How the conversations inside my cat's head may correspond to the way I think about God

This isn't much...but it's something, and I need to get it out of my head. Feel free to ignore this one if you want. I just want to get back in the habit of doing this occasionally.

"How the conversations inside my cat's head may correspond to the way I think about God"

Okay, I admit it. I have a tendency to talk to my cat (yes, out loud). And I often insert her side of the conversation into my supposed 'dialogue.' Recently, I have started to listen to myself, and I've noticed some patterns. Disturbing, enlightening patterns, possibly even worth sharing. Or maybe I'm just crazy. It's entirely possible.

[A little context: she's being bullied by another cat in our new house. When he chases her, he thinks he's playing, but rather than defending herself, she chooses to hiss and run under the bed.]

You said you'd take care of me! 

I am taking care of you.

But this sucks! I'm trapped. I'm being beaten up for no reason!

You're not actually being hurt. It does suck, but in some way it's good for you. It's building character.

But everything seems totally out of control!

Events actually are in my control. I could change it if I wanted. For now, I'm intervening when you really need me, but for your good and the good of everyone involved, I'm choosing to wait, watching to see how you handle it.

Things just went to hell again. Are you even paying attention? (as she flees in the opposite direction)

Are you actually going to run from me, or are you going to let me protect you? Don't you trust me by now? (– and once again, YES, these words actually came out of my mouth –)

But I hate this! It's not fair! No, I haven't liked the way things have been... but this is certainly not a change for the better.

I could stop it if I chose. But for now, this is the way it is. Figure it out, and know that I love you.

Inner Strength

1. Where, right now, are you finding it hard to wait?


Picking up in Tripp's book right where I left off months and months ago... right now the hardest place for me to wait is with the whole house thing. Part of me wants to just get the whole thing under my control, go out there and pack everything up and make the problem go away. But not only do I know that would break me, I honestly don't think God would even let me get through it at this point. I have to wait for the assistance of friends. I am almost entirely helpless in the face of this daunting task. It is hard to wait, but God is clearly asking me to do it. I have to trust that somehow in the next two and a half weeks, God will work this out. I have to loosen my grip, ask for help, and trust that he is in control.


2. What would it look like for you to "snack throughout the day" in order for the difficulty of waiting to become an occasion of strength?


I guess this means I am supposed to continually and repeatedly, whenever I feel the stress and anxiety start to overwhelm me, go to God with my worries, repent of my lack of trust, pray for strength, read my Bible... just as the day progresses. Keep him close to me all through the day. Try to make this time of trial a chance to cement my relationship with Him. Each time it's hard to breathe, I should turn to God. Each time my eyes fill with tears, I should turn to God. I'm trying. It's an exercise; it takes practice. I lose focus so easily. But I am trying. I can't feel the strength yet, but I am trying.

Prayer for Today

This is my prayer today:

Father, please give me Your peace and Your rest.
Jesus, please teach me to desire You more than I desire anything or anyone else.
Holy Spirit, please fill this hole in me, and keep filling so that Your grace may overflow from me to others.

Amen.

Sign Beauty

1. Go to John 6 and the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand. What was the purpose of the miracle? What happened after? What mistake were the people making?


Wait, I know this one! Although I don't think Tripp is making quite the same point that Larry was on Sunday. Sunday's message said the miracle was about two questions: me asking,"What do I have that I can give?," and Jesus asking, "Will you give it to me?"

I think what Tripp is trying to get at is that the purpose of the miracle was not to feed the crowd (although Jesus was always interested in concrete physical needs as well as the spiritual), but to point them to what comes next in the chapter, the whole I AM THE BREAD OF LIFE thing. That the sign will never fulfill us; only Jesus himself can.

What happened after? I couldn't remember, so I just looked it up. "When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, 'This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!'" Doesn't that mean that they understood that he was the Messiah God had promised them, that they had been so desperately waiting for? But then apparently they went the wrong direction with that moment of insight and tried to take him by force to make him their king. I'm guessing that's wherein the mistake lies. But it seems like they almost got it. They did understand that the sign was pointing them to something bigger. They just didn't grasp what that "bigger" was supposed to look like.


2. What "sign" do you have a tendency to look to for your identity, meaning, and purpose rather than the Lord, to whom that thing points?


I guess if I had to pick one, it would be the family thing. Belonging. Actually belonging and participating and contributing to a family for the first time ever. I know that's supposed to point me to the bigger family, that whole "kingdom of God breaking in" thing. I just don't know where I fit. I feel directionless, purposeless, lost so much of the time. This is one of those questions that would be really useful to try to "unpack" in a counseling session, because I can't see it clearly.

Just for the record, I do not think I am done needing counsel on a regular basis. In fact, the idea scares the hell out of me. I'm waiting and praying for God to show me what I'm here for now. Where I'm supposed to fit in the body of Christ, and where I can contribute. But I just can't seem to see it. I still need people to point me to The Sign, because I keep getting lost in the wilderness. Thanks for walking through this with me.

Two Words You Never Want to Hear

1. Do you live with the fear that you will do or say something that would cause God to say to you, "Go away"?


Sure. The only frame of reference I have, the lens I have through which to view God, is the example of the people who have been most important in my life. And I have spent most of that life experiencing just that kind of rejection. A lifetime of disownment and disapproval doesn't magically get erased by one year of unconditional acceptance... and even that feels an awful lot like being pushed away right now. (Not saying that to be hurtful; I know you still love me.) And I often dislike myself so much (sin, I know) that I can't imagine how God would want to have me around. So, in a word, yes. I live with that fear. I shouldn't, but I do.


2. Name some ways that the fear of God's anger and rejection shapes the way that you respond to him, to others, and to circumstances.


These are the kinds of questions I suck at. Specifically?

It shapes the way I respond to God by making me want to avoid Him when I screw up. Again. Because I struggle so hard to trust that He can really forgive me as I continue to make the same mistakes and commit the same sins. Again. What the question doesn't ask is how I should respond, but I'm answering the unspoken – it should make me want to run toward him rather than away from him when I fail, because I should know that he will always take me back.

How does this fear shape how I respond to others? Well, I suppose that if I find it nearly incomprehensible that the God who loves perfectly and forgives perfectly would never reject me, that's certainly going to spill over into my relationships with fellow humans. I'm not sure how to be more specific than that.

How does it affect my response to my circumstances? If I'm not trusting rightly about this core belief, that fundamental lack of faith in God's goodness is going to throw me off course in believing that His plan is always the right one. Even when it feels so intrinsically wrong to me. It all comes back to the very same thing that it always does: Believing that (a) God is good and (b) God is in control.

Lord, I believe – that you always love me, always forgive me, will never reject me. Help my unbelief. Amen.

What Is Your One Thing?

1. Look at the "one thing" catalog. Which of these has tended to hook you? How has that shaped what you do and say? (Sorry, I'm not retyping that whole page. If you wish to peruse the whole list, it's on p. 39.)


There are a couple on the list that tend to trip me up on a regular basis.
1. Approval: If I am loved and respected by certain others.
2. Control: If I am able to have mastery over a particular area of my life.
3. Suffering (this one surprised me a little, but if we're going for honesty here, it does seem to fit): If I am hurting or having a problem, only then do I feel worthy of love or free of guilt.

Yes, we've clearly established my need of approval. But I truly am getting better at looking to God as my center rather than basing my self-worth on what the Cryders or my community group think of me. In all honesty, that's one of the things that upset me yesterday when I asked Christian to pray a psalm with me. My perspective has come a long way in the short time that the Cryder's were out of town, but the assumption from the outside is still that I am in exactly the same place, so my motivations are immediately held suspect. Honestly, I just wanted to pray. Out loud. With a friend. There was no ulterior motive.

That control thing is harder to overcome. It seems hard-wired into me, part of the very fiber of my personality. It's REALLY HARD to believe that I don't have to be the one to figure out what happens in three months, where I'm supposed to go from here. I feel my heart climbing into my throat just thinking about it, which is most decidedly not a sign of trusting God to have my back. That most definitely shapes my words and actions on a daily basis. I lay in bed at night (every night, of late), trying desperately to give all these indeterminate circumstances over to God and let him be in charge of them, but as the day progresses, I find my grip tightening once again. If insomnia is good for nothing else, it has definitely been improving my prayer life, and helping me get back on track after failing to trust during the day.

Suffering. You've all asked me if I think depression is part of my identity. I have said, and continue to believe, that the answer is no. But honestly, suffering does make me feel more... visible. And I feel so invisible so much of the time. I also have come to believe that this suffering that I feel is a part of God's plan, his way of breaking me down so he can build me back up again, so this seems to fall into a slightly different category than the first two – because my journey through the wilderness may be the plan, my path to actually finding the ONE THING I'm supposed to be latching on to.



2. Where do you see a daily war taking place for the control of your heart?


This question plays into Sunday's sermon. How does real change take place? I know what I want: Christ in me. Me in Christ. Abiding in, dwelling with, crawling inside. But "daily war" is a good way to put it – how to take the practical, mundane details of my life, all that crap I can't control, all the self-destructive things I know I shouldn't do and yet keep getting urged by some perverse corner of my being to give in to, and let Jesus have them. To hand him my desperately imperfect self and let him start to change me from the inside out. I know it's already happening. I know I am more stable, more focused, more pointed in the right direction, than I was even just two weeks ago. I know this, but it's hard to see, both because it's so slow and unimpressive on the outside, and because there are so many inevitable detours as I continue to screw it up.

I guess we all experience the daily war. The past few days I find myself in need of folks to talk to about some of the things swirling around inside my head, to make sense of some of this progress that I've seen of late. You're all so busy, but I hope to find time to touch base with each of you, at least briefly, and tell you what's been going on. There's been much less crying – not that that's a goal in and of itself, but I think it's a good sign. I just want to get to a place where I can call any of you up "to connect over coffee, lunch, or a beer" without it being spurred on by, or resulting in, a major meltdown. I have enjoyed feeling like a person again lately. And I thank God for it, hour by hour. I want Him to be my ONE THING!

Sight Problems

1. Which of the four insights from George's life are particularly needful for you?


A little background: this is a meditation about George, who is blind, and the things his blindness has taught him about how to live a better story. Here are the 4 insights:

1. There is no more important set of eyes than the eyes of the heart.
2. How important it is to humbly accept your blindness.
3. You always deal with your blindness in community with others.
4. Long for 20/20 vision.

For me, it's most decidedly the community thing. I am unaware of (blind to) so much of my sin, and I need others to (a) point it out to me and (b) help me live with more awareness and insight.

2. How could you make greater use of the community of insight that God has placed around you in the body of Christ?


I hate the phraseology of this question. I fear that I have done too much "using"of my community as it is. My needs and questions seem to have become repetitive. I think the better question would be, How can we as a community help one another live more fully? I know I have been greatly helped by friends pointing out my flaws to me in love... but when I have attempted to do the same for others, it hasn't gone over so well. It seems that what many people want is not deeper community, but just more fun people to hang with. Now that I have proven myself repeatedly to not always be entertaining company (for lack of a better gross understatement), there are those who now avoid me. I'm learning to live with that. But it doesn't make me eager to reach out again, that's for certain.

So I guess my answer to this question is, I just don't know. I continue to attempt to reach out and find ways to get more involved in our community, but without much forward progress. I'm afraid this one has me stumped. I know I need community; I don't know how to get it in a way where it's not just me being needy. I long for a community where we can help each other, where one person's strengths can help bolster another person's weaknesses. At this point it seems unattainable. But I refuse to give up hope.