2007

"It takes hope to survivie your personal holocaust, Kay...and to change your direction."  The counselor's words had survived the years and tumbled over and over in my mind. 

Hope.  By definition it involved something for which I must wait.   Like seeing the far distant light of an oncoming train, knowing it will probably arrive at the statoin, only there is not schedule it must meet.  An unknown estimated time of arrival on the hope train.

"If  you ever intend to flourish again, return to your intimate relationships, think about how you can  help others, and cultivate a spirituality that transcends yourself, Kay."  I had written these words down at the time and prayed for the energy to actually do the inherent imperatives.

Cultivating and maintaining cherished hope was a daunting task, but it became the catalyst for climbing out of my languishing existence and grasping onto the desire to truly live.  Early in the process I borrowed hope from Marlana and Bill.  On May 31, 2003, my phone rang around nine in the morning.  "Hi, Kay.  It's Marlana.  Are you up?"

"Yes."

"Well, God showed me something this morning, and He gold me to tell you."

"Okay."  Always a little afraid of what He might want me to know.

"God has given you a new name."

"Oh."

There is a brief pause in the conversation because I fall silent and my friend perceives my hesitancy.  Why would God rename me?  What does that even mean?

"Freedom.  That's your new name.  Freedom."

Marlana cannot see me, but slowly I nod my head up and down as I try to synthesize what this means to me.  Never has there been a more counterintuitive moniker given to a child of God.  My life, in it brokenness and confusion, was the antithesis of freedom.  "Freedom, huh?  What do you think that means?"  Cannot conceive of it; can only barely hope for it.

"It means He sees you differently than you see yourself.  That's for sure!"

Only a few days earlier, for Mother's Day, Vanessa had given me a journal even though she knew I have a pernicious distrust of the things.  My fear is that upon my death all will see the perfect mess I was and quit mourning should my family betray my dying wish that my journals be turned to ashes in a bonfire which would send my raw, unedited words floating ubiquitously into a smoky cloud of eternal anonymity.  So, it was with great consternation I took a pen from my desk and rescued the journal from under my bed and entered into dialogue on parchment.

May 31, 2003

Freedom is my new name.  I accept the name by faith, Lord Jesus, for I awoke this morning looking at the black hole of emptiness brought about by walking away from what I can only describe as addiction. As I embrace my freedom in You, I need much wisdom,grace and work.  Take me forward.  I have run a worthy race, for sure, but in the wrong direction.  How truly, awe-inspiringly ignorant.  I wanted to run somewhere so badly it didn't matter if it was the wrong way as long as running made me feel better.  Make this crippled athlete a winner - let me run with one goal in min.  Hope.

My desire was that God sovereignly show up.  I wanted a revolution to brew in me with its genesis in Him - one that stirred me to change.  My daily prayer was: "God, I need You to intervene.  No bullshit.  No pretense.  I am not looking for religion.  I need You!  Authentically."  Waited for the lightning bolt, but it never struck.

Two steps forward, three steps back.  A frustrating pattern to waylay hope.  At first, it was difficult to even glance at all the work before me - like looking into a magnifying mirror and seeing so many flaws at once that I wanted to hide my reflection, giving up on any real beauty flowing from all the imperfections.  I could not have dealt with all my neediness in one fell swoop or I would have despaired.  Often, early on, when I had time alone I would just lie on the floor or stay in bed much of the day; but, slowly, my deeper reasons for living crept to the fore and I would rally.  Matthew Henry once said that "inordinate affection sets the stage for inordinate affliction."  Certainly that was my truth.

On June 13, 2003, I dug my hidden journal from its dark home beneath my bed and wrote:  Isaiah 50 is so true. "Those who turn to idols, who trust their own light to guide them will lie down on a bed of pain."  This turning to find love and adoratoin in anything or anyone else buy You has certainly been painful.  Thank You, God, that Your word is so appropriate to me.

Up the mountain - down the mountain.  Never seeming to reach the top.  Always seeming to fail again.  Ten days later, I had to plead for strength again:  Here I am again, Lord.  What will You do with me?  I have no real ability on my own.  I will try to get up the hill one more time, but I am not very successful at it.  I need more than a push.  Sometimes it seems You are the fantasy and this world the only reality, and I seem to need too desperately what the world offers me.  Prove Yourself strong for me!

Steadier feet were taking a bit of ground by the end of August.  Scripture was my best friend.  On August 22, 2003, Psalm 9:10 woke me up:  "My God loves me and goes in front of me."  Love, unconditional and free, was of course, what I was yearning for and running from.  It had taken months for me to entertain the idea that God could deeply, personally, clearly irrationally, love me.  I kept repeating over and over..."God loves me."

By spring of 2004, after Daddy's second arreest, I was radically dealing with my heart, dashing to bits whatever remnants of addiction physically and emotionally still clung to me as I struggled forward. One morning in prayer I was reminded of two gifts I had stashed away.  They stood between me and real freedom and hope.  I had not forgotten them;  I loved them, which is why I could not keep them.  I climbed the spiral staircase to my bedroom and pulled the treasures from their hiding place. As I held them as idol residue in my hands, there was a painful aching in my chest and a mild hysteria started to build.  I could not do this.  This one last thing.  Panicked, I paced the floor, feeling like a caged animal clawing hopelessly to free itself.  I knew what I had to do and I had to do it right at that moment.  It felt like a death march as I descended one step at a time from bedroom to living room and then on to the garage where the trash cans were, all the while looking at the little box I was clutching, now tear-soaked in my hand.  I opened the lid to the garbage can, closed my eyes, and threw it away.  As the lid thudded shut, I ran back to the living room, sprawled out on the carpet and cried.

It was not enough.  There was the thought that they were still there, alive somehow in the garbage.  Given the chance to kill the enemy or be killed, one should always kill the enemy.  "No, God," I wailed.  "Please, no!"  But again, I knew.  Every last vestige of hope for the past had to be annihilated in order for me to move into hope for the future.  The gifts were not the enemy, but I was aware they tied me to an idol as surely as a hypodermic needle to a heroin addict. All the other choices had been made.  This final one was left.  And it was brutal.

Back in the garage, I reached deeply into the pit of the trash can and pulled out the items.  Hanging on the wall with the other tools was the sledge hammer.  Catching my breath to stifle a sob, I reached for it and headed to the sidewalk at the back of the house.  Laying the precious glass gifts down on what was now their sacrificial altar, my tears splashing over the concrete, I raised the hammer and beat them, pulverized them into dust, as I sobbed the loss of what I had held on to and reached forward, in hope, to God alone.  Terrified, I knew I was stepping into thin air and God must catch me or I would fall into a great, empty abyss.