Tilted, Not Skewed.

Sorry.  I know it’s been a while.  And here I’d promised to write at least 3 times per week.  

It’s just that the past few weeks have been filled with a turmoil like no other.  

From the outside, I’m pretty sure I look totally normal.  Unless maybe there’s a slight maniacal glint to my eye.  But aside from that, I’ve been doing the usual: smile and nod, boys, smile and nod.

But inside — whoa, nelly.  Complete upheaval.  Brutal honesty.  A Swiftly Tilting Planet could be a novel about what’s going on in my head instead of one of my favorite childhood books.

A few months ago, I prayed that God would bring out the champion in me.  I meant this is many ways.  I meant it in my business — it’s time to make this Mary Kay thing work for real.  I mean, diamonds, cars, top director trips kind of real.  It’s time to build my national area, to become the incredible business woman I know I am destined to be.

I meant it for my body.  It’s time to shed this extra 20 or 30 pounds that have crept up like poison ivy onto my belly, my hips.  Where did this come from?  Where are the abs I had before children?  Where is the martial artist I once was — who would work out so completely steam would literally be shed from my body when I walked out into the cold?  When was that athlete replaced by the woman who has to drag her ass to a treadmill to barely pound out thirty minutes?

When did my chair develop a perfect indentation of my ever-increasing butt?

When did mediocrity become the false idol I would worship?

No.  NO! 

I refuse to fall into the Great American Sedation, this being okay with the way things are.  I refuse to continue the legacy of burying my deepest desires under the stinking pile of fears that I won’t talk about, lest someone know I am afraid.

So I prayed this prayer a few months ago, this prayer to become a champion, for God to do what it takes in me so that I could step into my destiny.  I did it with complete trust, but also with the knowledge that what was about to come would not be comfortable.  In fact, I knew it would hurt.  I knew it would be scary.  It would be unknown, until it was time to know it, which in and of itself makes my Little Control Freak freak.

The minute I prayed the prayer, my spirit felt God’s immediate response.  My stomach flipped over.  I felt him say an enthusiastic, “Okay!  But get ready for the ride of your life.”

I had no idea.

No. Freaking. Idea.

Like a perfect surgeon, God got to work, STAT.  He cracked open my chest, spread my ribs and began His tinkering.  My world tilted, so that I was looking at everything from a different angle, and it became hard to catch my breath.

First, He showed me my co-dependency, which I’ve spoken about it a previous post.  But gratefully, and so true to the immense, gentle, incredible love of God, He had already placed several people in my life — ones you might never expect — who could guide me through this process with love and understanding.

At the same time, He began to prune away things in my life, gently removing them from my firm grip.  Things that are not necessarily bad for me, but perhaps are just getting in the way.  A good friend.  A relational issue.  “No, sweetie,”  He says.  “That’s not something you need right now.  Maybe later.”  These things hurt like having a part of my heart removed.  I want them.  They are things I love.  But I trust that God is in control, He has His plan, and in the end my heart will be fuller for all I release.  And when I think about their removal, I see a wide open space that includes new people and things that lead to my destiny.

I began to work with a business coach.  I thought she’d work with me on goal setting and strategics.  No.  She talks about my childhood.  She reaches in like the hand of God and tinkers for Him, finding those places in memory that I hold delicately but tightly, lest the world see them and I break forever.  Those pains.  Those things that feed my psyche the lies that I am unworthy, unloved, don’t deserve success.  She forces me to be honest and, like a bad Saturday Night Live skit, love on the little girl I was.  Which is an incredibly painful thing to do — to go deep inside and love on this little girl who was so neglected, feeling so unloved, so lonely and frightened, and who built up walls at such a young age to protect herself.  I got serious early.  I got tough young.

And here I am.  Standing in this new place where all is being revealed and it is emotionally draining.  I am exhausted.  But every time I check in with God, I feel Him say, “You are exactly where I want you to be.”  Panic attacks (I usually get them in the middle of the night, from a sound sleep, like last night) notwithstanding, I am okay, as God takes me through this process.  He is fixing my outlook, readjusting my lenses, so I no longer look at myself through this skewed, off-kilter filter of “I’m not good enough.”

It’s a strange, scary place to be where the air is often thin and the landscape a little rocky.  But I’m okay, as long as God keeps assuring me I’m where He wants me.  I’m okay.

Tilted, but not skewed.

 

Photo credit: © Mfcboy | Stock Free Images & Dreamstime Stock Photos