We had a... monumental women's time yesterday. Getting together in our pj's, tucking into a cozy nearby cafe-turned-slumber-party-host, a great game of shuffle your buns!!!, then hot seat questions (lots of deserrrt island questions, emphasis on the deserted part and, um, kissing project boys) and finally a revealing time with Stephanie Dunnam.
She spoke of the decision she had made to honor her parents, specifically her mother, but only until it had conflicted with obeying the Lord her God - whom she was known by and knew personally - with going ahead with a blessed marriage where, when her parents dropped out, unable to let go of Stephanie as a functioning adult, a new, extended family was able to step up and give her love and full acceptance. Where her mother could not even rejoice with her chosen wedding dress, where her own father could not walk her down the aisle, nor pay for her wedding, where she has not spoken to her mother since, her grandparents, fellow church members and sisters-in-law have stepped in as total blessings. So the image she carries in her head of her wedding could have easily been marred and blackened by the pain of her mother's disapproval, but God protected her and provided her with Christians that completely funded her wedding. So she could easily be the victim, but that "isn't the image I have in my head" of how it went, because of how close and how intimate she was with her heavenly Father, the giver of good gifts.
I have a limited memory and probably will remember better stuff about this later, but even more revealing to me was how something clicked in my head about who I am. Usually I am awful at talking things out, instead choosing to weigh and balance things and fit puzzle pieces together in my head, but I just needed to talk, I didn't want to keep it in any longer. As a precocious but trusting third-grader, an equally precocious boy who I saw as my best friend attempted to take advantage of our closeness. He took me behind a tree at my day camp and tried to touch me... I completely did not understand and likely would have let him do exactly as he wanted if we hadn't been called back inside. Recently I've been fighting and struggling a friendship that has turned extremely familiar because I treasure my singleness so highly it has made me defiant of all relationships. I didn't know till that point that it was totally because no guy has ever treated me with such unconditional favor since third grade, and when something happens where perhaps there is something greater than fellowship I have no idea how to deal with it. Even if it turns out to be nothing, I am grateful that all this has surfaced... I no longer have to struggle with what I don't understand, and I require healing from an area that I didn't even know I was hurting from. My discipler here, Jaci, has been completely excellent... I've met and talked with her once (talked her to death) and she's extracted this need to protect my heart from truly softening. I wonder all the time why I can speak truth and yet not believe it myself, and it's because all these things are buried deep down so far that I am still trying to untangle and trace all its roots and figure out that I'm fighting something I didn't even know was there. To care, to love, to trust fully has been so scarring an experience that I've never done it before until recently, with girls, and now, slowly, with guys.
So, in effect, I told a group of girls, and am now releasing to the world (ha, I know I flatter myself thinking the world reads this), something I have never told anyone... not even my parents, not my sister, not my youth counselers, nor my Davis friends. And it was beautiful - I have had tears shed for me that I can't even cry myself, but I'm still touched in my heart of hearts, deep down low. This is why I fight so hard getting close to people, this is why I hide behind my laughter, I'm so good at using my randomness as a shield. But I'll talk this to death if God asks me to.
something fitting lately that makes me smile:
A Prayer for the Ephesians
For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!
Amen.
She spoke of the decision she had made to honor her parents, specifically her mother, but only until it had conflicted with obeying the Lord her God - whom she was known by and knew personally - with going ahead with a blessed marriage where, when her parents dropped out, unable to let go of Stephanie as a functioning adult, a new, extended family was able to step up and give her love and full acceptance. Where her mother could not even rejoice with her chosen wedding dress, where her own father could not walk her down the aisle, nor pay for her wedding, where she has not spoken to her mother since, her grandparents, fellow church members and sisters-in-law have stepped in as total blessings. So the image she carries in her head of her wedding could have easily been marred and blackened by the pain of her mother's disapproval, but God protected her and provided her with Christians that completely funded her wedding. So she could easily be the victim, but that "isn't the image I have in my head" of how it went, because of how close and how intimate she was with her heavenly Father, the giver of good gifts.
I have a limited memory and probably will remember better stuff about this later, but even more revealing to me was how something clicked in my head about who I am. Usually I am awful at talking things out, instead choosing to weigh and balance things and fit puzzle pieces together in my head, but I just needed to talk, I didn't want to keep it in any longer. As a precocious but trusting third-grader, an equally precocious boy who I saw as my best friend attempted to take advantage of our closeness. He took me behind a tree at my day camp and tried to touch me... I completely did not understand and likely would have let him do exactly as he wanted if we hadn't been called back inside. Recently I've been fighting and struggling a friendship that has turned extremely familiar because I treasure my singleness so highly it has made me defiant of all relationships. I didn't know till that point that it was totally because no guy has ever treated me with such unconditional favor since third grade, and when something happens where perhaps there is something greater than fellowship I have no idea how to deal with it. Even if it turns out to be nothing, I am grateful that all this has surfaced... I no longer have to struggle with what I don't understand, and I require healing from an area that I didn't even know I was hurting from. My discipler here, Jaci, has been completely excellent... I've met and talked with her once (talked her to death) and she's extracted this need to protect my heart from truly softening. I wonder all the time why I can speak truth and yet not believe it myself, and it's because all these things are buried deep down so far that I am still trying to untangle and trace all its roots and figure out that I'm fighting something I didn't even know was there. To care, to love, to trust fully has been so scarring an experience that I've never done it before until recently, with girls, and now, slowly, with guys.
So, in effect, I told a group of girls, and am now releasing to the world (ha, I know I flatter myself thinking the world reads this), something I have never told anyone... not even my parents, not my sister, not my youth counselers, nor my Davis friends. And it was beautiful - I have had tears shed for me that I can't even cry myself, but I'm still touched in my heart of hearts, deep down low. This is why I fight so hard getting close to people, this is why I hide behind my laughter, I'm so good at using my randomness as a shield. But I'll talk this to death if God asks me to.
something fitting lately that makes me smile:
A Prayer for the Ephesians
For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!
Amen.
posted by steph at
7:37:00 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home