So, being the raging insomniac I am (you remember me mentioning that about thirty thousand times, right?), I spent a while tonight going through some old emails. Ostensibly it was to refresh my memory about a long past relationship but, as is my custom, I took a few side roads along the journey. And it seems to me that some people are impossible to get rid of, some are more searing than they know, and some don’t want to be found.

I’ve tried to be honest in the past year or so, to move to a place where what I say is what I mean. I’ve tried to say what is, with all its backbending weight, with all its airy weighlessness. I’ve tried to say what I mean even when a question hasn’t been asked. I’ve tried to be transparent.

And so it becomes even more dismaying when I come face to font with the way  that I used to be. I tried to keep my hands clean. I was purposely vague in the hopes of not having a confrontation. I was vague and wanted to be misconstrued in a way that would undermine my virtue while letting me retain my innocence in the whole matter. I’m really very embarrassed about the whole thing.

But God creates value in the valueless, and so He can use these things that never should have been to create something wonderful.

Strange as it may seem, I’ve been thinking a lot about sexual assault of late. There’s a couple of blogs that I read where it’s been addressed a few times and one particular post discussed the possibility of healing, whether it actually was possible. And I think it is.  Let me be clear: I think it is. But I suppose it all comes down to what one considers healing. I have to agree with Cara at the Curvature if her definition of healing is going back to the way you were beforehand. But, getting to the point where you understand the consequences of what’s happened to you? Allowing God to move you out from a place of pain? If that’s healing, then I think I’m doing it.

I’m still not to the place where I feel comfortable getting into all the particulars of the sexual assault I experienced and, speaking entirely only of myself, I don’t think it’s important at this moment. It’s strange how I still feel in some ways ashamed about it all. And part of me thinks, “No one held a gun to my back. No one beat me up and threatened me if I told the cops. No one jumped out from behind a bush in the dead of night. Couldn’t it all have been so much worse? What am I whining about?” But I know that’s just me feeling embarrassed to be so affected by it. I know that’s just what They want me to think.

No one is embarrassed if someone breaks into their house. No one blames themselves when they’re held up at a bank. They may be frightened at first, they may wish it had never happened, but they feel no personal responsibility for it. And afterward, they are angry. They want someone to be brought to justice for it, and that effect is immediate. As soon as the violence is completed, it’s time to sort out what’s going to happen to the guy that did it. And no one would dare imply that someone stealing your things is not really theft because your windows are only single paned. No one would attempt to say that holding up a bank was a misunderstanding in the vein of why would a bank flaunt it has all that money if they didn’t want someone making off with it? And yet, a rape victim is scrutinized to the minutia. But I’m forgetting, we aren’t victims anymore. We are survivors.

The truth of the matter is that rape does change you. It will absolutely alter your view of sex, it will absolutely alter your view of the body that you inhabit. Someone has treated this vessel that you indwell completely, and thereby you,  as . . . what? What can encompass it? In rape, you have no will, you have no choices, you have no personhood. You are that thing that can be violated and discarded. You are nothing, not even enough to be considered a thing. You are not enough to be considered.

I never told anyone. I never confronted him. I didn’t even admit it to myself. I brushed it over and just got on with things. I was fine. I told myself I was fine and I was. No one could tell. It was over. Or it would have been over if something had actually happened. But nothing happened. It wasn’t me. I wasn’t there.

Time passed and I had other relationships with men, grown up relationships, sexual relationships. I was willing, I was making a choice. If that’s what they wanted, then I was choosing to give it to them, whether I wanted to or not. It was my choice. And all the while, there was this incredible disconnect from what was happening to my body. When I had sex, I was completely silent. Some of the time, I was re-experiencing the rape. I know it was probably confusing that sometimes I would seem to get so angry for no reason. I half loved and half hated every boy I slept with. It wasn’t fair to them, and I see that now, not to have worked through these things before I began a sexual tryst with them. But I didn’t even admit it to myself, I was miles away from admitting it to anyone else. I feel remorse for it now; It was terrible to be raped, but it must also have been terrible to be making love to someone who was being raped without you knowing it.

My body is a different entity than it would have been. I took who would have me in some cases, I took what I knew was bad for me, because it was there, it was telling me I had worth, right? The truth is, it wouldn’t have mattered who I was with in some respects; it was doomed. I had a boyfriend in daylight and the ghost of a rapist after dark, and one I refused to recognize for years. Sometimes I think that may be what keeps drawing me back to Simon: he was the one who loved me without it. Of course, he would say that he wasn’t enough for me, or why else would I be having affairs? Sleeping with boys when he wouldn’t sleep with me? But it marked him as something special. Something that was my friend all the time, not only when we weren’t in bed together.

I’m truly sorry for what has happened. And I’m sorry for the pain I might’ve and must’ve caused others in my reluctance to face the trauma I underwent. I wish I could take it all back. But I know that God is redeeming it, no matter what happened. I know His grace is sufficient and He provides me enough to strength to overcome the pain of it, forgive me the hurt I caused, sustain me into healing. I am being healed. So, yes, Cara, I think it’s possible.

I’m supposed to meet Sarah and her parents and Natalie and Sean for dinner tonight, and I’m afraid. I don’t know what my problem is. I should be happy to see her-it’s been a while. And I am, I really am. But I’m also scared, nervous, anxious. This is all new ground for me. I don’t know how to do this. And she’s at that age where she’s getting very attached and it’s difficult for me to even think about being around her when she doesn’t even know me.

I know the decision was right. I know she’s where she needs to be. But I miss her. It might sound crazy, because I only really had her for four days. But I loved her from the moment she was concieved and it’s difficult to think now how she’s so far away and she’ll never be mine again. Is that selfish? It probably is. But I know that with prayer, God will bring me through this. He has before. He is always faithful and good and providential. But still, this is how I feel. And part of me is tempted to skip the whole thing.

I won’t though. I won’t because I care for her and I want her to know that even though she won’t even remember this someday soon, that I was there. That she was important enough for pain. That she was adopted but never abandoned. That I saw her whenever I got the chance to. She is worth so much more than simple heartache. Every mother knows that.

But sometimes I think it’s the worst to be in this halfway. It’s probably better to either be all in or all out. I can’t move on and forget about her, and I can’t be over there three times a week either. So I’m stuck with seeing her every three or four months and every time being pleased and dismayed at how much she’s grown, proud and devastated for all the milestones she’s passed. It was the right thing to do but that doesn’t make it any easier.

I must remember:

She’s happy. That’s a blessing.

She’s healthy. And that is a blessing.

She has two stable, wonderful parents. That’s a blessing as well.

She has people who love her as if she were still their own that she doesn’t even know about. And that too is a blessing.

These are all good things. These are wonderful things. These are things that comfort me when I feel close to the edge of despair and regret. God has provided, for her and her family and myself. And Sarah is kind and has been nothing but generous with me. I just wish I didn’t feel so weak. I wish I was stronger. But in these moments, in these difficult times when I feel pushed to what I believe is past my capabilities, I learn to lean on God. And in leaning, find my strength.

So I’ve been working over at Writers’ Grope on Livejournal on the prompts from the JulNoWriMo website. So far I’ve done . . . two of them. But! I’m getting there. The reason I bring it up is that in this last exercise I was writing a letter to someone from highschool and I realized that there was a lot of my experience that this person didn’t know, and couldn’t have known. It was suddenly apparent to me that a lot of my life has been an exercise in duplicity.

Is this the common experience? What are those things that we’ve never told anyone? And is now the time to let them breathe?

I’m thinking about it. I’m mulling it over. Should I embark on recovering the past and recreating it to be what it really was? In some ways, I was probably doomed to be, well, something of a hypocrite. This won’t make sense now, but I believe it will become clear. Regardless, I’m not going to be that anymore. God is truth, and I love him. And so I will love truth as well.

We’re like soulmates seperated by hundreds of years, and by class, gender, education, and age. We’ve both been foolish, we’ve both been degenerate. And yet God in his infinite wisdom and grace was kind enough to show us fully what kind of jerks we really were and grow us into something better, more in keeping with who he is. And it is encouragement to me now to read the words of someone who has sought, as I myself need to continually seek, the absolute truth.

<—–see the resemblence?—–>

” Entrust to truth whatever truth has given you, and you will lose nothing. What is withered in you will flower again, and your illness will be made well, and all that was flowing and wasting from you will regain shape and substance and will form part of you again, and they will not lay you down in the place where they themselves descend, but will stand fast with you and abide with you forever before God who stands and abides forever.”

May I say it? HOT.

I told Mark a few months ago when I started it that I was reading the Confessions and he was surprised. He had heard it was kind of dirty. But while there may be sections that are candid about his carnal appetites, St. Augustine’s point is not to revel. The point is that God has redeemed him, he who was the worst of these, he who was immersed in not only the lifestyle but the mindset of the flesh. He speaks about the superiority he felt as he pursued intellectualism and the emptiness he found in simply following his own desires. The point is that God knew him even then, in the dirty places, and was pulling him ever closer to a true knowledge and understanding of him. And that is lovely.

I can relate. I’ve been distracted, distracting, unkind, cruel, insensitive, unfaithful, disingenuous, lazy, impatient, lusty, and raging. I’ve been called a prude and a tramp, and sometimes both at once, which . . . well, was actually probably closest to the truth.  I’ve had a chip on my shoulder. I’ve rolled my eyes at people who weren’t as smart as I thought I was with my incredible massive brain. I’ve derided the Church and thought that Christians were boring, legalistic, and dead, at the same time I claimed to be a Christian while getting slobbering drunk and following boys home at night.

It’s difficult to share those things. It’s difficult to know what’s appropriate. Because as Christians it seems like we don’t want to hear it or maybe that we should just forget it. Because we’re the new creation now, aren’t we? And we are. We are. But those dark places in us . . . those dark places in us are forgiven and healed, and yet, is there sometimes scar tissue left?

What is the purpose in confession? Is it to show how God has moved and what he’s done? Is it to humble us, to remind ourselves that the perfection we are working towards hasn’t been attained yet? Is it to show other people who don’t have the relationship with God that we do that we weren’t really all that different, but that God granted us wisdom to recognize a need that only he could fill? Is it to pass on the wisdom that all those bruises have granted us, so that no one else need go through the gauntlet niavely?

Maybe it’s all those things. And I have to say I think I’ve learned more about myself in being introspective over the last year about my mistakes and failed efforts and all the time I spent not paying attention than I learned in the two and a half decades that came before it. I confess: He’s still working on me.

There’s really no need to go. The only reason that I’m even contemplating it is because I’m disappointed. How, you may ask? And I answer, In myself.

Not that I’ve done anything that is overly awful, but sometimes, can’t that be the worst? This sort of uneasy feeling follows me around asking me if I’ve really done all that I could. I can’t pin it to anything in specific necessarily. I haven’t been out sacrificing virgins or burning down symbolic representations of capitalism. I’ve just been lazy and undisciplined. I’ve just nonchalantly given up all the progress God’s made in me without a second thought or any real notice.

And then I lazily pick up a copy of the Confessions of St. Augustine, and I remember who I was when last I read it. And it was a different person, and one who felt and believed and held firm. I still believe but my resolve has turned squishy. And yet I still have thought I was at the point of great return, when I was investing nothing, or certainly not enough.

I want to be marked as God’s. I want there to be an indeliable sign on my life that says, She has been granted knowledge of absolute truth and it did not fall on deaf ears. I want to be more and less, more of God and drained out of myself. C.S. Lewis says that as we come to know more of God and sacrifice all that we are to him, we become more and more our true selves. I believe it. Now I just have to act like it.

The sound of other patrons smacking their lips and sucking the very last droplet of an infinitely refillable soda made up the horn section. The sound of bagels being slid to their deaths down the slicer machine added the percussion. And finally, the tinkling of spoon to ceramic and soft taps of the keyboard, like the keyboard of a black and white instrument, were the trilling strings while a couple of loud voiced (and loud shoed) women discussed the guests at a dinner party by the trash can. Ahh, the symphony of a Tuesday night coffeeshop.

I’ve been thinking today perhaps I’m a little too self obsessed . . .

Yes, I am having One of Those Days.

I’m feel as stressed out as I feel sure that I don’t have a very good reason to be. I’d like to think that freaking out is a strange phenomenon for me. I used to never worry (As my mom said of me, “She’ll never get an ulcer but she’ll sure give me one.”) and now I feel compressed by it. Add to it the fact that I’ve been staying up all night and feeling guilty for the sleep I DO catch because it usually takes place through the entirety of Business Hours, and perhaps my current state of mind is more clear. Regardless, I’m not sure what to do now except for keeping reading the Moonstone and playing WarHammer Online and avoiding responsibility as long as possible.

And the truth is? It isn’t possible anymore.

It is this practice that I would like to demonstrate for you now.

So here I am, just coming out of the wilderness in a lot of ways (or maybe still in it sometimes, I don’t know) and being led about by God (or at least trying as much I can to follow His leading) and having difficulty recognizing that everything I say doesn’t need to have a qualifier (though I really think it helps sometimes). And I’m looking around, right? I’m looking outward because I feel like I need some . . . help or brotherhood or some kind of human support and I’m writing, writing, writing, all these people that I haven’t communicated with in like a year or something because I felt like my soul was  on the rack and being stretched in ways that were breathlessly painful  and I wanted to listen and be still and maybe just lick my wounds a little. I’m writing and I’m saying I’m hurting and I want you to be there with me, I want to walk with you for a little while and put it down and just try to imitate normal life until life can start feeling normal again. I’m sending out a call and in it I’m telling these people that I was bonded with before about the fact that I miss my little girl and I’m aching because I will never have a mother again, not for the rest of my life, the whole fifty or so years that are left of my life, and I just wanted you to know that I loved you and I want to love you and I want to love someone that I can really have because I can’t have these two people that I really love and . . . ?

And???

Crickets. Tumbleweeds blow by. Nothing. Nothing is returned to me.

And I know I’m winge-ing right now because I’m lucky to have my sister and brother.  I’m lucky to have my Lord who walks with me through everything. I’m lucky to be alive and know that my mother is in a place of perfect peace and my daughter is warm and safe and beautiful. I know I’m lucky. I know I’m blessed. I just . . . wish . . . I wish I felt . . . I wish I was important to these people. I wish my struggles mattered. I wish that I was understood and forgiven and held up. And I guess that’s too much to ask for.

Doesn’t anybody care? And what does this teach me about the importance of caring?

Confessions are so intimidating. As was said in a Charade (a totally class movie with Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn), “People usually lie because they want something, and they’re afraid the truth won’t get it for them.” How apt. And, quite frankly, how surprising that Hollywood at one time came up with something true. And it really does seem to be the case. In confession, we are (or should I say “I am”?) afraid that we will be seen differently than we want to be, that no one will give us the benefit of the doubt, that no one else will understand the things that we were dealing with that caused us to make such a blunder. And usually, they don’t. But I’ve got a secret weapon.

When it comes right down to it, it doesn’t matter what other people’s perceptions are of me. As a Christian, I am not so much even myself, but rather a conglomeration of the work that God is doing in me. And so I confess, not to show how great I am in overcoming the person that I once was, but to give a record of all that Christ’s blood has bought and saturated and made his. I confess to bring to light all that God can redeem and has redeemed and continues to.

And here are my confessions:

I have had twelve sexual partners in the span of eight years. I had an abortion at the age of twenty three and a child out of wedlock at twenty seven. I have abused alcohol, nicotine, and other drugs. I committed adultery during almost every romantic relationship I’ve had. I cursed and took the Lord’s name in vain, habitually. I forsook the gathering with other Christians and fellowship of Church. I have gossipped and been uncharitable in my speech and actions. I’ve been selfish and self centered. I’ve been prideful and judgmental. I have been hypocritical and have lied about who I was and what I was doing. I’ve been a desperate and unrepentant sinner through a great portion of my life.

Some of these things are still struggles for me. All of these things happened after I had been made privy to the salvation of Christ to free me from sin. And perhaps that is what is worst of all: that I called myself a Christian and denied Christ in my actions. But, and how overwhelming, the Lord saw fit to come for me, and rescue me, and with my submission to his Holy Spirit that dwells within me, he sets my feet on firm ground again. Believe this: God has saved even a wretch like me.

My brother preached a sermon in this spirit when he was in Bible school. The message was this: Can you handle Grace? It made such an impression on me because he spoke about criminals who had accepted Christ while in prison, before they were put to death, and could we deal with the insult, the repugnance of seeing such a disgusting, awful degenerate in the kingdom of Heaven with us, the goody two shoes of the world? Its a good question. Who among us can claim to be any better, really, when we all fall short? Who among us is deserving at all of the gift that is given us freely?

Recognition of my shortcomings used to be full of guilt for me. What excuse could I offer? I was guilty. But the Lord showed me that he can use even me for his glory. I am humbled by his grace and dissolved when I consider his mercy. I am the incarnation of how he set the captive free.

And he is changing my mind. He is showing me how useless the things of this world are. How wasted time is when it is spent chasing after worldly pleasures and happiness. They are illusions. And like anything second rate, when one takes a subsitute for the pleaures of God, the hunger is never abated and one searches even more ravenously in a world incapable of satifying for a moment a fulfillment that can only be found in surrendering the self to God. I get that now. Although God knows how difficult of a lesson that was for me to learn.

Not that there’s anything wrong with being obsessed with Jesus. I mean, as the bride waiting for her groom, it makes sense to be overwhelmed with thoughts of the Beloved. But the Jesus-bot is different. It’s a robotic version of love, or so it seems to me. Who knows? Maybe I’m wrong.

But . . .

I’ve read blogs and social networks that are geared towards Christians, and it’s wonderful that there exist places where Christians can come together and express themselves. Great. Fabulous. I may even go so far as to say, “awesome”. In fact, I just did. But the problem is that as I read through these posts, I see nothing of the specialised idiosyncrasies that make us each individual and gear us towards our own particular ministries. Am I being too picky?

I feel like I don’t get a sense of who these people are. People I read seven long paragraphs by on why women should or shouldn’t be preachers. People who talk about how difficult their relationship is between them and their significant other and all they say is “love is so hard,” and “then I realized” and “now everything is great!” I just want to cyber shake them and say, Who the swear word ARE you?!

Putting God above all others is good. Making God more important than yourself is good. But does that mean that we have to completely disregard ourselves? Or not disregard ourselves, but pretend our selves don’t exist. Sometimes it seems that in Christian communities, we get sterilyzed. Why is that? How can we relate to a world that is fallen if we can’t admit to being human? And how can we be authentic  with the outside community if we can’t even be authentic within the fellowship of our Christian family?

I don’t mean to say that we admit our humanity by not trying consistently to improve and become more and more like Jesus. I don’t believe in that whole “all things are lawful” brand of young Christianity that allows the redeemed to be virutally indistinguishable from those who are still lost. But it seems to me as I read the gospels that Jesus himself was very expressive. Peter and Paul both had very distinct personalities and you can see them plainly as you read the books they penned. They were able to teach and spread the gospel without being blank. Can’t we try to do the same?