How to Receive Comfort - Part 2

The barriers we put up to "protect" our heart are there for reasons that make sense at the beginning.  Over time the need for the barriers usually diminishes, but by then we have learned patterns of behavior that are hard to overcome without help.   

I unconsciously learned at a very young age that being my own source of comfort was the only consistent way to get my needs met.  My dad was never a source of comfort, and my mom was an unreliable source of comfort.  I stopped depending on them to meet my needs and learned instead "to be strong for others” (a euphemism for bypassing grief). 

I was unaware that this is what I was doing and it took me decades to figure it out. I started hoarding stuff and sneaking food at a very young age to cope with my emotions.

Recently I walked into my Freedom Ministry Training class at church and opened up my workbook as directed by the instructor.  My eyes were immediately drawn to this image: 

Decades of unawareness fell like scales from my eyes and suddenly so many things made sense.  The training manual reads, “…our family of origin plays a significant role in shaping how we relate to God, the Father; God, the Son, and God, the Holy Spirit.”  It went on to say, “Experiences with our mother can produce limitations in the way we relate to the Holy Spirit.”  

Being left in the care of others at age 7, and then being left in the care of strangers in Mexico at age 9, and ultimately running away from home at age 13 were the life-shaping experiences that I had with my mother.  

I wasn’t sure how to process all this, so on my next visit with my counselor I “outed” myself and showed her the textbook, and told her I was at a loss.  We talked about how my relationship with my mother had stopped being about receiving comfort from her at a very early age. She gave me the following homework assignment that day: 

Find some time when the house is quiet.

Get comfortable.

Close your eyes and ask God what it would be like to receive comfort from the Holy Spirit.

Wait quietly for the answer. 

It felt awkward to me to think about doing this and I was very resistant to the idea.  My burning desire for wholeness and healing is what motivated me to do what she said. 

The next day I found myself in a quiet house.  I remembered my assignment and went and lay down on my bed and I could hear my counselors voice in my head telling me to “Get comfortable”.  (At this point I’m still feeling awkward and resistant to this whole exercise and I’m thinking, “Fine.  Whatever.  I’ll get comfortable”, and start arranging the pillows under my head.  “Okay.  I’m comfortable. Now what?”) 

The next voice I hear is no longer my counselors.  It’s the voice I have come to recognize as God’s when He is speaking to me in my spirit.  He said the same thing my counselor said to me, only the meaning behind the words went much deeper:  “Get comfort-able.” 

I knew immediately that He meant for me to let down the protective barrier I had around my heart and invite Him into the wounded place I had kept covered and protected all these years.  This idea caused me to begin to experience anxiety, so I had to back up a little and pray (out loud) a familiar prayer I had been praying since November that helped me overcome anxiety:

“Fear, you have no place here and no authority to stay, so I command you to go to the foot of the Cross, or wherever Jesus tells you.  Holy Spirit, come and fill up all the places in my heart that are wounded and need comfort.”

Only this time, the second half of my prayer was from a place deep in my heart that I had never prayed from before.  It was like my grown, adult self was standing next to that little seven year old girl inside me and asking for the comfort I needed from my mom on that day but couldn’t get.

Praying, and really meaning, the second part of that prayer was like the dam broke and the flood of tears that followed was overwhelming. As I lay there sobbing with my chest ripped wide open and my broken heart exposed, my mind began a conversation with God that went something like this:

“Okay, here I am, with my broken heart as exposed as it can be.  I need to know this is real.  I need to know how this “Holy-Spirit-comforting-me-thing” works because I don’t understand it and experiencing this much pain all over again feels overwhelming.”

Then God speaks again and says to me, “As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you.” 

I realize then that the voice I had been hearing all these years was the Holy Spirit’s voice, that the Holy Spirit had been with me, near me, present in my life, all along.

The Holy Spirit then begins to play some images in my mind of specific times when I have comforted my own children and how it was that just my presence, my words of comfort, and my arms wrapped around them, brought comfort to them.  I remembered when we were little when we were sick we got to sleep with mom, and how comforting it was just to be next to her.  I remembered when my son Jacob was just five months old and had surgery and I stayed in the hospital with him the entire time, never leaving him without the source of comfort he had learned to depend on.

I was able to make a huge leap of faith that day and experienced the very real, comforting presence of the Holy Spirit, who had been waiting patiently for me to work out all my “Father” issues so that he could step in, introduce himself, and teach me how to receive comfort from Him.  There's a reason why He is referred to in the Bible as "The Comforter”.

There are some of the steps I took in order to be able to receive comfort from the Holy Spirit:

1.  Acknowledge that you are "un-comfort-able"

2.  Acknowledge that you are in pain

3.  Acknowledge your need for comfort

4.  Stop being your own source of comfort

5.  Get (or Be) "comfort-able"

6.  Remove the barriers and expose the wounded places in your heart and experience the comforting presence of the Holy Spirit

Steps 1 through 3 took months of counseling during the previous year for me to figure out and acknowledge what the problem was.

Step 4 through 6 will be an ongoing process for me.

How to Receive Comfort - Part 1

There I was, eleven years old, out in the garage hiding.  I waited until I knew I would not be discovered and went to the freezer that was kept out there and found what I was looking for.  The little chocolate donuts, six to a wrapper.  I found a package, opened it right there and gobbled down the frozen treats as fast as I could, hoping nobody would find me.

In an overcrowded house with a dozen or more children and half as many adults, it was difficult to find privacy for sneaking the sweet treats, but I managed to do so often.  When my favorites were finally all gone, I would then look for my next favorites:  the white powder donuts. 

I learned about “closet-eating” as a way of self-comforting or self-soothing very early in life.  It was a very poor substitute for what I really needed during that phase of my growth and development, which was to receive the comfort I needed from my mom and dad.

I didn’t know my dad growing up, and had been separated from my mother on so many occasions as a young child that I learned to not depend on her to meet my very real needs.  Sometimes she would be gone for a few days or a few weeks.  One time I was left in the care of others for more than a year without any hope of her return or knowledge of her whereabouts. 

The first time I remember it really affecting me was at age seven, standing on the driveway of the house we were living in, bawling my eyes out and begging for her not to go. 

“Stop crying.  Crying doesn’t do any good.” That’s the message I got from my mom.

I cried anyway that day, but not being able to depend on her constant presence to comfort me caused me to start looking for other ways to find the comfort my heart desperately needed.

That pattern of being my own source for the comfort continued for decades.  It resulted in a weight problem and hoarding tendencies that began at an early age, and of course, continued for decades and eventually became an issue with obesity and a tendency to hold onto my “stuff” longer than what was healthy.  No other outcome was possible when food and stuff became the substitute for the real comfort I needed. 

My attempts at weight loss and decluttering were usually successful at the beginning, but every attempt ended with me eventually regaining the weight I had lost, plus more; or re-accumulating more stuff than I had gotten rid of in my last attempt at decluttering.  Lots more weight. Lots more stuff. 

The roller-coaster ride with my weight leveled out some after I attended a class called “Levels of Change” taught by Bob Hamp.  That was followed by a class called “The Problem Jesus Came to Solve” and several others, which are available to everyone, for free: 

Link:  http://gatewaypeople.com/ministries/freedom-kairos/media1

My problem, even after attending these classes, was that I did not recognize that I was my own source for comfort.  

After that first Freedom Ministry class in 2005, I made a commitment to myself that I would not try any more “diets” (I would consciously choose to make healthier choices at times, but I don't consider that to be a "diet") until I could solidly connect with my real identity and know “Who I am in Christ” with absolute assurance. I left class that day with a bookmark that read, "Who I am in Christ" and the following list of reminders with scripture references.

I am accepted.

I am secure. 

I am significant. 

This led me on a journey to the Heart of My Heavenly Father.  A journey that took almost a decade.  It makes sense considering I had no real relationship with my earthly father to help me navigate this journey.

To be continued....Part 2....here's a taste of what's to come:

Once safely connected to the Heart of my Father, I was easily able to make the next leap of faith and that was to a connection with the Holy Spirit, who had been waiting patiently for me to work out all my “Father” issues so that he could step in and help me learn to receive comfort, the real deal, from Him.  There's a reason why He is referred to as "The Comforter"!  

I was so used to “being strong” (a euphemism for bypassing grief) and carrying the very heavy load of grief inside of me, that I didn’t even realize that’s what I was doing.  It took me several more years to figure this out. I had no idea that when I signed up to take the Freedom Ministry Training class (so that I could help others) it would result in my healing and learning not just “how to” allow the Holy Spirit to comfort me (more knowledge), but to actually "do it" (experiential), "it" being allowing the Holy Spirit to comfort me...

Why I hope the Broncos win today. It's not what you think.

I was nine years old when we lived in Denver.

The reason I know this is because it was the year that the Dallas Cowboys played the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XII.  I also know this because I would turn 10 years old later that year while living in Mexico.

There was a fever pitch in Denver leading up to that game.  My sister, Kathleen, was a HUGE Broncos fan and I adored her, and therefore I liked these Broncos, whoever they were.  I remember in school helping decorate a very long banner that we were told would be put up in the hallway of the stadium where the Super Bowl would be played.  The Broncos would run past it on their way out to the field.  This banner was hanging in the cafeteria and we were sent in, class by class, to help decorate it.   

I barely had any idea what football was all about, but I wanted in on the excitement of cheering on the Broncos that my sister loved.  I didn't know what to write at first, but as I got closer and read the banner, and watched the other kids, several recurring themes emerged so I grabbed a brightly colored orange Crayola Crayon and joined in with the others.
 
"Orange Crush" was one of the predominant themes, of course. 



What I really wanted that day was to be a part of something bigger than me, and to feel included.  On this day, I was like a chameleon, and turned myself a bright orange color to fit in with the crowd and feel like I was part of the excitement.  I also craved Kathleen's approval.

I couldn’t have been any more ignorant of what a Super Bowl, or even football, was all about.  What I did know is that feeling included felt better than feeling like an outsider.  I had been an outsider my whole life.  We were not allowed to make friends outside of the cult we were born and raised in.  There was even one December that we were sent to the library to sit out of the Christmas party, because "...our family doesn't celebrate pagan holidays”. 

For the first time that I can recall, I realized that there was another world outside of the very small world that I was living in and I wanted to be a part of it.   I found something outside of my small world that I could safely and inconspicuously include myself in, and oh, how good it felt to expand my horizons!

So today, I'll be cheering for the Broncos, win or lose.  Not because I'm a Broncos fan, but because all those years ago there was a little girl that had her eyes opened so she could see more than she had ever seen before.  That little girl dared to write on a banner, dared to include herself in something bigger than herself.  Only a few short years later, that same girl, a teenager now, would need more of the same daring spirit, but that is a story for another time.  

It's now decades later and my daring spirit is emerging once again.  I've been speaking and telling my story for years, and now it's time to write it.  The writing process has already demanded more courage than I thought I had in me.  That small seed planted long ago in a cafeteria, a little girl making her mark on a banner with a bright orange crayon has blossomed into a woman with a keyboard, writing a manuscript for a book that will be published later this year, if I understand this process correctly.

This writing of my story is my own personal Super Bowl, and the stakes could not be higher.

I have an adversary and to him this is no game.  My adversary would swallow me alive if he could.

I also have Someone who is for me.   I know that His Angel-Armies go before me and that they are my rear guard.  I also know Who is walking beside me on this journey.

I also have many, many someone's standing and cheering wildly from the stands and my gratitude knows no bounds.        

What do you call God?

It was difficult for me to call God "Father" for the longest time. It took me years to get there.  Decades, even. I distinctly remember the first time I heard someone do that as they prayed out loud. They said, "Father, ..." and then started saying the rest of their prayer.  I was about 14 years old. It felt very presumptuous to me, not to mention awkward. 

The more formal "Father in Heaven" or "Heavenly Father" was easier. Safer.  It's all I ever heard growing up.  "Father Far Away" is what it really meant in my head and heart, which makes sense considering that my own father was "nearby" only three times in my life, that I'm aware of.

For me, what I call God when I pray, and what I call him when talking about him to others has been like an orphaned child that has learned to speak their native language and then being adopted by a family from a foreign country.  That child has to learn a whole new language while navigating the familial relationships with everyone around them. 

When you grow up fatherless words like Dad, Daddy, or my favorite, Papa, don't roll off the tongue very easily at all. It actually feels quite awkward saying the words, forming them with your mouth and giving voice to them. Again, like trying to learn a foreign language.

When I think about all the terms of endearment my children use when talking to me, or referring to me, it warms my heart that Mom, Mommy, and my favorite, Mama, come easy for them. 
It's been a long journey for me, but I imagine that it warms God's heart that I've navigated my way to feeling more familial in my relationship with Him.  He has been endlessly patient with me in this process.

I'm a ways off from feeling comfortable calling God "Daddy". That would be way too awkward and just plain weird. I've begun warming up to saying Abba when I pray alone, which is a Hebrew term of endearment like Papa.  However, when I write in my prayer journal, it's recently become "Abba Daddy".  I can see where this is heading and not only does it feel safe, I'm beginning to speak this language fluently, like I've known it all along.  

What I know now, deep down in my knower, is that no matter how long it has taken me to get here, I've been The Apple of His Eye since I took my first tottering steps towards Him.