaching was similar to drinking a continual dose of poison that slowly kills you. Iin fact, it very literally did almost do just that.

In 1992 I was diagnosed with Systemic Lupus, an autoimmune disease that is basically the body's declaration of war on itself. I was in more physical pain than I ever knew possible when my doctor told me to stop everything, take heavy doses of steroids and go to bed. Weeks turned into months and I knew I had almost died. Everything began to change from this point on. Some of those who had, by my permission, assumed control over my life, seemed scared out of their wits at what was happening to me and as they finally let me decide for myself what I was "supposed" to do, I gained new strength and further clarity. I made many changes and slowly began to find my way back to a healthy life.

When I look back at the time when I first came to a personal faith in Christ, I sincerely believe it was almost exactly like the centurion of old. I heard about Jesus as the way to God and as I witnessed His work in the lives of others, it became true in my own heart. I chose to believe that he was the Christ, the promised Messiah, the one with the authority over the spiritual forces in the Universe. As a result of that faith, I witnessed God's intervention in my own ordinary life. Unfortunately, all too soon, that faith in Jesus, turned into faith in the Bible, faith in the church I attended, and finally faith in compliance to perceived authorities. By the time I nearly died from this "faith" paradigm, I had almost forgotten the fresh faith I once knew. By the time my daughter nearly died twice from an eating disorder, I was so distraught at my own and my family's dysfunction that I was truly ready to leave the faith altogether. Had it not been a real genuine faith born in my heart years earlier, I would have done just that. In truth, I didn't even once seriously consider it.

What kept me from completely throwing in the Christian towel was this. When I originally chose to follow Jesus in 1977, it was because I had experienced a deeply personal relationship with God through my encounter with Jesus, I believed He was Emmanuel, God with us. I believed that as he ascended into heaven, the Holy Spirit had come and now lived in me. It was this recognition of Jesus as the Christ that rekindled my real faith in God and guided me through the darkest days of my life.

The journey to personal health has been long and arduous. It has been painful beyond what I ever knew I could successfully live through. It has made me raw in every way possible, emotionally, socially, physically, mentally and spiritually. But oh, the miracles I have seen as I've enjoyed the genuine faith that has come in the recognition of Jesus as The Christ. It is well with my soul.

Utah

2010-05-10T04:57:00.000-07:00

As I sit here in the hotel waiting for Dean to arrive at the Salt Lake City Airport, I cannot help but reflect on what has taken place in my life from the day we came here with Hannah in 2004 until now. Back then I came with a very strange sense of adventure mixed with intense, raw fear. Hannah had nearly died twice that year, just before admission and again while IN a hospital in an inpatient program. In debt beyond belief, having just mortgaged our home to get her into the first month of residential treatment we landed at this airport. Today's departure binds the back cover to this book of experience we know as Utah.

Years ago, Brigham Young arrived here in this valley where I now sit. At the end of his journey, after coming through the Wasatch Mountains, he looked out over the vast space in front of him and said, "This is the place." For him it was THE place he'd been searching for. The place where his people, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, could safely settle and become the people they wanted to be. What they wanted was simply their "own" place, a place where they could continue to live and practice their religious beliefs. They clearly wanted this so badly that they were eager to endure the harsh realities of the journey, only to come to a place that would test them even further.

As I gather my own thoughts today, I realize how much my own experience in making this journey to Utah, mirrors that Mormon journey so long ago. This has also been “the place” for me to settle and establish myself. My husband and daughter would also concur that their experience here has accomplished similar things in their lives. It may sound trite but in every way, we have each found a new sense of self out here in what began as Brigham Young’s Utah.

In bringing Hannah to Avalon Hills, a residential eating disorders program for adolescents in the Cache Valley of northern Utah, we had no concept that our journey would lead to eventual employment and relocation to that beautiful place. The first 5 months of our experiences there were spent with Hannah living at the treatment center and Dean and I coming and going for visits with her and family therapy. It was a healing time for her and a revealing time for all of us. We learned a great deal about her illness and our family’s dysfunction as well as the dysfunction of life in our home community. We spent much of that time in a paradoxical state of numbness and awe. The realities of what we were dealing with were very difficult, but the immense sense of authentic healing that was taking place in our lives was profound. It was clear that God had led us to the perfect program and therapist to lead us out of the darkness we’d been in for far too long. We not only invested all of our material wealth in the process, but heart and soul as well. Our hope was always that we would learn what we needed to, that Hannah would learn what she needed to and we would return to our home in Nebraska and move on. As with most families in our situation, the road to recovery is full of the unexpected and unpredictable.

As fall approached that year we made plans to take a road trip out to Utah to bring Hannah home and stop in Colorado on the way back for a short family vacation. We were so looking forward to a fun family experience together after all we’d been through. You can imagine our dismay when that hope was shattered when we got to our hotel and the reality of our severely anxious and symptomatic daughter began to set in. Instead of the pleasant and enjoyable time we’d envisioned, we were all a mess and in the end just got through it and headed home. Shortly after Hannah’s re-entry back into our home community, her relapse became severe enough that she was put on a plane and headed back to Utah to be readmitted. It was a devastating time for all of us.

The following months were spent continuing our utmost devotion to figuring out what would work in Hannah’s life so that she could successfully recover. The treatment center developed what they would later call the “Hannah” plan. A plan where she would transition slowly from the controlled treatment setting there and come home for short visits that would be extended as time went on. By November she was progressing fairly well but by that time it was clear that more drastic family changes were in store for us. I resigned from my job as an elementary school teacher because I just couldn’t keep up with my responsibilities at school and the intensity of a daughter in early recovery. Her outpatient follow up care had to be done in Omaha about 2 hours away from us and would often include as many as 2 and sometimes 3 trips a week. It was truly an exhausting time.

As Christians, my husband and I have always sought guidance from God in our lives and this situation was no exception. As we sought that direction in this state of fatigue and desperation, we both began to sense that our family needed a new place to start over. Since we had both really loved our time in Utah, Dean decided to pursue employment there. It was just weeks later and things fell into place for us to relocate. On New Year’s Eve of 2004 we pulled into the city of Logan to begin our new life there. Before long we both had employment and Hannah was settled into a local charter high school. It was such a surreal time for us. The following 5 years brought us more of the most difficult and faith-stretching experiences we could ever have imagined living through.

Hannah continued to pursue recovery and as she did time began to reveal that she was dealing with much more than the initial struggle with bulimia that started us down this amazing pathway. At some point along the way her psychiatrist added bipolar 2 and borderline personality disorder to her complex mental state. As parents we learned that recovery for any one of these illnesses can take a long time and that the answers were as individual as a person’s fingerprints. In order for us to understand her and understand how we could be part of the solution, beyond merely paying for treatment, we knew we would have to continually grow ourselves. We read books, we met with other parents in the midst of, or having gone through, similar experiences through a NAMI (National Alliance for Mental Illness) Friends and Family Class as well as through the network of parents we knew from Avalon Hills. We have met people from everywhere, several different religious persuasions, socioeconomic classes, and a variety of cultures all with similar threads of pain and growth weaving their way through each family’s own tapestry.

We are now on our new home in Cambridge, Minnesota, (writing this on a notebook computer in the moving truck). Our 23 year old daughter is waiting for us in our new home there. I’ve spent the last 5 weeks finishing up the semester of classes at Utah State University. I’m in the process of acquiring an endorsement in mild/moderate Special Education. It’s clear that the experiences of the last 7 years have carved out a place for this new professional direction in my life. My husband has returned to his vocation of selling grain handling equipment and Hannah’s working and continually moving forward.

People with my faith background often tell me that “God is good”. After all we’ve been through, I would have to concur. That said, what God has made clear to me in a myriad of ways, is that humanity is, in all its forms, God’s perfect creation. God's love and grace toward ALL of mankind is intense and personal. Both are readily available to meet anyone, anywhere. Dean and I have very literally met God in places where our strict fundamentalist persuasion would never have allowed us to look before. Had we not been given such a remarkable daughter (and I must add, her deep thinking inquisitive brother) we’d never ever have come to understand these truths.

In conclusion, it is very clear that Utah will live in our hearts forever as “the place”. It was where God took us, as very weary and broken people and gave us room to grow and re-establish our lives. We have been profoundly changed forever. I will thank God every day for the beauty of the Wasatch Mountains, the richness and grace given to us from our special friends there and especially for Avalon Hills…the magical place that started it all.

Faith in the Life of Jane...

2010-04-28T12:07:00.001-07:00

When I was 16 I listened to a friend read through a neat little booklet called The 4 Spiritual Laws. When he got to the prayer to ask Christ into my heart it made sense so I prayed with him and according to the booklet Christ came into my life. I grew up Lutheran and according to this "new" version of the gospel I was not a Christian until I prayed that prayer. This was in the late 70's when the Jesus movement was in full swing and people were leaving mainline churches in droves as a result of this "new" take on the gospel. It was really not "new" to Baptists and other evangelicals because that's how they approached the Bible and its teachings since they first came into being. I was eager to shed my "wild" ways so when I heard this formula, I bought into it with all of my being.

My life made a radical change. I left the Lutheran church and headed to the Southern Baptist one in my town. It was very casual and not a status presentation like I often felt the Lutheran church was. You could wear jeans and be comfortable there, very little ceremony or liturgy, it was real to me. Later when I went to college I got involved in Campus Crusade for Christ, the ministry whose founder had designed the Four Spiritual Laws booklet I'd been converted by. One of the main reasons I joined the ministry was because of the emphasis on training people to live as disciples of Christ. That said, part of that involved sharing this lovely little booklet with complete strangers. I was NOT good at that. In fact I hated that - evangelism - just hated it. The people I met in Campus Crusade were wonderful spiritual people and I learned a great deal from them. I met my husband there and thought my life was going to follow this wonderful spiritual path that another booklet from the ministry explained to me.

It was called The Spirit Filled Life. In that little booklet there is a diagram that shows two circles with a throne in the middle of each of them. There is a capital S in the circles. In one the S is on the throne of the circle with a cross in the circle but off to the side. Dots are spread out within the inner circle to represent the circumstances of your life. The drawing is designed to illustrate that when the S is on the throne of the life all, of those dots are in disarray, not in sync and chaotic. The second circle has a cross on the throne of the life representing Jesus with the S representing the self, in submission to it. The dots are all moved to the outter edge of the inner circle and in order - all circumstances in the life are in sync with each other, perfectly distanced apart. The serious seeker is challenged to buy into the idea of a life that represents this circle is a full and "abundant" life. I bought into it with all of my being. As it turned out life was very different than I expected it to be in the years to come.

As I married and sought to follow Christ in this way, I discovered that living life in submission to Christ often made it look like the other circle - where the dots were all over the place. My life was anything but neatly ordered and in sync. I did sincerely love the person of Jesus Christ that I had discovered in the Bible but my life was full of relationship problems, money problems, and I was sick a lot! Life was just not at all in order like this drawing indicated it would be, like I thought it could or should be. In spite of the reality that surrounded me, I continued to teach this perception of the spirit-filled life. It took nearly dying from an anxious quest toward perfection before I started to find my way out and into the real abundant life I now know.

Time to go but more later...

We Do What Works

2010-04-22T17:33:00.000-07:00

A few years ago I read a line in Dr. Phil's Life Strategies. It simply said, "We do what works." I was in a desperate place - a Target aisle with tears filling my eyes. My daughter was dying and my own personal "life strategy" wasn't working. Thus the reason I picked the book up in the first place.

Somehow, through Dr. Phil's words, I found direction and grace to begin to realize what all parents of children with addictive behaviors must come to understand; simply that our children participate in these behaviors because they work for them. Everything from smoking, drinking, drugs and yes, the behaviors that make up an eating disorder like bulimia, does the work of anesthesizing the soul so life is less painful and "works" for them. Once I grasped that, the way out was finally lit for me.

It's been six years ago since I read those words of Dr. Phil's in that Target aisle. Six profound years of growth for me, my husband, my son and even our extended family, but most of all, for my daughter. I don't know if her pain will ever fully disappear and the eating disorder and all that goes with it will ever completely cease. What I do know for sure, is that she is a truly brave, courageous and tenacious fighter who continues to live and discover new, healthy ways to make her life work for her. For that I am very thankful.

The Past is Behind You?

2010-03-16T13:13:00.000-07:00

Yesterday while driving from the Minneapolis airport to Cambridge, the small Minnesota town that will soon be my home, I was scanning radio stations. Suddenly this booming voice came across the airwaves shouting, "YOUR PAST IS PAST, IT'S OVER, IT DOESN'T MATTER ANYMORE!" Amid amens and clapping, the charismatic preacher was thoroughly validated. I...pushed the scan button. As if the decible level of this man's voice had an engraving quality to it, the words he spoke were suddenly etched in my mind and I thought about them the way "home". I found myself unsettled.

I know myself well enough to know that when I feel "unsettled", it's time to ask why. So why? Why does it bother me when a guy shouts out on the radio that the past is over and that it doesn't matter anymore. It bothers me, because it simply isn't true. The past wasn't fiction, it was real. What happened to us in the past REALLY took place. If we were loved, nurtured and cared for, it made a real difference and shows up in our present life. The opposite is equally true and we all know that. If a child is abused as an infant, it will make a difference in his/her adult life.

If I were given a microphone and my voice was allowed to be expressed on the radio waves, I would shout out the following to anyone who would listen,

"Your past matters and its threads have woven the fabric of your life. The person you are now and the one you will become can NEVER be fully expressed in the world if the past isn't faced. If you want to be free of anxiety, depression and a host of other illnesses, then you literally have to FACE it and face it fully! It just isn't an option.

BUT let me warn you, facing your past is grueling, it is messy and often very ugly process. When you face it, you may get angry, you may cry, you may curse...you may get depressed and people will not like you touching the sacred cows that live there, but if you want to find life, REAL life, then touch them you must, you have to FACE your life - past, present and future and go through each part of it. I think it was Robert Frost who said it best, "The only way is through".

My past contains some really crappy stuff and I mean nasty! BUT I've faced it and I continue to face it as it comes...be it from the past, in the present or in the future. I don't care what anyone says, it's my life, for Pete's sake (who is Pete anyway?)! I get the privilege of living it and as a result of all this facing of it, I am more alive at 49 than I ever knew possible. I LOVE my life even when it seems to suck! But pretending the past is passed and doesn't matter, really didn't help me one bit...only fully facing it made any difference and I hope I'm "fierce with reality" as a result.

That is what I'd say if they ever gave me the mic...

.

The Curse of the Good Girl...Woman...ME

2009-11-23T18:54:00.000-08:00

I just started reading the new book by Rachel Simmons called The Curse of the Good Girl. I've been through so much the last 17 years I thought for sure I'd broken free from this "curse" and arrived at a new destination,a place where Grace, Mercy and Love actually reigned freely in my life every day and all of the time. Instead, this book arrives and breaks through my life as if a brick has been thrown through my personal window of the pretense that I really could go to back to school and do it "right" this time. I honestly expected that with the age and maturity that I'd gained since my first college graduation, a perfect 4.0 in this program would be possible. It hasn't been and it won't be. I've been dealing with this all semester. Rachel's book has made me aware of my self and the fact that what I've really been dealing with is "the curse of the good girl".

Today I had my 8th practicum evaluation for Direct Instruction Reading. I have a student with serious behavior issues in the group. She's been labeled the "bad" girl in her family - her sister is the "good" girl. Today being Monday, she flipped out right as she was taking forever to get to my group. She is so sure she's all bad that incentives don't really work at present. There is no payoff great enough for the hole in her heart. Add to this a University supervisor sitting in my group. I have 45 minutes - limited authority, a wild child and an intense instructional program that takes most of my brain power. It was honestly like going up the mountain on that first hike after winter. I was out of breath and sore when it was over but unlike the first spring hike, the view was not at all breath-taking. As I left the room to go "discuss" my observation with the instructor, most of what I felt was a sense of complete failure. The curse of the good girl who didn't measure up...again.

The voice most predominate in my head as we made our way down the hall was, "You have so much potential but you never use it." Words I heard after way too many parent teacher conferences. My instructor was amazing and gracious but firm in the grade as it is data driven. In other words, you earn exactly what you earn - no subjectivity. I was compliant and teachable. When she asked did I have any opinions or disagreements, guess what I said, "No", just wanted to get it over with. I told her I was happy with my grade and thankful for all I had learned - not pretentious at all. I really have learned a ton and will be a much better teacher as a result of this class. I went off to take on the rest of the day with the mantra "a B is just fine!"but I've had a hard time believing that all day!

If the truth really does set you free, then it's time for me to say the truth here with an effort to disempower that "good girl" thinking.

Earning that B today with that "hard" kid being out of control truly stretched me to the absolute end of my talent,education and skill. I actually think in light of everything all together, I kicked butt in that group today. I also think student "wild woman" actually learned something IN SPITE of it all and our last words were those of hope for next Monday when I'm back.
It was so nerve wracking to sit under a university instructor on 8 different occassions but harder still as a 48 year old undergrad student who has successfully taught her own classes for 15 years. It was often just awful to be told how to really handle the "hard" kid when I knew that if I would have just had full authority over her today, things would have turned out very different.

In summary,that B means the world to me and I'm very proud of it. It's the world's view of the B that scares me. It's the world's perception of it being "mediocrity" instead of excellence when that just simply is not the case. I'm marching on - I'm going to break free of this good girl thing yet - even if it takes my entire lifetime to do it.

Facing the Dark

2009-11-13T21:16:00.001-08:00

Written on 10-21-2009

I am sitting here in my home office, tears still filling my eyes. I feel so small, so inadequate. People really do die from eating disorders. I don't want to face that anymore. So just as I want to stop being an advocate because it just plain hurts too much, friends lose their daughter to anorexia. I don't get the opportunity to "not face it". God in predictable fashion speaks from The Message Bible and a book I'm already reading called Let Your Life Speak.

From The Message "This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What next, Papa?" It does seem a bit cruel at first glance to have read this verse, having been encouraged by it just before I hear that someone has died from an eating disorder. All I want to do today is go sit in a cemetery and tend to the graves there - this verse doesn't even make sense today. My only consolation is thinking of Hilary free from anorexia and at peace with God. But her parents, her sisters, her friends - all of us, adventurously expectant because of the resurrection life we've received from God? I'm really not so sure today. This really hurts.

Then from Let Your Life Speak, a quote from Florida Scott Matthews, "You need only claim the events of your life to make yourself yours. When you truly possess all you have been and done...you are fierce with reality." Even in such an amazing thought as this, my heart's anguish wants to face anything but this event in my life. That said, I know when this grief gives way, a new level of reality will be mine. I just don't want to go through the process and get there right now.

Today I taught a 4th grade reading group and Kindergarten Math group. Eight wonderful children full of potential. I look at them and wonder, will their culture expect them to be perfect, always winning, never losing? Will their bodies become their friends as they grow and continue to develop? Will the world be any less judgmental when they are shaped different from each other? Will they discover their own light and let it shine or simply not care because the pressure is too great?

I have to face my life and its reality today. I'm so full of sorrow for the Pile family and the community of Norfolk and the world that has lost such a bright light to a disease that I'm really quite tired of hearing about. My friend Doris said she would burn a candle all day for Hilary on Monday and that she had received 3 such emails over the weekend. She and Tom will continue Andrea's Voice for this very reason.

Hilary, I'm so sorry you couldn't find the way out. I'm sorry that we couldn't find it for you. John and Kandi, I'm sorry that the way closed to you as well. I don't know what I will be as a result of this but I am determined to face it. I am determined to become fiercely real. Please pray for me.

Friends...

2009-11-13T20:49:00.001-08:00

So...7 years ago I'm at a woman's conference in Colorado Springs and share with my table of lovely Christian women my worries about my daughter's battle with an eating disorder...as we bow our heads and begin to pray for each other, this loving arm comes around my shoulder and I hear a sweet Texan voice praying for me/her. I am immediately smitten by the love of Christ and her tender care. We exchange phone #'s and email addresses but you know how it is, you may or may not see each other and life will go on. Well...I had no idea what God had done by prompting me to sit at that table.

The last 7 years have been full of the life and death struggle one goes through in getting a loved one into recovery. My personal faith has been all over the map in terms of whether it was real or not. Several months after my daughter was admitted into residential treatment I spent a week at Molly's house. Just needing to get away and rest after a very difficult year, I went to stay with Molly and Dean for a week in the spring. I simply fell into this pillow of love, grace and mercy. It was so special.

We moved to Utah just after giving Molly a t-shirt that said, "Someone in Nebraska loves me." Too funny. Her emails of concern never stopped. They were always full of honesty and hope. Then 3 years ago just after we moved into our house here in Logan, Molly and Dean came to see us! It was so awesome to share time with them.

One of the promises Dean shared with me early on in this journey was that he was praying that God would "restore what the locusts had eaten". Not sure at the moment what Bible story that is from but he faithfully prayed that God would do that. Last December we received the settlement from the insurance company that refused to honor their policy and pay for Hannah's treatment. The events of how that all came together were pretty amazing too. We believe it was this man's faith and constant requesting before God that moved the events on our behalf.

Last year our son, Stephen informed us that he would be moving to Austin with his girlfriend Terri. She's from San Antonio and they thought Austin would be a good place to settle in case she wanted to go to Grad School at the University of Texas. So...now my son lives in Austin where my good friends live and when we visit Stephen the first week in January we will be staying with them!

There are so many reasons NOT to believe in God - not to believe in Jesus from a human point of view. And though I've had many doubts this last 7 years as I watched this illness engulf our daughter's life, I could never shake the reality that when I gave my life to Christ as a sophomore in high school, it completely changed me. I didn't become perfect or get good grades all of the sudden but I was truly changed from the inside out. I really thought that it was possible that I wouldn't want to be a Christian after going through this with Hannah - I still don't know how to grasp the magnitude of her suffering - I don't even pretend to understand that. I'm simply - oh, so simply, aware that God is truly the great I AM and truly IN my life.

I am in awe that as I continue to trust God with my life and the way opens before me, or closes to redirect me, there are gifts along the path that are so meaningful to me. Friendship is my favorite gift and God has truly blessed me with Dean and Molly's friendship - a pure act of grace from a father's heart to his hurting child.

New Realities from School and Life

2009-09-04T09:51:00.000-07:00

I am really learning so much in my classes right now. One very interesting thing explained to me why parents do not get a lot of support to go after the cause of their child's behavior when that child is in a residential treatment setting. Many parents struggle seeing such a strong focus on changing behavior without trying to find a reason for it. As a Parent Advocate in a residential treatment center, I did see that when girls were in crisis, often the behavior that resulted in an eating disorder or other life threatening illness, could be linked to a variety of traumatic issues or inaccurate perceptions etc. and it was often a very helpful thing for them to get their pain out on the table and deal with it. That said, even in those difficult cases, the therapist and treatment team would analyze the person's behavior and make decisions to interrupt it through addressing the issues in the environment that reinforced it.

In my early days as a young college student at the University of Nebraska I was introduced to Behavior Modification principles in my Ed. Psych class. Simultaneously, I was a zealous, evangelical, born again Christian receiving a lot of input from radio programs and conferences that led me to the conclusion that Psychology was humanistic (therefore, also satanic in origin) and all information was likely wrong coming out of that class. Nonetheless I had to study it to get my degree in this secular school, so I did. That said when I started teaching in a Christian school it was my understanding that the philosophy centered on a black and white understanding that the cause of all negative behavior was sin. I sincerely believed that if you addressed the sin issues in kids lives, it would allow them free access to a passionate relationship with Christ. I also believed that my problems in life stemmed from not having dealt with my sin at an earlier age.

In two of my classes I've heard nearly the same rationale for understanding that regardless of the cause of a child's disability or abnormal behavior, you teach them all with the same principles. In teaching a struggling reader you don't really address WHY the student has poor reading skills beyond awareness because your job is to teach that struggling reader the same sequence of material that you would any other reader - you just have to change your approach because he/she is struggling. You find out where their level of success is and go from there, working toward mastery of each step of the process.

In my Behavior Analysis class (which I find divinely inspired because it is so useful!) the focus is on changing the behavior regardless of WHY a child is behaving in such a way. The rationale is the same - regardless of the reasons. The child/person simply hasn't adapted appropriate behavior for successful living. You don't automatically judge them as a sinner in need of salvation - which put me in an awful position of playing God in a child's life. Instead, you allow him/her to behave as they will (unconditional love and grace pouring out of you) while addressing the specific behaviors as they occur. I have personally grown in a greater understanding that every single child is created by God and teaching the children God created is an incredibly awesome responsibility. I now understand that a huge part in the child's growth is being held accountable for the consequences of their behavior in the context of a positive environment. Understanding the causes of the difficulty are important to me as a parent and a teacher but that understanding should only increase the grace and unconditional (agape) love I have to give to a child. I now see the reality is that all behavior can change without ever understanding the why.

As mentioned earlier, there are a number of us Christians who feel like Behavior Modification is "humanistic" and therefore "satanic". Of course you know that I am totally in disagreement with that. I think God uses it in my life all of the time. When the way I'm going isn't a good way, I suffer the consequences. God is also the one who designed humanity so that the first five years of their lives are crucial to their adult life. In every way patterns of responding to our current environment have been shaped during that time. So many of the adults in prisons or treatment programs lost major ground during that time of shaping their behavior. It has been my experience that we as Christians honestly think that WE can change these kids better and faster because we see the root causes of their behavior as sin and in a clearly black and white fashion. We often believe that if we can fix the sin problem we can fix the sinner. My own black and white thinking came from my personal conversion experience.

At sixteen I chose to become a Christian and my behaviors changed dramatically as a result of that conversion experience. What I completely lost sight of was that I chose this new life. I chose to open myself up to the teachings of Christ. I believe very strongly that the direction set by my will connecting with the Spirit gave me the life I wanted. What I think I've realized through all of my years as a teacher, as a parent advocate and certainly as a parent, is that no behavior changes without it being an act of our free will - NONE. So, when I came to Christ and my behavior changed drastically -1 quit partying, drinking etc. it appeared that it was a supernatural thing. I certainly don't want to diminish the power of God in my life back then but I have since realized that His power in my life was impotent without my choosing to discover it and NO one has the power to force me to do that.

I have also come to realize that it is by design - God's designed all human beings to operate this way. God doesn't want puppets on strings. God clearly wants followers by their own choosing. So often as Christian parents we think that we can determine salvation and spirit-filled living for our children in the way we raise them. I sincerely believe that all too often our kids grow up living pretentious Christian lives thinking that they understand God when in much of their reality, what they understand is how to behave like good Christians rather than growing to place where they enjoy a passionate and real relationship with a very wild God through Jesus Christ.

If you've made it to this paragraph - thanks! I'd love your feedback as I know I continue to have volumes to learn. I also respect your differences of opinion as well - it makes me think and I love that!

A Christian Platitude that Doesn't Always Perform

2009-07-02T16:22:00.000-07:00

Over the last year the phrase "God is good" has grated in my mind as though long fingernails were screeching on an old-fashioned chalkboard. I posted a little dity on facebook asking, "Why is it that when Christians share the crap (bad stuff) going on in their lives they usually end it with some rendition of "BUT, God is good."

I got a number of very good responses to my inquiry but it still didn't settle the question for me. It does still make me uncomfortable when the phrase is uttered. I've thought and thought about it and today I think I may have some notion of why this is so.

I think that much of my personal experience in the evangelical culture has led me to understand that belief that God is good is simply expected. It is so often said as we interact with one another, that in my view, the real meaning is very often lost. I say that because it is also from my own experience that nowhere is it more painful to be,than in a situation, perhaps a life and death situation, and have someone come to you and share a trite, flat rendition of "BUT,God is good".

Over the last 7 years as we have been in a life and death struggle with a loved one diagnosed with bulimia nervosa, a life-threatening and often misunderstood eating disorder. Many times throughout this experience someone has literally spoken the "God is good" mantra to me with absolutely no comprehension of the depth of my pain.

My greatest concern is that as we utter this mantra,we bury our real feelings as if the God we claim to know can't handle our angst. This became very real tome as the roots of our loved one's particular struggle was discovered to be her inability to process emotion in a healthy way. She had grown up all of her life hearing the "God is good" mantra expressed no matter what physical or emotional pain she was personally in. Then when severe clinical depression hit her, darkness enveloped her life and as she sought help among her Christian peers and counselors, she was all too often encouraged to stuff her negative feelings even further under the "God is good" banner. It was only when she was led to someone who didn't use the Christian lingo that she found a way, that our family found a way out of the dark.

So, though this is a bit scary to actually put in print, I must do it. Today, God is as real to me as ever and I really don't care if God is good or not at much as I care that God is real, present and active in my life.

Thank you for reading this -
Jane

An Amazing Conclusion - November '08

2009-01-13T08:32:00.000-08:00

This week we got the news that the insurance company is going to pay for Hannah's time in residential treatment almost 4 years ago! They have had to admit that within the wording in our policy with them we had the benefit for this treatment. They are in the process of determining what our settlement will be. We have asked for payment of all of our out of pocket expenses and payment of all attorney fees.

Dean and I began the process of understanding the reality of an eating disorder in our family in May of 2002. 6.5 years later we stand amazed at the faithful provision we have been given throughout this journey. Our faith has been sorely tested. Our perceptions of life and our world view has also been refined in this process. As Oliver Wendell Holmes said "Man's mind stretched to a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions". We continue to anchor our hope in our personal experiences with Jesus Christ but the life we live now is very different than it was for most of our married life together.

We have learned that our children are not our possessions - they are separate and whole people in need of respect for their individual uniqueness apart from us. We have learned so much from Hannah in this process as it was discovered that her ED went far beyond food and body image. Learning that she has been dealing with bipolar 2 and borderline personality disorder likely related to pre-birth and early childhood trauma, has made us look at human beings with a much more refined and compassionate persuasion. Hannah's name means "full of grace" - as a result of her being in our lives we have understood that there are no limits to the depth of God's great love and mercy for us - absolutely no limits!

As we bring close to this chapter in our lives - it will officially close once the check has cleared the bank! - we have learned that "there is no pit so deep that His love isn't deeper still" ( Corrie ten Boom)

Is it merely coincidence that this news has come at Thanksgiving? I don't think so!

Politics and Me

2008-11-08T06:50:00.000-08:00

An Awakening

History has been made not only in our country but in my own life. For the first time since I turned 18, I did not vote. I told my husband that since I wasn't registered in this neighborhood (we moved 2 years ago) I wasn't likely going to make it to the polls. In my mind it was just simple logistics. I had zero desire to be inconvenienced by the need to drop by the county offices and change my address. I told others that Utah always goes for the Republican candidate so it just wasn't a priority to add my vote for John McCain and Sarah Palin.

I now see that my apathy was actually a convenient way for me to save face with my conservative friends and family. I knew that many people I cared deeply about would be disappointed in me because I did not vote, but that seemed easier to endure than the passionate arguments that were sure to arise were it to be discovered that I had voted for Barak Obama. So, with a yellow streak 6" wide up and down my back, I avoided the process altogether. I am now rather disappointed with myself. Writing this blog is my way of processing these thoughts and moving forward with the intent to live a more authentic life.

The Rights of the Unborn

As I consider politics in my life over the years the one issue that kept me a Republican more than any other is the right to life. In 1986 when my water broke at 13 weeks, my husband and I saw Hannah on the ultrasound screen wave at us - I barely felt pregnant and yet there she was fully formed and waving. At the time most physicians would have shared the "wisdom" of terminating my doomed pregnancy. I was fortunate in that my doctors were prolife and chose to let the pregnancy take its course. My daughter turns 22 on December 2nd and I'm very glad she is here on the planet! This experience alone has solidified my stand on the fact that life begins at conception and ends at death. For me there is no way around that. Other conservative causes, however, have rarely been so black and white for me.

Homosexual Rights

Back in the early 90's a good friend challenged Dean and I in a Bible Study we had focused on political issues. This friend is a strong Christian and a prominent democrat in his community. For many in our circle he was a walking paradox. He was a devout man of faith with whom we shared that devotion and had a deep regard for each other but , shh..... he's a DEMOCRAT! There was something about his honesty that drew Dean and I to him. We loved being with him because he always made us think!

On this particular evening I'm thinking about, his challenge to us was simply this. What if we were at a community meeting and met a man or woman with great talent and unusual leadership skills but discovered that they were homosexual? What would our response be? Hmmmmm....can we pretend he didn't ask that? We gave some answer and moved on but the question has haunted me since. Little did I know that God would bring me an answer to that question in 2004 when Hannah was sent to residential treatment.

When Dean and I were getting to know the staff working with Hannah, we met a wonderful young woman working as a Direct Care staff worker. We quickly learned that she was "gay" as the adolescent girls can't keep anything like that under wraps! Hannah was determined to love her but Dean and I weren't at all sure how to respond. As evangelical Christians from a very small world in Nebraska, we had never had any real contact with a gay or lesbian person. Suddenly there we were smack in the middle of our friend's question years ago and this time we had to deal with it. It was a very important step in our family's journey to authenticity.

As we later became employed at Avalon Hills and spent real time with our friend it was clear that God had not neglected to bestow many gifts and talents to her. She worked very well with the girls and sacrificially donated hours and hours to fostering homeless pets. Not only did we enjoy working with her, we honestly just really loved her. We came to the place of respecting her as an adult with the right to decide how she wanted to live her life. We believe she has every right to be treated humanely as anyone else. That's just how we feel about it. She has changed us forever and we are grateful to be listed among her friends.

Women's Rights

So many experiences have taken place in my life that have helped me realize what I truly believe. In the late 80's I taught in a small private Christian school. My life was full of gratitude for my Christian beliefs and the stability that came into my life as a result of them. I had every intent of making my life as Christian count to its fullest and teaching at the school was a big part of fulfilling that mission. When I was hired I cared so little about the dollar figure in my salary because it was a "ministry". I was told that as I was not the "Head of Household" or single, my salary would be adjusted to fit my employer's perception of my "need". To this day I cannot believe I actually thought that to be an appropriate "biblical" stance. The real pill in it all was that unlike my married or single counterparts, I had expenses for childcare that they did not have. In essence my true financial rewards for teaching full time were the insurance benefits, as it was back in the day when those benefits paid for everything including myriad expenses with a premature baby.

I look back on those years as the most rewarding and yet pain-filled of my life. Rewarding because I was a passionate elementary teacher. I was always most comfortable in my own skin with a classroom full of students. Verbal validation and strokes came to me on a regular basis but not in the form of my salary. As a result of this painful time in my life, I began to seriously question the philosophy of male dominance in my culture.

I am married to a very strong and capable man. In every sense he is a "manly" man! He hikes for miles alone, rides his bikes through the mountains - both on the roads and back trails. He loves working in the dirt, organizing his garage and the list goes on. BUT my husband has never believed for one day that it was right for him to be my boss. Even when he sincerely thought he believed in the evangelical perspective of male headship, he treated me like an equal partner. In essence we were communicating a belief in one philosophy but living a completely different one in our marriage. As a result, this issue with my salary very quickly became his issue and he became an advocate for my situation by attempting to discuss it with school and church authorities. The only result was strain in the relationships with those involved.

At some point in this experience, light came into the situation as an accountant informed school authorities that this practice of paying me less because I was not a "head of household" was illegal and it was forced to end. I have always wished that the leaders would have been wise enough to have recognized their mistake and as loving shepherds would have sought to provide adequate compensation for my work rather than changing policy to obey the law. That said I remain grateful to God for this experience because it gave me some insight into what it is like to be in a "lower caste". I have been an advocate for women's rights ever since.

Racial Equality

Throughout most of my life I have been aware that prejudice existed in America. Oddly enough as a young child I grew up in a small western Nebraska community with a community of Sioux Native Americans living just blocks from me, with many attending my grade school. My father was friends with an African American and I was friends with his son. I remember holding his black hand and thinking how special it was to have a friend like that. I also experienced the yearly influx of hispanic migrant farmers coming in to work in the sugar beet fields. The dark skinned children fascinated me. Later in sixth grade after moving to Cheyenne, Wyoming, one of my best friends was an African-American girl whose father was in the Air Force. For the first 12 years of my life, I had lived a very multicultural life. My parents never did seem to see people as black, white or whatever. I think it is from this foundation that I gained a strong belief in "equality and justice for all".

For as long as I can remember I have been drawn to movies that exposed the deep lines of prejudice in our world. From the Hiding Place about Corrie ten Boom's family hiding Jewish people from the Germans to the most recent film Amazing Grace about William Wilberforce and his friends in their work to abolish slavery in Europe. Can you imagine the joy they would be experiencing to see this day come to America? I am drawn to these kind of movies like a moth to a flame. I remember seeing Amistad and crying for a long time afterwards.

Little did I think that there was any racial prejudice left in me until Barak Obama won the presidency. I was shocked at my initial response - although it was brief, it was still present. To consider that an African American as now president-elect of our country scared me a little. I renounced that fear immediately recognizing its stupidity but nonetheless I was disappointed in myself.

I have recognized that this election will forever change the world's perception of us. I am so thankful. My greater hope is now that it will change our perception of ourselves.

Health Care

As the daughter of an entrapeneur/successful business owner I understand what it takes to earn a dollar. Over the years I have watched my father and mother struggle with how to continue to provide quality health insurance for their employees while still maintaining the ability to make a profit in their business. At the same time I and my family have experienced great need as we have sought to deal with our own health care issues. Throughout many difficult trials in and out of hospitals we have been adamant about keeping health care private. The last great battle, of putting our daughter through treatment for an eating disorder, however, changed us forever.

In 2002 our daughter was diagnosed with bulimia. We were totally unprepared for the nature of that beast or what it would take for her to recover from it. We didn't know that bulimia is rarely a disease by itself but rather often found in conjuntion with other mental illnesses. Our daughter also has borderline personality disorder and bipolar 2. There is basically little or no insurance coverage for anyone with a mental illness. In order to keep our daughter alive we (with the help of our families) have spent approximately $150,000 to keep her alive. In her current health insurance policy mental illness is barely covered. The only thing I can say about this is that the current system just isn't working. The Repubicans have had ample opportunity to deal with this issue but neglected to do so.

Summary

I've declared myself an independent because I am not ready to be identified with either party. I want the freedom to vote where I feel most led to vote. These are issues I am passionate about because of my life's experiences.