Hello! My name is Rachel….

and I am addicted to food.  

I spent last weekend back home in the mountains as I mentioned.  What I didn’t mention is that I was there to attend my step-father’s funeral.  A man, who had he been able to break the addiction of too much, would very likely still be alive today.   While I want to honor his memory, the sad truth is food killed him.   And as I stood there in my mother’s home I had to admit….if I do not get this under control, eventually it is going to kill me too…

I am learning slowly and some days I stumble so hard I wonder if I ever will beat this…in fact I had almost come to the conclusion that it was too hard, I would always be in bondage.  “I will just be fat!” I told myself.   But the truth is this is really not about fat or skinny and it really isn’t even about the food.   It is about me, who I believe I am and who God made me to be…

Ironically when the struggle was most fierce I came across this:

Fight For Beauty, Rihanna’s Story

and this:

Do you know addiction?

which prompted me to step out of fear and write this.  This post, that I have considered writing 100 times, but I have been unable to because the pain of it is so raw, is more of a line in the sand than anything….a declaration to do the work that must be done even if the healing is slow.

Hello, my name is Rachel….and God is healing me from my addiction to food…

A day in the life…

Recently I had a few well meant conversations with a few well meaning people who felt compelled to share their observations of a weekend/hour/minute spent with our oldest little (who is by far the most severe in terms of trauma behavior).  In a nutshell they consisted of how well he behaved in their presence and then the usual “perhaps you are too hard on him”

“if you treat someone like they are bad…”

“you are always upset with him”

“he can’t move before you are after him”

This based on how kind, sweet and obedient these children are in the presence of others.

I understand the motives behind this, I really do….but lately I am not up for it.  Lately I have been running like a chicken with my head cut off to fiber shows, visits with far away parents, my step father’s funeral in TN and when I am home the little is very angry.  Understandably angry, I have been gone a lot; but until you’ve lived it….it’s really hard for me to listen to your advice.  You just don’t understand.  I can not explain to you adequately the exhaustion, the frustration, the grief that watching a child destroy the world around him (even at times himself) causes a mother.  

Yesterday Todd and I both were able to be with the boys.  We had some hiccups but it was a noticeably better day for me.  

“Wow, today went really well!  The boys were great!”

“Are you kidding me?” my husband said, astonished “They were horrible today.  I had to correct them all day long.  They are never this badly behaved with me.” 

Yep.  That paints a pretty good picture.   The smiling child you see is not the one I live with…and most of the time that’s okay.  Much of the time I understand the grief and sadness that compels him to punish me in the first mom’s place.   But the words hurt.   The judgments burn and honestly they make a hard job just that much harder.     I know you want to help and I understand your concern but leave the advice to those who are trained to understand the wounds these children have endured.  They have a therapist and case worker watching closely over them, they will not allow them to be mistreated.   I am not doing this rogue, trust me.  Please, Please understand that the behavior directed at me is not a result or in response to my treatment of them.   Yes, I become overwhelmed at times but I love them deeply and I am doing everything I can to help them heal.

I love this post: The Whipping Mom I think she explains it well. 

25 things you might not know about me….link up*

*linking up here :)

1.  I love girlie things.

2.  I had all of my kids at home except Josiah, he was born in a free standing birthing center.  I have never been to the hospital to have a baby.

3.  My first car was an orange Chevette with wood paneling with the word Woody on the back. 

4.  I was born in Opelika, Alabama

5.  My legal name is Kachel, not Rachel.  Someone misspelled it on my birth certificate. 

6.  Although I have spent more of my life in Michigan, I will never feel so at home as when I am in the hills of Sevier County TN.

7.  If my husband would not die from shock I would have dreadlocks and several tattoos. 

8.  My husband is 15 years older than me.  (This probably explains #7)

9.  There was a day that I knew every single word to every single Prince song.

10.  I hate crickets.  I really hate earwigs.

11.  I didn’t start drinking coffee until I was 36 years old.

12.  I love to sing.  I also play guitar.  a little badly

13.  I am superstitious.  I can’t help it.  I know that it isn’t bad luck to kill a cricket but I still can’t do it.   And I as I said I hate crickets.

14.  My Mamaw would have given me or my sister the spanking of our lives if we ever killed a cricket.  or opened an umbrella inside.  don’t get me started…

15.  Jesus saved my life.  literally.   I’ll tell you all about it someday.

16.  My nose is pierced.  It was done in the pre-husband days so sadly it has gone the way of tattoos and dreadlocks.

17.  I am scared freaked out  terrified of the dark. 

18.  My mom still lives in Tennessee.  She is hoping to sell her house and move up by me and I am irrationally upset, to the point of tears.  My papaw is down there and I can not bear the fact of leaving him alone although he has been dead for close to 20 years.  She needs to move up here, I just don’t want to sell the house.  I am silly like that.

19.  I am incredibly silly both in the way of #18 and in the general understanding of silliness.   I can crack a joke anywhere, anytime.

20.   I hate to cry, not even a little.

21.  I WILL NOT watch a movie that will make me cry.  I have never seen Titanic, Schindler’s List, Faith Like Potatoes, or Courageous for that very reason.   See #20.

21.  I hate seafood.   I went to Red Lobster once.  I had a hamburger.

22.  I am a sugar addict.  Not in the “oh shucks, I have a sweet tooth” way, more in the “I am killing myself with food” way.  I was recently told that I need to treat sugar the way an alcoholic treats alcohol. I am desperately trying to do that.

23.  I find it offensive when people use the words “foster care” “foster” or “adoption” when referring to pets.  Don’t get me wrong, I love animals.  I think we need to care for them well  and I honor the depth of joy and am deeply grateful for the blessing of irreplaceable companionship that they bring to our lives but, I fear that using the same language to describe caring for an animal as well as caring for a child minimizes the pain and grief the child experiences.

24.  I am a little scared you will hate me for typing #23 and now I feel like I need to use even more words to defend my position and make you love me again.  I love words and for people to love me.

25.    A friend once told me “You are water.  He is the container.”   That perfectly explains me and my husband. 

Shhhh....

Sorry for the quiet blog. I have had many thoughts and ideas ruminating in my head but I struggle translating them to paper ...er...computer, whatever. It has been a season of changes and I often feel like I am just stumbling along.

I am spending a few days home, in the mountains of Tennessee and I am amazed at how much I missed them. It is almost as if some dead part starts to wake up when I get to the foothills and then learns to dance once we are all the way in. The mountains have this strange way about them...a gentle constant pull that you just barely notice and struggle to name. Once you are here the outside world spins around you but you are only slightly aware of it while in the mountain's embrace. I wish I could stay longer, forever...

Broken Bread….

My sister and her children spent the week with us.    Soon the fundraising begins, the nitty gritty of details….the end of life in America.   I want to beg her to stop.   I want her here, safe, without a gazillion miles between us.   I want to watch her children grow.  I want to hold their hands.  I dread that much of who they will be will unfold for me only in pictures and email and phone calls (and that dependent on just how much access they have to the technology required to reach me here.)   I don’t, however.   I sit silent  with their decision, this heavy call.   I understand some of what it means to live a yielded life even if it tears my heart….

If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters--yes, even their own life--such a person cannot be my disciple…

We had a lot of conversations this past week.    Many words spoken, contemplating the call of God.   Her as she and her husband prepare to move her children to Africa, away from all they know and me, as I teach my children to love the hurting as we raise children of trauma (who despite all the wonderfulness that is very much a part of who there are, are grieving in very difficult and exhausting ways).  What does it mean to live beyond yourself instead of for yourself?

 Here is my body, broken for you…

I wish I could put this jumble of thoughts in some coherent string of language that made sense but I struggle.   The sacred and the mundane often bump heads and we are jumbled around in the middle trying to figure out where we fit.   But of one thing I am convinced: when Jesus called his followers to take up their cross he was not referring to a charm that dangled around a chain on our necks.   I believe with all my heart that when we refuse to lay it all down for the sake of our Savior we are not withholding some needed thing from our God, but instead  we are withholding from our own selves the very thing that leads us to true joy.  When He calls us to suffering it is not to harm us, but instead to heal us….

O Shepherd. You said you would make my feet like hinds' feet and set me upon High Places".
"Well", he answered "the only way to develop hinds' feet is to go by the paths which the hinds use.”
― Hannah Hurnard, Hinds' Feet on High Places

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Courage

Today is day 6 of the stupid attachment challenge.   This challenge was a new kind of fresh hell   taught me a lot.  About myself.   Yay, I didn’t really want to know that….

I made it to day two before I decided enough is enough.  I didn’t articulate that, not even to myself.   But when little mister walked upstairs covered in pee (I so wish that I was exaggerating.   I am not.  COVERED) something inside me broke a little.  I did not touch the kid even once that day.   I decided quietly somewhere deep inside me that love was not enough and part of me gave up.  You see I had a plan.  And the plan was not working….

I kept telling myself I would start tomorrow.   Tomorrow would be better.   But we were engaged and he.would.not.stop.pushing.   I had started this thing but now all I wanted to do was let go.  I was good with going through the motions.  I can put a smile on my face and baby, I can work the plan but this was just too much.

Have you ever been roller skating?   I remember when I learned and finally felt like I was getting really good at it.  I sailed around the rink like I had wings.   I was amazing.  Until I wasn’t.   I remember finding myself waded up in the middle of the floor, wondering how I got there.
Yep.  You get where I am going with this.  Once again, here I was totally wadded up.  I was sailing with this whole therapeutic parenting thing.  Until I wasn’t.

Music moves me in an incredible way.   God designed me this way and He often sends songs my way that speak His words to me.  In the midst of the mess and the chaos he sent me this:

Brave.   I liked it.  It was catchy.  I headed to church last evening blaring it over and over.   I entered worship slightly apathetic, fearing that if I gave any more I would burst into tears.   My pastor got up and spoke about not turning around.  Don't stop.  Don't go back.  Don't give up.  Have Courage.  Then someone else got up and spoke and my heart heard:  Do we have the courage to still walk in faith even when it all goes wrong?   Do I?  What if the plan stops working?   What if it never worked in the first place?

I am reminded of the missionary in the Congo.   While she was healing after being brutally raped God spoke to her: "Can you thank me for this experience even if I never tell you why?"   Can I trust Him no matter what?   Can I thank Him?  Can I still let the words fall out...words of love, words of healing?   Can I still tell the truth?

So I stumbled a bit.   I am headed back the right direction.   This morning I had a wonderfully refreshing conversation with this woman.   I decided that I needed a little more help and I am learning to ask for it.  Right now I am a little more brave.  My little guy is still screaming and the plan may not be working...but right now, this moment I have courage.