Keep Coming Back

By Lenora Rand
for the May Recovery Worship Service

Luke 18:1-8 (New Living Translation)
1 One day Jesus told his disciples a story to show that they should always pray and never give up. 2 “There was a judge in a certain city,” he said, “who neither feared God nor cared about people. 3 A widow of that city came to him repeatedly, saying, ‘Give me justice in this dispute with my enemy.’ 4 The judge ignored her for a while, but finally he said to himself, ‘I don’t fear God or care about people, 5 but this woman is driving me crazy. I’m going to see that she gets justice, because she is wearing me out with her constant requests!’”
6 Then the Lord said, “Learn a lesson from this unjust judge. 7 Even he rendered a just decision in the end. So don’t you think God will surely give justice to his chosen people who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8 I tell you, he will grant justice to them quickly! But when the Son of Man[a] returns, how many will he find on the earth who have faith?



We have a screened in back porch that we added on to our house. It’s beautiful out there in the late spring and summer when the weather finally warms up. We love it out there, Gary and the girls and I. Our cats also love it. They are indoor cats so when we let them out on the back porch that’s as close as they get to being outdoor cats and it’s exciting for them, let me tell you. They strut around, keep a close watch on the birds and rabbits and squirrels and the random stray cats from the neighborhood who occasionally wander into our backyard. They get up on the table out there and pace on it and perch on it, they make it their vantage point from which to rule the kingdom. All they need is the Lion King soundtrack behind them. In essence being on the back porch for a couple of indoor cats is as right as it gets.

There’s a window in between the kitchen and that back porch and we don’t have a screen on it so we can just open it and the cats can hop out onto the porch easily. We do have to open the window for the cats however and that’s where we sometimes have an issue. We, their humans, are not always ready to drop whatever we’re doing to let them out. But when they want to go out they want to go out. And they have ways of making us do their bidding. They have a stool next to the window and they sit on that and tap on the window. Then they scratch on the window. Then they start meowing loudly, overly dramatically, endlessly.

We especially have problems when the weather changes and it’s suddenly cold…they are cats of little brain and so we let them go outside and then they want to come back in (tapping/scratching on the window) in mere moments. Then they forget that they hated it and want to go back out a couple minutes later. Which drives us all nuts. Or recently, we had some broken screens out there, we couldn’t let them out until we got them fixed…that was a very sad time in their pathetic little lives. And they let us know about it. The sitting on the stool scratching at the window and meowing was totally annoying. Why you may wonder didn’t we just remove the stool so they couldn’t do this? Well we tried that. But if you remove the stool what they do is just hang on the windowsill by their fingernails and meow, looking back over their shoulder at you to make sure you aren’t missing their horrible predicament.

Like the widow in our Scripture reading, being annoyingly persistent ultimately pays off.

But it’s not a pretty picture, really, is it?

I hate being an annoyance. I hate being intrusive and obnoxious and pesky. Which this widow, and my cats clearly, are. I also hate being that obviously needy. You know, what I mean? Neediness is embarrassing. We live in a society that’s all about self-reliance and pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps—whatever the heck that means…it sounds a little painful, actually. But being needy…even the word kind of makes us cringe. Someone says, “Oh, she’s so needy.” And that’s code for, “keep your distance, she’s very high maintenance.” Or “He’s so needy,” is code for stop dating him, he’s going to turn into a stalker. Who wants needy friends? Needy neighbors? Needy co-workers?

Being needy has a bad name. Being persistent in our expression of need just isn’t cool. And I sometimes feel like I’d rather die than embarrass myself like that.

And then I realize, I have almost died. I have almost killed myself with cigarettes. And with a raging food addiction. I have sucked back all my fear and shame and anger and stuffed all my sadness and hurt and real wants for years, rather than embarrass myself with my neediness.

Here’s another thing that really annoys me. In recovery groups they have all these expressions like “one step at a time” and “It works when you work it” and “Keep coming back.” “Keep coming back,” is something that’s said at the end of meetings and sometimes I really hate hearing that. I hate it because it’s a slogan and it feels so cult like and both silly and scary at the same time. I grew up going to a church that got a little too close to being a cult for comfort at times and so that kind of lingo sort of freaks me out.

But I also hate it and maybe hate it most because it reminds me that I need to keep coming back. That recovery is an ongoing process for all of us. That the life of faith, of becoming whole is an ongoing process. That I’m not done yet. And I really really hate that.

The widow in the parable Jesus tells is definitely someone who keeps coming back. Every day she hauls herself into court. She pleads her case. She cries out for attention, help, justice. People stare. Look down on this pushy widow. Want her to just shut up and give up and go away, but she doesn’t. And finally the judge gets worn down, worn out, and he gives in and helps her. Not because he thinks her cause is righteous. No, just to get rid of her. Just to make this obnoxious crazy lady go away.

And yet this obnoxious crazy lady behavior is exactly what Jesus is recommending to us. Promoting. Applauding, in fact. Hurray for the obnoxious crazy lady who keeps coming back! Who’s angry, who pounds on the door with her demands, who says what she wants loudly and clearly, who isn’t afraid to let her neediness show or her tears flow in public, who doesn’t give up until her pleas, her prayers are answered.

OK, so here’s another thing I hate. Not getting what I want right away. I know in this parable we’re dealing with an unjust judge. And God, who, the Bible says is so much better than this judge, will definitely hear us and answer our prayers. “So don’t you think God will surely give justice to his chosen people who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off?” it ask us in verse 7. Then in verse 8 it says, “I tell you, he will grant justice to them quickly!” But, wait a minute, which is it? Is it about us crying out day and night for as long as it takes? Or is it about a quick response? How is Jesus defining quickly, you’ve got to wonder.

When I was about 12 years old, a friend of our family was getting married and we were all going to the wedding. So my mom took my sister and I out to shop for dresses to wear to the event. My sister who’s a year older than me, found a cool dress that looked good on her right away. Everything she tried on seemed to fit her fine—it was just a matter of picking the dress she liked most. I, on the other hand, didn’t have the “anything you try on fits fine” kind of body. I was not skinny. Not horribly fat, but I was chubby, husky, as it was sometimes called back then, a husky girl, as if we had an outer husk, except that hidden inside this husk was actually an acceptable-sized person, versus an ear of corn. So we searched and searched for a dress, something that fit me and also didn’t look totally stupid or like an old lady dress. Something cool. Hours and what seemed like hundreds of dresses later we finally found one that had the cool factor and it also fit. Well, it almost fit. It was just a little snug. We asked for the larger size, but unfortunately the store didn’t have it. So we struck a deal, my mom and I. I would try to lose a little weight before the wedding, which was 2 or 3 weeks away. It wouldn’t take much. And we bought the dress.

Fast forward to the night before the wedding. I tried on the dress again, and guess what, I hadn’t really lost any weight. Or if I had, not enough. The dress was still too tight, way too tight, and I looked terrible stuffed inside it, like a sausage coming out of its casing. But what could I do? The wedding was tomorrow and I had no other dress to wear.

So I lay in bed that night and prayed. Cried out to God for help. Couldn’t God just take ten pounds off me during the night?. Couldn’t the God who parted the Red Sea, the God who could make frogs rain down from heaven, who could make the blind see and the lame walk, couldn’t that God give me what I needed, give me the thing that would make everything all right for me?

I woke up in the morning, with hope in my 12 year old heart. Then I put on the dress.

That may have been the first time I pleaded with God to fix my body, but it wasn’t the last. I prayed it every time I started a new diet. Started a new exercise program. And when I walked into an Overeater’s Anonymous meeting 20 years ago, I walked in with that prayer again. Fix my body, God. Help me lose weight and stop being insane about food. When, a few years after that, I walked into the office of a therapist who specializes in helping people with addictions, I was praying that prayer again. God fix my body. Fix my relationship with food.

I’m here to tell you tonight, that the prayer I prayed when I was twelve and have been praying ever since, the prayer I prayed, twenty years ago, when I found my way to a 12 step meeting, that specific prayer, has not really been answered, at least not in the way I hoped it would be. My relationship with food and with my body, is not all better. It’s not all fixed.

But I can say this: because I've kept coming back, because this addiction stuff keeps bringing me to my knees, because I’ve kept pleading with God for help on this issue, because I’ve kept showing up with that prayer for help, I've gotten so much in all kinds of other areas of my life. Every day I deal with my food addiction and learning to love my body. But along the way, I’ve gotten so much that I didn’t expect or imagine.

You’ve probably heard that famous quote: Eighty percent of success is showing up. One of the things I’m learning in recovery is also that 80% of healing is showing up. 80% of growth is showing up. And as the widow teaches us, continuing to show up. By showing up and crying out for help, I’ve gotten help for things I didn’t even realize I needed help with. Help in being a good parent. In how to be a healthy person in a marriage., how to be a healthy person in my job, in my church, with my friends, in the greater world.

Asking for what you want and believe you need is a tricky business. Because sometimes what we think we want and need isn’t really what we want and need most. I didn’t get what I asked for when I was 12 years old, I didn’t get the quick fix I was hoping for, but as someone once said, if I’d gotten what I prayed for I would have shortchanged myself.

I am beginning to think this is true of all our prayers, all the things we keep coming back to God asking for help with. God does answer our prayers, maybe just not always the prayers we’re praying out loud. Because on some level we don’t always know what we really need. We’re just scratching the surface most of the time. And the point is to keep showing up, like the widow in this parable did.

And maybe, just maybe, the act of continuing to show up, continuing to ask, day after day, continuing to nail our demands on God’s door, to be angry with God and obnoxious and pushy with God, to get in God’s face, and say I’m here, and I’m not going away until you answer me…maybe that is the quick answer Jesus was promising. Us showing up, coming back, pleading with God, yelling at God, maybe that is what God wants. And maybe that is what we need, most of all.

I don’t know whether showing up will get you the outcome YOU want. But I do believe that “God will surely give justice to his chosen people who cry out to him day and night.” I don’t know whether it will change the situation you’re hurting in, the way you expect it to, or change the addiction you’re struggling with, in the way you envision it, or change the relationship you’re trying to navigate, quite the way you want it to. But I do believe it will change you. And God will give justice. Justice, which means putting things right. Right in our world. Right in our own lives. To have justice is to have things working the way they should. The way things are meant to be. Not out of whack. Not all screwed up. When we ask for justice, will God keep putting us off? “No, I tell you, God will grant justice to them… quickly!”

So be obnoxious. Be annoying. Be persistent. Be needy. Hang on the windowsill by your fingernails if you have to. You want God to make things right, really right, more right than you could imagine? Bang on God’s door. And keep coming back.

Following Orders

By Lenora Rand
From February Recovery Worship Service

I don’t like being told what to do. I don’t handle it well.

Gary, who has been married to me for a very long time now, will attest to this fact. But early in our marriage he hadn’t learned this yet…and would occasionally try to tell me what to do. Like one night we were preparing dinner together, chopping up vegetables for a soup or something. We each had our own cutting boards and we were both hard at work when Gary glanced over at my chopping area and said in the nicest possible way that I was doing it all wrong. “You’re supposed to cut vegetables on an angle like I’m doing,” he told me, “That’s how you get the most nutritional value out of them. So start cutting them like this not just straight up and down like you’re doing it..”

When he finished speaking, Gary continued chopping carrots in his own merry and correct way, but I became very still and very silent. I’m not sure how Gary interpreted this stillness and silence. Maybe he thought I was thinking about the wisdom of his words. Maybe he thought I was thanking God that I had been enlightened. Thanking God I was lucky enough to be married to such a wise and knowledgeable vegetable cutting expert.

I wasn’t. I was the stillness and silence of a grenade which has just been dropped on the ground, in that second or two before it explodes.

I did explode. It wasn’t pretty. What I said came out of that dark hole inside me that contains all the stored-up rage and hurt of a lifetime. The kind of stuff that is more like the growls of a cornered animal than anything else. If I had been a cartoon character you would have seen steam exploding from my eyes and nose and ears. Needless to say, we had a big fight. Luckily we put down our knives first.

But I think Gary got the message that day. I don’t like anyone to tell me what to do. Even if they’re right.

Which brings me to our scripture for today, John 15: 9-17.

The crux of the passage is in this verse, John 15:12 "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”
Now I’m all for love. I mean, who isn’t? And if we had to take a vote today and I asked for a show of hands, all in favor of love, I figure there wouldn’t be many of us clutching our hands in our laps. Maybe none of us. What’s not to love about love, right?

Except of course, when you actually try to love. That’s where it gets tricky. It gets tricky when you’re commanded to love the boss and the company that’s just “eliminated your position,” i.e. fired you. When you’re commanded to love the parents who abused you or the children who can’t forgive you and don’t want to have anything to do with you. When you’re ordered to love the significant other who doesn’t seem to give nearly as much as you do, or the friends who don’t seem to have any time for you. Or how about this—how does it feel to be commanded to love terrorists who fly planes into buildings? Or leaders whose greed and short sightedness have given us a world in a financial abyss? And sometimes hardest to deal with of all—how do we respond to the command to love, when it’s ourselves we need to love, and when all we feel is screwed up and contemptible and unworthy of love?

"This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”

When you think about it, this scripture is not easy. Not simple. Not clear. And as much as we all love the idea of love, when you put it like this, I command you to love, you may, as I do, feel like growling back at God from that dark hole of rage and hurt inside you, “Don’t tell me what to do.”

Of course, most of us here come from a country founded on rebellion against authority. A country that said to its mother England, don’t tell me what to do. And our heroes are people who win mostly by not following the rules…think about the popularity of Bruce Willis in movies like Die Hard, Die Hard with a Vengeance, Live Free or Die Hard… I can’t help but notice that Bruce never made a movie called Die Hard And Follow Orders Politely.

And those of us who struggle with addictions …many of us come from families with addicts and various kinds of dysfunction, families where we learned early on to distrust authority, where we learned that the orders we received from our parents weren’t necessarily for our own good, or to enhance our lives. Our families were focused on their next fix rather than on caring for the real needs of their children. Or their commands stemmed from a desire to take care of their own need for the family to look good and to keep us kids from getting in their way and bothering them too much, rather than out of any real concern for our growth and well-being.

I had this figured out in my family by the time I was four years old. I remember one day being asked by my next door neighbor Tony, who was about my age, if I wanted to go with him and his dad to his grandfather’s farm for an hour or so. The farm was close by and Tony told me we’d get to play in the grain silos, which sounded incredibly cool to me. So I went into the house and asked my dad if I could go. And my dad was busy doing something, and just seemed annoyed by my interruption and said, No. Told me I couldn’t go. When I questioned him, I got yelled at. NO discussion. But I decided not to follow his orders, and I went anyway. I really can’t remember anything that happened at that farm, I have only the vaguest memory of those grain silos, but I do remember coming back home, bracing myself for the trouble I was going to get in because I’d disobeyed. But I got home and my Dad was still inside, involved in whatever project he’d been doing before I left and he hadn’t even noticed I was gone! Which seemed to my 4-year-old self like total confirmation of my decision to not follow his orders. It seemed like complete confirmation of the suspicion that had been growing in me for some time which was that I was more committed to taking care of me than my parents were. My parents weren’t really in my corner, on my side, looking out for my welfare. They were lost in their own stuff and I was basically on my own. I grew up in the days of the TV show Father Knows Best. But I decided at an early age, that I couldn’t trust that. I came to believe that Father Knows Best was a lie and I knew best.

Walking around with the belief that only you know best and that nobody is going to look out for you but you is certainly one way to live your life. It’s a way to live that can cause you a few teensy problems however. Or a few major ones. For me it has had a lot to do with my story as a compulsive overeater. I didn’t trust the rules about what was best to eat and how much and when. Three meals a day? Healthy snacks? Eat your vegetables? Drink plenty of water? Oh man, give me a break. That sounds awful. So I ate what I wanted to when I wanted to. I defied the commands of the food pyramid, frequently and mostly secretly. But then I felt bad afterward. Not just “bad” with a small “b” but BAD, all caps, morally bad. In order to take care of myself, I felt like I had to break the rules. Which made me a bad person, an outlaw. And I felt sad and lonely being a bad person, which of course, led me back to food for comfort and care. A vicious cycle.

Since I’ve been in recovery one of the shifts I’ve been making—and it’s been a hard one for me to make, it’s a one moment at a time, kind of deal—is rather than seeing myself as a bad person in need of punishment, I’m starting to see myself as a sick person in need of healing.

So instead of being the outlaw in a black leather motorcycle jacket, thumbing my nose at authority and riding my Harley off a cliff in heroic defiance, I am learning to envision myself as an adorable child in one of those hospital shifts with a little too much southern exposure, propped up in a comfy bed, being visited by caring friends bringing me flowers and cards and DVDs and who aren’t there to judge me or arrest me, but are just there to sit with me and hold my hand or plump my pillows.

It makes a difference. Whether we define ourselves as outlaw or sick child, makes a difference. And what I’ve been learning about that in recovery made me want to take a second look at what John might have been trying to say in this scripture. So I started with that word I hate so much: commandment.

The dictionary definition of commandment is “an order or injunction given by authority.” I guess part of my problem is, when I think of an order from an authority, the first picture that comes into my head (other than seeing my own father, probably) is of getting orders from a military commander. I see one of those mean staff sergeants yelling at the recruits. I hear drop and give me 20. I imagine endless marches through the rain and darkness and cold all to satisfy the power-hungry whims of some petty jerk. A good thing I never joined the Army, huh?

So when I hear “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you,” I’m coming to realize, on some level that is also how I’m picturing God—the power-hungry, petty jerk, jerking me around to satisfy some need of his own without regard for what might be good for me. And I feel like, yeah, loving one another sounds like a good idea, in theory, however… I can’t imagine it working out so well. There probably won’t be an upside for me in this.

The funny thing about that definition of commandment-- an order or injunction given by authority—military guys aren’t the only authority figures out there giving orders. As I get older I have found myself spending a lot more time in doctor’s offices, leaving with a tote bag full of prescriptions. Leaving with doctor’s orders. These days, my doctor has me taking a smorgasboard full of vitamins and mineral supplements and medicine of various kinds. I feel like I have to allow an extra half hour to my morning routine just to get down all these pills. And I don’t always do it. I don’t always follow my doctor’s orders perfectly. Some mornings I take only a couple of the pills, the ones I deem most crucial. But here’s the thing. When I skip my pills I don’t feel like I’m being morally bad as much as I feel like I’m just not able to take care of myself as well as I could today. Because I see my doctor’s orders as something that comes from a desire for me to be well and healthy and happy, I see them as life-enhancing, I see them as good for ME.

That shift in thinking has been huge for me.

And, I’ve begun to think that maybe it’s no accident that sometimes in the Bible, Jesus would refer to himself as a physician. (And never referred to himself as a staff sergeant.) And so maybe, in John’s gospel, when Jesus commands me to love he’s not putting a gun to my head and saying do this or else, rather he’s handing me a prescription…he’s saying, do this and you’ll feel better. You’ll be healthier. Happier. You’ll become whole. You’ll be well.

Does this make it any easier to figure out how to love? How to love the boss who fired us, the so-called friend who hurt us, the spouse who doesn’t support us, the ones we call enemy, whether those enemies are people we work with or people in countries across the globe? Does it make it any easier to figure out how to love ourselves?

Maybe not. But it does give me motivation. It does help me see that if I don’t try to love, I may be missing out on something really good for me. It does make love something I want to try to figure out. With this new way of seeing, figuring out how to love myself and others seems like the way to life, the way to abundant life.

In the therapy group I belong to we have a ritual that has developed over time. This group is made up of people in recovery from all kinds of addictions—food, alcohol, relationships, debt, workaholism, perfectionism—you name it. And toward the end of every session one or two, or sometimes everyone in the group, will ask our psychiatrist for a prescription. What’s my prescription? We’ll ask. And then wait, like little birds in a nest, hungry for Mom to give them their bug or their worm. Or like people in a communion line on a Sunday morning, mouths open, ready for the bread of life.

This ritual in my therapy started probably because at one point some of the members of the group were taking anti-depressants and they needed a refill or a change in their medication. And the therapist would get out his prescription pad at the end of the session to write that for them. And some people got jealous. Wanted a little something to help them get through the week, too. Their own prescription. These days, no one in my group is taking actual medication but people still ask for prescriptions at the end of the session because what they are asking is for the doctor to tell them what to do. They are asking for a soul prescription. What would be good for me to do this week? How should I behave this week so that I will feel better? What should I do to love myself and others this week? Tell me what to do to have life and have it more abundantly.

And I’m right there with them. Asking for my prescription. Yes, even me, the person who never wants anyone to tell them what to do, I’m finally, day by day, starting to get it. Starting to get it that God is not the staff sergeant putting a gun to my head. Starting to get it that God is the doctor, with a steadying hand on my arm. God isn’t barking orders at me for his own agenda. God is actually good and loving, and looking out for me. And God is handing me a slip of paper and written on it are the words of life.

This is my commandment, that you love, Jesus said. I am finally beginning to hear this, I’m finally beginning to hear Jesus saying to me, saying to all of us sick little kids sitting in our hospital beds in the children’s wing, “You want to feel better, you want to really live? This is my prescription: love. Love each other. Love yourselves. Live in my love and love this whole beautiful, aching world. Just love.

That is the way to life.”

When Darkness is My Closest Friend

The Recovery Worship team helped plan and lead the Longest Night Service at LaSalle on Dec. 20th. Here is the meditation that I gave as a part of that service. --Larry

Merry Christmas! Christmas is that time of the year when you are told how you are supposed to feel. Let me prove my point. I’ll sing a few words from a popular Christmas song, and I want you to sing the rest of the line.

Ready?

Here’s the first one:

“Tis ths season to be ….. (jolly)”

Got the idea? Okay, here are some more:

“Have yourself a …. (merry little Christmas, let your hearts be light)”

“Have a holly …. (jolly Christmas)”

“It’s the most …. (wonderful time of the year)”

“You better watch out, you better not …. (pout, you better not cry)”

This is a time when we are told we’re supposed to be happy, jolly even. And we should be careful not to cry because it might lighten the load of gifts that we are about to receive. But because it is also an event that happens every year with a lot of celebration, it can be a time when we are reminded of losses we have faced over the years, or of things that we never had and lost out on. We can feel out of place in the midst of all the celebrating, as those losses hang like stones on our hearts.

The Longest Night

This longest night service is a time when we recognize losses over the past year, or losses that we are feeling now that may have happened many years ago. On the day with the least amount of light and the greatest darkness, we recognize the darkness that we face in our own lives.

Now this is not something that many churches celebrate. Modern Christianity often gives little place for darkness, loss and grief. At least that is what I learned growing up. My parents modeled for me two ways of dealing with sadness and pain. When my mom felt sad, we would see her begin to tear up and then she would head off to her room. However she dealt with it we never really saw, because she did it on her own in private. My dad, on the other hand, refused to recognize that he had been hurt. Anytime something bad happened to him, he would always try to take some positive lessons from it and move on. He tended to skip over pain and hurt so that he could look on the bright side of life. That characteristic has a lot of strength to it, but it did leave me without an example of what to do when I felt pain and hurt and no positive spin could make it go away.

Did any of you experience similar examples from your parent? What were the messages that you got about expressing sadness and pain?

For me the messages were:

“Pain is for sissies.”

“When you think of all the good things God has done for you, why should you be sad?”

“There are other people who have it much worse than you do. You should be grateful for what you have.”

The Art of Lament

Yet look again at the verses we read together. This is not how the people who wrote the Bible deal with their pain and sadness. They let it all out. In fact, they are quite creative and descriptive about their hurt, their sadness and their loneliness. In the verses we read together, what are the lines that resonate for you?

Here are some that struck me:

“When I think of God I sigh; When I meditate I feel discouraged.” Psalm 77:3

"I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax …” Psalm 22:14

“He has broken my teeth with gravel; he has trampled me in the dust.” Lamentation 3:16

“Your wrath has swept over me; your terrors have destroyed me…. The darkness is my closest friend.” Psalm 88:16 – 18

The Season of Dreaming

In the Bible passages normally read at this time of year we hear a lot about dreams. I had my own dream recently that I took as a warning about what happens when I am not willing to face my grief and pain.

The dream started with our old Dodge Neon parked on our enclosed back porch. I don’t know how or why it got there, but I did know I had to move it off the porch and into the drive. I tried to back it up and drive it down the steps (it seemed like a rational thing to do in the dream). In the process I reversed too fast and ended up driving the car through the back wall of the house. The car fell onto the fence and then onto the sidewalk, busting the oil pan and spilling oil all over the place.

I thought, “Oh no, I don’t have enough money in the account to pay for repairs on the car.” Then I thought, “Oh, and the porch too. I just wrecked the wall of the porch.” I looked up at the house and saw that not only had the porch wall come down, but the entire south wall of the house was gone as well. I could look right into our living room and bedrooms.

I went back into the house and found a lot more damage. Pipes were broken, the electricity was disconnected and the heating system did not work. As I went through the house I found two other families from the church living with us. As I talked with them I realized that nine years had passed, that most of the country was living together this way in broken down homes, and that I had no memory of what had happened in the previous nine years.

I finally asked one of the people living with us “What happened with Barack Obama? Did his administration go this bad?” Their response was, “No, he did really well. We would be much worse off if he hadn’t been President.”

It was about this time that I woke up. My wife and I spent some time trying to figure out this dream later in the day. I came to see it as a warning. Over the past few months I have felt an underlying sadness. Especially at this time of the year I reminded of the place I used to work for 23 years, and the friends that I miss from that place. Rather than facing the sadness directly, I was finding ways to avoid it. I would stay up late watching TV and having one or two glasses of wine, trying to get good and numb before I went to bed. For me the dream seemed to be saying that if I continued in this way I could let a lot of years go by without noticing them pass. I could escape the feelings, but I would also not be present for what was happening around me. And in the process a lot of things could be going wrong and getting worse, and I wouldn’t notice.

Facing Darkness

Instead of hiding from the darkness, I needed to face it. I was reminded of another story about a dream that I had read a while ago in a book by Jerry Sittser. In A Grace Disguised Jerry writes about a family outing that took them many miles from home. On the way back, a drunk driver hit their car, and Jerry’s mother, wife and daughter were killed. For two years Jerry went through the motions of work and trying to raise his three remaining children. But he remained numb, unable to feel the grief and pain of his loss. Then one night he had a dream. He was trying to outrace the sun. As the sun began to set in the western sky, he ran towards it, trying desperately to stay in its light and warmth. But he could not keep up, the sun kept on setting. Then he heard his sister speaking to him in the dream. She told him “You never outrun the sun. All you are doing is prolonging the darkness. You need to turn the other way, to the east. If you run toward the darkness, you will soon see the rising sun.”

I needed to accept the darkness I was sensing around me, to feel the pain over my loss. For me this is a complicated pain. I resigned from my old job, where I had a senior role and was well respected, because the ways I had learned to cope with it were destroying me and my family. I had found ways to deal with the stress and travel of my job that were not healthy, but were addictive and destructive. I had to leave to focus on my own recovery.

After resigning I focused first on getting a new job, which God provided rather quickly. But now I am realizing that I don’t like this job, or the people I work with, nearly as much. Every time we have a conference call or an email exchange I am reminded of what I have lost.

With the pain I also feel shame. It was my failure, my self destructive patterns that led to my resignation. Had God given me the desires of my heart, and I blew it, so now I am being punished? I understand how the people who wrote the laments we read felt when they asked similar questions.

The laments show me how to do this. I can publicly express my grief, my shame, my failure, and my anger at God. I can know in this that I am powerless to change the patterns of behavior that led me to this point. And I know, as the song that Gary sang says, that God has led me to this point.

We celebrate the longest night as a way of remembering that even the longest night has an end. The first rays of dawn always come after the darkest point of the night. We can do nothing to make the sun rise sooner. But we can know that in expressing our pain, our anger, our fear to God that we are also expressing our faith that the God of light can shine on us again.

Sharing Loss, Receiving Assurance

The next part of our service gives you a chance to respond, a chance to express your own pain or the feelings of loss that you may be carrying with you into this holiday season. We have set this up as a kind of a journey. You will start at this side of the room, by picking out a candle from the basket. You can light it here in the middle and then tell us about the pain, or loss, or a prayer request that you might have for us, knowing that you are in a community that can hold these things with you.

For example, I am experiencing the loss of a job that I loved, and some of the relationships that went with it, and the dreams I had for myself. I am also experiencing the loss of my mother, who has not been physically present with us for the last 12 Christmases.

Then you place the candle in the sand pit and leave it there. This shows how when we can express our pain in the company of a loving community, it never goes away entirely, but we do allow others to share and carry it with us.

Then you come to this side of the room and pick out a verse of assurance from this basket. Slide the bow off the paper and then read the verse to us. This is the assurance God has for me this evening:

Micah 7:7-8

But as for me, I will look to the Lord, I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me.

Do not rejoice over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me.

Where’s the Miracle?

By Lenora Rand, for the December Recovery Worship Service


“It so happened that as Zachariah was carrying out his priestly duties before God, working the shift assigned to his regiment, it came his one turn in life to enter the sanctuary of God and burn incense… Unannounced, an angel of God appeared just to the right of the altar of incense. Zachariah was paralyzed in fear.But the angel reassured him, "Don't fear, Zachariah. Your prayer has been heard. Elizabeth, your wife, will bear a son by you.”
--Luke 1:8-13


I make my living in advertising, as a creative director. But truth be told, writing--song lyrics and short stories, theater pieces, screen plays, novels and creative non-fiction—that’s what I really love. So while I’ve done a certain kind of writing throughout my advertising career, it hasn’t been that fulfilling to me. And while advertising has paid the bills, all my life I’ve also been writing in my spare time—the stuff I really enjoy. But as much as I’ve always wanted to sell a novel or screenplay or a non-fiction book, I haven’t. As much as I want to get paid for doing what I really love, I never have. And most of the time I just deal with it, but as you can probably imagine, it doesn’t always feel so good.

A couple weeks ago, a good friend of mine, we’ll call him Sam, who also has a corporate job and writes “for fun” on the side, got some very positive news about his writing. He’d recently made a trip to LA and while there he made some good contacts for both screenwriting and songwriting and ended up with a few very important, famous, successful type people interested in seeing more of his work. When he told me about this over lunch one day I said “Oohs and aahs” at all the right times. I told him how happy I was for him. Multiple times. I smiled until I thought my mouth was going to fall off. I even offered to help him punch up one of his scripts. And then I promptly went home and ate about half my weight in Doritos nacho flavored tortilla chips. Why? Because it’s my addiction, it’s what I do to numb the pain and to take away the feeling that THERE ISN'T ENOUGH TO GO AROUND. In that moment it seemed like stuffing myself was the only way I could stuff back down this feeling of being ripped off and cheated, it was the only way I could get through the anger and resentment I was feeling toward everyone, including God. All I could think in that moment was that Sam is going to become this huge success doing what I love to do and I'm going to do nothing and get nowhere. And never in my life will I get what I really want.

When you read the gospel of Luke, you find a lot of miraculous events surrounding the birth of Jesus. The first of them happens with the birth of the child of Elizabeth and Zachariah, John the Baptist, the prophet who came before Jesus to preach and prepare the people’s hearts for Jesus’ message.

Elizabeth, and her husband, the priest Zachariah, had been wanting to have a baby for a long time. But it hadn’t happened for them. I can certainly imagine what that feels like. Can’t you? Can’t you imagine how sick with disappointment they were every month when Elizabeth didn’t get pregnant? How deeply jealous they felt when friends got pregnant easily—friends who practically just exchanged a romantic glance across the room and were suddenly “with child”—while they tried and tried, did all the right things, kept trying, and still nothing.

Even if you haven’t gone through this with a pregnancy, I suspect you know what it’s like to desperately wish for something that doesn’t seem to ever happen for you. While it seems to happen easily for others. Maybe like me, you have a dream of work that is actually fulfilling and enlivening to you. Maybe you wish for healthier relationships with family members. Maybe you pray for an end to physical illness. Or an easier sobriety. Or serenity. Or a deeper experience of God’s love. But for some reason, it doesn’t seem to be happening. But we can name ten people it is happening for, no problem. Maybe you want recognition at work. But your coworker seems to get it all. Or you want kids who like to be with you and enjoy talking to you and who shower regularly and with gusto. But the size 4, Lycra-work-out-leggings-wearing neighbor gets those kinds of kids, not you.

I don’t know about you but I believe in miracles…miracles that seem to fall into the laps of everyone but me.

But in the scripture we read today, Zachariah finally gets his miracle. An angel shows up while he’s at work, full of good news for him. What he and Elizabeth have wanted and wished for and prayed for all these years is finally going to happen. Cool, huh?

Zachariah doesn’t start jumping up and down too soon though. He’s like the congresswoman who got a call from president elect Barack Obama this week congratulating her on her re-election, and she hung up on him—twice—thinking it was a hoax. Zachariah seemed to be feeling the same thing. Was he getting punked by an angel?

It was hard for him to believe, I think, because he was just tired of hoping, and maybe in his exhaustion his vision was clouded, clouded by daily life, by business as usual. That’s how I feel too often, I admit. Here we are in this season of hope and joy and angel voices and it’s hard to see much except the lists of things I need to do, the work I need to finish, the dirty dishes in the sink and the bad traffic on the snowy highway. If there are miracles around me, if they want my attention, they better get in line. If you’re going to give me a sign, it better be neon and flashing, and maybe slap me upside the head. Zachariah’s got the angel Gabriel standing right in front of him and even he asks for a sign. And Gabriel says, Hello. I’m Gabriel. I sit next to God. What more do you need? Maybe that’s why Gabriel puts Zachariah into a cone of silence for a while. He forces him to do as the Psalmist says, Be still and know that I am God. Be still and pay attention. Be still and be grateful for the miracles that are all around you. All the time.

I think another reason Zachariah had a hard time taking in the miracle that was being offered to him was that it didn’t look the way he expected. When the angel gave him the news he practically said, Are you kidding me? After all this time? I was expecting this 20 years ago not now, not like this.

I can relate to that too. About 10 years ago I went through a very bad time in my career. I got a new boss who I couldn’t “relate to very well.” He didn’t seem to like me either and he did some very nasty things behind my back and essentially took me off an account that I’d been managing quite successfully for a long time and gave it to some other guy who he liked more. And then while he didn’t take away my title, he gave me the choice of reporting to this guy (which in essence was a demotion) or leaving the company. I think his exact words were “Don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way out.” I began to lovingly refer to this boss as Satan, not to his face, of course, and I was really strongly thinking about heading out that door. But financially it would have been insane at the time…so I felt stuck, and unsure what to do.

I’d been in recovery a while, and I’d been learning about asking for help…not my strong suit, but I decided to give it a try. I prayed about it, I prayed for the miracle I knew I needed and finally decided to call one of the other big wigs in our agency, we’ll call him Bill, someone I’d reported to only briefly in my career, who was now actually one of the top execs in the company. Bill was higher up on the food chain than my boss, Satan, and I thought maybe Bill would see what an idiot my boss was being and fix everything for me. Get me what I wanted, which was my position and my account back. So I went to Bill’s office. Bill, you should know, was truly a crazy man—hugely overweight, full of barely controlled rage, mercurial on the best of days—but basically he and I hadn’t had any major run ins when I reported to him, and I knew he hated my boss, so I was hopeful he’d take my side.

As I walked into Bill’s office, he got up from behind his desk and started walking toward me. I thought he was coming over to give me a hug. I don’t know why I thought this. He’d never hugged me before. But I fell into his arms and just started crying. I cried and cried and crazy Bill just stood there and patted me on the back. When I calmed down a little, he guided me over to the sitting area in his office and we sat on his couches and talked a while about the situation. Then he asked me if I had a family. I said yes. And he said, “And they love you? And you love them?” I said yes. He said, “You are very lucky. There are many, many people who can’t say that.” And I knew he was speaking of himself. He counseled me that day to keep the job in perspective. He told me I’d always been a team player and to keep being a team player and everything would be all right.

When I left his office I felt much better. I remembered these lines from a D.H. Lawrence poem:

What is the knocking? 
What is the knocking at the door in the night? 

It's somebody wants to do us harm.
No, no, it is the three strange angels. 
Admit them, admit them.

And I also realized, suddenly, that when my strange angel Bill had started walking toward me when I came in the door, he’d had no intention whatsoever of hugging me. He was simply heading over to sit down on the couches on the other side of the room.

But I got a miracle that day. It wasn’t the one I wanted or expected. But it was the miracle I needed. I followed his advice and I ended up with a better job. I also ended up learning and growing tremendously from the devil boss who turned out to be another strange angel himself.

I was looking at the 12 promises from the Big Book the other day and I was thinking about what a list that is. What miracles would have to occur to see this list fulfilled in my own life:

We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.
We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.
We will comprehend the word serenity.
We will know peace.
No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.
That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear.
We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.
Self-seeking will slip away.
Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change.
Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us.
We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.
We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.


Wow. Hard to believe I’d ever get all that. As hard to believe as a very old barren woman and a crotchety old man having a baby.

I love what it says in the Big Book at the end of this list:
Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us - sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly.

I don’t know what miracles you’re looking for. Hoping for. What miracles you desperately need in your life. But just for today, I can tell you this. They are being fulfilled among us - sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly.

Maybe to see that, we just need to be still, be quiet, pay attention and open our eyes to the strange angels.

And I’m also learning to listen to these words, straight from the mouth of the angel Gabriel: Do not be afraid. Your prayer has been heard.

Mucked Up

By Lenora Rand. For September Recovery Worship Service, based on Matthew 19:16-26.


A couple years ago my husband Gary and our two daughters Zoe and Hannah and I were spending a beautiful summer day in Galena, IL, a lovely little tourist town near the border of Illinois, Wisconsin and Iowa, just a couple miles from the Mississippi River. Galena has its own river running through the town, in fact, that empties out into the Mississippi. And that day we decided we were up for a little adventure so we rented canoes and took off on a trip down the lazy Galena River. We even packed a lunch—I say that proudly because Gary and I have in the past gone on canoe trips without bringing any food or water because Gary had told me there’d be someplace to stop along the way and I’d believed him—I guess he was envisioning a canoe-through restaurant or something. And hey I bought into that vision. Clearly we’re not big outdoorsy types. But we did learn…so we packed a lunch for this trip.

After canoeing along, slowly for an hour or two we decided to pull off to the dry land to eat our lunch. It had actually been pretty hard going because there wasn’t much of a current and the river was kind of low, sometimes really low, and we’d been getting stuck in the muck on the bottom of the river a lot. Plus the girls were young and inexperienced canoers and we were old inexperienced canoers, so we really needed a break from all the fun we were having, as you can imagine.

Anyway, Gary and Hannah pulled over in their canoe and then Zoe and I managed to maneuver our canoe to the embankment. I was in the back of the canoe so I got the front end positioned up on the shore and Zoe hopped out the front onto land—muddy land, but land nonetheless. Then I attempted to get out. I however made the mistake of stepping out of the canoe not at the very front, but a little bit on the side. The water wasn’t deep there, so I thought it wouldn’t be a problem, but it was. It was a sucking mass of mud problem. I put one foot out of the canoe and immediately I was knee deep in quick sand like mud. One leg still in the canoe, one leg knee deep in the muck. My family rushed over to the bank yelling words of advice and encouragement, suggesting mostly that I pull that one leg back into the canoe and walk up to the front to get out, that sort of thing. But I couldn’t pull my leg out, I told them. Because I was afraid I’d lose my shoe. I was afraid my leg would come out but my shoe would stay down there deep in the mud and I didn’t have on a pair of $5 flip-flops unfortunately. I had on $100 Dansko sport sandals…OK, once again, not an experienced outdoorsy type. So I was worried that when I took my foot out, the mud would engulf the shoe and I’d never see it again. And I couldn’t let that happen. Those shoes were too important, too expensive, too irreplaceable—I think it was a discontinued model even. So I was stuck there. Knee deep in the muck. While my family waited on shore with an idyllic picnic lunch spread out and ready to eat.

The guy in our story from Matthew was also really stuck, knee deep in his own ideas about the right way to live his life. Knee deep in his own illusions about what was really important and valuable, about what would guarantee him the outcome he was looking for and give him a “good life.” He was born into a world that said wealth and power will save you. He was born into a world that said doing what is expected of you would save you too. And when you think about it that way, it doesn’t sound so different from our world.

But he comes to Jesus and basically says, I’ve been doing all this stuff I’m supposed to do, I’ve got all the stuff I could possibly have. But I still feel like I have nothing. Like I’m missing out on life. Like I’m not really living. Jesus gets right to the heart of things. He tells him to let go of all that stuff, let go of the illusion that he can save himself, let go of whatever he’s holding onto and afraid to step away from. He tells him to trust. To let go and surrender.

If you want to have real life, Jesus says, you need to let go of what you’re holding onto for dear life.

Letting go of what we think is holding us together isn’t easy. Like trying to gallop on a camel through the eye of a needle.

About 10 or 11 years ago now, I remember having a conversation with my therapist, a recovery specialist, about one of my many addiction issues--smoking—which happened to be the one I was ready to deal with at the time--and I was saying how much I wanted to quit smoking, but I was afraid that if I did I literally wouldn’t be able to function throughout my day. I couldn’t keep going on, I couldn’t hold it together. I knew it was crazy, but still it felt like having a smoke was the glue that was keeping me from falling apart at the seams. And my therapist told me I could always call someone if that started happening, if I started falling apart. I didn’t really like to call people that much, I told him. And with a little smile he added I could even call HIM. See, I never called him. I went to see him at our appointed times once a week, but I didn’t actually need him, you know? You only call people if you really need them. And I didn’t like needing anyone.

So finally, a few months later, armed with his phone number, a nicotine patch and the Zyban he prescribed for me, I quit smoking. And guess what, my worst nightmare? It turned out to be true. I stopped smoking and I started crying. I mean really crying. At the drop of a hat. For seemingly no good reason at all. AN EMBARASSING AMOUNT. I had at least one of what I now fondly refer to as the “blubbering idiot incidents” pretty much every day.

But I lived through it. I started calling my therapist and cried into his answering machine. I cried with my husband. I cried with my friends. I cried in church. I cried in recovery groups. I cried in the ladies room at work with whoever happened to be in there at the moment.

I stopped smoking and I started crying and I also started living. I starting having a real life. What I was holding onto, the cigarettes and the illusion that I didn’t need anyone and that I didn’t have any feelings, the illusion that I could take care of myself, I finally started to let go of that. And the result wasn’t pretty. But it was good.

The addictions I’ve dealt with in my life have all basically been about holding on to what I think will protect me. Or save me. Or make me feel better. Whether that addiction has been to food, or achievement or trying to control others, or to blaming or to hiding my real self or to smoking…it’s all the same thing.

For me, the simplest definition of an addiction I’ve ever heard (and I think this was from Barbara Brown Taylor) is anything we hold onto instead of God. Whatever it is that isn’t God that we think will make us whole, make us happy, make us feel safe, help us feel more alive, that’s an addiction. And we need to let go of it. And the longer I’m in recovery the more I realize I’m addicted to.

And just like the guy who comes to Jesus in our story, I’ve needed to take in what Jesus was saying, if you want to have real life, you need to let go of what you’re holding onto for dear life. I’ve needed to do what Jesus invited that rich young man to do…stop grasping at straws and start opening my hands and heart and life to the good things God might actually want to give me.

You’ve heard that expression haven’t you—grasping at straws? It comes from a proverb written in the 1500s. A DROWNING MAN WILL CATCH AT STRAWS – And it means “A desperate person will try anything to save himself, no matter how unlikely.”
I know what it’s like to feel desperate and like you’re drowning. Maybe you do too. So it’s not surprising that we’d try anything to save ourselves.

The problem is when you’re holding on desperately to one thing, you can’t hold on to something else. Something sturdier, and richer and stronger and more life-giving than a straw.

When you’re stuck knee deep in the mud holding on to your expensive shoe, you can’t have a feast with your family. When your fist is closed tightly around something, there isn’t room for anything else.

And yet we grasp at straws all the time, don’t we? I know I do, at least. Whether that straw is a cigarette or a donut or a drink or a big win at work or an expensive pair of shoes. Whether it’s our own sense of rightness or denial or shame…whatever it is for you and whatever it is for me, I’m coming to believe that it’s still always a flimsy piece of nothing to hold on to. And by holding on to that straw my hand isn’t able to reach out and hold someone else’s hand. My hand isn’t able to wait empty and hopeful and trusting and ready to receive what good gifts God might have in mind for me. Even gifts that might not seem so good when you first get them, like the gift of excessive crying.

But that’s where my recovery seems to be taking me. Step by step. And that’s what I pray to be able to do every day. Let go of what I’m holding onto for dear life.
Release my grip.
And have real life.

Taking the Cure

At our Recovery Services someone gives a lead, usually a reflection on a Scripture reading, as it relates to their recovery. This is the lead that I gave in April, 2008--Lenora

When I was 5 years old my extended family rented a house together at this big Southern Baptist conference center in NC for a week. While the adults went to seminars us kids were put in this day camp program every morning, hearing Bible stories, singing cute songs, and playing morally uplifting games. At the end of the 2nd day our teacher announced we'd be creating a mural the next day of the story of the Good Samaritan, which we'd been learning about. She assigned us each different characters in the story to draw. I was assigned to draw a Sanhedrin. I left day camp that afternoon in a quiet though raging panic. I had no idea what a Sanhedrin looked like. And I felt like there was clearly some correct way to draw a Sanhedrin which I SHOULD know but I didn't. And I felt so ashamed. Too ashamed to ask for help or advice from my parents or anyone else in the family because I could already imagine their response: You don't know how to draw a Sanhedrin? What's wrong with you? All afternoon as I played with my cousins my anxiety about the Sanhedrin drawing continued to build. Finally though, I figured out a solution. All of us kids were amusing ourselves by jumping off the big, tall front porch of the house to the ground below. One of the adults seeing us do this, warned us to be careful because we might hurt ourselves. And then it came to me. I took a flying leap off the porch and when I landed, I crumpled to the ground. I had "twisted my ankle" and it really hurt. And it continued hurting all night--I kept what I thought was a pretty convincing limp going--and when I woke up the next morning I managed to make my parents buy my story that my ankle was still hurting so bad that I couldn't go to day camp. When my ankle was “better” the following day, I went back and checked out the mural. I remember looking specifically for the rendition of the Sanhedrin which some other poor 5 year old had been saddled with in my absence. What I don't remember is how the other kid ended up drawing the Sanhedrin. To this day, I couldn't tell you what a Sanhedrin looks like.

I tell that story because as silly as it is, this is the story of my life. Most of my life, I've been trying to get IT right, whatever it may be in the moment. Say the right thing. Write the perfect thing, sing the correct note, give the right answer, look the right part, live in the right house, drive the right car, practice right religion...you name it. Or I’ve been in complete rebellion against the need to do everything right. And pointedly trying not to do “the right thing, or the expected thing.” Either way, though, I have been filled with shame because I can't do things perfectly, I can't do things the way they're supposed to be done. I've walked through most of my life filled with this deep down to my bones feeling of not-rightness, experiencing myself as SO inherently flawed and not good enough that I don't really deserve to take up space on the planet. I don't deserve to live. Of course, you might never know that by looking at me. Or even by being friends with me. Because just as I did as a little girl, I've also tried for many years to keep all that shame hidden, keep it a secret, sometimes even from myself. And how I've dealt with the shame has been similar to my trick as a 5 year old too. I've hurt myself rather than admit to the deep shame I was carrying around. Through the years I've hurt myself in lots of different ways--primarily through addictions of various kinds--addictions to work, to taking care of other people, to trying to fix, manage and control, to being judgmental and competitive, to cigarettes, to food. All of these addictions have proven to be great ways to hurt myself, to practically kill myself, AND great ways to keep me isolated and alone, guilt-ridden and ashamed, great ways to avoid the deeper and more profound pain of facing how worthless I feel pretty much every waking moment. I went to my first recovery group meeting nearly 20 years ago--and started working on some of this stuff. The addiction that brought me to my knees and led me there was food. I am a compulsive overeater. But as I began to confront my addiction to food, I started to realize how broken I was in so many places--it was kind of like going to the doctor for a sprained toe and discovering that actually, practically every bone in your body is fractured in multiple places. Yet along the way, step by step, I've been mending, I've been experiencing healing--though frankly, it hasn't always happened how I expected it to or thought it should. It hasn't always happened the "right" way.

And this is where I can so relate to the story of Naaman we heard from the Old Testament a few minutes ago. Naaman's got a disease and he's looking for a cure. He gets this tip from an unexpected source--not from a wise man or a peer, but from a slave girl. But Naaman is desperate, at the end of his rope, he's hit bottom enough to finally be able to take in the help. And he does what the slave girl suggests. He packs up cartloads of riches, and travels to Israel to find help. He expects the help to come from the King--a big rich and powerful guy just like him--but the King actually doesn't have a clue about how to help Naaman. Then Naaman gets the word that the Healer he's seeking is a bit off the beaten path and he loads up his big piles of riches to go find his cure from the prophet Elisha. But even then Elisha throws Naaman another curve--my guess is what Naaman was expecting from Elisha was something wild and scary--like Elisha would send him on a heroic quest, or ask him to jump through some difficult and dangerous hoops to prove his worth. And Naaman was prepared for that. What he wasn't prepared for was Elisha, not even coming out in person to meet him, but sending his servant out to tell Naaman to go take a bath in a muddy river. Naaman was like, This is absurd. This is humiliating... Naaman, the big powerful man, was essentially being told none of his own strength and power and effort was going to heal him--he has to strip down to his naked need and surrender to a cure that is quite possibly more shameful than the disease itself. He wasn’t going to do it, but his servants, sounding for all the world like a support group saying, “it works when you work it,” convince him to at least try.

Two years ago I found myself firmly planted once again in Naaman's shoes. After all my time in recovery, and all the progress I'd made in so many areas of my life, the one area I'd found very little healing in was my relationship with food and my body. I walked into my doctor's office one day weighing well over 250 lbs with blood pressure that was dangerously high. And my doctor started telling me about this surgery she thought I should have, a relatively new bariatric surgery which she had seen excellent results from. But my immediate response was, "I don't need to do that, I've lost a lot of weight before, I can do it again," because I had--when I’d first started in recovery I lost 120 lbs. I'd gained it all back though and over the last several years, no matter what I'd tried I couldn't seem to get or keep the weight off. Of course, what I was thinking was, "This surgery isn't right. This isn't the way it's supposed to be. I'm supposed to lose weight by working a program, going to therapy, following a food plan. That's the right way to do this." I told myself EVERYONE I knew would think I was a cheater for having this surgery, that it was frivolous and vain and that I was a terrible person for even considering it. And I told myself everyone in recovery circles would be appalled by the very idea... they would think I was an OA failure, a recovery screw up. So, No I said to my doctor, I can lose the weight without the surgery. But my doctor looked me in the eye at that point and said, "Lenora, I'm not sure you'll live long enough to do that." Here's the funny thing: as I began to explore the surgery and talk about it in therapy, with family and with friends in recovery over the next several months what I discovered was I was the one with all the judgments about doing it the "right way"...not them. I was the one with all the shaming messages. I was the one looking for a heroic quest to go on rather than a nearby river to take a swim in.

So I took the dip in my muddy river. I surrendered to the cure God was offering me and had the surgery. And I did experience and continue to experience what has been for me a miracle. I wasn't miraculously cured of my compulsions around food...I continue to deal with that one day, one hour, one minute at a time and I am still learning little by little, moment by moment how to love my body. Yet I have had what seems to me like a miraculous amount of physical recovery...and I'm a lot less likely to drop dead tomorrow from a stroke. But that's not the only healing I've been experiencing. In the middle of the noise that plays in my head all the time, like a radio you can't turn off, with the message that I'm not good enough, I'm not doing it right, I'm totally worthless, the miracle has been that I can also hear a little more clearly the message that God loves me and wants good things for me, the message that God wants me to Live --As Jesus said, “I have come that you might have Life and have it abundantly”--and I don't have to do everything "by the book" to earn that love or deserve to live. It isn't about doing anything perfectly. It isn't about making heroic efforts. It's about letting God's love wash over us, surround us, engulf us, in the midst of all our imperfections, all our flaws and failures. I suspect I will always have a part of me that feels like I should know how to draw a Sanhedrin. But I am also learning there is always a river waiting for me, whenever I'm willing to stick my toe in, not a picture perfect looking river, but a muddy river of vulnerability and grace. A river for washing away the shame and letting in more love than I can even ask for or imagine. There is a river of love waiting for me. A river of love ready and waiting for us all.