Destination Discipline

Sometimes I wake up in the morning and feel like my life doesn’t have meaning. The thunderclouds roll in overnight and pour deep puddles of rainwater into my consciousness. So when I wake up, before I even open my eyes, I feel the drowning sensation that means nothing good will come from my day. I had just such a day yesterday, and I groaned beneath the weight of it.

When the dark thoughts come, one thing I know for certain is that I absolutely cannot trust them. But sometimes I can’t unthink them either, especially when they have wrapped me in their cocoon of unhappiness. On days like these it is GREAT to have a rebellious nature. I give myself liberty to jump the train(of thoughts) track and chart my own course, even if the path leads through the swamp. Because even dangerous swamps can be beautiful places where the most unexpected things grow and thrive.

I learned this from Gene Stratton-Porter in her beautiful book, “A Girl of the Limberlost”. As a girl I saw myself in the character of Elnora Comstock. She was what I wanted to be I suppose, a young woman climbing through the swamp in search of the ever elusive Yellow Emperor moth in order to complete her collection. Elnora was tough, resolute and steely in her resolve to go to college. She proved that perseverance pays off and a fiery temper(used in moderation) can be helpful.

So yesterday when my thoughts were tumbling all over each other, condemning and condoning, and twirling into the most glorious belly flops, I knew I had to run away. And run away I did. I did not care that it was only 43 degrees (that is what fleece is for). I climbed onto my white and blue Jamis Allegro and went searching for hills because hills make me happy.

But unfortunately, my body was tired. My body did not want to climb hills. So I decided to ride one of my favorite routes, which is a flat and decidedly unhurried terrain. In that space I would be able to ride at my own pace and breathe in the blue sky that fills my soul with wonder.

The problem was, there was fog. Thick fog. Dense fog. The kind of fog not conducive to cyclists trying to find beauty on country back roads. So when a truck pulled up beside me, I was understandable afraid. I thought the driver was going to yell obscenities at me. I thought he would tell me I was crazy and stupid, and to get out of his way. So you can imagine my surprise when the woman in the passenger seat simply said, “We can’t see you. We don’t want you to get hurt.” Then she handed me a reflective vest and said, “My husband works on the highways and we have plenty of these.” And then they drove away. I stood there speechless and quite humbled by the grace they had given to me. I was also deeply troubled with concern over my predicament. Even though I quickly put on the vest, I felt more unsafe than I had before that encounter. My thoughts were now knives sharpening themselves against my very real fear of being hit by a car. So I did what any well respecting person in my circumstances would do, I turned around and rode straight home (albeit up some very steep hills).

I arrived with the notion that I should go to church. That is what I normally do on Sunday mornings. But my body was still tired and my thoughts were still wonky. And all I could picture was me sitting there feeling awful while some unsuspecting person tried to talk to me while I fake smiled. Or even worse, I imagined I was honest and articulated my discomfort only to get that sad, pitying look people give when they know you don’t feel well. Or, even worse than that, I saw myself facing the emotional tyrant who blurts out, “Margaret, you just really need medication!” and then walks back to their neat and tidy life completely unaware of the emotional landmine they just laid and how it blew up and will now cripple my brain for days.

Exhausting living inside my head, isn’t it?

So I did what any self-respecting person in my situation would do. I called Hermann’s orchard(which, btw, is closed for the season) and asked if they had any surplus apples. Which they did. And so I purchased 100 pounds and went home to keep myself busy until the dark thoughts dissipated. And I prayed. Oh, how I prayed!

Because danger surrounds us. It inhabits us. Danger is our ever present reality. I think one of the greatest delusions we ever have is that we are safe. We are not safe. Not from physical pain. Not from emotional pain. Not from fear of pain that hasn’t happened yet. Simply said, to live is to be in some kind of pain. From my missteps I have learned that pain cannot be avoided. Neither by food lust(which incites the deeper hungers), nor by mental avoidance. The only way to manage the pain is to face it head on and walk straight through it. Walking through the pain, bearing it well, taking its blows on our bodies, all the while giving them to the One who bore our sorrows for all time. This alone seems to me to be the only way to bear it. I am not strong enough in myself to stand impervious to the deluge. I am weak. I am fragile. I am riding my bike in the fog. But Jesus is my lighthouse. He is my soul-soothing balm. So when my brain fails me, I can trust Him to guide me through it.

The repetitive motion of peeling, coring and slicing apples soothed me. And when my littlest guy asked to help me make the applesauce, I gave him a knife and let him peel too. I let him slice half the apple into the trash. His delight brought me joy and also added reassurance. I find that the simple act of surrendering, not only to my pain and discomfort, but to his feeble attempts to help, important. Because in accepting his help, I came to realize that the people who want to help me may not be very darn good at it, but that doesn’t negate the heart behind their help. As I watched him peel, I realized that by avoiding people, I was actually hindering friends who might want to help. That was seriously short-sided, and, I might even go so far as to say, dumb.

Still, yesterday is gone, never to be re-lived again. Today is fresh and new. Tomorrow is promised to no man(or woman!). Today I take courage from having persevered through the pain of yesterday—dangerous as it felt—because I emerged enlightened. And if nothing else, each day is a new opportunity to learn. Yesterday I learned I need a safety vest in the fog. I learned there is human kindness when I expect an insult. I learned my thoughts are not safe, but God is. But most importantly, yesterday was a clear and present reminder that there is beauty to be found even in swamps.

I was sitting in choir in high school when my friend confided in me, “I keep my weight down by throwing up my food after I eat it.” I remember thinking how great she looked (having lost about 20 pounds by this method) and that she was obviously onto something. So I went home and tried to do the same. But try as I might, I could not get my food to come back up. I felt like an absolute failure. Sure, I had seen the after school specials about bulimia and even had a relative who had suffered from it, but candidly, binging and purging held much less social stigma for me than being fat. Bulimic girls have boyfriends. Fat girls do not. At least, that’s what I thought.

I’m still struggling with that mentality 26 years later. Image vs. health. Sure, I have learned how to eat the right things, but I’m not sure I will ever master how to not gorge myself. Eating the proper amounts of food takes incredible discipline, and I’ll be honest, I’m not always very good at it.

Today I read a story in the BBC about the 10 year anniversary of Back to Black, the wildly successful album by Amy Winehouse. You can imagine my surprise to learn that not only did she suffer from drug and alcohol addiction, but bulimia as well. The moment I read that, wave after wave of painful images from my past swept over me. As it all sank in, I thought to myself, “of course she had an eating disorder”. Eating disorders and addictions have everything to do with self-loathing, a form of self-expression I am not unfamiliar with.

The first time I heard the song, “Rehab” I stopped. As in, literally stopped what I was doing, parked myself on Youtube, and watched every single video I could find of Amy singing. From late night talk shows to grainy radio interviews, I soaked up the voice that stroked the tender place in my heart. Her words gave voice to my own fragility and the longing I had to be loved. I understood all too well how a broken heart could lead one to do crazy things. And when she sang, “You know I’m no good”, she may as well have been singing my theme song. Long haunted by words spoken by Christian people who questioned my faith—and therefore my personhood—Amy’s music comforted me. Her music told me I’m not the only one. But her songs also made the pain more. They still do.

I have a friend with a significant scar on her lip. When she talks, she covers her mouth with her hand. Every single time she does it, it breaks my heart. By covering the scar she reminds me of all the times I’ve tried to hide my scars. As if by placing a hand in front of hers will somehow make it not there. As if that scar will make me love her any less. As if she is less of a person because of the mark on her face.

Some people are better at hiding scars than others. And I think Fraser McAlpine is right. “We all share the interior monologue that we’re grotesque and unworthy of good fortune. We all carry the suspicion that we are messy, flawed individuals who feel like we can’t do right for doing wrong.”

But I think the most important question of all is lurking there right beneath the surface. Why do we feel that way? Even without the media messages telling me my body isn’t right, I still harbor guilt over any number of things. Bad parenting. Bad wife-ing. Bad employee-ing. And that’s not even addressing all the thoughts and feelings I have about my shortcomings and compulsions. Obesity is just one guilt factor I deal with. Granted it’s a doozy.

Why do we look at people like Amy Winehouse and wish they would get better? Why do we long for their happy ending? While she was alive, I mourned her sickness. I longed to read just one article that gave me a glimmer of hope that she was getting better. I never saw it. And when I learned that she had died, I grieved. Certainly I grieved the loss of a voice and uncommon talent, but more than anything, I mourned the loss of hope. Death is so final–so terrible. And once she was gone I knew there was no hope she would ever recover. As an addicted person, I felt her death rip through me and I felt helpless. I can’t help but think, “What if that happens to me?” Every time someone loses their battle with addiction, it affects me. Because addiction is really only a symptom of the real disease–the real reason we self-medicate–the honest realization that we really are all flawed and broken.

I used to hate before and after pictures. Then I began to seek out those who had found success so I could replicate their results. I still seek out those stories. I need hope. Hope fuels my soul when the darkness of compulsive eating sucks the light out of me. Hope is why I continue to write this blog. Without it, I am a shell of a person.

But my hope is not in people. It’s definitely not in food or in the new fad diet. My hope is not in my job or my paycheck and definitely not in my dog(though he is definitely a really great dog!) My hope is in something tangible–something solid. Because only something real can combat the scars and the voices in my head telling me I’m deeply flawed. I know I’m a mess, but I have a hero who sees me, mess and all, and loves me anyway. He has provided me with a happy ending and he gives me peace until I get there.

I have learned that the shape and size of my body does not define who I am, but that doesn’t make me feel better when my pants inform me I need to take my eating down a notch. As the old hymn says, “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness.” And maybe that’s hokey. And maybe it’s not. But it’s all I have to cling to when the voices in my head start their angry tirade.

I didn’t know Amy Winehouse. But I know she was a beautifully flawed human being. Just like me. She left this world too soon, but there are many others, like me, who are still struggling with some form of addictive behavior. I have found peace in my strivings because I cling to the hope I have in Jesus. Today if you are reading this, I hope you will too. Whatever the issue, nothing in you is so ugly or messy that would prevent His help from coming if you ask for it.

Sometimes I wake up in the morning and roll over. I don’t bounce out of bed to workout. I don’t cheerfully kiss my husband and make his coffee(okay that actually never happens—for various reasons). I don’t greet my children with a sonnet. I don’t sing in the shower. Plainly speaking, some mornings suck.

This morning was one of those mornings. I ate too many raisins last night and had a hangover. Now you can laugh, but I do actually get raisin hangovers. Too much sugar of any kind makes my body wonky, or more aptly described, cranky as a dark, hot and smoky place. And so I laid there in bed with my black and twisty thoughts as I wondered what the point of it all is. Why bother to eat healthy? Why bother to exercise? For that matter, why bother to go to work? Why bother to make money so I can pay the mortgage? It’s meaningless. All of it. And truthfully, I’m just tired of the merry-go-round. I want to stay in bed. I want to get off.

I stumbled grumpily down the hall and into the kitchen to make tea when I heard the shuffle of little feet behind me. The high-pitched whine of a dejected child was my first indication that I was not alone in my unhappy land. Suddenly, I found said child wrapped around my waist, shaking and sobbing. He said, “Mommy! I had a bad dream.” And I thought, I really don’t have the time or patience for this, but I’m his mom and I need to show up. Because dreams about killer clowns that are on fire and still chasing you surely call for some kind of positive intervention. And since I was once a child with vivid nightmares(and an adult who still suffers from them occasionally) I knew how important it was for me to set aside my woes and speak life into my little boy. Whether I felt like it or not. Because that’s what mom’s do.

But as I drove to work my brain was churning. I was thinking about life and living, and how doggone tiring it is. I thought about the struggle to survive and the longing to thrive. How we end up working so we can eat, but that same work can leave us feeling like we are dying inside. And then at night we try to rest only to be tormented with nightmares because our harried brain is still trying to process the nightmare of everyday living.

I write this from suburban America. From my cushy home with indoor plumbing. From a sturdy chair I bought at Wal-Mart. With clean skin and no physical evidence of deadly pestilence. Shouldn’t I be dancing in the streets? Why do I wake up with this feeling of meaninglessness?

In 1979 The Clash released a song called, “Lost in the Supermarket”. Joe Strummer gave voice to this longing for meaning. “The kids in the halls and the pipes in the walls make me noises for company. Long distance callers make long distance calls and the silence makes me lonely.”

I don’t think I’m very different in my longings. I tried to sate my palate with food, but I was still hungry—hungry for meaning—and once morbidly obese, hungry for hope to be free of the extra weight. Once I lost the weight, I found I was still hungry. I began to feel this hunger to validate my journey. I wanted my struggle to have a purpose. I felt a need to be known for more than just the shape and size of my body. Because I feel like I am more than what I look like. I am a soul in possession of a body not the other way around.

“Thieves in the temple. Eve and the apple. Everybody’s twisted baby, trying to fit.” – Matt Nathanson

So on mornings like today when I feel empty inside—when I feel the need to reach for the donuts or ice cream or cookies to stop the noise that makes me feel lonely, I pause as I look for an answer. The cookies and ice cream are a symptom—a distraction if you will—of the real problem. I wish nightmares only happened at night. I wish killer clowns weren’t real. Deep down I wish I had someone to hold me and tell me that one day everything is going to be okay. Because the idea that my life has no meaning, that my suffering is not valid or that it is random and purposeless does not comfort me. I want to know that not only is evil real, but that there is a cure. I see evil all around me, but I also see it in my own fractured and self-seeking heart. I no longer want to walk through life blissfully unaware of my self-destructive nature. I want to face up to it and see it fixed. I want to be healed of my brokenness. I want to see others healed of theirs. I want an answer to the problem of evil of and suffering. And I want it right now.

Psalm 46
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way,
Though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,
Though its waters roar and foam,
Though the mountains tremble at its swelling.
The Lord of hosts is with us;
The God of Jacob is our fortress.
Be still and know that I am God.

I clung to my little boy this morning. I prayed over him. And then I left him to face the cold and cruel world alone. Sure, there are teachers. There is a bus driver. There are other adults who would try to protect him. But there is also a cacophony of noise clamoring to distract him from the truth. And the truth—as I shared it with him this morning—is this: You are uniquely created and precious to me. I love you. You are beautiful and brave. And though I can’t be with you, God is. And God is bigger and better than me. And he loves you even more than I do. Because of that, you are safe.
And I took a mental picture of his innocent face. His slack-jawed smile and his wide open eyes reminded me how I must look to my father in heaven when I take my bad dreams to him and He tells me I am safe.

He is the conquering King. Death is dead. He killed it once and for all on the cross. His death gives my life meaning. For today, tomorrow and even after I am gone. I am loved. And if you are reading this, so are you.