Gladys Reed Bush, acquainted with sorrow.

Today is Aunt Glady's' birthday. She was my ideal of humility and love. The softest heart, open to all. She was the closest thing to Jesus I'll probably ever see here. She was my mother's best friend. She died in 1982. I still miss her but she had gotten so rundown, I was very happy for her when she went home.

I wonder, Jesus was a man acquainted with sorrow. There was always a background sadness in Aunt Gladys. She was fun, hopeful and never a downer but she was sad. At least I knew she was. She was so loved by everyone in her life, except maybe her son that took her for granted.

I have to wonder if the closer you get to Jesus, the more you become "acquainted with grief." Jesus knew and knows the end from the beginning so he has a hope we can ask for but not own. We won't get that perspective until it's over. That's a lot of faith if you become really acquainted with sorrow.

We walk by faith and not by sight...but boy, is it easy to see the sorrow. If we open our hearts and let it all in, it takes a great faith to not be overwhelmed and lose hope. A faith that we can only receive. Nothing that we can manufacture in ourselves.

It's a very hard thing to choose to see other people's pain and not run from it. We all naturally do it like pulling our hand back from a fire...but if our loved one is in that fire we choose otherwise. At least I hope we do.

I wanted to be like Aunt Gladys and Aunt Paula and I think in some ways I am. In the good and the bad. I really want her humility but that's like asking for trouble. Whip me, beat me, make me humble. LOL.

Happy Earth-Birthday Aunt Gladys. I love you so much and am so grateful for you - you are a big part of who I am. The best part of who I am. I look forward to eternity with you. Kiss Aunt Paula for me.

Even less drama

I realized this morning how immature I am in my thinking. Once more, it's not all about me. That goes so deep, I'm gonna spend a lifetime rooting that garbage out.

This particular thread: Everyone that doesn't love me, hates me.

There is someone in leadership in my church that disapproves of me. (And this is probably why.) I have blown her disapproval up in my head to the point that I'm paranoid. All because I don't sense her complete approval. As if she has that much time and interest to spend on me.

Alcoholic behavior 101. Todays lesson boys and girls is BLACK & WHITE. You are either adored or hated, accepted or detested. Everyone out there spends all their time thinking about YOU. You are the center of the universe.

This behavior is appropriate for a two year old. Thank God I'm potty trained.

Delete some drama

I used to say that my mom hated me but now I see that is way too dramatic. Not just dramatic but inaccurate. Hate requires caring and my mom was too self-involved to hate me. I annoyed her, she resented me is probably the most accurate way to put it.

My mom lived in a constant search for love. He childhood sucked and she had no idea what it looked like. She just new she needed it. She knew my dad didn't love her and was using her for sex but it was close enough. He asked her to marry him as an excuse for missing work because he had been on a drunk. So his family pulled together a makeshift wedding - he got his excuse and mom got married.

I was born two years later. I looked just like my dad and he adored me. As in most families, babies are very well loved in our clan. I wasn't anymore exceptional than anyone else's baby. I was just my dad's first and he was 31 years old. He expressed his love openly, affectionately to me - the way my mom wanted him to express it to her. It didn't happen. I was competition.

It totally sucked to be me in that place where it already sucked to be my mom. My mom didn't know how to receive or give love AND was pissed off that I got what she wanted. It wasn't fair but it just was what it was.

disappointed

not appointed
cancelled appointment
dissed appointed

I am surprised by my disappointment. Better, the depth of my disappointment. I didn't realize how much I was hoping for it.

Maybe it was just the hope for the drama - to be center stage and have an excuse to for slacking. I haven't done crap for quite a while at work. I've done lots at church where I get my reward/approval fix.

Wow, is that immature! I'm supposed to be working as if for God and not men - meaning for His approval - not anyone else's.

Clans

Until recent years, folks were identified by their clan, their family. One of the trials that the early Christians had to face was being disowned by their families and thus losing their identities. They could take great comfort in being in God's clan. An adopted child.

So many people nowadays feel alone, our quest for individualism come to completion perhaps. But those of the house of God have a guaranteed welcome, a forever family. All bearers of the family seal.

As a child, I knew that I wasn't wanted. I was an outsider in my family. It sucked. And while my mother may have given birth to me, God created me. He chose that I would be and led me through my adventure of a life to where I am now. I tend to let myself be overwhelmed by my feelings and memories and forget that greater truth. That in the midst of it all I was chosen, desired, loved, sought out, ransomed and blessed.

I am Judy Reed, of the McEntire clan, of the family and the house of God by His will and design from before the foundation of the world.

Benign

The tumor is benign. My friends were ecstatic, I was relieved. Now I'm just sort of wondering what to do now.

I'm still way pissed off at National Jewish. I'll be canceling my appointment for follow up. I'll just continue with my doctor and the oncologist he recommended. I'll go where I get care.

God made me wait to face some things. I can feel more notes coming.

Pictures

Today was a weird day. I found out that I still have abandonment issues. National Jewish hospital did a bunch of tests on me and then gave me an appointment 6 weeks out to find out how they came out. It wouldn't be such a biggie except my symptoms that I had when I had kidney cancer are back. National J's benign neglect in even responding to my calls, emails or faxes was killing me. All of a sudden, I was abandoned. The folks that were supposed to care didn't know I existed. I finally got the medical records folks to fax me the results of my tests. It said I had a tumor on my remaining kidney and I needed an MRI.

I called my GP, Dr Jordan, this morning and bless his heart he and his staff got me in for an MRI this afternoon like the radiologist's report recommended. On the way home from the photo shoot I got really upset. I suddenly felt so little and alone. I almost couldn't keep from crying. I stopped by the drs office and basically begged them to let me see him for a minute.

I needed to see and hear someone act like they cared. I needed someone to tell me that they were going to take care of me. Dr Jordan was so kind but he thought I was remembering the previous cancer stuff but it was much older than that...

It was my Mom leaving me alone at every opportunity to be away from me. Leaving me to get 3rd degree burns, attacked by a dog, have a water heater explode on me, beaten up, mocked and degraded...because she couldn't be bothered. She hated that my dad loved me and while I was kept clean and fed, I was never loved by her. Never comforted or held, never protected, never treated like I was anything but a tremendous burden to be avoided.

I've spent so much of my life ready to hide, become invisible, like I did to survive as a child. My mom had terrible rages and I bore the brunt of what she wouldn't take out on my dad. He was a binging alcoholic and that made up the wood for my mom's cross, the one she hung herself on daily. Not to be confused with Christ's cross...Jesus was just a weapon mom used against me.

If it hadn't been for Aunt Paula and Aunt Gladys I would probably hate God thinking it was all His fault. But He took the blame for my mom's actions and the punishments for my reactions and horrible choices.


God, help me get this old picture of desertion out of my head. Help me to see only your constant love and care.

In weakness...

My knees are bad and I have a very hard time going down stairs. Sunday when I was coming down from the platform after prayer, I needed help because I was feeling a little extra unsteady. Jeff was going down in front of me and I put my hand on his shoulder to steady myself as I stepped down. Jeff didn’t flinch or turn around; he just slowed his descent until we were both down the stairs and then went off without looking back. As I was going down the stairs, the sweetness of that moment, the incredible goodness of God, flowed over me.

I have a weakness that I needed help in, I reached out without hesitation to my brother, he helped me and we carried on. No huge fanfare, no drama or show, just a hand reaching out and a loving response that filled the need.

I know it may seem like a very small thing to most people, but the journey to get to this short scenario was a very long one for me. I spent my early life trying to get someone to love or at least keep me around by being the big one, the tough one, the strong one. It never worked. No one wanted me.

Now I’m the crippled and weak one and in spite of that, I have discovered that I am a loved one. I am part of a dear family that doesn’t treat me like a burden but a joy. An eternity from where I started, I have gone from being disposable to being beloved. Free to simply reach out without fear for someone to lean on.

Is this what Paul meant by “glorying in my weakness.”

Why do I want to cry?

the retreat

I feel like such a failure. It was like home - working and worrying furiously at something with the expectations hanging over me, dark and unknowable - until I don't meet them.

I prayed so hard and came away so empty. It cost me so much and feel like I let everyone down. I know God was proud of me and that is enough. I don't feel it but it is true. I have to lay aside my feelings and perceptions and walk by faith.

How hard it is to keep going when you believe you are doing what God wants and your efforts fail.

Just a place to see it in print

It's funny how you can roll a thought over and over in your head but when you put the words down and look at them they seem different. What sounded so dramatic in my head makes me laugh when I read it. But then, sometimes something I have not given any thought to takes on great weight.

So you can read it or not. I'm doing this so I can look at the contents of my head, one thing at a time, and decide where it should be filed.

This shouldn't take long.