My Mother Was a Lunatic

 I have been pondering for some time now, how much easier it is to move a mountain than to change a person's paradigm! So much more courage and bravery is required to change your paradigm.

Sometimes it feels like straight foolishness to change your perceptions and the way you think. It is like, why don’t I just join the occult! It feels like stupid, blind faith, because people just cannot face the facts! I know what I know! And what I know, is opposite of what you think you know!

This can be where heroes are born! 

There takes a certain amount of compartmentalizing your emotions while at the same time throwing the doors of your heart wide open. Its very paradoxical and unstable, this transition. You HAVE to put down and control some emotions and thoughts, while at the same time being more vulnerable, open, and malleable than ever. It takes great courage and wisdom to know when to control you by compartmentalizing, and when to throw the doors of your heart wide open.

I know this from experience. I walked this treacherous path in many different ways over the last few years. I have faced the blackest parts of me and seen the truth. The blackest parts of how I deal with my finances and emotions, which for me go hand in hand sometimes. I have to focus on the pitch-blackness of my faith in God. My core and foundation was shaken, cracked open like a walnut, and then repaired.  In order to face this, I had to compartmentalize how I felt about my pitch-blackness. I could not let the anger and the grief over take me. The anger and the grief felt like my truth. The betrayal was my truth. Then, I could not let the absurdity of other’s truths overwhelm me.

For some people it is complete idiocy to know God as a betrayer and for others is complete idiocy to know God as Good.  For some people it’s hard to watch God making their mistakes to prosper when the truth is they should be punished.  How do we help people make that leap, when they don’t want to make the leap? How do we help people who think moving a mountain is easier than changing their mind? How do get our one ray of light in to their darkness when we sound like complete lunatics?

I must admit my mother was a lunatic! And that Pastor Bill Johnson and all his staff, they were lunatics as well!  Do not be angry with me! It was my truth!  I still like them. I just thought they were really fooled!

After Dad died, all this business about God being good was just nuts to me! Absurdity! Foolishness! How could my mother, who just lost her husband, and possibly the ministry we gave our lives too, and friends, how could she still think God is good? She was delusional!

Then, Pastor Bill and all his staff saying God is good, even though they have experienced such losses like I had. Saying things like sometimes we just have to trust His goodness. Well, why would I trust the very God who just let my father die?

I do not believe God afflicted my Dad. Cancer is straight from the pits of hell. But if God is so big, mighty, and just, then heal my Dad! If anyone deserves it, Dad and Mom do.

Guess what! It did not happen. Dad died!

How do you help a person past that, who cannot know and understand your paradigm? How do you introduce a new paradigm to people who do not want what you have? How do you carry your one candle into their pitch-blackness?

I know the secret! Because my lunatic mother, my lunatic Pastor Bill and his lunatic staff, my lunatic husband, and my lunatic friends showed me the secret.

As I said before, this is where heroes can be born. They had courage beyond compare. They went across my open, gaping, chasm, and they brought candles one by one until my pitch-blackness was no longer dark anymore, but filled with the light of glowing candles.

They showed me what I would not, could not allow God to show me. THEY LOVED ME ANYWAYS!! They loved me with an unconditional love that surpassed my darkness. They were constant sources of frustration with their goodness business, but never once did they judge me or condemn me for not believing the way they did. They did not force their belief on me or shove it down my throat. They just lived and loved and accepted me. They stood with me, when I could not let God be near me.

The key to changing the paradigm is two fold. One the person changing MUST have courage beyond all courage. And two, that person MUST have an onslaught of unconditional love and acceptance feeding their courage. I am not saying have no boundaries or limits! Boundaries are a whole other message though. Talk to Chip Judd about those!

Some people have courage to jump right into the pool when it’s just opened up in the spring. Some people just have courage to ease down in the pool via the steps taking at least an hour to wet their head. And some people don’t even have courage to put on their bathing suit and come. But love them. Love them where they are. Bring them no condemnation or judgment when disagreeing. My mother loved me even when I thought her God was a betrayer. She didn’t force her belief that He is good on to me. And slowly but surely, through her actions in her unconditional love, she reminded me of my Father’s house. She and many others on staff at Bethel Church reminded me why I thought He was good. They brought me to that precipice and they jumped with me! And now, my God is no longer my betrayer.

I will admit it took time. Almost 18 months. I felt like such a loser for pursuing the opposite of my truth. But now I believe. Now I know. Every once in while a feeling or a thought says I am a lunatic now!  But then something small happens to give me a Jesus Loves Me moment, and I know that small thing could have been no one else but my Father in heaven. My mother is no longer a lunatic.