I’m not quite sure how one goes about blogging about life transformed, miracles, love, grace, compassion, new beginnings, revelations, hope, vision, feeling so alive and loved.  I guess one just starts from the heart and let’s the journey find its own way.  Also, as I’ve said before, if messy lives scare you, or references to God scare you then I suggest you go elsewhere over the next few posts.*

Many of you know I have been seeing a therapist, and have heard a little of my tale.  This is such a HUGE thing for me it feels that if I leave it out of this space or just gloss over it,  it won’t be truth.  And let me tell you, after the journey I’ve been on I’m all about thruth!  In the spring of 2009, I experienced a place of complete and total emotional deadness; a scary level of self flagellation; self-medicating with over the counter and prescription medicine, food, and way to much time on-line; and what I thought was becoming crippling ADD.  I was in a place I couldn’t get out of by myself and I needed help.  When my grandmother passed away she left me $1000.00 and so I decided to use that money for therapy.   Looking back now I realize how courageous I was to start asking around and talking to a few trusted friends.  From those conversations I got a referral to a therapist.  My journey is littered with miracles big and small and God’s provision.  This particular therapist happened to live close by, was affordable, and most importantly for me he is a man of God.

And so I started down this path of dismantling my baggage, and healing my soul.  It hasn’t been an easy journey, and it has involved facing some painful things.  A key lesson learned though is that if you keep avoiding the pain instead of working through it, it will keep bubbling up in unexpected and unhealthy ways.  Ignoring and avoiding do not make something go away.  I started meeting with the therapist about once a week, and immersing myself in some books he and friends recommended.  I will list those at the end of this post.  I would also use my running time as meditation.  As I started processing my life, and working hard, and facing my fears I would get a glimpse here and there, and sometimes entire visions of how much God loved me.  ME, just ME, just the way I am.  Not fixed, not mistake proof, not polished or successful or flawless or perfect.  Just ME!!  The lies I had been told, or had told myself about what a loser I was, how screwed up I was, how disorganized I was, how I would never be good enough, or that if someone was angry or if something went wrong it was always my fault, and on and on and on……all of those lies began to fall off of me.  They weren’t truth.  I began to discover that just being me was good enough, that I didn’t always have to have my radar up making sure I didn’t make a mistake or disappoint someone.  I started to accept the fact that I am both a saint and a sinner, as we all are.  I started to celebrate myself, and the way that I am made.  I also started reaching out to others.   Another lesson, true healing happens in community.  When we are brave enough to risk being real with others and offering them the same opportunity.

Herein lies the beginning of my path from point a. to point b.  Later I will share more, because there is so much more.

Books I have read and are reading that have been tremendously helpful to me: 

• I Thought It Was Just Me/Brene Brown
• Boundaries/Cloud and Townsend
• Abba’s Child/Brennan Manning
• True-Faced/Thrall, McNicol, Lynch