Healing

I guess everyone has stuff in their past that needs healing. Some things are harder to heal from than others. One thing God is teaching me is it takes time and effort to heal. It's not for the faint-of-heart. And I also don't know how people are healed without God to help with the process. I felt like God was telling me this past week that I need to take an additional step towards healing from my past. Counseling. As with painful things in the past the thing we want to do is just bury it and pretend everything is all better. It's hard to bring everything back up but I'm finding out that I probably need to do a more thorough job of this to heal more completely. I know it doesn't mean I won't ever deal with my past again, but I think its needed for more complete healing. I feel like God has healed a ton in me but I know he also wants me to use other people to help further this process. So I sent this email to a friend who I knew was a counselor so we'll see where it goes:

I don't really know how to go about this so here goes nothing. I was sharing some stuff with Ben about a hard day I had last week where some stuff from my past was revisiting me yet again. This is stuff that I feel very much healed from by God but at the same time I get this feeling that I need something more...like maybe counseling. I really hesitate to do this because I have dealt with this crap for so long that I don't want to have to more, but as I'm sure you know with these things you have to deal with everything before you can expect to start dealing with it less. I thought I dealt with all of it, but it seems I didn't. And maybe I need a professional to help me with the rest of it. That's where you come in. When I was sharing this with Ben both of us thought of you. We both trust you and feel like you would be able to help. Now, of course I understand if you have rules in this and can't know your client in other areas of life. I would probably prefer you, but I understand if you need to refer me to someone else. Thanks for taking the time to read this. Please let me know what you think my next step should be.


So, my past baggage? It was an inappropriate relationship with my Jr. High youthpastor that lasted from age 12-16. Nothing extreme, but enough to mess me up in ways I don't even know how to articulate. I think I'm more and more realizing that in order to be all God wants me to be I need to face this and take care of it. And part of that means coming to grips with how much this affected me.

Living in community and in a body

Our friends Rainbow and Jeff have been living with us since the end of June. It's been crazy but also fantastic. There is just something that living with another couple brings into your life than if you're living solo. It of course helps that Rainbow and I are such good friends. Apparently, according to Meyer's Briggs she is my pedagogue. I should've married her :) God sure does have a sense of humor. Ben and I are so completely opposite. In some ways I wouldn't have it any other way. I'm sure we challenge each other like no other. But sometimes the differences can be rather painful.

Living in a body rocks! I had no idea what I was missing these last 27 years. I see so clearly how God intended for us to live interdependently with one another. VERY contrary to what our American culture teaches us to be, which is VERY individualistic. I find it challenging to fight against what comes natural to me in growing up in our culture. God has taken us on a journey that we're still on. I see him directing us every step of the way. HE is placing the body parts together. It's so amazing to see this and be apart of it. It is crazy to actually be able to relate to these verses in the Bible that talk about living in a body: 1 Corinthians 12 and 14. Right now our body consists of 4 couples but I have faith that God will only add to that number whoever He wants and in His timing and in His way. These 4 couples came together completely from God. I don't see how it could've happened any other way.

Some pics of Dove and Memory, Rainbow and Jeff and their girls, Lavinia and Sunshine:

Why I like sweeping my floor more than sex.

Alright folks here it is the long anticipated for post. This is kind of a complicated issue so I guess I need to preface this post with an explanation of my journey of my perception of sex. I don't think I had a very healthy perception of sex going into marriage. I saw it as a dirty deed that had to get done I guess. My parents barely talked to me about it so I guess I got this idea that it must not be a holy act cause we didn't talk about it. Plus, what I did see was Hollywood's version of sex which is messed up. But the last 8 years of marriage for me has taught me a lot about how to have the right or healthy perception of sex. Ben (go figure) has had a lot to do with this. He kept pursuing the issue with me so I was forced to either have an unhappy marriage or figure out what the hell is wrong with me. I knew in my head that sex was made by God and there should be nothing inherently wrong with it. But I couldn't quite believe this with my heart and it showed in our sex life big time. For the first 6 years of our marriage it was the main area of contention between us. We fought about it at least once a week but usually more. It sucked. I began to resent not only Ben but sex. Uh-oh. I had to go backwards before going forwards I guess. But once I let God shine light on this painful subject I began to start healing. I began to start actually believing in my heart that sex was a GOOD thing. Imagine that. I feel like it's such a deep seeded issue in me. It's actually hard to articulate but I'm trying hard and I hope you're following me. This has been a long journey for me to get where I'm at and I'm still on that journey. Things are definitely still not perfect. Ben and I still (but more on occasion) fight about sex. And this is where the sweeping floors comes in (I know you were wondering about that). So I feel like because of my natural (or maybe unnatural) view of sex I have to continually be working out in my mind and heart what I really believe about sex. Most days I just want to sweep my floor instead. There I said it. But I definitely wouldn't say I never want to have sex it's just less frequent than I want to sweep my floors. And Ben is vice-a-versa. But when it's all said and done I see sex as vital to our relationship. And without it we would be incredibly dysfunctional. I get that. But its frustrating because I have to continually be reminding myself of this. I'll be sweeping my floors (by the way 'sweeping the floors' is just an example but a good one because I'm a bit OCD about it so it comes up a lot) and Ben will say 'do you want to have sex?' And I'll say 'Yeah, maybe, but not right now.' There's this battle always going on in my head at this point. And I know that we should. So usually (these days but not in the past-and this is why it's been a journey) I will say yes because I know that it is so good for us. But my initial reaction is no. Does this even make any sense? I hope so cause if not I'm gonna feel stupid. I think I was peer pressured into posting but all in good will. I need a little kick in the pants once in awhile to just be real and not care what people might think of me. So hopefully this explains some of why I like sweeping my floors more than sex.

The End.
Or the beginning???

ps post your thoughts people cause I'm dying to know what you all are thinking :) You know who you are.