Technically Speaking by Sharon Lurie

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© 2016 David's Harp and Pen

Mood:  Angrily Confused
 
DISCLAIMERS: This blog is based, in part, upon actual events and people. Certain actions and characters have been dramatized and fictionalized, but are inspired by true events and real people. Certain other characters, events, and names used herein are entirely fictitious. Any similarity of those fictional characters or events to the names, attributes, or background of any real person, living or dead, or to any actual events is coincidental and unintentional, so I don’t want to hear any moaning and groaning from the customer service/technical support community claiming I am making them look bad.  I assure you that you don’t need my help to do that.

There are many times in life when one questions reality, the meaning of life, and everything one has been taught to be true.  In the last year, those times have never been as frequent and intense as when I am dealing with customer service or technical support.

For example, I had to call a government office about a governmental matter.  They had no online support, and though they had a website that listed a telephone number, nowhere did the website list the times the call line was open.  I called and was on hold for upwards of 90 minutes, listening to some cheesy elevator music interspersed with a recording of some friendly government employee saying how important my telephone call was to her, and someone would be with me shortly.  The call was eventually dropped, and so I determined to try in the morning.

I called again the next day, and only waited an hour before someone answered.  I asked the representative what their call center hours were, and was told they were from 10:30 AM-2:30 PM Monday through Friday.  I had called the day before at 3.

I said, “Why don’t you have your call center hours listed on your website?  And when I called after hours yesterday, I didn’t get any message saying what your hours were, nor was I given an option to leave a message.  I waited on hold for 90 minutes for nothing.  Why doesn’t your hold message say what the call center hours are?”

The representative replied, “Why would we do that?”  Then we both had a hearty laugh while I changed my political affiliation to Libertarian.

Then there was the time I called a lienholder for a copy of a statement of my account, only to be told over the telephone that the terms of my loan repayment had been drastically changed, and not in my favor.  I said to the account representative, “I’ve not received any notice of any changes.   I’ve not gotten anything in the mail.”

The representative replied, “Oh, we wouldn’t notify you ahead of time about that.”  Again, the representative and I had a good chuckle as I decided to check out the Facebook page for one of those groups that protests greed and capitalism while taking selfies on high-end smartphones and drinking $50 lattés.

Another favorite was when I paid my cellular telephone bill, and though I had proof of such, my cellular carrier at the time claimed at first they had no record of the payment, and were about to suspend my service.  I got through to a customer service representative, who then informed me that they had “received” my payment, but it wasn’t “posted” to my account, which could take anywhere from 24 to 1,795,245 hours, and even though they had my payment, my service could still be shut off, and I would then have to pay extra to have it restored.  Even though I’d paid it on time.  And had proof.  Therefore, I did what is usually advised in such a situation.  I asked to speak to a supervisor.

“No, I won’t do that,” the customer service representative answered.  “A supervisor won’t tell you anything different than what I said.”

“But you admit you received my payment on time, yet you’re still threatening to suspend my service and assess a late fee to my account.  That’s not right.  Why won’t you let me speak to a supervisor?” I asked.

“Because it’s a safety issue.”

“A safety issue?”

“Yes.  We only have a few supervisors, and if I call one over here to speak to you, that means that one won’t be available for the other reps, and that would put us all at risk.”

I listened dumbfounded as I tried to figure out how simply asking for a supervisor about my payment turned into a threat to national security.

I think one of the most frustrating things about the state of customer service and technical support these days is that when companies make decisions that will ultimately have a negative effect on the customer, they try to spin it by saying the policy change, price increase, or what have you is in order to “serve you better.”

Like how, when my credit union notified us members they were going to start closing at 5 p.m. each day instead of 6 p.m., they said it was in order to serve us better.  How is closing an hour earlier, when most people don’t get off work until 5 p.m. and struggle to make it in traffic to the credit union by 6 p.m. as it is, serving the members better?

Then there was the time when my wireless provider, whom I shall refer to as “Horizon,” got rid of their $30/month unlimited data plan and replaced it with two gigabytes of data a month for $30.  Many customers were upset about the change, so much so that the change made the news.

I had to go to the wireless store for something else, so I decided to ask the technical support guy why they got rid of the unlimited data plan.

“Well, Miss Lurie,” he replied, “we here at Horizon strive to be the best of America’s wireless service providers, staying on the cutting edge of innovation and customer service.  We terminated our unlimited data plans in order to serve you better.”

I asked, “But how is going from unlimited data down to two gigabytes serving me better?”

“Well, we found that none of our customers were using up the unlimited data.”

“But, how could we if it were unlimited?  Doesn’t unlimited, by its very definition, mean it can’t be used up?”

“True, but we found that only 2% of our customers were going over two gigabytes of data per month.”

“But people don’t want to have to keep track of their data usage.  That’s a lot harder than trying to keep track of how many minutes of calls or how many text messages someone’s sent or received.  How is making your customers have to track their data usage serving them better?”

“Well, all the other major carriers are getting rid of their unlimited data plans, too.”

“Yeah, but you just said you’re the innovator and leader among wireless carriers.  Now you want to be just like the others?  If they all jumped off a cliff, would you do it, too?”

“Okay, do you want to know the real reason?”

“Do tell.”

“When we introduced the 4G network, it kept crashing because it couldn’t handle the traffic.  There are customers who spend all day on their phones doing data-intensive tasks like streaming music and video chat, and that caused so many network outages that we decided to cap the unlimited data to discourage folks from running the wireless internet all day on their phones.  Once we build up the network, we’ll probably bring the unlimited plans back.”

“Okay, well that makes sense.  The network is new and it needs tweaking.  I can understand that and respect that.  Why didn’t you just tell your customers that to begin with?”

“In order to serve you better.”

As you can tell, I, like many others, have had some doozies of bad customer service experiences.  However, the one I had in the last year was the Mother of All Doozies.

I recently changed from another wireless carrier back to Horizon.  I purchased from them a tablet for work, made by a company I shall refer to as “Hamstrung.”  As soon as the return period had ended on the tablet, it began having problems staying connected to wi-fi.  I took it to several different wi-fi hotspots to see if the problem was with my wi-fi at home.  It wouldn’t stay connected anywhere.  I called Horizon technical support, who told me the usual:  restart it, perform a hard reset, call them if it didn’t help, lather, rinse, repeat.  I did all that, and it didn’t help.

I then took the tablet to one of the Horizon stores to have one of their technicians look at it.  I explained to him everything that was going on, so he connected it to the store’s wi-fi.  We waited thirty minutes, and would you believe the wi-fi connection on the tablet didn’t drop once?  I felt a bit foolish, and the technician suggested the problem may have been with the wi-fi hotspots I was using.  I told him I had been to nine.  He then said my best bet was to let Hamstrung deal with is, as the tablet had a one-year manufacturer warranty.

I called Hamstrung technical support, and they said to take it to “Big Box,” a chain of electronic stores, as each one had a Hamstrung kiosk with Hamstrung technicians.  I called my local Big Box to ask them when the Hamstrung kiosk was open.  I was told 10 AM-9 PM.  I then asked if there was a certain time to come in that was better than another.  They said that any time was good and technicians were always there during those hours.

I arrived at Big Box at 4 PM, and there were no Hamstrung technicians.  I asked at the front counter where they were, and the door greeter said, “Oh, they’re all at lunch now.  I’m not sure when they’ll be back.”

While a bit miffed, I chalked it up to a miscommunication on the telephone and waited another 30 minutes for the Hamstrung technicians to return.  When they did, again, they tried to say the problem was with all nine wi-fi hotspots I’d been using and not with their tablet.  When I told them that was a statistical improbability, they offered to perform a software update, which in no way fixed the problem.  The Hamstrung technicians at Big Box then said there was nothing more they could do and I would have to call Hamstrung for further instructions.

I called Hamstrung and spoke with a nice gentleman who sounded about 20 years old and had a Valley Boy accent.  I told him my tablature tale of woe, and he, along with the rest of Hamstrungia, said the problem had to be with the nine wi-fi hotspots I’d been using.  I told him that couldn’t be true, so then he suggested the problem was “operator error.”  I told him that couldn’t be true, either, as I had successfully connected my Hemorrhoid smartphone and Macintosh computer to all nine wi-fi hotspots without incident.

“Since your device is out of warranty, Miss Lurie, I’m afraid there is nothing more we can do,” the telephone guy said.

“But it’s not out of warranty.  I only bought it six months ago,” I responded.

“Do you have your proof of purchase?”  he asked.  I replied in the affirmative.  He instructed me on where to send it.

“Once we receive it, I’ll activate a service ticket for your tablet, and you can either ship it to us or take it one of our service centers,” he said.

“Do you have any service centers in Tennessee?” I asked.  He checked his system and told me they didn’t.

“I’m going to New Jersey in a few days, and I’ll be there for over two weeks.  Do you have any service centers there?”  I asked.

“Yes we do,” he answered.  Silence.

“Where in New Jersey?” I asked.

“25 Broadway,” he answered.

“Which city?” I asked.

“I don’t understand the question.”

“Which city in New Jersey?”

“I’m not following you.”

“Sir, New Jersey is a state.”

“I’m still not following you.”

“New Jersey is a state.  There are many cities in New Jersey.  Many of them have streets called Broadway.  In which city in the State of New Jersey is the Hamstrung Service Center at 25 Broadway located?”

“I am afraid I can’t be of assistance to you, Miss Lurie.  I’m going to have to escalate your request.”

I called one of my cousins, who still lives in New Jersey, when I got off the telephone.

“Has New Jersey been downgraded from state to city, like Pluto got downgraded from planet to asteroid or whatever it’s classified as now?”  I asked.

My cousin asked, “Sharon, have you been standing too close to the air purifier again?”

I ended up sending the tablet into Hamstrung’s repair facility.  They sent it back, saying they had no problems keeping it connected to wi-fi, and that the problem must be all the wi-fi hotspots in Nashville, Tennessee, along with “operator error.”

My work was being affected, as the tablet wasn’t reliable.  I couldn’t return it to Horizon because the return period had passed.  At this point, I was starting to question my mental state.  I was starting to think I really was the problem.  I was also questioning everything I’d learned in high school geography.

Upon its return, I took the tablet to two new wi-fi hotspots, to which it also couldn’t stay connected, making a grand total of eleven.  I called Hamstrung again, and they declared that all the wi-fi hotspots in The People’s Republic of Nashville must be out of whack.

I decided as a last ditch effort to return to Big Box so I could deal with Hamstrung face to face.  I called the store again and spoke to a very nice technician who listened to my plight and said, “Oh, I know what the problem is.  There’s a setting in your tablet’s biosphere which, when the setting is on, causes it to disconnect from wi-fi if it senses a disturbance in The Force.  Just bring it to the store, and I can infiltrate the biosphere and turn that setting off.”

“Oh, wonderful!  I answered.  I can bring it in tomorrow.  Is there a certain time I should stop by?”

“Nope.  Someone will be here all day.  Stop by any time.”

I stopped by the next day, and no one was there.  I asked the door greeter where the Hamstrung technicians were, and she said she didn’t know.

At this point, I was livid.  I exclaimed, “I called yesterday and spoke with one of them.  I asked him when to stop by, and he said any time was good.  I’ve already wasted enough time trying to get this tablet to work!”

The door greeter answered, “I’m sorry, ma’am, but we don’t know where the one on duty is.  He left for his lunch break almost 90 minutes ago.”

“You can’t get him on the phone?”

“He doesn’t have a phone.”

“The technician for a corporation who gets 72% of its revenue from the sale of mobile telephones doesn’t have one?”

“I know, right?”

I began to feel the capillaries throughout my body burst from the frustration of the odyssey that was my tablet’s wi-fi issue.  That’s when HE walked in.

He had a twinkle in his eye.  He had a spring in his step.  He had a beard that could have singlehandedly supplied all of those male hair loss clinics in America from now until Jesus returns.

“I heard you’re looking for me?”  asked the man who, from this time forth and forevermore, shall be known as Hamstrung Hipster Technician (H²T).

I told him about the tablet saga and what the last technician had said about recombobulating my biosphere.

“Well, that would work if Splint was your wireless provider, but your tablet is with Horizon, and that setting doesn’t exist on yours,” H²T explained.

At this point, I thought my head was going to explode.  I had spoken to so many different people, and got so many different stories, as to why my tablet wasn’t functioning properly.  Maybe the problem was Nashville.  Or, maybe the problem was me.  Then, H²T asked me something that changed everything.

“Does your tablet stay connected to Bluetooth?”

I had to think about it.  I had only connected a Bluetooth keyboard to it a few times, and that didn’t stay connected, either, but at the time, I thought the problem was the keyboard, as it had died shortly thereafter.

“Come to think of it, no, my Bluetooth keyboard didn’t stay connected, either,” I answered.

“Well, on these tablets, the Trans-Siberian Orchestrator controls both the Bluetooth and the wi-fi, so if one goes bad, the other one does, too.  Now, I’m just a lowly Hamstrung technician, but if I were you, I would call the 800 number, as there’s only so much a minion like me here at Big Box can do.  Tell them what I said and ask them to elevate your tablet to second level support.”

For the first time since the tablet situation had started, I felt like I was getting somewhere.  I thanked H²T for his suggestion and was about to leave, when I decided to ask him, “Hey, just out of curiosity, how come you don’t carry a cellphone, since you work for a cellphone manufacturer?”

“In order to serve you better,” he answered with a grin.

Most of us display certain physical “ticks” when we’re angry.  Mine is my eyes start blinking at high rates of speed.  I just stood there speechless, unsure if H²T were joking or if he had been serious.

“Whooooaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!” he exclaimed as he stared at me.  “I’ve never seen anyone blink that fast!  Your eyes are like mini wind turbines–with lashes!”

I gathered my tablet and called Hamstrung for the umpteenth time.

The technician on the telephone said, “I’m sorry, Ma’am, but your tablet was out of warranty.”

“No, it is not!”  I replied, my voice getting higher as I spoke.

“I’m going to give you my email address.  Would you please send your proof of purchase to me?”  He gave me his email address and I shot of the email while I was on the telephone with him.

“Have you gotten it yet?”  I asked, trying to keep my voice in a decibel that humans could hear.

“Hmmm…okay, Miss Lurie.  I’ve received your proof of purchase, but it can take at least 48 hours to post to our repair request ticket system.”

“I don’t know what this mysterious ‘posting’ is, but I am sure I don’t like it!”  I mumbled under my breath.

“What did you say, Miss Lurie?”

“Nothing.  Just thinking about Pluto.”

After an awkward silence, I told the Hamstrung telephone representative what H²T had said. 

He said, “Miss Lurie, I apologize for the inconvenience you’re experienced.  Here at Hamstrung, we strive for 100% customer satisfaction each and every time.  I’ll create a new support ticket for you and send a prepaid shipping label for you to return your tablet to our repair facility just as soon as your proof of purchase posts.  I have escalated your tablet to our second level support, where we will have someone watch your tablet nonstop for 72 hours, hook it up to our military grade diagnostic equipment, and have our second level support technicians utilize our state of the art Ouija boards in order to diagnose the problem.”

“Thank you,” I answered, feeling both hopeful and scared.

“Thank you for calling Hamstrung.  We appreciate your business.  If you’ll stay on the line for a brief customer service survey, we would appreciate it, as we always want to know how we can serve you better.”

Several thoughts came to mind, but prudently, I kept them all to myself.

I sent my tablet to Hamstrung for the second time.  A few days later, I received an email from them about it, and lo and behold, just as H²T had claimed, the Trans-Siberian Orchestrator was bad and needed to be replaced.  I got the tablet back and am happy to report that it has stayed connected to both Bluetooth and wi-fi.  No, it wasn’t the state of Nashville wi-fi, nor was it operator error.  In other words, it wasn’t me.  I wasn’t crazy.  I was not crazy.  I.  WAS.  NOT.  CRAY-ZEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!

A few weeks later, I had to purchase something at Big Box.  Hamstrung had a big shindig going on to celebrate the release of the Hamstrung Travesty M 7, their newest model Hemorrhoid smartphone/slow cooker/coffee maker.  One of their salesmen approached and asked me if I wanted a demonstration.

“No,” I replied.  “I’ll never purchase another Hamstrung product again.”

“But Hamstrung is the top-rated cellular telephone manufacturer in the world, and we offer a one-year manufacturer warranty and free, award-winning support on all our products,” he said enthusiastically.

Determined to keep my blinking under the state speed limit, I answered, “Thank you, but I firmly believe that psychological warfare is a poor foundation for my relationships with electronics manufacturers.”

It’s also a terrible basis for personal relationships.

About six months ago, I saw a meme on Facebook that said, “Confusion is the first sign of abuse.”  Most of us, when we think of abuse, think of something obvious and overtly aggressive.  We think of insults, violent outbursts, and the ilk, so when abuse comes in clandestine fashion, we often miss it, and for some, it takes months and even years of retrospection to finally identify the dynamics of the relationship for what they really were.  Feeling unsettled, off kilter, wondering constantly where one stands, and beginning to wonder about one’s own sanity should be the first indicators that something is wrong.

We joke about bad customer service experiences, especially when dealing with a large company like Hamstrung, when we have to speak to multitudes of different people about a problem, and each representative gives us a different story.  What about when it’s the same person always giving us a different story?

There were several times when my tablet, in the presence of the Horizon and Hamstrung technicians, was perfectly behaved and stayed connected to wi-fi.  What about that person who acts one way in the presence of outsiders, but is someone completely different, and dare I say difficult and cruel, when behind closed doors?  Then, when we finally attempt to explain the truth to those outsiders, our credibility is called into question.

Or, how about when a business or government agency makes a policy change that adversely affects us and they justify it by saying it’s “serving us better?”  There are also those people who will mistreat us and say they’re doing so for our own good, or that we brought the mistreatment on ourselves, if they even acknowledge they’re mistreating us at all.

I think some of the Hamstrung telephone representatives would’ve rather died than admit something was wrong with my tablet.  They wanted to blame anything and everything except their product.  Abusers do the same thing, shifting blame, and making themselves out to be the victims and painting their prey as the predators.

Love shouldn’t confuse, demean, or devalue.  If we spend the bulk of our time in a relationship doubting our sanity, questioning our value, walking on eggshells, behaving in ways we wouldn’t otherwise, and asking ourselves, “What the heck just happened?” we are not being loved, we are being abused, and the first step to getting well is getting out.

If you have been the victim of or think you have been the victim of psychological abuse, particularly the covert kind, there is help available.  Southlake Christian Counseling and Shannon Thomas offer some wonderful resources for getting started on the journey out of the fog.

You are not alone, and you can’t get safely to the other side alone, either.  We all need a Hamstrung Hipster Technician who knows the questions to ask and in which direction to point us. (Hamstrung Corporation, if you’re listening, H²T needs a raise.  H²T needs a promotion.  And for the love of all that is good and pure, H²T needs time management classes.  Oh, and also a cell phone.)

The End

MILK!!!!!!!

Divine Nomenclature by Sharon Lurie

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-->© 2015 David's Harp and Pen

Mood:  Spooky

DISCLAIMERS: This blog is based, in part, upon actual events and people. Certain actions and characters have been dramatized and fictionalized, but are inspired by true events and real people. Certain other characters, events, and names used herein are entirely fictitious. Any similarity of those fictional characters or events to the names, attributes, or backgrounds of any real persons, living or dead, or to any actual events is coincidental and unintentional, because in real life, being happy to find out your husband murdered his first wife in cold blood would NEVER happen, right?

My maternal grandmother was a Norwegian powerhouse we grandchildren called Munna.  Since I was the youngest and lived the closest to her, I spent the most time with her.  Just as Ragnar Lothbrok was the scourge of France and England, Munna was the scourge of Passaic County, New Jersey, and grammar slackers everywhere.

Munna, for fun, would correct the grammar and spelling on any junk mail she received and return it to the sender in hopes they would amend their slacking ways.  She lived in a senior citizen building where each resident had a numbered, assigned parking spot.  Even though these were clearly marked throughout the parking lot, visitors to the building would often park in the residents’ parking spots.  Whenever someone parked in Munna’s parking spot, she would block the offender’s car in with her car and go to her apartment.  Usually in short order, the building security guard would knock on Munna’s apartment door, accompanied by the driver of the car in Munna’s parking spot.  Munna would then read the culprit the Riot Act.  Let me tell you, you have never been guilt-mongered until you’ve been Munna guilt-mongered.  She once chewed out a pastor who parked in her parking spot in such bloody fashion as to make “300” look like a paper cut.

Probably my favorite memories of Munna were when she took me to the local libraries for the free movie programs.  Everyone else in attendance was at least 60 years older than me, so I became everyone’s surrogate grandchild.  It was at these gatherings of retired sexa-, septua-, and octogenarians that I developed both an irrational - yet at the same time completely healthy - fear of polyester clothing and sensible shoes.  It was also at these gatherings that I first saw what would become my favorite movie of all time.

Rebecca, which came out in 1940, was based on the novel of the same name by Daphne du Maurier.  Now, because of the Hays Code, Alfred Hitchcock had to modify the script in one key area, but mostly he was able to stay true to the source material.

The novel is about a young woman who marries an older, wealthy aristocrat after only knowing him for two weeks.  (Dear Readers, please don’t marry someone you barely know, lest you want to be the headlining act of either a Hitchcock film or an episode of “Forensic Files,” and for all the wrong reasons, too.)  After their whirlwind romance in Monte Carlo and a few more weeks of honeymooning, Max de Winter takes his new young bride to his British estate, Manderley.  This is usually where the fairy tale ends, but du Maurier’s magnum opus then weaves a terrifying tale representative of all great Gothic novels.  Mrs. de Winter Number Two soon learns about Rebecca, Maxim’s late first wife, who died under mysterious circumstances and whose presence overshadows everyone and everything at the manor.  The reader goes from page to page experiencing increasing suspicion.  Was Rebecca murdered?  Was she really still alive?  Was she a ghost or evil spirit out to haunt the living and torment the woman she believed was trying to take her place?

Maxim’s new wife spends a good part of the story feeling conspicuously insecure about her predecessor - that she can’t measure up, that Maxim wishes Rebecca were still alive - and working herself up into an emotional frenzy about Rebecca, whom she sees as her nemesis and main competitor for Maxim’s affections.

*SIDE NOTE/SPOILER ALERT*

After Rebecca’s body is discovered, Maxim confesses to his new bride that he hated Rebecca because of her cruelty and infidelity and, upon her telling him she was pregnant with her cousin’s child, Maxim shot and killed her.  Our female protagonist doesn’t bat an eyelash that the man she married just admitted to committing uxoricide.  She is just positively giddy that he really didn’t love his first wife, and that on top of marrying him when she knew bupkis about him.  Dear Female Readers, please be smarter than our female protagonist.

Daphne du Maurier, remarkable raconteuse that she was, used some ingenious literary techniques to help add the air of mystery.  For one, she named the novel after Rebecca, not the second wife.  Next, to show how much Rebecca’s memory drove the main characters, du Maurier never names the new wife.

Names are funny things.  In American society we usually choose names by what sounds nice to us.  In Bible times, names had great significance.  Names meant something.  Sometimes a person’s name reflected the hope the parent had for the child’s future.  Other times, as in the case of Benoni and Jabez, they are a monument to the parent’s wounds or disappointments.

All of us have a name we are trying to either live up to or live down.  Thankfully, for the children of God, He doesn’t leave us to the names we were or weren’t given.

Jacob had a rough start.  The second-born son in a Middle Eastern culture, he was persona non grata.  He was called “supplanter” at birth, and that name set the tone for the beginning of his life.

The start of Jacob’s story shows that he lived up to his name.  He cheated his brother.  He lied to his father.  He cheated his uncle.  His name was becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy - until He wrestled with God.

I had read the story of Jacob’s encounter with the Angel of the Lord many times, but it wasn’t until I read it in The Amplified Bible that it really hit home.

Genesis 32:24-28 says, “And Jacob was left alone, and a Man wrestled with him until daybreak.  And when [the Man] saw that He did not prevail against [Jacob], He touched the hollow of his thigh; and Jacob’s thigh was put out of joint as he wrestled with Him.  Then He said, ‘Let Me go, for day is breaking.’ But [Jacob] said, ‘I will not let You go unless You declare a blessing upon me.’  [The Man] asked him, ‘What is your name?’ And [in shock of realization, whispering] he said, ‘Jacob [supplanter, schemer, trickster, swindler]!’  And He said, ‘Your name shall be called no more Jacob [supplanter], but Israel [contender with God]; for you have contended and have power with God and with men and have prevailed.’”

To Jacob, his name wasn’t just what he went by to his family and friends.  It was his identity of which he was painfully aware every day of his life, and an encounter with God changed all that.  However, it wasn’t just Jacob’s name that got changed that day.  When God changes our names, He changes His own name.  From that point forward, God was no longer “the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac.”  He became “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”  More importantly, He became “the God of Israel.”  When I gave my life to God during a blistering summer in 1987, He changed my name to “child of God,” and He changed His Name to “the God of Sharon.”

What is the name you want have or the one you want to shed?  Maybe you are like the second Mrs. de Winter, and the name you’re looking for is Beloved.  Cherished.  Valuable.  Maybe you are like Jacob and are trying to eschew some negative eponym like Stupid.  Worthless.  Troublemaker.  Unwanted.  Disappointment.

God is still in the name-changing business, and He does it in a way that could make even the Master of Suspense envious.

Hebrews 11:16 (The Amplified Bible)-“But the truth is that they were yearning for and aspiring to a better and more desirable country, that is, a heavenly [one]. For that reason God is not ashamed to be called their God [even to be surnamed their God—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob], for He has prepared a city for them.”

The End

MILK!!!!!!!

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The Rise of the Crocodile by Sharon Lurie

© 2015 David's Harp and Pen

Mood:  Wild

DISCLAIMERS: This blog is based, in part, upon actual events and people. Certain actions and characters have been dramatized and fictionalized, but are inspired by true events and real people. Certain other characters, events, and names used herein are entirely fictitious. Any similarity of those fictional characters or events to the name, attributes, or background of any real person, living or dead, or to any actual events is coincidental and unintentional, except the part about the babysitting.  Please don’t tell my old boss I wrote this.  He’s seven now, owns four more conglomerates, and if he gets wind of this, I’ll never work in this town again.  

A few years ago, I had to babysit my then boss.  My boss at the time was four.  (Through clever wranglings, some of which I don’t understand from a legal standpoint, his parents gave him controlling stake in the company.  I was in my late 30s, struggling to get by, and living in someone’s basement, whereas a toddler was the Chief Executive Officer of a successful business.  And to answer your next question, yes.  Life is cruel.)

For those that don’t know, and for reasons unclear to me, boys between the ages of 3-8 love to pull animal tails.  It doesn’t matter the animal or its size.  It’s almost as though little boys have some sort of biological drive or scientific need to do so, and according to them, being told not to pull animal tails is not only oppressive but downright totalitarian.  Little Boss Man kept pulling his German Shepherd’s tail, and I knew if I didn’t intervene, the German Shepherd was going to take matters into his own hands…er, paws.

I made a call to the Chairwoman of the Board, also known as Mom, as to proper punishment.  She told me to give Little Boss Man a time out in the corner with his hands raised.  Little Boss Man immediately began crying, saying the German Shepherd’s tail was asking for it, and that if I didn’t shorten his punishment, he would die and his arms would fall off.  He also told me what a horrible human being I was.  Since this wasn’t my first babysitting (or boss-with-a-Napolean-complex) rodeo, I suspected his tears were crocodilian in nature.  So, I decided to put it to the test.  In what I thought was a necessary violation of the normal employee-employer boundaries, I tickled him.  Little Boss Man laughed profusely.  When I stopped, I asked, “Now what is this?  I thought you were dying and your arms were going to fall off!”

Without skipping a beat, Little Boss Man went back to sobbing about the cruel and unusual nature of his punishment.  So, I tickled him again, which resulted in additional uproarious fits of laughter.  As the reader can imagine, when the time out was finished, Little Boss Man did not, indeed, die, and he retained full use of his extremities, ensuring that he could and would live to pull many a dog tail another day.  I, however, did not leave the experience unscathed.  Though I am not a parent, I witnessed something every parent does at some point or another:  I saw Little Boss Man learn how to lie.  More specifically, he had learned how to manipulate, and it made me profoundly sad.

I remember hearing a lecture about ten years ago by a psychologist about how children learn how to lie.  (Much of what he said is referenced in this article.)  He said it starts as young as six months.  The example he used is of a child being hungry.  The child may coo or whimper a little bit to get his mother’s attention, but if he’s ignored for whatever reason, he will escalate the situation by screaming louder and louder, as though in bodily distress, in order to get his needs met.  For most of us, if we encounter a pattern of being ignored or overlooked when asking for our basic needs, we either get in the habit of trying to meet them in inappropriate ways, or try to just go without.  Some of us vacillate between both.

Crocodiles are said to cry tears of ostensible remorse as they devour their victims.  The dictionary defines crocodile tears in part as “an insincere show of sorrow.”  The crocodile shows his deception in many ways.  For Little Boss Man, it was pretending to be near death to avoid a well-deserved punishment.  Sometimes the crocodile screams fire in order to simply get attention.  However, sometimes the crocodile puts on a brave face to give the illusion he’s in more control than he actually is.  Last summer, I realized I’ve worn the crocodile face in many regards.

It’s not an easy thing to admit one has a problem.  For me, the realization came from reading the second chapter of "Boundaries in Dating," entitled “Require and Embody Truth.”  I remember when the lines from the book hit me over the head like a velvet brick:  “Finally, if you don't want to be in a relationship with a liar, be an honest person yourself.”

I had found myself in a pattern of relationships with dishonest people.  Part of it was I had a terrible time addressing problems that I saw or being direct about things I needed.  A good part of that was learned behavior on my part.  I guess you could say I come from a culture of crocodiles that either pretend they’re stronger than they are or who only know how to get what they need through manipulation and theatrics.  Because of that, I developed a pattern of communication that was great for appearances but bad for long-term relationships.

Sometimes, we don’t remember how a bad habit started, but we had an “event” that cemented it.  For me, it was a guy. Someone I really admired, respected, and trusted.  I tried to be honest with him about some emotional support I needed.  In his defense, I think he was channeling the crocodile, too, but he lashed out at me, to my surprise, and let me know in no uncertain terms that not only was I wrong for asking for help, I was wrong for even needing it.  I couldn’t get his words out of my head, and it began a long period of me pretending I didn’t need anything, even if going without put me in danger.

Around the time I began reading “Boundaries in Dating,” many of my single friends began either dating or getting married in disastrous fashion.  I won’t go into the gory details, but they were all making romantic choices so destructive and unwise that even Larry King, Donald Trump, and the late Elizabeth Taylor went on record to say, “Folks, you’re rushing into danger here.  Maybe you should work on your issues, not jump from relationship to relationship, or at least date the person longer than a week before getting engaged, don’t you think?”

As the reader can imagine, almost all of these ill-conceived romantic ventures ended badly.  I found myself not only sad seeing my friends suffer, but terribly disillusioned.  Some of them were older than I am and had been single longer than I have.  I kept wondering how these people who were so sensible otherwise could ignore such glaring red flags and be so foolish.  I also wondered if it were possible for me to be deceived like that.

I pondered and prayed about the situation, and finally the answer came to me:  my friends all fell into that trap because they were lying about their wound.  Some came from terribly dysfunctional homes with no support to speak of, while others had been alone a long time and were ashamed of their loneliness.  I remember one friend of mine who had said to me repeatedly, “I feel like I can’t talk about it with anyone.  If you’re still single at a certain age, people tell you it’s your fault because you’re either doing something wrong or you just want a relationship too much.”

Watching my friends get hurt made me realize I was in danger.  If I didn’t learn how to be honest about my emotional needs, I was going to be the next one to fall for a charlatan.  I realized, though, that part of getting needs met in healthy ways was learning to seek out healthy relationships.

There’s a person I’ve done a lot of writing with over the years whom I’ll call Mister Storyteller.  He was the one who first encouraged me to write scripts, and he and his lovely wife, Mrs. Script Editor, have been very kind to me over the years, like spiritual parents.  I have solid history with them, and they have stood by me when others couldn’t or wouldn’t.  I thought if I was going to do the hard work of being honest about my emotional needs, they would be a good place to start.

Mister Storyteller and I were working on a literary project together.  He asked me how I felt about the writing process.  I told him that I needed to get positive feedback.  I said I’d worked for many people who only told me what I did wrong, and never mentioned things I did well, and I really needed the encouragement.  While Mister Storyteller was always one who had offered positive comments about my writing, after we had that talk, I noticed every time he emailed me with notes on a current draft, he included positives about my work with each update.

A few weeks later, I took a chance and asked Mister Storyteller and Mrs. Script Editor if we could have a chat.  I was scared to death to admit to someone else that I’ve failed in my relationships in the past and needed help navigating those waters.  However, when I told them, they were so understanding.  They told me I was part of the family, they loved me, and would help me in any way they could.

I wanted to go further with learning to own my needs, address problems, and communicate honestly.  I joined a group of Christian women who meet once a week.  We laugh and cry together, and we allow one another to speak the truth and process our emotions without shame.  This has been a slow and difficult process for me, but a rewarding one, because as I’ve learned to be truthful both about what I need and problems I see, I’ve seen my relationships become all the more fruitful and rich.

Killing the crocodile is not any easy task, nor is it a one-time deal.  There is always the temptation to pretend we’re okay, to hide when we’ve screwed up for fear of rejection, or to seek attention and validation in unhealthy ways.  I don’t know that the crocodile ever dies completely.  I think we can get to the point where we just stop feeding him.  The sooner we get there, the better, and if you don’t believe me, just ask the toddler CEO.  *grin*

The End

MILK!!!!!!!

Isn’t She Lov-er-ly? by Sharon Lurie

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-->© 2014 David's Harp and Pen

Mood:  Secure

DISCLAIMERS: This blog is based, in part, upon actual events and people. Certain actions and characters have been dramatized and fictionalized, but are inspired by true events and real people. Certain other characters, events, and names used herein are entirely fictitious. Any similarity of those fictional characters or events to the name, attributes, or background of any real person, living or dead, or to any actual events is coincidental and unintentional…or, at least I hope so.  If people really are dropping like flies around Nicholas Sparks, someone needs to call the cops.

Recently, for reasons unclear to me at the time, I felt a pressing need to watch all of the movies of Nicholas Sparks, author of perennial favorites such as “The Notebook.”  For those unfamiliar with his work, his stories strongly resemble Mark Schultz songs and episodes of “24”:  gutwrenchingly sad, and in the end, there will be a body count.  If I remember correctly, “The Lucky One” had a higher death toll than the last installment of “Die Hard.”  If you are reading this and you have never seen a Nicholas Sparks movie, you can save your time, because they are exactly like Shakespeare’s tragedies - in the end, everybody dies.

I don’t mean to sound negative, though.  I think everyone should familiarize themselves with Mister Sparks’ repertoire because his films teach an important life lesson:  if you treat others well, don’t compromise your standards, and if you wait long enough, you will eventually find the love of your life who will bring you the greatest joy and fulfillment you have ever known…only to have that person snatched from you via an incurable disease or natural disaster two weeks later.

Just kidding…sort of.  Though I am not a fan of romantic comedies or romantic dramas, I found the schmaltzfests of the Sultan of Star-Crossed Lovers consistently entertaining and endearing.  However, when I watched “Nights in Rodanthe,” I got a lot more than just a good cry.

*SPOILER ALERT*

Jill Torrelson, one of the secondary characters in the story, died during an operation to remove a hemangioma, a benign cyst, from her face (she had a fatal allergic reaction to the anesthesia).  In a critical scene, Paul Flanner, the male protagonist, went to talk to Jill’s widower Robert who had the following to say about his late wife:

“Her eyes were dark brown and soft, like she’d never hurt a soul, and she wouldn’t, neither.  I knew Jill since we was in school.  That thing on her face, she always had it.  I didn’t care about it.  I never even saw it, but she wanted it off.  I’d find her in the bathroom crying, looking at it.  She’d be saying, ‘I want to be pretty for you.’  It broke my heart when she’d say that, because she was pretty.  She was so…but, that’s what she wanted.  She wanted the operation, and in our whole life, I don’t remember her asking for anything.  So, I said yes…She had all the love and kindness in the world right inside her.”

I want to talk about a disease that is running rampant today which seems to affect women mostly.  This plague upon the land is called Toxic Self-Loathing.  It is the practice of not seeing or actively degrading worth in ourselves because of our perceived lack of external or internal beauty (for those unfamiliar with the disease, click here).  Contrary to what we think, it is not harmless, it is not “cute,” it is not representative of Godly humility, nor is it something that goes away on its own in time.  It is a disease, and, if left unchecked, has devastating consequences.

What Toxic Self-Loathing Does to Us

The aforementioned scene in “Nights in Rodanthe” opened my eyes to something important:  Toxic Self-Loathing is deadly.  I never would’ve thought before that a little insecurity could be lethal, like it was in the case of Mrs. Torrelson, but often it does kill the one infected, though not in the dramatic and abrupt fashion seen in the movie.  Think about it:  the woman who hates herself will often give herself to abusive men, and many of those women end up dead at the hands of their abusers.  Another woman who can’t see physical beauty in herself will starve herself in an attempt to attain a physical ideal which, in the digital age of airbrushing, isn’t even real.  Yet another woman, believing she can’t be or do any better, might turn herself over to self-destructive behaviors such as alcoholism or drug abuse.

Every time we knock ourselves for reasons other than the conviction of the Holy Spirit, every time we call God a liar by telling ourselves we are not fearfully and wonderfully made, we are drinking poison into our spirits, pure and simple.  And if we think we are no good, we will behave in such fashion.

Mrs. Torrelson, despite all the reassurances from her husband, could not believe that she was beautiful unless she got rid of that cyst.  Her lack of belief in her own value literally cost her her life.  However, her Toxic Self-Loathing didn’t rob just her.

What Toxic Self-Loathing Does to Others

I have a good guy friend I will call the Shadow Boxer.  One night on the phone he told me about his ex-wife.  She was very insecure and suffered from congenital Toxic Self-Loathing.  He said, “She was physically beautiful, intelligent, and had an engaging personality.  But she never liked herself.  She thought she was ugly, for some reason I’ve never been able to fathom.  At first it was flattering, because she needed me so badly, but over time it became draining.  It was like a constant drip, drip, drip energy drain. I felt like I had to carry her all the time. The weight became unbearable, and I started to rebel.  At some point, I gave up trying to convince her that she was beautiful, because it never worked.”

The story did not have a happy ending.  For all he did to love her well, after a short time she left him for another man without much of an explanation, causing my friend a world of longstanding hurt.

I couldn’t get the conversation out of my head for many days following.  Shortly thereafter, I conducted one of my famous Facebook opinion polls.  I asked, “Which is harder for you to handle:  a person who is conceited and thinks he’s perfect and doesn’t make any mistakes, or the person who is rabidly insecure and always putting themselves down?”  Overwhelmingly, my friends answered the latter, to my shock.  They said it’s easier to bring a haughty person down than to lift an insecure person up, and most said that being around a self-hating person is draining.

The conversation with Shadow Boxer and the surprising results of my social media survey were hard to hear, but I needed to hear it.  A lot of women need to hear it.  So many of us become emotional black holes, so incapable of believing we are beautiful, valuable, and deserving of love that all the validation we receive is like pouring water down the drain.

Toxic Self-Loathing is not only a danger to us but a danger to those who love us.  Shadow Boxer’s ex-wife didn’t believe she was worthy of love, so she left (and thereby hurt) a good man to be with a bad man.  It is not uncommon for someone who questions her own value to leave a healthy person for an unhealthy one, which often causes the healthy person to wonder what was so terrible about him that his woman left him for an axe murderer.  A woman who marries and stays with an abuser because she thinks she doesn’t deserve any better sets the example for her daughters that they deserve to be abused, too.  I have also talked to a number of women who said they learned to berate themselves and their physical appearance because they had a mother who denigrated her own figure on a regular basis.  After all, if Mommy is ugly, and I come from her, then I must be ugly, too, right?

So, in other words, and I don’t know how else to say this, our not feeling good enough, in one way or another, makes those who try to love us feel not good enough, too.  Therefore, unless we do something about it, Toxic Self-Loathing is not only in danger of killing us, but infecting those around us.  Just ask Mister Torrelson what it was like every time he tried to reassure his wife she was beautiful.

(For the record, it’s not just women who suffer from Toxic Self-Loathing.  However, men usually berate themselves over their perceived lack of accomplishments and the mark they’ve made on the world, whereas with women it’s usually about their appearance or loveability.

I have a good guy friend who for many years constantly beat himself up because he felt he wasn’t where he needed to be in life and would never be good or strong enough to achieve anything.  Every time I tried to encourage him, he would tell me I didn’t know what I was talking about.  This is a man who started several extremely successful and profitable businesses and has also received numerous well-known accolades in the music world!  To hear him speak of himself as an utter failure, no matter what I said to the contrary, left me devastatingly sad .)

The Solution

Now that we’ve clearly defined the problem, what is the solution?  Telling ourselves or others to stop the Toxic Self-Loathing doesn’t work.  No one gets into the habit of hating herself overnight, so she won’t break the habit overnight either.  (For those who doubt the ineffectiveness of just telling someone to stop thinking negative thoughts, watch this.)

Jesus said the second greatest commandment was to love our neighbors as ourselves.  That says to me that there is a kind of selflove that is not only healthy, appropriate, and beneficial, but also natural.  I don’t think anyone comes into the world thinking they are ugly and worthless.  I think we all start out with a good self-concept, because apparently a good self-concept will allow us to see others in a positive light.  Therefore, the question is when is it that we begin to hate ourselves?  It is usually a traumatic event or a series of messages from people whose approval we seek early on that begins to plant those seeds of doubt about our own worth inside of us.

Many of us think all kinds of crazy things about ourselves:  we’re not pretty enough, we will never be successful, we will always screw up the good things in our lives, we will sabotage whatever relationships we have so it’s best not to get close to anyone, and the list goes on and on.  What I have discovered, however, is that there is usually one or a few foundational lies from which the Redwood Forest of Self-Hatred sprouts.  As with a tree, the most effective way to destroy those lies is to burn the root.  Kill the root, and the fruit has no choice but to follow.  The hard part often is finding that root.

I had a terminal case of Toxic Self-Loathing from the time I was eight years old until March of 2013.  Lie upon lie that I believed about myself compounded, and the weight of them almost killed me.  I got desperate and asked God to show me when and why I started to believe I had no value.  He showed me what that root was.  It was a lie, a message given to me by someone I both loved and trusted.  It was also deeply rooted around my heart, and it wasn’t going to give up that ground without a fight.

I am not going to say that following that revelation I never had an insecure thought about myself.  However, two things happened.  First of all, I stopped seeing that lie as a part of me and recognized for the first time that it was a tool from the Enemy to keep me from receiving love from God and His people.  Second, with that big lie exposed, a ton of lesser but still debilitating lies I had believed about myself for years lost their control over me, too.  God showing me the source of my problem was one of the tools necessary to fix it.  I had a lot of work on my part (and still do) to see myself as the beloved child of God that God says I am.  However, the war against Toxic Self-Loathing, for me, has become winnable and and my victory permanent.

Reader, you are beautiful and you have value.  God says so, and He wants to heal you of your Toxic Self-Loathing.  After all, He loves you too much to let you become Mister Sparks’ next casualty.  *grin*

The End

MILK!!!!!!!

The Great Pill-Popping by Sharon Lurie

© 2014 David's Harp and Pen

Mood:  Coherent

DISCLAIMERS: This blog is based, in part, upon actual events and people. Certain actions and characters have been dramatized and fictionalized, but are inspired by true events and real people. Certain other characters, events, and names used herein are entirely fictitious. Any similarity of those fictional characters or events to the name, attributes, or background of any real person, living or dead, or to any actual events is coincidental and unintentional…or maybe not.  Just because I was on Vicodin doesn’t mean I didn’t really see the Death Star.

Many years ago, I went for my first ride on a motorcycle.  All went well until my friend and I returned to my church parking lot.  I didn’t feel anything as I dismounted his bike, but was taken aback when I found my right leg stuck to the tailpipe.  (*WORD OF CAUTION TO READERS*  When riding a motorcycle, always wear long pants!)

I tore my leg away from the miniature incinerator, and with it a sizable chunk of skin.  I went into the church, grabbed the first aid kit, and covered my wound with burn cream and gauze.

About an hour later, I unwrapped the gauze to see how the burn was doing.  Without going into the gory details, it looked a bit like a bubbling cauldron.

A friend took me to an urgent care clinic.  The doctor gave a shot to me of something to anesthetize the burn in order to clean and dress it.  Whatever he gave me made loopier than a Slinky.

The next day, my friend took me to the burn unit of the local hospital.  I was given a prescription for some industrial strength painkillers and was ordered to return every day or so to have my burn examined and bandages changed.

I have a bunch of allergies and also get quite spaced out on painkillers, so there’s not a lot I can take.  What they gave me for the burn took me for quite the ride.

I became easily spooked.  I had trouble remembering things.  I called everyone by the name of a Star Wars character.  While at a friend’s house, I ran screaming from her vacuum cleaner because I was convinced it was the Death Star.

On a return trip to the burn unit, I was asked when I’d had my last tetanus booster.  Had I been in my right mind, I would’ve told them I was allergic to it.  In a moment of terrible lack of forethought, at least in my opinion, the burn doctor decided to give me one.  The injection site on my arm blew up to mammoth proportions and I itched like a mad woman for several days following.

Four days after I had gotten the burn, I had been scheduled to give a deposition in court.  The friend with whom I was staying didn’t want me to be spacey for my court date, so without telling me, (not that it would have helped) he gave me aspirin instead of the prescription elephant tranquilizer painkiller.  Did I mention I am allergic to aspirin?  So, I had an allergic reaction to the aspirin on top of the allergic reaction to the tetanus booster on top the small supernova that was occurring on my leg.

Upon my return to the burn unit the next day, I told the doctor my tale of woe, and he took me off all the painkillers.  Since everything I had taken either made me sick or made me discombobulated, he said I would just have to deal with the pain.

For anyone who has had to deal with an injury, there are times when we have to “grin and bear” it because the side effects of some analgesics can be more harmful than the pain itself.  This is often true of figurative painkillers, too.

In today’s world, and dare I say today’s church, pain and grief are dirty words.  Though none of us would think of telling someone who had broken a bone to not think about it and get back into the physical rigors of life right away, we often tell others (and ourselves) that emotional pain shouldn’t bother us.  In Christian circles, it is quite common, upon someone expressing feelings of loss, to be told he shouldn’t feel that way, that God has a plan, blah, blah, blah.

When I was dealing with the physical pain of a burned leg, no amount of telling myself that the wound would eventually heal would make the pain go away.  A broken heart isn’t much different.  However, because the misconception that we should be able to turn painful emotions off like a light switch, most of us learned to develop quite elaborate emotional painkillers which we hope will set us on a fast track to the mental state we had before the loss occurred.  The only hitch is these anodynes often cause more problems than they solve.

In my travels, I have seen emotional pill-popping of all kinds:  the woman who goes from one abusive relationship to another to numb the pain of being abandoned by her father, the kid who turns to drugs to assuage the pain of rejection from his peers, the divorcé who uses blame and ridicule of his ex to kill the pain the guilt he feels for not doing his part to make the marriage work, or the single who goes from relationship to relationship without any downtime in between to deal with the pain of being alone.  I have even seen and experienced blaming oneself as a painkiller, because thinking we could have done better anesthetizes the pain of the knowledge that some losses are completely out of our control.

I experienced a loss that also served as a wake up call for me, teaching me that if we don’t let pain run its own course and grief do its work, we will become someone neither we nor those we love will recognize.

I had a gentleman friend.  He was my boss at a temporary job, and we stayed friends after my assignment ended.  He was the kind of dude a girl would want to take home to meet her dad.  He was smart, strong, humble, and had a huge heart.  He had been quite kind to me, and I had learned a lot from him.

He started dating a girl who wasn’t what she appeared to be.  Long story short, she took him for a ride emotionally and financially.  When she got what she wanted from him, she dumped him, but it didn’t stop there.  She treated him terribly in public and forced their mutual friends to choose between him and her.  For reasons I won’t divulge, they chose her.

I don’t know if you’ve ever witnessed a good man get taken out, but I have, and watching someone’s heart die is excruciating.  He started retreating into himself.  He stopped doing things he used to love.  He stopped dreaming and fell into the rut so many men do of trying to become successful in business at the expense of his soul and his relationships.  Worst of all, he began to hang out in different crowds.  The deep conversations I used to enjoy with him came to an end, and he would become irritated even with me asking him, “How are you?”

His painkiller was to surround himself with people who would never inquire to the condition of his heart, and to keep his heart under lock and key and open to no one.  He terminated our friendship in short order, and it is a loss I still feel to this day.

One of the biggest problems with trying to kill our pain in dishonest and unhealthy ways is it almost always ends up inflicting pain on those we love.  Think about it.  Our addictions cause us to break trust with those we love.  Running from relationships for fear of getting hurt robs those around us of the blessing of our presence and personhood.  Not dealing with the anger we have towards those who have wounded us turns into rage against those around us who haven’t.  The list goes on and on.

Seeing what happened to my gentleman friend opened my eyes to the direction I was heading.  I had not really allowed myself to grieve anything.  I let others dictate to me what I should and shouldn’t feel.  As particular losses piled up, I realized if I didn’t take time out to heal, the emotional and spiritual damage would be irreversible.

I think letting ourselves feel pain scares us because it shows us how little control we have in life.  Sometimes losses hit us even with the greatest of precautions taken.  Sometimes those we love change for the worse, and there is nothing we can do to stop it.  God doesn’t ask us to turn off our hearts and avoid pain at all costs.  After all, there was pain from which God didn’t even shield Himself.

I started this process of being authentic and allowing myself to literally count my losses about a year ago.  (I don’t recommend stockpiling forty years worth of grief to anyone.)  It has been hard.  Letting myself cry and feel angry and show vulnerability to trusted friends has been unchartered territory for me.  Telling God what I actually feel instead of what I think He wants to hear has proved the most challenging discipline of all.  However, as I continue to be real about it, I am beginning to see the fruit of it, and the fruit is both sweet to the taste and nourishing to the heart.

I have abandoned the Great Pill-Popping, and I encourage all of you, my readers, to do the same.  The upside of grieving honestly is that we don’t do it alone.  The Man of Sorrows, who isn’t unable of sympathizing with us in our weaknesses, not only feels our pain, but chooses to bear it with us.

The End

MILK!!!!!!!