Disobedience for Years

I have been in disobedience for years.  It’s been ever present on my mind and heart, but something always intercepted my attempts to move forward.  So many things vied for my attention that were worthy of that focus: growing children, growing grandchildren, growing a relationship with the man I would eventually marry, growing a business with my husband, growing in personal ways.  So, what is this which I have shown disregard and allowed myself to be deceived with intentions instead of intentional actions?

It’s a book.  A book I lived out in my life’s experience.  It’s an incredible account that when I share it with others, I am met with jaws dropped, frozen in time with sheer disbelief that such an ordeal actually happened to someone they know, since it sounds like an episode from one of those weekly investigative journalism TV shows.  Details of this narrative are interwoven with demonstrations of abuse of power and greed.  This is a story of innocent ones being exposed to toxic chemicals with toxic mindsets to match from the adults who neglected care for them in order to accomplish their own selfish agendas.  It occurred in the late 1980’s and early 90’s.  It needs to be shared not only because of the atrocities that occurred to elementary school children and teachers, but also my desire is that it will give hope and encouragement from my journey through toxicity to wellness: spiritually, mentally and ultimately physically.

Intrigued?  Perhaps you are wondering why, if it’s truly as monumentally significant as I claim, haven’t I shared it yet. Initially, I was going to write it once I was settled into a new home routine with the resultant disability that ended my decade of teaching in the public-school system.  When I was rendered no longer able to teach, I suffered from grief over loss of that which I loved.  I was now home-bound 24/7 as a bubble-lady; strongly reactive to everything from perfume to typical building materials ubiquitous in our indoor environments yet which rendered me incapacitated. What most people heartily breathe in every day, would send me collapsing down to the floor, flopping around like a fish out of water with grand maul seizures. However, with the determination to survive for the sake of my children, I leveraged unconditional love and fierce momma bear protection for them to fully recover from a disease little was known about.  At the onset, most thought it was just a psychological issue; and I was painted as that crazy lady who thinks she’s sick all the time; until it started to happen with others, which included our Gulf War vets and even a Missouri Department of Health building; of all places.  

With my attempts to purge from myself and carefully place onto paper, every detail I had recorded in my own private journals, I discovered with writing the first few chapters, that it was so raw with what had been stolen from me that I just word vomited out my bitterness and unforgiveness against everyone from school officials to my now ex-husband and his family. I had to put away the toxic words that were a result of my toxic mindset and heart.

It was a few years later, after my own personal journey to deliverance, and a newfound love affair with Jesus, that I decided it was time to rewrite from a posture of wellness and contentment.  It was now being birthed from a different viewpoint; one in which bitterness was transformed into gratitude.  If not for that horrific time in my life that seemed to rob me of every possession and everything dear, (with the exception of my precious children,) I would not have had my heart, mind and life transformed.  This metamorphosis brought forth lovely gifts from what was initially ugly and broken.  In my desperate search so as not to die and leave my children to grow up without their mother, I had to find a way to freedom from the daily torment of having my life reduced to rubble.  I eventually found the only One who could bring me to a healthy and whole state of being.  I came to Jesus as I was; an unsightly mass of clay which He lovingly molded into a vessel that could now be used to serve others in a way we only can when we allow the Potter to work His glory on the Potter’s wheel.  

I made it through the rewrite of the first few chapters of this incredible account.  This time it had a freshness that made it a pleasant and fascinating experience to dive into the pages from what I recorded of the early events that first school year in a newly constructed elementary wing. Sadly however, all too soon, I allowed the busyness of life to steal all my attention and I was no longer focused on the finished product.  That manuscript found its way, yet again, into a dark, desk drawer.

A few years later, with a new husband and a new life, a rewrite was in order and I made it to chapter 13!  Then, with a lack of self-discipline, I allowed the momentum I was gaining to erode into inactivity once again.  I permitted my pursuit of writing to escape my grasp as I just would not motivate myself to stick to the very simple and consistent daily routine which allowed for each chapter of my life to play itself out: devotional time with God, work out at the gym, work our business which was now from home, write, and meals.  Although this was not complicated, something seemed to deter my attempts to persevere with my writing. I felt invisible chains restraining me like those tiny ropes in Gulliver’s travels that held him down, albeit from a far weaker source of strength than Gulliver himself.  I felt imprisoned by lack of motivation to write.

One more pledge to write followed a few years later and I was declaring my “commitment” to get it finished this time!  When was that?  According to my Facebook Timeline Memory; five years ago!  Now my jaw was the one dropping!  How could that much time possibly have passed?  Hadn’t it just been a year; two at most?!

Just as I have been transported through time with the decades which have passed, so has my manuscript with the technological advances of how we produce and save documents.  What started on an IBM Selectric typewriter morphed into a DOS computer. I was exhilarated to watch my orange, boxy font from the analog screen feed onto a cheerful sounding Dot Matrix printer that would zip, line by line, across the single feed perforated paper; the signal of the end of that day’s writing.  The medium to save that prized document was a floppy disk, then a hard disk drive, then CD’s, now to the Cloud, which, where is that anyway?

My point in calling myself out here is that time passes far more quickly than we ever realize or understand.  Those very important gifts, if not intentionally executed and given away, will die with us.  There is one thing I fear more than any other, and that’s to step on over to the next phase of eternity having not completed all the reasons I was given life on Earth.  I hope I’m not readdressing this again in another five years but will be able to welcome the completion of a manuscript that I pray will bless others far beyond what I am able to fathom. 

I have a vintage typewriter, a gift from my father who loved his typewriter business, and it sits perched on the top shelf of my modern farmhouse bookcase.  It’s behind my kitchen office, intentionally exposed as a reminder.  That charming little typewriter, which someone’s fingers painstakingly plucked away on each key, reminds me every time I turn around or walk through the kitchen, that first and foremost, are the priorities of that which we are to complete in the time-frame we are called.  What we are to accomplish will be interwoven in a timeless manner with how we bless and impact others in serving with our gifts and callings.  Our gifts and callings also are creative outlets as an expression of ourselves. How that is created and expressed is as multidimensional as we are as humans; each unique and beautiful.

Regret is not what I want to have when my journey here is complete.  I believe that is the greatest tragedy when life is ending. Another reminder that gift from my father brings is that time here is short to bring impact to others as he was only on Earth a brief 62 years.  

I pray for all of us that we finish this incredible race, having run well and having accomplished our purpose(s) for why we are here for such a time as this.  May you be blessed as you utilize your gifts to bless others!