Believing is Seeing

Most people would argue that seeing is believing. In any other realm, but the kingdom, I would agree wholeheartedly. To see something, you have to believe and have faith. I say this like it is easy and trust me, it is not. I have been in my glasses since my dog passed away on November 9, 2019. I must have either contacts or glasses to see. Due to some unknown allergy, my left eye only was creating these white bumps that made wearing contacts impossible. The cobblestone surface of my eye coupled with runny, watery, and itchy eyes was making my life very uncomfortable. The normal treatments were not working. About five weeks in and $500 later in steroid drops, I made an appointment to go see an amazing acupuncturist. He listened intently as I described what had been going on. To this point, I would always say "my dog died a few weeks ago." Saying Elle's name would send me straight back to a place I was working to come out of and in this little space, with only he and I in the room, I did not want to come undone and fall apart. Before a needle was put into place, he told me he thought that my left eye had developed an allergy due to grief and trauma. The interesting thing with that, is I laid with Elle the day she died on the floor on my left side- eye to eye. What I didn't fully understand in that moment, was that I was holding on to a lot of trauma. Josh was adjusting just fine, and the boys. I am a guidance counselor; I should know how to sort out my feelings. I know how to normally classify my emotions and put words to them, but in this season that has not been easy. I felt silly calling the death of Elle a trauma- I mean I didn't lose a loved one or experience what I would normally call a trauma. The moment I allowed myself to say it out loud and grieve in that way, I felt like a weight was lifted off of my back.

The more I traveled down the road of wellness; I went to see a doctor who specializes in resetting allergies. Still not fully convinced that my eye situation was truly emotional, the doctor confirmed what my acupuncturist had already said. She said that our bodies have a way of creating allergies to things that were in the picture when the trauma occurred. For me, I was wearing my contacts when I saw Elle dying. In my subconscious somewhere, I had told myself that I didn't want to see this again because seeing it meant dealing with it and facing it. She worked with me for an hour to reset my emotions.

On Christmas Day, I put my contacts in for the first time in almost seven weeks and I wore them all day: no redness, no constant eye twitching, no problems!!! The best gift I could have received came wrapped in that little foil package and I opened it with glee. I'm not sure if my eyes are ready for contacts full time but the joy in that moment is giving me hope that my eyes will get better.

Isn't it funny how when you are upset about one thing, it seems that twenty more episodes of Martyr Melissa begin to air, and in every episode is offense and melodrama?

The ugly side of an Enneagram Four is if I am going down, you're coming with me. When dreams fail, or they are not happening as fast as what I would like, I get down in every area. Elle was my stress relief, and without her, I was coming home having absorbed the day instead of unloading. In this season, I have been low, like a low that I have never been to before and I have been sad. I have not been mad at God, but I just could not fake the sad. I was doing my best to function at work, and I was unraveling at home. The enemy does not specialize in mercy killings, but he wants to steal your dreams, kill your joy, and destroy you. He wants to do enough to watch us self-destruct and tarnish our reputations. He doesn't just take; he takes the whole thing and tries to flip your life to perversion and pretense. In this season, I have understood why Joseph wanted to divorce Mary quietly.

Makes me wonder how many Christians divorce God quietly when we do not understand something we see?

Ever do something for so long that you do not want to do- that eventually you lose yourself in the process? I have been so bogged down with the demands of everyday life, particularly my job, that I have not been able to give my spiritual life any attention, much less my emotional well-being. This school year has been hit after hit, and just when I thought the hits were at bay, I just got another one Monday. I am so tired of picking up the pieces and carrying the weight and the responsibility of trying to patch and fix a ship while afloat. When you are a person that works with excellence, you strive to maintain it, no matter what happens. Living with the fall out has become the world I live in, and it is killing me. The only good I can see in my present circumstance, is that the idea of "I cannot stay where I am" has moved from an idea to my only option.

Michael Eisner said, "the fear of failure is a far worse condition than failure itself, because it kills off possibilities."

I have put off my dreams and what I know I am called to do because when I look at my finances, I see how what I make goes to pay our mortgage. If I continue to wait for my dreams until our finances are in the right place, I will be a miserable person. Proverbs 13: 12 says that "When hope's dream seems to drag on and on, the delay can be depressing. But when at last your dream comes true, life's sweetness will satisfy your soul" TPT. I feel like the Lord showed me a picture of an eagle's nest. What was once comfortable, is now becoming impossible, and I cannot help but to think that in His goodness, these situations are being used to move me to fly. If I waited until I could see things working naturally, I would never move. When I start to believe that now is the time, and step out in faith, the possibilities are endless, and doors will start to open. Stepping out of the known, into the unknown is faith. What if in the letting go, it really meant an opening up? If faith is really the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things unseen- then I must dismantle the safety on my trigger.  Shouldn't our spiritual floors be littered with shells and casings of faith and hope aimed and tried, then a perfectly manicured, yet dead lawn that never allowed the rain of works to fertilize the soil?  What good does a conceal and carry license for faith give me, if I never use it? If I don't know how to use it? Or worse, if I stand in the way of this moment and never rely on the faith that is bolstered to my waist?  I've flirted with faith, but I've never really given myself over to the possibility of reckless abandon.  I'm tired of being safe and secure and dry on the boat of life.  What if I took Jesus at his word?  What if I really walked my life out the way I tell others that I believe?  What if I looked at my future, not from a retirement sense, but a revival one?  What good does storing up on this earth do for me, if in the meantime, I am numb, uninspired, tired, and coasting? I would rather dive in and have to be rescued by the life preserver of Jesus than to have never felt what getting my garments soaked feels like. If I can change my vision in 2020 from seeing is believing to believing is seeing, I might just make the leap.