I don't care what anyone says - the planet is changing. The weather, specifically is changing. I'm sitting here watching thick dark clouds roll in and we have a tornado watch, again. West of here, there is a warning. This seems to be the new normal, as we've had very few stormy days so far this spring that have not had the word "tornado" somehow attached to them. This is Pennsylvania, for goodness sake, not Tornado Alley.
I only remember one tornado watch throughout my entire childhood. Maybe there were more but nobody told me about them so I wouldn't freak out. My father has always been a weather buff, though, and the two of us used to actually sit and watch The Weather Channel for pleasure, so I doubt I really missed out on the tornado watches.
Throughout my adult years, I never took them terribly seriously until one day in March 2009. The storm hit and it just wasn't your "normal" storm. I can't tell you exactly what the difference was. Maybe it was a hunch or a notion more than a scientific observance. I just remember standing in front of the window and saying to my husband, "This isn't a regular storm." I grabbed the cat and we darted to the bottom of the stairs. Eventually we made our way to the apartment next-door and, in retrospect, that didn't make any sense. It wasn't any lower than our stairwell, and there were just more people for a twister to pick up and fling, but it seemed logical at the time.
About 5 minutes down the road, a trailer park was demolished. One of my co-workers at the time lost her home and had both of her ankles shattered. It hit too close to home that time and now I take those watches and warnings pretty seriously. Although, I will openly admit that when a tornado watch is issued, I do go searching for my camera. I'm the kind of person who would fly to the Midwest to take a storm chasing "vacation."
Wherever you are, in whatever kind of weather you're experiencing, be safe. I can't wrap my mind around the idea of mile- and two-mile-wide funnel clouds destroying entire towns and ripping loved ones from each other's arms. We have tornadoes here, but not tornadoes like that. God bless everyone who lives in that part of the country. They are far braver than I am.
Pin It
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
The Unexpected Snare
A good friend of mine - an author and speaker - was in town this past weekend to do a marriage event at a local church. I had been excited about her visit for weeks, since I rarely get to see her. I was excited about spending time with her, and also about helping out with the book table. By the time Friday evening rolled around, I thought I might explode.
This person has mentored me for the past eight years and I couldn't wait to see her, knowing that my bipolar disorder was under control and I was a stable person. There is not enough time or space on this blog to document all the painful things my friend has seen me through over the years. I felt like I was unveiling a "new me" for her. And, oh man, if you struggle with a mental illness, you know how cool it is when people start noticing how well you're doing.
So I was disappointed and humiliated when, on Saturday night, I ended up having a panic attack. I was standing at the book table and my job was to answer questions and basically mingle. It was a big crowd, certainly more than I am used to. The crowd, combined with a lot of emotions stirring around in my head, just sunk me. I was able to hold out until the end, but at that point I fell apart and my sweet friend ended up having to abandon signing books to come talk to me.
I used to get panicky a lot, but I felt like I'd dealt with my anxiety by working in a grocery store and working retail for a short time. I got used to a lot of people, or so I thought. I am also a greeter at church, so I'm used to shaking hands and making nice. No problems. So, I blame it on my emotions and not really knowing how to handle them. I spent a big chunk of my life trying not to feel anything; I consider this a case of sensory overload.
Truth be told, from the moment my friend arrived, I was already dreading her exit. I suppose it's normal to cry when someone you love has to leave, but I had to struggle to enjoy the time I did have, because I know the sad moment was coming. I don't want to live like that. I have to learn how to live in the moment.
It was a long and tearful drive home on Saturday night. I thought about a lot of things - I thought a lot about going back to some of my old ways that helped me not to feel. I considered really unhealthy stuff that I hadn't thought about in ages, and it scared me. It scared me, disappointed me, and embarrassed me. The person I was in the car that night is not the person God has changed me into. Those moments of doubt, of wanting to shut out everything I was feeling... it was another reminder that the enemy wants to steal, kill, and destroy all of the beauty that God has made. I guess you could say I was angry that I had a tender heart.
The irony of that is, the people I am closest to have tender hearts, and that's why I love them. That includes the friend I saw this past weekend, who has openly cried over my failures, as well as my victories. That's part of why I love and admire her so much - her heart is open, and it's OK for people to see it.
So I have to stop kicking myself for being emotional, but I have to learn how to deal with emotions in a healthy way. Some of it is just chemistry - anxiety is part of my brain makeup, even though I earnestly pray for a complete healing of it. But I think the handling of emotions, and learning to live in the moment, is something we have to learn. The more you practice it, the easier it gets. It's a skill, like anything else in life. Maybe getting control of those things will stave off the panic and depression.
The good thing about having an amazing Savior and great friends in your life is that they make you want to be a better person. So going backwards can't be a consideration for me. It has to be forward, all the way. I want to make my friends proud, and walk in the light of who I really am in Jesus Christ. There can be no going back.
Now if I could just crawl out from under this table I've been hiding under since Saturday... Pin It
Places to Find Me
My Fine Living Lancaster column, about May being Mental Health Month, is up
I have a new article up at Hope for Women about Defending Your Marriage Against the Threat of Chronic Illness.
And I also have a blog post at Hope for Women about Stephen Hawking and his unbelief in the afterlife.
I'm also working on a blog for ya'll. Woot! About time, huh? Pin It
I have a new article up at Hope for Women about Defending Your Marriage Against the Threat of Chronic Illness.
And I also have a blog post at Hope for Women about Stephen Hawking and his unbelief in the afterlife.
I'm also working on a blog for ya'll. Woot! About time, huh? Pin It
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Mother's Day Mom-isms
It's Mother's Day. Did you call your mom? Don't forget to call your mom! And if your mom isn't here anymore, don't forget to remember her.
In honor of Mother's Day, I decided to jot down a few thoughts concerning my own mom - nothing too personal, because I don't want her to kill me.
-Nobody messes with her kids. When I was about 15 years old, I'm fairly certain my mother wanted to give me away to the highest bidder - perhaps any bidder. I was a nightmare of a teenager, full of problems and flunking out of school. It's a good thing we didn't have eBay back then because my mom probably would have put me up for sale; however, even though she was probably wishing I wasn't carrying her genes, my mother would have gone Jack Bauer on anyone who tried to mess with me. Case in point: the evil home economics teacher who hated me and made it her mission to let me know on a daily basis. My mother made one little phone call to her and I don't know exactly what was said, but she was much nicer to me after that. As my mom has said many times over the years, "I'm the only one who's allowed to mess with my kids."
-She instilled her paranoia in me. Thunder is not dangerous; lightning is. But thunder makes more noise, and I was terrified of it as a kid. Unfortunately, so was my mom. So we huddled together, screaming our way through summer storms and often sat on the stairwell for protection. We laugh about that now because sitting on the stairwell would have only been effective had their been a tornado... and we had a basement, so we probably would have gone there. Also, bees were not something to be swatted away. Bees made my mother scream and run a hundred miles an hour in the opposite direction, which only made bees attack her more, which meant great entertainment for the entire neighborhood during the summer months. I once witnessed my mother trying to give directions to a man in the mall parking lot while sprinting and hurdling cars, waving her arms over her head like she was taking cover from napalm to get away from a bee. I got over my fear of storms rather quickly since my father countered her paranoia by standing in the middle of the front yard watching lightning strikes. It took me a lot longer to get over my fear of bees, though. Only recently have I discovered that honey bees won't bother you unless you're a flower, and that you should move away from hornets and wasps...slowly.
-There is no such thing as a quick voice mail. When I return a phone call from my mother, I usually already know everything there is to know before she even starts talking. Why, you ask? Because my mother leaves me 10-minute voice mails. It's never, "Call me back when you get a chance, bye." It's usually a recap of her entire day, followed by, "Call me back when you get a chance, bye." So I stopped listening to her voice mails because there was no more anticipation left. Now, when I call her, the first thing she asks me is, "Did you listen to my message"? and I say no and she gets mad. But at least the information is fresh. A few years ago, I saw a book promoted on "The Today Show" called Amy's Answering Machine about the hilarious messages a Jewish woman's mother would leave on her answering machine. It's my mom, minus the Jew.
-"I don't want this information spread around." My mother worries that I am going to spread the world's most mundane information around - mostly stuff nobody would care about, even if I told them about it with great passion in my voice and acted out the story with balloon animals and sock puppets. Sometimes, because I can't help myself, when my mother asks me if I've repeated some detail from one of her past stories, I'll tell her I blogged about it, and she always falls for it. I once told her, "Don't worry, Mom. I'm good at keeping secrets." She said, "Good." A second or two later she blurted out, "Wait, what does that mean?!"
-She likes Amy Grant. My mother used to refer to most of my music growing up as 'pots and pans being dropped in the kitchen.' A woman who was a teenager in the 1950s, when rock and roll music was in its infancy, my mother thinks the music of my generation is mostly crap. The one thing we could agree on, though, was Amy Grant. So much so that she asked me to get one of my t-shirts autographed for her when Amy was in town in March. This makes my mom awesome.
-She is good friends with my husband. Good in-laws are hard to find, but she found a good one in my husband, her son-in-law. My husband loves to pull pranks and practical jokes on my mother (who always falls for it), and my mother likes to enact revenge (which she did just last night). She confides in my husband sometimes and picks on him other times. Because my husband thinks my mom is such a hoot, he has no problem joking with her and my mom appreciates his warm, gentle personality. I can attest to the fact that sometimes in-law relationships can be a nightmare. I couldn't ask for more with this one, though.
She is MY good friend. I haven't always gotten along with my mother. In fact, there was a time when things between us were beyond terrible. I had a lot of resentment towards her, but I no longer do. My mom and I are good friends these days. We talk several times a week (twice that if you count the voice mails) and genuinely enjoy each other. We have both been through difficult times in which we needed each other and I think it changed the dynamic of our relationship. I 'get' my mom where sometimes other people don't.
As you get older, you begin to realize things about your parents. You see the times they were there for you and you begin to realize that they did the best with what they had. You start to recognize that they are just people, like you, who make mistakes and face tough choices every day. I became friends with my mom the day I realized she was a human being, too. Sometimes I can hardly believe I'm in my 30s, and I can hardly believe my parents are getting up there in years. Where does the time go?
The best Mother's Day gift you could ever give your mom is deciding to use the time that's left to really get to know her, faults and all, because you only get one mom, and you only get so much time. Being able to make her squirm once in a while is just icing on the cake. :-) Pin It
In honor of Mother's Day, I decided to jot down a few thoughts concerning my own mom - nothing too personal, because I don't want her to kill me.
-Nobody messes with her kids. When I was about 15 years old, I'm fairly certain my mother wanted to give me away to the highest bidder - perhaps any bidder. I was a nightmare of a teenager, full of problems and flunking out of school. It's a good thing we didn't have eBay back then because my mom probably would have put me up for sale; however, even though she was probably wishing I wasn't carrying her genes, my mother would have gone Jack Bauer on anyone who tried to mess with me. Case in point: the evil home economics teacher who hated me and made it her mission to let me know on a daily basis. My mother made one little phone call to her and I don't know exactly what was said, but she was much nicer to me after that. As my mom has said many times over the years, "I'm the only one who's allowed to mess with my kids."
-She instilled her paranoia in me. Thunder is not dangerous; lightning is. But thunder makes more noise, and I was terrified of it as a kid. Unfortunately, so was my mom. So we huddled together, screaming our way through summer storms and often sat on the stairwell for protection. We laugh about that now because sitting on the stairwell would have only been effective had their been a tornado... and we had a basement, so we probably would have gone there. Also, bees were not something to be swatted away. Bees made my mother scream and run a hundred miles an hour in the opposite direction, which only made bees attack her more, which meant great entertainment for the entire neighborhood during the summer months. I once witnessed my mother trying to give directions to a man in the mall parking lot while sprinting and hurdling cars, waving her arms over her head like she was taking cover from napalm to get away from a bee. I got over my fear of storms rather quickly since my father countered her paranoia by standing in the middle of the front yard watching lightning strikes. It took me a lot longer to get over my fear of bees, though. Only recently have I discovered that honey bees won't bother you unless you're a flower, and that you should move away from hornets and wasps...slowly.
-There is no such thing as a quick voice mail. When I return a phone call from my mother, I usually already know everything there is to know before she even starts talking. Why, you ask? Because my mother leaves me 10-minute voice mails. It's never, "Call me back when you get a chance, bye." It's usually a recap of her entire day, followed by, "Call me back when you get a chance, bye." So I stopped listening to her voice mails because there was no more anticipation left. Now, when I call her, the first thing she asks me is, "Did you listen to my message"? and I say no and she gets mad. But at least the information is fresh. A few years ago, I saw a book promoted on "The Today Show" called Amy's Answering Machine about the hilarious messages a Jewish woman's mother would leave on her answering machine. It's my mom, minus the Jew.
-"I don't want this information spread around." My mother worries that I am going to spread the world's most mundane information around - mostly stuff nobody would care about, even if I told them about it with great passion in my voice and acted out the story with balloon animals and sock puppets. Sometimes, because I can't help myself, when my mother asks me if I've repeated some detail from one of her past stories, I'll tell her I blogged about it, and she always falls for it. I once told her, "Don't worry, Mom. I'm good at keeping secrets." She said, "Good." A second or two later she blurted out, "Wait, what does that mean?!"
-She likes Amy Grant. My mother used to refer to most of my music growing up as 'pots and pans being dropped in the kitchen.' A woman who was a teenager in the 1950s, when rock and roll music was in its infancy, my mother thinks the music of my generation is mostly crap. The one thing we could agree on, though, was Amy Grant. So much so that she asked me to get one of my t-shirts autographed for her when Amy was in town in March. This makes my mom awesome.
-She is good friends with my husband. Good in-laws are hard to find, but she found a good one in my husband, her son-in-law. My husband loves to pull pranks and practical jokes on my mother (who always falls for it), and my mother likes to enact revenge (which she did just last night). She confides in my husband sometimes and picks on him other times. Because my husband thinks my mom is such a hoot, he has no problem joking with her and my mom appreciates his warm, gentle personality. I can attest to the fact that sometimes in-law relationships can be a nightmare. I couldn't ask for more with this one, though.
She is MY good friend. I haven't always gotten along with my mother. In fact, there was a time when things between us were beyond terrible. I had a lot of resentment towards her, but I no longer do. My mom and I are good friends these days. We talk several times a week (twice that if you count the voice mails) and genuinely enjoy each other. We have both been through difficult times in which we needed each other and I think it changed the dynamic of our relationship. I 'get' my mom where sometimes other people don't.
As you get older, you begin to realize things about your parents. You see the times they were there for you and you begin to realize that they did the best with what they had. You start to recognize that they are just people, like you, who make mistakes and face tough choices every day. I became friends with my mom the day I realized she was a human being, too. Sometimes I can hardly believe I'm in my 30s, and I can hardly believe my parents are getting up there in years. Where does the time go?
The best Mother's Day gift you could ever give your mom is deciding to use the time that's left to really get to know her, faults and all, because you only get one mom, and you only get so much time. Being able to make her squirm once in a while is just icing on the cake. :-) Pin It
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Where Were You When...
Where were you when Osama bin Laden was pronounced dead?
I was on the phone. But to be honest... I heard about it on Facebook before I ever heard about it on the news. That's the world we live in.
Even his death is divisive. I suggested to one of my Facebook 'friends' - who apparently lacks a sense of humor or the ability to kindly disagree with others - that he should be happy about this news, because he blew it off as no big deal. He called me "sheeple" and deleted me. That sort of thing usually doesn't bother me, but tonight in light of everything... it was inappropriate and uncalled for and more annoying than usual. People are funny.
That's the world we live in.
Oh well. He's wrong. This IS good news. Big news. Kudos to our military for being so excellent at what they do.
This is one era I won't miss. Pin It
I was on the phone. But to be honest... I heard about it on Facebook before I ever heard about it on the news. That's the world we live in.
Even his death is divisive. I suggested to one of my Facebook 'friends' - who apparently lacks a sense of humor or the ability to kindly disagree with others - that he should be happy about this news, because he blew it off as no big deal. He called me "sheeple" and deleted me. That sort of thing usually doesn't bother me, but tonight in light of everything... it was inappropriate and uncalled for and more annoying than usual. People are funny.
That's the world we live in.
Oh well. He's wrong. This IS good news. Big news. Kudos to our military for being so excellent at what they do.
This is one era I won't miss. Pin It
Oh, That Silly Satan!
You won't hear me say this very often, so listen good: Satan doesn't get enough credit. He's a much bigger menace than we give him credit for. When there is a major tragedy or natural disaster, we give him lots and lots of credit. On your average day, however, I don't think we give the devil his due.
We seem to view the devil as an annoyance. He causes the baseball game to be rained out. He puts bumper-to-bumper traffic in front of us when we are in a hurry to get somewhere. He gets your Taco Bell order all messed up. We blame him for defiant little children, burgers that get burned, and phone calls we ran out of time trying to make. He's a great big do-do head trying to put a damper on our day. He's the kid who just ran through your newly planted garden.
He's Dennis the Menace.
And if you can attest to everything I just said, he is also - to quote Charlie Sheen - winning! Satan doesn't just want you to have a bad day, he wants you to believe that's his only mission. When people don't credit the devil with evil, that's exactly what he wants. He's pretty good at covert ops.
He wants you to see him as an impotent do-do head who can do nothing more than annoy you on a daily basis. He wants to take all the daily frustrations and disappointments he puts in your way and snowball them into:
-hopelessness
-helplessness
-depression
-zero confidence
-anger
-self-pity
-frustration with God
The enemy wants you to view the little nasty things he does as evidence that God has no power. He wants you to feel sorry for yourself, lose your cool, and trip over your faith.
Lately, the little things have been piling up here. For the past week, absolutely nothing has gone my way. I knew the enemy wanted to get in my way, but only today did I realize the enormity of the missile he was trying to lob at me. I found myself questioning all the things I was so sure I had heard from God, and debating whether or not I had the will to continue on in certain pursuits. Do-Do Head was probably laughing and mixing himself a cocktail as I quietly contemplated the direction of my life from the passenger's side of my car.
My advice to you is simple: if something doesn't go your way, you should completely freak out knowing that Satan is coming for you! Just kidding. That's not my advice.
My advice is... stay 'prayed up.' Stay in the Word. Fill your head with God's Truth so that you can easily filter out the devil's lies. He wants to bring you down. This ain't Dennis the Menace. The enemy comes to kill, steal, and destroy. It's not a big deal that your grill didn't light when you went to make dinner tonight. It becomes a big deal if you aren't on solid spiritual ground and those things start adding up. Satan wants to grill your will like a flank steak, baby.
So keep your eyes open and fill your brains with the goodness of God.
I promise you, when you're faced with trouble, it will be the deciding factor in how you see your circumstances, and how you navigate through them.
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