Beating myself up!

The other day my best friend slapped at my hand and said “Don’t bite!  Why do you do that?”

It was true:  my until recently lovely nails were all bitten to the quick.  Why indeed?

I looked across at my husband and said, “Self-flagellation?”  He just smiled sadly at me. 

It’s true that it’s self-flagellation.  I realised I have been telling myself that when the current stressful situation with Ryx eases, I will do something about my nails.  Until then, I must punish myself. 

I realised I have been telling myself that when I can start losing my excess 20 or so kilos, I will do something about my nails.  Until then, I must punish myself.

I realised I have been telling myself that when the house is clean and tidy and I am on top of everything in my life, I will do something about my nails.  Until then, I must punish myself.

This is a long-standing thing for me.  I was a thumb-sucker.  When I was five, my mother put a huge wad of bandages around my thumb to stop me sucking.  I continued to stick my massive, swollen thumb in my mouth, much to her dismay!

By the time I was six, I was biting my nails.  I was never able to grow them throughout my childhood or teens.  It’s worst when I’m reading or watching TV, as my mind is elsewhere completely.

My mother threatened to “send me away to boarding school” (a concept which terrified me!) if I didn’t stop biting.  My grandmother offered me money to grow my nails.  Nothing worked!

I was even sitting in a class in high school during quiet reading time, and didn’t realise I was gnawing at my nails until the girl beside me got up and moved away to another desk – how embarrassing! But I still couldn’t stop.

I will still biting them in my twenties when I met the Kiwi.   He loathes it – in fact, I’m surprised it wasn’t a deal-breaker.  Somehow, despite it, he still married me!

Now and then I have had acrylic nails attached – sometimes with great difficulty because they are hard to get on when my nails are so short!  These are successful while they are on, and if I keep them infilled regularly, I don’t bite them.  But when they come off, my nails are brittle and bitten again within days.

A couple of years ago, a woman gave me this tip: Keep one nail to bite, and grow the others.  With the help of Dr Le Winn’s Revitanail, I was actually successful in growing my nails for a couple of years. But then... an increase in stress in my life!  My lovely nails got tattered and bitten, one by one.

I am an anxious person and usually my anxieties manifest themselves in an inability to sleep in the early hours.  I know my nailbiting habit is another manifestation of anxiety.

Paul said to the Philippians (4:6-7): Do not worry about anything; instead, pray about everything! Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

This is easier said than done – don’t you think?  I do pray about my worries, but have trouble giving the outcome over to God.  But there it is, in the Bible – God says not to worry!  Am I actually sinning by worrying?  Perhaps not, but I do know it is wasteful of my precious time on earth to worry. 

At 3.00am tomorrow morning when I am lying awake fretting, I think I will try and remember to read over that scripture, then give my problems to God.  I’ll let you know if it works.

And then I’ll work on growing my nails again - I don't need to keep beating myself up with worry!

The hardest thing in the world

The hardest thing in the world is to watch one of your children go through a really painful experience and not be able to do anything about it – they have to get through it themselves.

I’m going through that right now with Ryx.  He is having a tough time.  My prayers are not being answered – at least, they are only being answered with “not yet”.

This hurts.  It really, really hurts. He’s in pain, and I’m in pain watching him go through this.  But I can’t do anything – he has to get through it himself – this is how it is.

It occurred to me as I was wondering why we have to go through this, that this may be a glimpse into how my Father in heaven felt when Jesus was crucified.  The anger and frustration toward the perpetrators, the anguish for his child, the feeling of utter devastation with each crack of the whip, with each nail...  Maybe I am learning just a little bit more of God’s love for me, that he would allow his son to go through that pain... for my sake.  Who would do that?  I would not want to put Ryx through this for anything in the world.  And yet, what my son is going through right now is just a hiccup compared to God’s own son Jesus being murdered on the cross. 

So what am I to learn from this?  Simply this, that God loves me and he loves Ryx.  Something wonderful is going to come out of this, although I don’t know when.  God’s promise to me many years ago was “beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.”

And I claim it, in Jesus’ name.  Oh Lord, please let it be soon because this is so hard.

Making memories for the diving bell

I recently watched the very moving story “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”.   It’s a French movie made in 2007, based on the real life story of Jean-Dominique (Jean-Do) Bauby, the Elle editor who, in 1995, suffers a massive stroke and awakes in hospital completely paralysed in what is known as “Locked In Syndrome”.  He can’t move, he can’t speak.  One eye is sewn up by the doctors, the other eye is the only part of his body he can move.    With the help of his therapists, he learns to communicate using only this one eye – eventually writing, with good humour, a book about his memoirs as well as his everyday life and experience with Locked In Syndrome.

In the story, he recounts a vivid memory from not long before his stroke, in which he visits his father.  This is a happy memory where he chats with his frail aging father and shaves his beard for him.  His father tells him he is proud of him.  It is a small part of the movie but poignant and crucial.

This week, I have had moments of dark, bleak emotions and relational problems with both my husband, my teenage kids and even a close friend – and I can mostly place the blame for these situations squarely on myself.  If I were to have a stroke now and live the rest of my life with Locked In Syndrome, these would not be the memories I would want to be recalling. 

It is important to build happy memories – moments of love, tenderness, glimpses of happiness.  Sometimes this is difficult with teenagers, but the glimpses are there. 

After almost 20 years of marriage, sometimes my husband and I reminisce about our early life together – how we met, memories of dating, our wedding, the early years of the children.  It never fails to make me smile.  I hope one day we will look back on the kids’ teenage years and smile at our life now.

I’ve been scrapbooking since 1996 – tentatively at first, seriously since 2000 – and I think that it is one of the most worthwhile things that I can give my family as my legacy.  I have scrapbooked sad times – such as when my mother passed away – and day to day life.  But mostly I scrapbook the main events and celebrations in our life – happy times.   If something happened to me right now, I am happy that I would leave the kids their scrapbooks, and they could relive the happy times anytime they wanted.

But I have to make sure that those times happen. 

It’s the end of January and both the kids are starting back at school – Ryx is going into Year 12 (the final year of high school) and Lily into year 10.   Going back to school and the end of summer is not a fun time of year and it’s going to be a pretty tough year ahead, as well.  But, I am committed to building happy memories for my family, not bad memories. 

Money is not abounding right now but making memories doesn’t have to be about going on holidays or eating at great restaurants.  Great memories can happen around your kitchen table or even when watching a family movie together.  I am going to try to build happy memories for my family over the next couple of weeks!  At the very least, I don’t want to make any bad memories.  I pray that God will help me and will grant me self-awareness and self-control, and provide opportunities for me to build our family relationships in a positive way.

It's just not that simple!

Micah 6:8

Hear then what Yahweh asks of you: to live justly, to love tenderly and to walk humbly with your God.

This is my first post in my blog.  I guess it’s like a diary really.  It’s about my thoughts and feelings but anyone can read it.  So I thought I’d start with a scripture that means a lot to me - and a confession.  Micah gave us the most simple guidelines for living anywhere in the Bible.  It sounds so simple, doesn’t it?  Live justly, love tenderly, walk humbly with God.  So why is it so hard?

As I thought about this scripture, I thought of others who I feel embody this scripture.  My mum, who died in 1998, was to me a living example of Micah’s theme. Other people I know seem to be able to walk this walk.  But not me!  I’ve done everything but these three things over the last few weeks.  It’s just not that easy!  I’ve  griped at my husband, been hard on my kids, and looked for happiness and fulfilment in other things instead of my God. I've had unkind thoughts about others - and some I've said aloud!  I’ve expressed jealousy, anger, and spite, amongst a hundred other negative, selfish emotions.  Oh, yes, I am a flawed human being!

I’m not usually prone to deep depression but I fell victim to it for about a week recently – a miserable, self-hating week when it seemed everything was a mountain too big to face -  but when it lifted, the world looked different to me.  I was able to see what I had and be thankful for it, something I couldn't do while I was in that black hole!

I am immensely thankful for the gifts I’ve been given – a truly fantastic husband, wonderful kids, a comfortable home, good health and some of the best friends anyone could ever hope to have.

I used to keep a gratitude journal but this year I've been really slack. I think I need to get back into it! Keeping a gratitude journal really makes me realise how much you have to be thankful for and when things get tough, you can look back at it and be inspired.

I want to walk humbly in love and mercy. But it's not that easy. I need to refocus on it daily.  I think the key is gratitude.  Every day I need to lift my eyes to the Lord and thank him for all he has done for me, so that I can go about my day with love and integrity. And only then might I even have a glimpse into the life that Micah was talking about!