Magical Thinking

In the last few weeks, I’m beginning to see some buried tendencies toward co-dependency and it’s starting to shed some light on my constant habit of reflection.  From my earliest days, I can remember a constant state of looking back… at all the things I should have done differently.  Sometimes, it was coming up with the perfect thing to say long after the opportunity to say it had passed.  Other times, it was changing an action to produce an entirely different result.  Whatever the case, things always turned out much differently, much better, in my reflection than they had in my reality.

Our greatest strengths are often our greatest weakness.  This habit of constant reflection has proven this over and over.  I consider this habit of reflection to be a great strength… because I actually DO learn from my mistakes.  I am intentional about going back and making up for wrongs, asking for forgiveness, making things right… restitution.  And, by God’s unfathomable grace, I actually change my ways and act differently at the next opportunity… repentance. 

But I am also enslaved by this ‘morbid introspection.’  I beat myself up for my mistakes… I replay the errors, dissecting all that went wrong and inserting all the correct responses.  I question my decisions, wondering if I will regret them.  And this is the world I live in… never good enough.  Co-dependency psychiatrists call it ‘magical thinking’ and say it’s a desperate attempt to fix what went wrong in my childhood.

As I face my childhood, there are some things that still hurt… things that I have a hard time calling by name…  and these wounds run deep.  I’m beginning to recognize that these wounds have been robbing my joy for almost 40 years…

It’s time for the tide to turn.  The only 'magical' thinking stands in setting my mind on 'Thy kingdom come'… let me live in the lightness of now and shed the heaviness of ‘what were you thinking?’.

Equality - do I believe it?

I just finished reading a whole lot of books about women in leadership in the church. The reasoning behind my rush of research was because I have finally been convicted of the need to 'land' somewhere in this debate. For years, I've been content to not know what I think about women leading alongside men in the church... but now, as I'm being put forth as a pastoral candidate at our church, I finally needed to decide. Is it OK? Is it biblical to call a woman into a pastoral role? Or this role reserved for men?
As long as I didn't know, I didn't have to risk the possibility of being told that I will not be a pastor. As long as I wasn't certain that the call that I've heard was also confirmed in scripture, then I could deal with the possibility that our community may not be ready to accept a woman. But, as Geoff told me, I was simply resisting an opportunity for sanctification. I was refusing to move forward on the road of faithfulness... and so I had to decide.
So I went away for 24 hours and I read and I prayed. And I was really surprised to find that the old idea of women being inferior beings actually has a root in my soul. I was reading Sarah Sumner's book, Men and Women in the Church, when I was overwhelmed by the reality that I have truly believed that I should not be in a leadership position because I am actually inferior to men. I know I'm not alone in that unconscious belief... because I see it manifested in the way many of us, as women, function in our relationships with men in the church.
But the Lord is gracious... and He is helping me to experientially inhabit the truth that I am equal to men, equally created to bear his image, equally called to be a steward of the earth, and equally called to know Christ and to make Him known. And that is the first step on the road to understanding my role in leadership...

About Me

I grew up in church... and like many kids I grew up with, I left the church for a while, even imagined I could leave God.  But in my darkest hour, I found old words come spilling onto my lips, ones that I had locked deep in the closet of my past... and I knew that God was not only real, but was also Immanuel - God with us.  And so I started finding my way back - not to my childhood, but to my creation... who God had intended for me to be.  This journey has taken many detours I could have never expected: leaving what I thought was my dream job, marrying an academic / pastor, raising two great boys, finally hearing a call to vocational ministry through a church who patiently loved me into my calling, and receiving and offering healing prayer. Now, I offer spiritual direction and transformational coaching and serve on the pastoral team at my local church.  I'm getting closer to fifty, and I'm still learning to lean into God's intention for me... one journey at a time.