Zoe- breath of God

Hi Zoe,

I've been meaning to write this letter for awhile...sometimes letters help us express ourselves better because there's no immediate reaction to a message , you can read, meditate and  later reread a letter to understand where the writer is coming from without the harsh and emotional back and forth that sometimes comes out of a conversation. Sometimes in a conversation, people miss the heart of the matter. So for this reason, letters are ideal.

I'll start off  by saying this: #1 I love you.
And I, more than most everyone in this world, want your life to be full of meaning and  joy, and for you to have an  ability to overcome struggles.

In life, there are struggles....its a seemingly unfortunate reality of our humanity. Some people face struggles early on in life, some later. But the great secret is this: These struggles can make us into some seriously awesome people...struggles build character, perseverance, humility, strength...an ability to endure. Struggles in life in essence , and if you allow them, build up your character as an individual in this world. This isn't always the case for everyone though. Some people struggle and live as perpetual victims of life's trials...and the weariness from that battle is evident in their life. I believe the choice is ours in how we choose to respond to struggles. we can either buckle under them until they press us to death...or we can head into them face first knowing that when we emerge on the other side...we'll be more refined and better than we were going into the storm. A struggle in life is a blessing in disguise. It's provides a way to refine you from a lump of black coal into a brilliant and tested gem.

In my life, my struggles came early and lasted for several years. I, very much like you, suffered from social anxiety and a lack of confidence. Primarily, this was an effect of being raised in an unstable environment with a busy single mother and an absent father. Families are inherently designed to build healthy emotionally stable children. This doesn't always happen obviously as you can see. But, generally a home with a stable mother and father working together  produces the most advantageous results for children in terms of emotional stability and confidence. Now obviously in a broken world, there are always other factors at play that can disrupt this...but in general this is the case.

So as you can imagine, I missed that critical foundation as a child between the ages of  birth and 18 just as you have. In my life, the outcome manifested itself in a variety of ways. Very low confidence or "self esteem"...I did not understand my worth. Social anxiety, feeling awkward and terrified while with other people, especially in peer groups or later in work situations. Eating disorders including bulimia and anorexia, and major depression that went from the age of 12 until 30. Some of those symptoms led me into further disorders. The social anxiety I combatted with drug use and drinking...I felt a need to prove myself.  This began by just participating with the other people in recreational drug use because it was fun...funny things would happen...we would all laugh and it quieted my anxiety. In a sense, it was relief from my anxiety....although it was still there...not quite "cured" but suppressed at times. So I did MORE drugs, and became MORE extreme and wild. I was given confidence... my identity being molded as a free spirit who didn't conform to the same boring rules everyone else did. The wild and fun things we did were a great distraction from the depression I'd felt. Although again, my exploits may have distracted me from my underlying problems...they never exactly cured them...they were still there lurking in me waiting to rear their ugly heads when life quieted down. I made sure it never quieted down. Intermittently during this time when I would try and quiet down and live "normally"...like in my first year away at college....things were okay for awhile, but then reality kicked in and I crashed...all my hidden & suppressed problems welling up to the surface. I ended up trying to commit suicide when I was 19.

When I failed at that, and I still had no cure...I went right back to what did work...I went on an east coast road trip with a friend. It was one of the most fun and memorable times of my life. That trip ended when my second year of college began, I started selling drugs, I had a problem stealing that snowballed and got me into more trouble. I ended up drinking in the local bar and doing cocaine with my professors more than I was studying and going to classes. My friends were fascinated by my crazy stories...but my life was a train derailed. I finished the year as a cokehead who walked around campus with a backpack full of mushrooms, ecstasy, sheets of acid and bags  of cocaine. I decided I would go on Phish tour and drop out of school. That's the summer I met your dad.

More craziness carried on for the next few years...the stuff that people generally write books about. My mom wanted me to come back to Detroit and drive a bus...there was no way in hell I was ever coming back to Detroit to  drive a bus! lol. I honestly in my creative and adventurous mind thought I would end up on a vegan papaya farm in Hawaii at the end of my journey. That didn't happen. I ended up more of an emotional and unstable mess than I had ever been. I was pregnant at 20 and had an abortion. I was very "pro- choice" when I had the abortion and everyone I knew had abortions. At the time I didn't think there was anything wrong abortion...it was legal and I bought the lie that if you didn't have the means to provide you were better off killing your child!.I wasn't really prepared for the emotional scarring that choice would have in my life in the months that followed. If I wasn't messed up enough already, that was nearly the nail in the coffin for me.

A few months later, I was pregnant again...with you...."Zoe" which means "breath of God" in Greek. In some ways, I imagine subconsciously I wanted to be pregnant again to reverse the thing that I couldn't live with...the fact that I ended a life. I had a desire that welled up inside me to make a beautiful life for you...completely different than the one I'd had. I was only 21 years old when you were born...I barely had a nickel to my name and I didn't have the first clue how to raise a child! But I had a desire to take care of the precious life that was given to me. I read books on babies, took classes...some of that prepares you a little...but what prepares you the most is the love that God pours into a new mom for her children. Its an amazing thing that's truly indescribable.
I think I spent your first 6 months life just staring at you in awe of you! You were and are such an amazing human! You were truly my best friend who I wanted to share the world with. I still didn't have a clue, but what a time of Grace and love I had with you those first few years.

Struggles were there and increased in nature as you know. By the time I was 25, Miles was a baby and I was a divorced single mom with 2 amazing little ones, no local  family, no college education, no money but a desire still to make life beautiful for us. I worked 2 jobs to pay rent. I went though the hard trials like you experience today with people at your work. Certain people just not liking you, judging you, getting fired...all that hard stuff that makes you just want to go home and cry yourself to sleep. I still had depression, it was never cured and it just manifested into something greater and bigger than I ever imagined it could. It was debilitating. Had I not had you and Miles depending on me, I probably would have just ended my life.

I was, in my mind,....a perpetual victim. Life was so hard...Internally, I blamed my mom and absent dad for not giving me the stability I needed as a child and really just felt sorry for myself. I looked around and saw happy people and happy families and just felt sorry for us that we didn't have that.  I was so broken.There was a day I was so heartbroken and depressed and feeling sorry for myself I was just saying to myself "why me! why is MY life SO hard...I feel like I'm being picked on" I felt like I had been dealt an unfair hand in life. I was driving in my car on my way to work when this happened...for the first time in my life I "heard" God speak..its hard to describe but its like an audible voice that speaks through your heart. He actually answered my question "why me"...He said "Because I love You" that made no sense to me as you might understand...in my confusion to His answer he continued "I love you and I'm making you into a warrior" That was it...that's all he said. But that profoundly changed me and the way I looked at my suffering.   Sometimes I would go to church and listen...I think I visited every church in Grand haven, but I honestly just felt too broken and dirty to be there...so it never stuck. I'd read a lot of the bible but didn't really get It, even tough in my mind I understood it better than the people who went to church!  I thought Christians were judgmental hypocrites and they didn't really know Jesus. I barely knew Jesus myself but this didn't stop my from judging the church. I became pretty prideful in my opposition to Christians proudly proclaiming myself as a universalist and agnostic. I became good friends  with Ian Lawton who was the antichristian leader of c3 in spring Lake.

Like I said, I tackled my suffering ...I went back to college and my confidence stated to build. It was built in myself...I was prideful for what I accomplished in such tough circumstances. I still had depression and a host of issues but I could suppress them with pride in self..at least publicly. Inside I still missed the building blocks that makes a person whole.

When I was 31 and pregnant with Darby & Cooper, I was in charge of my life! And it was still a mess! Although I thought I had done well..I finished college, I found a job, I found a husband, I saved enough money to buy a house...Notice a theme? I, I, I, I. What a terrible leader I was.That's when God sent Jen Wagenmaker  to me...to humble my ass, lol. I thought she was an unintelligent bible thumper. She believed Jesus was the ONLY way. Well, obviously I was more enlightened than she was and not so narrow minded. My God she liked sarah palin after all!  I had no idea I was in the midst of a miracle completely orchestrated by my true father...who had tracked me for many years...even in my foolishness and hostility against the church that he loved. In that year, he truly got a hold of my heart and STARTED healing me from the inside out. It started with humility. I knew I had been leading my life and doing a terrible job...I decided to give Him the reigns.Not that I haven't wrestled with Him to get them back over the last 8 years...I surely do that still!  What choice did I have then? My marriage was ugly, my parenting skills were atrocious, my twins were showing signs of  autism...I was wrecked .  He has changed my life into something I never imagined was even possible. I never imagined I could have so much freedom from anxiety, depression and poverty. I never imagined he could take a girl like me with no healthy foundation in childhood...a true Hot mess and turn me into a champion who knows her value and worth. For me...that value doesn't come from me proving myself to anybody. Its not based on what I've done. Its based on God...what He has done and who He says I am.

I can assure you I am still far from perfect...and I well recognize that more than you think. And I realize you are angry that I have not been an ideal parent ...and that you feel I don't give you what you need or needed all these years  to feel "whole" and healed. You do need healing Zoe...nobody knows this more than me because I also needed healing. I know I will never live up to what you need from me. The best thing I could ever give to you is my testimony that I know the source of healing, because I've experienced it for myself! I know firsthand that no amount of money, relationships, education, travel, wild experiences, antidepressants, careers, or intellectualism will heal you...as hard as you try to prove yourself...those anxieties, depressions in your life ...they may be suppressed...but they're never really cured. And I know firsthand that the LAST place you ever want to go for healing happens to also be the ONLY place that  gives TRUE healing. Its the lamest  and most unpopular place where the hypocrites hang out...ugh...it is the LAST place on earth you want to be...I know that. But for me..at the foot of the cross is where I laid in a gurney having open heart surgery by a God who was the Physician...the Mighty Counselor as scripture calls him both! Its all I know...and that's why its the answer to every question you ask me! I know that is exceeding annoying! I completely realize that. But I also know that NO other answer will ever compare...so it will always be my answer. And for me, the healing and work God does in me is not complete...He is still working on me, I am TOTALLY under construction still. There is great progress, but its an ongoing process. So I will likely continue to fail you and fall short of what you want me to be. And I hope you can also be gracious and forgiving of me as I walk through life.

I won't have all the answers in life...no one ever does. God does...that's it.

Finally, I hope you can forgive me...and God for choosing me as your mom. You are right! I have been a FAR from perfect parent, and you and Miles have not had an ideal childhood. Primarily because of my sin and foolishness in life. I tried, I failed, I tried again...and still try and fail  today. I need forgiveness specifically for how I treated you when I was stressed and depressed  and my own life was falling apart...I demanded too much from you when you were suffering yourself. Frustrated that I created such havoc in our environment, I expected too much from you...and you unraveled yourself. Its quite understandable that you would rebel in the way you did.

 If I could change anything, it would be this: I would have believed and trusted God before you were born...I would have had more wisdom in how to raise kids and in life in general. But that didn't happen, and I can't change that. But I don't have to because God is bigger than all of it and with His help we can all overcome the worst of circumstances. He brings people back from the dead, nothing is too hard or out of reach for him, NOT.ONE.THING. As Jesus himself said "With God, ALL things are possible"

You are loved, you are valuable, you are more precious than you know....if you gain nothing else from this...at least digest that truth!

Tribulation pride

My husband called me out a month ago on my tribulation pride. He thought I had pride about what i'd been through and overcome, diminishing other peoples problems because they didn't stack up to what id been through....I may be guilty of this...just shrugging off other peoples problems as what today's culture would call "white girl problems"...even though I'm an actual white girl.

A few years ago when we were considering moving to the east coast, I was looking around online for churches in Delaware where he lived. I came upon a website for a church that looked gospel oriented and fresh. There was one testimonial video on the site. it looked intriguing. Dramatic scene opens up of a white girl in a hoodie drawn over hr eyes walking to an abandoned building late at night in the cover of darkness holding a bucket of paint...she begins to throw paint all over the side of this dilapidated building...her anguish was palpable. Scene cuts to her...Caitlyn was her name...sitting on an over-sized cushioney chair in the middle of an empty dark room with one solo light over her head...I knew this testimony would be good.

Caitlyn starts ...it goes something like this:

I was raised in a Christian home, always going to church, attending Christian schools. When I was in high school, I stated to get so bored during the sermons, sometimes I would do Suduko puzzles instead of paying attention. It got worse, she would at times get so bored sitting there she confessed how she would intentionally volunteer in childrens ministry just to get out of sitting through the sermon. She broke down, the guilt was unbearable....then she was born again when she came to this new church and wasn't so bored and enjoyed the message...she enjoyed it so much she didn't have to volunteer or do Sudoku puzzles. It sounds like Im kidding, but this was the testimony...the one testimony on this church's website. I couldn't contain my shock. Are you kidding me? Shes guilty for Sudoku puzzles and volunteer work?! Jeff and I both just dyed laughing and had fun with the story the entire week. But it was her story, and it was important to her growth. I know this is a severe example of a tame testimony, but it just led me to exalt my own experiences over hers.

Another time I was camping at the Christian campgrounds in West Olive with my kids...I'd never been there. As a matter of fact I didn't  even know it existed until a mentor and friend told me about it. It was only a 15 minute drive from where Id lived for 14 years! Its beautiful there, right on the shores of Lake Michigan, with a crazy gorgeous beach access with clean bathrooms. Its reasonably priced, there's tennis courts, a swimming pool and a hot tub. This amazing tree house in the center of a huge sandy playground for the kids. An ice cream counter  with real ice cream cones (the hard serve) for $1, I'm not kidding...$1 (this was music to my frugal single mom Jewish ears!), and a cheap sit down family restaurant with food if you didn't want to grill. They had activities for all the kids, a no drive policy during the week so the kids could ride their bikes freely without fear of getting run over,  and every Sunday a preacher would come and give a sermon. If that wasn't enough all the campers loved God, so our neighbors were this awesome family from Indiana...like 7 kids, all home schooled...and we talked and talked for a few days over the campfire about our awesome God and our experiences. It was a slice of heaven. Just me and the kids. I'd never experienced a campground quite like it. the campgrounds I was used to had drunks and lewdness, swag beer, lots of profanity, expensive vending machines, dirty bathrooms, surrounding by a backdrop of awesome natural settings. I'm not saying I never partook in any of these "other" campground activities, I'm just saying I never realized this alternative reality existed.

Anyways, the kids were swimming and I decided to pop in the hot tub with the other adults. We started talking and I'm sure my excitement about the whole place was evident. I'm sure I mentioned how new I was to all this being a born again christian for only a few years by this point. The woman I was talking to asked me how i came to believe in Jesus...so I gave her the quick but pointed version as best I could. When i was done, I asked her how she came to saving Grace. She almost got defensive with me. I felt like I put her on the spot and this wasn't my intention at all. She said she had just been raised a christian and she didn't have some crazy story where she was a crackhead and that she didn't need to. Nor did i expect her to...we all have different stories and we're all part of His-story! Anyways, it was a little awkward and i tried to sort of smooth out the awkwardness the best i could. Had it not been for people like her and her family standing firm on Gods Truth, there would be no church to run to for people like me when my world was crumbling. She was important!

Jeff feels this way too sometimes which is why he brought it up to me. I always thought it was a problem he had, or she had. After he mentioned my "tribulation pride" to me , it must have been the very next day if not the day after that....I was in Meijers shopping alone in the house goods section, by bathroom stuff moving leisurely around. I passed a couple speaking to a woman and I overheard the conversation. This was all I heard: The single woman said to the couple "yea it was so hard, I didn't sleep for like 2 days!, it was so hard". In my head I thought "2 days? really?! When I had the twins I didn't sleep for like 3 years!" And there it was, Jeff was right...and it took that moment for me to realize I do  have tribulation pride!  I believe my own story is more special or unique because of the tough circumstances God brought me through...and that somehow other peoples stories are trivial to mine...and for that I had to repent. So I told Jeff he was right, that was step one. I told him about my Meijers experience and thanked him for bringing it up to me over the years even though I never agreed with him until this point. I hope this repentance in this area of my life bears fruit in the form of MORE compassion and an ability to empathize with others no matter what they're going through.

 If you know me and I do this to you, please call me out on it...I don't want to be that person anymore. God is good, and His grace on my life and on my family and me is good enough. Here's the thing, many people have actually had serious traumatic situations in their life, loss of family members, children. Severe sexual abuse by family members, debilitating illness's and disabilities, drug addictions that ruin lives, accidents that forever  change lives, horrible horrible traumas that  I don't comprehend and hope never to have to. Yet God picks each of us, lets the trials unfold on us and gives us strength to overcome...he makes each of us warriors if we allow Him . From Caitlyn, to me, to my friend in the hot tub, to my awesome husband, to those sitting in hospitals or cancer treatment centers today, to kids living in impoverished third world countries wondering if they'll get enough to eat that day...to the girls held as sex slaves by Islamic terrorists, to the men and women stealing  and degrading themselves for a warm shot of liquid to inject in their arms, to the generations of families living in a landfills in South anerica....God has got this, we are all part of His-story....let Him make you an overcomer.

Romans 8:37
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us

1 John 4:4
Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world

1 John 5:4
For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith

Matthew 5:3
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven

Believer

It took me at least a year, closer to two years to refer to myself as a Christian. I had such a negative connotation with that name because I was so antichristian for so long. That's why I typically still say "believers". Even the name " Jesus" was hard for me to use...I almost preferred using something more exotic like Yeshua. I'm okay with these terms now...8 years later. I know many people call themselves "Christian" and don't know what that even means, but I've come to terms with it. Sometimes I'm a hypocritical Christian myself. Am I a fulfilled Jew? A Messianic Jew? A Christian? A believer? A person of the way? An evangelical? I'm all of the above. How many names does God have? I think we oughta have mtiple names too :)