A Morning Revelation

 I'm wanting to write music. 

I've been writing a lot of scripture songs, just literally plagiarizing the Bible and singing straight from it. It's fun and it helps me with my struggle with lyrics. I always feel like lyrics take about ten times more work than music. 

At the same time, I listen to music and struggle to think that I have anything really to offer. There's nothing new under the sun. Who do I think I am? I have the same thoughts about blogging and whether or not it's worth it to even write. Do I really have anything unique or different? 

I'm such a four. If you know about the enneagram, you will know what I'm talking about, if not, look it up, it's intriguing. 

This morning I was struggling with sadness, or was it depression? I'm not sure. Maybe it was hopelessness. Which is silly because I truly love my life. My kids are the best, my husband is amazing, my house, my church, our disciples, the property where we live, I could go on and on. 

I'm not sure why I was depressed except for a few things: our house is a mess right now, it's amazing how quickly it can become a disaster with eleven people living in it, six of them being children. I often feel like I'm just one person cleaning up after EVERYONE. This is not true of course, I leave messes too, but the ones that are the most annoying are the messes someone else leaves. My messes are there for a reason and I know why, I just don't understand the messes from others. This is all tongue in cheek of course, I've had to step back and observe how silly my reasoning is. 

It was also messy because we are walking around on subfloors upstairs in our bedrooms. We are getting new floors installed next week and to save money we ripped up the carpet ourselves. Now the rooms are all kind of hodge-podge around and even though we swept there are still staples and splinters everywhere. Thankfully there haven't been any injuries, yet. 

Andrew Peterson's book Adorning the Dark is amazing. He told me to rip up my carpets. So, we are going for it. 

I've also been listening to the podcast Typology in hopes to get to know my friends who have a different enneagram number than me, however, I just found myself getting depressed. Maybe because the enneagram is from a negative point of view or it was just about the human condition and we are all in need of God and His redemption. I decided to stop listening and start praying. 

It helped to just sort of realize I was kind of sad, kind of mad, kind of depressed and then think about where it might be coming from. Some things I could help, some I could not. 

I'm incredibly intimidated to set up a "mini recording studio" in my closet. I'm not smart enough or talented enough for this. But it's a mandate God has put on my heart since October so I must follow through. Help me, Lord. I need You. 

Thank You Lord for another year. Thank You for allowing me to live this long, for giving me life and breath and a voice. Thank You that it doesn't matter if I'm special or talented or not, it only matters that I'm obedient. You are God and I am just a little tiny person. Thank You for loving me just as I am. Help me to obey You. Help me to persevere. I love You, with my whole heart, I love You Jesus. 

 

The struggle.

[Serious post alert.]

As long as I'm in this flesh and these bones life will just be hard.

That's what I've come to realize.


I don't know what it is about today and how I'm feeling ... maybe it's hormones, maybe it's lack of sleep. Maybe it's something else. Maybe it's that I asked for prayer yesterday at church.

It feels weird because the sun is shining so beautifully outside. The temperature is absolutely perfect. I don't normally feel... depressed on days like this.

I don't want to be led by my emotions. They are kind of a roller coaster and I don't want to just ride them up and down.


Been thinking a lot about how I feel and how feelings are so fleeting. Good feelings seem to be the most fleeting. Depressing feelings tend to hang on like tar and just pull you down into themselves. As a mom it makes me more irritable, takes me longer to do things than normal. Today has felt like it has dragged by.

Lord, You are my portion. I don't want this day to just pass by me. I want to live in You. O lifter up of my soul, please strengthen me with Your Word. I am in desperate need of You Lord.

Freedom from Sexual Addiction part 4

I come with empty hands.

Sometimes I enjoy posting on my blog, sometimes I come with what feels like nothing to say. Right now I feel like the latter. :)

Jesus, I pray that you would speak to me. Speak through me if you will.

I don't like to share stuff like this, but I do it because I feel it is necessary. I feel like I should have entitled this "Healing from Sexual Addiction" because it's like a wound with a scab that is slowly taking over. Sometimes that scab gets picked off, yes I pick scabs, sometimes it gets torn open. I was thinking about my friend who has been through some traumatic times and what in the world can heal her? Drugs can temporarily take away the pain, so can alcohol. Sex and pornography can distract from the pain, but in the end it always comes back. The only thing that can truly heal us is the Lord. Jesus told the lame man to get up and walk, he healed us physically but more importantly, he can heal us spiritually and emotionally. Those deep, deep scars cannot be removed by modern psychology, they can only be removed by the Word and prayer and fellowship with the Lord.

Sorry, that was my tangent before I shared all this. Ben and I were newly married and enjoying it so much. He went to work everyday, I was working part-time at Starbucks, leading worship part time at a church downtown, and doing music gigs around town when I could. My schedule was sporadic and I would have odd hours at home alone. I would often use Ben's computer to watch television shows. One of my favorites was Desperate Housewives and I also discovered a show called Love Money. Both have tons of sex, selfishness, attitudes, everything, you name it. That's why they are such delicious shows. I was also taking birth control pills which made me slightly crazy (as I discussed in this post). All of this was like a perfect cocktail for a gateway for me. I struggled with thinking just evil thoughts. It was interesting though because I kept it separate from my relationship with Ben. I wasn't completely honest about what I had been thinking about, the shows I had been watching, it was like in some way I was living two separate lives. The secret life, however, is difficult to keep secret. My attitude and anger eventually bled over into my relationship with Ben. My addiction literally blocked my ability to love him the way I should.

It all came out eventually and I made a covenant with Ben that I would not watch shows like that any more. I realized that he was more important than all of that stuff. So I was able to stay pure for a time.

Okay, and then I got pregnant. I'm not going to blame stuff on the pregnancy because my own sinful heart was heavily involved. Again, I would like to say that this stuff creeps up. It doesn't just happen all at once, but slowly it creeps into your life and then you have to keep going back to it. With pregnancy I discovered other hormones and drives. Can I just say here that I feel like now I know an inkling of what guys go through? As far as the drive to just want sex? I'm not saying every pregnant woman is this way, but there was a drive inside of me. If I had been right I would have gone to Ben with this, but instead I was drawn to satan's ways and perversion. After a time of stumbling, confessing, stumbling, confessing, attempting to repent (I say "attempting to" because I was not successful for very long), and stumbling again, praying, crying out to the Lord and asking for wisdom I kept coming back to fleeing from temptation. We finally decided to pay good money for a really good filter on my computer. Can I just say that it was worth every penny? The accountability for the times when I was alone, worth every bit. God gives us strength to flee, but we still have to FLEE from temptation. In this, I am glad that I am not technologically savvy, I don't know how to get around filters very well and that is a GOOD thing. :) I am also determined never to live outside of community. Living with Ben's parents and brother and sister in law and their kids were SO GOOD for me at different times. They were a help to me in this struggle. Can I say that if you are struggling with a sin like this, a private, personal sin, it is good to live with a roommate, a family who is open and honest? I had only confessed it to Ben, but it was good to just be around other believers. It was more of a struggle when we moved into our own house.

Okay, another reason why I am thankful the Lord gave me a child, Levi has redeemed me in this area as well. His life has given me an even stronger desire to stay far away from this sin. Also, taking care of him has distracted me so much from myself and my sin that I don't have time or energy to engage in such things. Can I just say that the Lord has used Levi and his birth in tremendous ways in my life? Not only in the redemption of my physical body, in my own healing and freedom from sexual addiction.

I knew that having Levi and being home a lot would be a struggle, that I would probably struggle with postpartum depression, and so I decided before Levi was born that I would not watch any television, that I would only listen to Christian podcasts, radio, music all that stuff. Sounds like I'm a weirdo doesn't it? But I did not struggle with postpartum depression and I think it was because I made a conscious decision beforehand to set my mind on things above. I will tell you, it was some of the sweetest times in my life. Yes, I was tired but I don't regret a second of it. I listened to a lot of Revive Our Hearts, Family Life Today, Nuclearity (which is an AMAZING podcast, I am sad it's not being created anymore, but I highly encourage anyone to go download all 29 of them and you will love them), and Focus on the Family. I listened to a lot of Pandora Radio with Christy Nockels, Keith and Kristyn Getty, Sara Groves, Jill Phillips and Andrew Peterson. It was a pure, good time. I would liken it a lot with the time I had mono in 11th grade and just had amazing times of personal worship. I talked about it in this post.

I want to thank you all for your encouragement. If you would like to talk more about this subject with me feel free to email me or leave a comment or send me a Facebook message. This or any other subject I have talked about.

Freedom from Sexual Addiction part 1

I've been wrestling and praying about writing about this for several days now. Maybe longer. I wanted to make sure that this is something that God actually wants me to share. I fully understand that this is the internet and can be accessed by anyone, anywhere. There's that scripture that talks about not throwing your pearls before swine lest they may be trampled. I'm not always sure what it means and I think it's often used as an excuse not to be fully honest. But as I have been praying about it I have come to a place where I am willing to lay myself open for the freedom of even one person. If only one person sees that they are not alone in this struggle and 100 people think less of me and hate me or whatever, I'm okay with that. I lay down my life.

I simply want to speak about the freedom that the Lord has done in my life.

In my story I am going to reference a book from the Old Testament called Hosea. For those of you who do not know about this book I will give you a summary. Hosea is a prophet. God calls Hosea to take a wife by the name of Gomer. She's a prostitute. This relationship is a representation of God's relationship to Israel. For the Christian, we are Israel in this story. She then is unfaithful to him and bears him three children of unfaithfulness. She goes after other lovers. Then she is sold on an auction block and Hosea buys her back. This is all in the first 3 chapters. The next chapters are God speaking to Israel, telling her that she has betrayed Him and how and then in the last chapter it talks about how He will still, despite all she has done, redeem her.

My first taste of pornography was sent in an email to me my sophomore year of college. I had struggled with sexual fantasies throughout junior high and high school. Little things like television or magazine ads pricked my curiosity. Sometimes neighborhood kids would talk about stuff that they actually knew nothing about, but thought they did. By the time my mom had the sex talk with me she was really just filling in a few blanks. Growing up we had a filter on our computer and I am thankful for it, frustrating as it was at times when it would block sites that weren't bad, but had a wrong word or something like that.

I think Satan and his angels are pretty good at targeting us and finding us in our weaknesses and when we are alone. I'm not denying my sin nature and my own depravity, but there is definitely an active Tempter out there and he is just looking and watching for an in.

I had my own computer in my room at the time, no filter at school, just free to do whatever I wanted on the internet without anyone to hold me accountable. The times of going to these sites became more and more frequent. The first sights were shocking almost. When I would get off I would feel sick to my stomach. I felt dirty and just ill. I would repent and then go on. I would have a while of remaining pure in my thoughts, but then would stumble again. Along with it my computer was getting slower and slower. Those sites will bog a computer down with all the viruses that they load onto it. By the end of it my computer was completely trashed.

Finally, I felt so trapped that I knew I had to confess it. I was meeting with my mentor at the time and I confessed it to her. She was so forgiving of me and prayed that those images would be removed from my mind. Images like that can imprint themselves in your mind and then can be recalled at any time. I heard a guy say that he would be leading worship (while secretly struggling with a pornography addiction) and as he was singing images completely unsolicited would come to mind. After that I painfully confessed to my mom my addiction. Thankfully, my computer was so trashed I could hardly even use it. The next two years of my college experience I just went to the library to write papers and get on the internet.

I have more to share in this story. This is not the complete picture of how God has given me freedom. I have more struggle to share, but I don't think I can in this post.

Oh man, there is so much in me that I feel like I need to say in this area of pornographic addiction. The perspective from a woman, how it affects your thoughts, how it affects your marriage, your relationship with God, your self-worth and depression. Jesus, I am praying that you will speak. I know that many are locked in a prison of silence and hiding in this area. Wives are feeling betrayed, or trapped, husbands are full of guilt and teens are in depression... I feel really overwhelmed right now. I don't know why you have called me to do this, but I want to be faithful to what you would have me say. My life is worth nothing if it is not lived for Christ. Thank You for an understanding husband. Thank You for the gift of my son, I am amazed that You would give such a broken person these incredible gifts. Please speak.

The Redemption of My Physical Body: part seventeen

Okay, so I was thinking about what I needed to post about today, and this is what I came up with... birth control. Oh gosh, my husband and I have had our own journey in this and I just wanted to share what the Lord has taught us in our own lives.

I had been on the pill in high school to help regulate my crazy cycle. Mom didn't like the idea of it, but I didn't really care. I didn't think it really effected me, but thought it would be nice not to have to take a pill every day. Midway through college I went off of it.

I was never really regular on my own until Ben and I started dating. Weird, yes. No, we were not having sex, by the grace of God we were able to remain sexually pure until marriage, I want to emphasize BY THE GRACE OF GOD because those pre-wedding months were difficult. I recommend the shortest engagement possible. It's weird because when we were just "dating" our physical relationship was just sweet holding hands, light kissing, and hugging. But then it was like after we got engaged the fire was fed. Suddenly temptation went through the roof. I will just say that, I don't know if anyone else has struggled in that way, but we sure did. Okay, enough about that.

So about a month before the wedding I went on the pill. That's what everybody did, I wanted my body to be "used" to it beforehand so there would be no chance of us getting pregnant. I had my music career going for me and that would seriously get in my way. We had talked about having kids and we thought we would revisit it in a year or so (in the back of my mind it would be a few years, Ben was less than that:)). I was going to be a serious songwriter, Ben had his job at Alltel, we were living in this cute little old apartment, it was going to be great.

Well, after the honeymoon we came home and I was working part-time at Starbucks, learning to be a housewife and cook dinners (I was SO terrible at this) grocery shopping was overwhelming to me, keep our apartment clean, try to do music and art on the side, and I was getting caught up in watching TV shows on our computer. Lovely, uplifting shows like Desperate Housewives, the Office, and some other show that was about this rich, spoiled family. I would get this attitude and Ben would come home and I was a total jerk to him. He probably thought, what happened to my sweet wife that I married? He would ask if there was anything wrong. I would be aloof and be like, yes, but I don't know what it is. I didn't like who I was becoming, but I didn't know how to stop.

Then I started to get angry. Violently angry. I would have thoughts that I just wanted to take a sledgehammer to something. I wanted to take our fishbowl with our innocent little beta and just toss it on the sidewalk and watch it break. Now, as I would have these thoughts it was like I was standing outside of myself thinking, I'm crazy. I've totally lost it. What the heck is wrong with me? I would wake up in the middle of the night... "Ben, Ben... wake up." "What's the matter Jody?" "I don't know, I just feel angry, like I just want to break something." CRAZY. Thinking back on this makes me amazed at Ben. I'm amazed that he didn't leave me. He just tried to talk me out of it, he prayed for me... then we thought, maybe it's this birth control. So I called my doctor and we switched to a new pill. The anger went away.

In it's place came a deep, dark depression. I had experienced this before, so I thought for sure it was spiritual. When I had the strength to, I would pray. I would wake up in the mornings and just be sad. Ben would often just have to leave the house with me sitting on the couch and staring blankly into the distance. "Are you going to be okay Jody?" and I would reply, "I don't know..."

Trying to fight it, one day I drove out to a park with pen and paper. I was so lost in this, just crying for help, I wrote on the paper, took a picture of it and sent it to him. With a body of water in the background he was afraid I was going to take my life and immediately started calling me. I didn't answer for a while, I was not in a healthy state of mind. It was crazy. Finally I answered and he came and found me. He told his boss he had to leave work to get his wife...
He came and sat next to me, he said, I don't ever want to go through that again. So we decided to try going off this pill. I didn't want to try another one for fear of how the next one would effect me. Ben agreed. He said he didn't want me to ever take any of those things again.

So for a while we tried condoms, but those made me dread intimacy.

Then a couple in our small group told us a about a diaphragm, I went and got fitted for one, but it was on back order for a few months.

Finally, I felt like the Lord was just leading us (blocking our efforts) to step out in faith. We were just supposed to do things the way God intended. He didn't put Adam and Eve in the garden and then say, "Okay, here are your condoms, birth control pills and so on..." No, He commanded them to be fruitful and multiply. I came to the conclusion that it is the Lord who opens and closes the womb, that no pregnancy, no child is brought into this world (even a pregnancy outside of marriage) apart from the will of God. He is the Creator of life, not us. So who am I to sit in the place of God and decide when and if I should be pregnant?

Okay, this is where I'm going to backtrack a little bit. This is what the Lord revealed in Ben and my life. This is not a blanket post to say that you are an evil person if you try to control pregnancy. I can immediately think of four of my friends (who love the Lord, love their kids and their husbands) who were ill, some more violently than others, throughout each of their pregnancies. I support their decisions to take permanent (or semi-permanent) measures in order not to get pregnant so that they can be better wives and moms. All four of these friends have each had three kids and I have so much respect for them that after their first experience they had even more.

I am thankful that God led us as He did. Exactly one year after we were married we found out we were pregnant. He provided every step of the way. If we hadn't followed I wouldn't have had the opportunity to be pregnant alongside my sisters-in-law, which was an experience I am so grateful for. I am closer to them in ways I would have never dreamed of. Most importantly, I wouldn't have my Levi. I could not imagine my life without him. The things that he has taught me, the ways I have had to put my needs aside in order to meet his... it just causes you to grow up a lot. I highly recommend not putting off kids. I'm just gonna say that. Having them young so you can keep up with them, so that your body can recover more easily from the pregnancy... It has just been amazing.

Also, I just want to clear the myth that kids cost a lot of money. Yes, insurance is needed for the delivery and everything. We got all of Levi's bedding second-hand, strollers second-hand, I haven't bought him but one or two toys (all he really wants to play with is an old cell phone). We have a crib that was given to us, a pack 'n play that was given to us, diapers are expensive, but I saved and got nice cloth ones and that has taken care of a lot of that expense. I don't ever want Levi to have a lot of "stuff" ... if little kids in poor countries can just play with a tin can, Levi can just play with his little blocks and be just fine.

Okay, that was a long post, but it's a story I love to share.

The Redemption of My Physical Body: part fourteen

The other day I was driving in my car and listening to Alice Radio (usually about half the time I have to change the dial when listening to her). But this time a song came on by a band called OneRepublic, it's called "Secrets"

I highly encourage listening to the song, I don't encourage watching the music video, like most music videos, it ruins the song.

Here are the lyrics:

I need another story
Something to get off my chest
My life gets kinda boring
Need something that I can confess

'Til all my sleeves are stained red
From all the truth that I've said
Come by it honestly I swear
Thought you saw me wink, no
I've been on the brink, so

Tell me what you want to hear
Something that will like those ears
Sick of all the insincere
I'm gonna give all my secrets away

This time
Don't need another perfect lie
Don't care if critics ever jump in line
I'm gonna give all my secrets away

My God
Amazing that we got this far
It's like we're chasing all those stars
Driving shiny big black cars

And everyday I see the news, all the problems that we could solve
And when a situation rises, just write it into an album
Seen it straight to gold
I don't really like my flow, no, so

Oh, got no reason, got not shame
Got no family I can blame
Just don't let me disappear
I'mma tell you everything

... I guess honestly I didn't want to be a fan of them because of Ryan Tedder. The first time I met him he was young and he came to my youth group and shared music. It was cool, but I think it just felt like I could never be that cool. I would never come close to being amazing like him. I went home and cried. And then I wrote a song. It's not an awesome song, just me crying out to the Lord that I felt useless, could He really use someone like me? I was pretty overweight then and kinda felt like I was on the level of a ... well, maybe like a possum or some low-life animal, nobody would really miss me if I was gone. I wasn't that great at music, I wasn't pretty at all, probably more so just gross to look at. That's honestly how I felt about myself. Was it true? Of course not, I had worth in the sight of my friends and my parents, and most importantly, in the sight of God. But that's about how depressed I was.

I have been suicidal at times, but I decided a while back that the reason why I'm still walking this earth is because God is not done with me. If He wanted to, He could have me hit by a bus or just stop my heart or something like that. So in a sick way I have rationalized myself out of ever trying to take my life. In my lowliest of times I can always take hold of that. I'm not afraid of death, afraid of pain, yes, to some extent, (but I believe that if I were to be in a situation as the martyrs were the Holy Spirit inside of me would enable me to bear up under it and give glory to God). I believe that my life is in His hands. He has given me every breath I take and if He allowed me to wake up this morning, then He intends to use me. And that's what enables me to face my dark days.

Back to the song, I think my favorite line in it "til all my sleeves are stained red, from all the truth that I've said" I feel like the truth is an open bleeding of my life. I will give all my secrets away and be willing to bleed in front of others. It is messy, but it is Christ who first bled for us. He was naked on the cross and he took all of our sins, all of our shame and bled for us. By HIS wounds we are healed.

James 5:16 says:
Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

The Redemption of My Physical Body: part five

One of my favorite books is by a woman named Anne Lamott, it's called Traveling Mercies. In the prelude she talks about her "lily pads of faith" where God kind of brought her around bit by bit, kind of from one shaky, wobbly place to the next, that she wouldn't have been able to get there if it had all been in one leap, but it was this growing process. I love that analogy. I'll take it.

So I feel like my journey has been a series of lily pads, learning to trust God, to walk in faith and be led by him.

In high school I didn't think he wanted to have anything to do with this struggle. Those first years in college I began to cry out to him, going back and forth from trust to distrust. I kept just taking it out of his hands and trying to do it my own way, always ending in failure, of course.

My sophomore year I was living with some girls I didn't know very well, I had gone potluck and ended up with a wonderful Vietnamese roommate, another Christian girl and a girl who hated the sight of me. I felt very alone that first semester. I remember biking back to my apartment after being a part of an amazing worship service with dear friends, getting to play piano under one of the most passionate worship leaders I have ever met and just being overwhelmed by a sense of being alone.

You all are totally gonna think I'm crazy, but I'll just share this. I believe I was under some sort of spiritual attack/oppression. I would wake up and feel like I was hitting a brick wall. I wanted to study and to practice my singing, I wanted to exercise, but I couldn't. Many practice sessions would end up in tears, it was almost this physical thing beating me down. It was like my mind was under attack. Some might say that was just depression, my own thoughts... and to some degree I'm sure I helped it. But there were times when I literally could not do what I wanted to do. I ate a lot, slept a lot and watched a lot of TV instead. This of course did not help.

During this time our campus pastor had it laid on his heart to start a 24/7 prayer room. He called us as the leadership to step in and pray, at all hours of the day and night, to fill time slots and make sacrifices to pray. In the prayer room I felt a freedom that I could feel almost nowhere else, except maybe on Monday nights during worship. It was like a relief came over me when I entered. Again, I believe that it was spiritual attack/oppression. Some kind of demonic force or something.

One night in small group, my leader was sharing about seeing a friend of hers freed from spiritual oppression. What? I had never heard of this thing before, but it was like she was describing my life. So in tears I shared what I had been going through and my confusion about my situation and feelings. So they all gathered around me and prayed. I mean prayed! It was like a battlefield of crying out. My friends just lifting me up. I will tell you that I felt the presence leave. I don't mean to be spooky, I'm just speaking from my experience. I got up and I was free.

For the first time in months, maybe years, I didn't feel overwhelmed. I didn't feel afraid as I once was. I was free.

It was as though I needed to be lifted up by others. I was trying to do it on my own with just me and God and he was like, "No Jody, you need community, you need others around you." My life was changed from that point on. I had new eyes for the spiritual that was going on around me.

Another answer to prayer is that my roommate who hated me moved out. We sort of reconciled about a month beforehand, but it was just a relief not to have to deal with her anymore. The other Christian girl had moved out and I spent that next semester having an awesome time with my Vietnamese roommate and her amazing friends. I look back with much fondness on that time.

I guess I shared this story because I feel like there were things that had to be freed in my spirit first before my physical body would reap the consequences. I am just sharing my life on here. I realized the other day that I'm not really sure of how I got to where I am, so I am sort of discovering along with you as I look back. Thank you for sharing with me.