Praying and Planning: We Need You

Since my last post so many things have changed.

Overwhelmed by the responsibilities of caring for my father and all my other roles, I made a very difficult decision -- I suspended Celebrate Recovery meetings at Burbank SDA Church. After consulting with Pastor Jan, I notified our regular attenders and put a temporary sign on the door. I hated to do it, but it was a decision I felt compelled to make. My father was getting sicker. Indeed, we were told that he was dying and my responsibilities with regard to his care were growing as his condition worsened. All the while, my heart was breaking.

My father died in April.

For months I struggled poorly with my grief often feeling that I was losing the battle. I was afraid that perhaps I would also lose my sobriety, my job and my sanity. God never left me. He comforted my heart and mind in such a personal way that only He can. When exactly one month following his death I cried out for some sort of help from my doctor (the best doctor in America, by the way) she responded in a way that I would never expected.

She looked at me with such compassion in her eyes that I could tell that she had truly heard me and cared about my welfare. She told me a little about her own struggles and then she said that since a month had past it was time to begin to get over losing my father. I was shocked at first, but I kept listening as she kept talking. She told me that she refused to see me overwhelmed by this tragedy and that I had too much to lose to let myself be plowed under by the weight of my grief. She directed me to get myself together and she reminded me that the mind is a powerful force and that I could harness it to my benefit if I chose to do so. She clutched my shoulders when she looked me square in the eye and told me she was sure I could do it -- I could begin to make myself better.

Just remembering how I felt at that moment reminds me of how faithful and kind our Heavenly Father is. He used my doctor to say the words I needed to hear just when I needed to hear them. From that moment, I began to get myself together as the doctor ordered through nearly constant prayer and through rebuilding hope in my life rather than brick by brick, pebble by pebble.

To God's glory I haven't taken a drink or drug since my father's death. I haven't lost my mind or my job. And while I'm busy working and going to school to (finally) finish my bachelor degree online at Chico State as my father requested and redoubling my efforts to be the best wife and mother I can, I am working with Pastor Jan to pray and plan for restarting Celebrate Recovery.

We need you.

Celebrate Recovery is a God-inspired 12 step program for anyone with a hurt, habit or hang up. Based on Christ's own ideas for how to live one day at a time, it requires the service of a team to build and maintain it properly. Pastor Jan and I are asking you to pray with us as we prepare for our planning session.

Please join us on Friday, October 5, at 6:30PM for dinner and a CR planning meeting which will begin at 7PM. At that time we will introduce you to the opportunities to serve people who are hurting and looking for answers. By employing the original plan for CR, we will offer service opportunities based on your available time and talent which require no more than one to three hours per week (and perhaps even less).

Feel free to email or call me for more information. I look forward to seeing you there.

peace&love,
LaViva
outreach@burbanksda.com
818-824-2019

one day with my dad

I never deserved the one chance I got. I certainly don't deserve a second one.

sin = death

I am a sinner. I deserve death. Instead I have been living a very blessed life. I could write a gratitude list a mile long, but that's a little off my point.

grace = life

My life is founded on God's grace and His supergenerous biggerthangigantic love. Today is one example: I got a second chance to find joy in my father's company. After so many years and rivers of water under the bridge, I got to appreciate my dad for the interesting, intelligent and thoughtful person he is.

We spent most of the day together and I thoroughly enjoyed it. For the first time in a long time, it was just him and me. Because I realized early in the day what a privilege it was to drive out to see him my whole approach to the day was different than usual. I took my time. I was in no rush. There were no appointments or commitments to attend to. I was there because I wanted to be.

I took cues from my dad and allowed myself to go at his pace... Thanks to advice from a wise NY Times writer who also writes for the blog: The New Old Age. I was prepared to have one of my best days ever with my dad. When my sense of pointless urgency fell away, so did my anxiety about traffic and arrival/departure times and parking rates and lowsaltlowcholesterollowfat diets and cardiac patient med mixes and... and...

I made good use of my time today -- cleaning to my heart's content, organizing a cabinet, listening to stories about old family friends and new neighbors, checking out the backyard I grew up in, and reintroducing my dad to the wonderful world of mandatory recycling. I enjoyed the quiet of a house full of memories -- many bittersweet, now that my mother has been gone for nearly 15 years. Mostly it was nice just being around my dad without all the hangups I usually bring along for the occasion.

Near the tail end of our one excursion today, we even took a precious moment to enjoy the beauty of a water fountain and feel the warmth of the sun on our upturned faces. It must have been divine inspiration that reminded me to take a picture of my dad posing -- very nonchalantly -- for the camera. He was handsome there in his tweed and soft stillveryblack halo of hair.

I fell in love with my dad again for all the same reasons I had as a little girl. My father was kind and caring today. He was thoughtful and charming today. He made me feel special when he called me "daughter" and "dear". He made me feel like the most blessed kid in the world. Thanks, Dad. Thanks, especially to You, Divine Dad.

Adult Children of Family Dysfunction: The Problem and Solution

Do you feel isolated, uneasy with other people, especially authority figures? To protect yourself, are you a people pleaser, even though you lose your own identity in the process?
We either become alcoholics or married them or both. Failing that, we found another compulsive personality, such as a workaholic, to fulfill our sick need for abandonment.

The Problem
 We guess what is normal.
 We have difficulty following a project through, from beginning to end.
 We lie when it would be just as easy to tell the truth
 We judge ourselves without mercy.
 We have difficulty having fun
 We take ourselves very seriously
 We have difficulty with relationships
 We over-react to changes over which we have no control
 We constantly seek approval and affirmation
 We are either super responsible or super irresponsible
 We are extremely loyal even in the face of evidence that the loyalty is undeserved
 We look for immediate rather than deferred gratification
 We lock ourselves into a course of action without giving serious consideration to alternate behaviors or possible consequences
 We seek tension and crisis and then complain about the results
 We avoid conflict or aggravate it; rarely do we deal with it
 We fear rejection and abandonment, yet are rejecting of others
 We fear failure, but sabotage our success
 We fear criticism and judgment, yet criticize and judge others
 We manage time poorly and do not set priorities in a way that works well for us

The Solution
The solution is to become your own loving parent
 Find the freedom to express all the hurts and fears kept inside and gain freedom from the shame and blame carried over from the past
 Become an adult who was no longer imprisoned by childhood reactions
 Recover the child within us, learning to accept and love our-selves
 Move out the isolation
 Rediscover feelings and buried memories
 Gradually release the burden of unexpressed grief; slowly move out of the past
 Learn to re-parent ourselves with gentleness, humor, love and respect
 Learn to see our biological parents as the instruments of our existence
 Trust that our actual parent is the Higher Power, Jesus Christ. Although we had dysfunctional/alcoholic parents, our Higher Power gave us the eight Principles of Recovery  Receive experience, strength and hope to others
 Restructure sick thinking one day at a time
 Release our parents from responsibility for our actions today
 Become free to make healthful decisions as actors, not reactors
 Progress from hurting to healing to helping
 Awaken a sense of wholeness we knew was possible
 Come to see parental dysfunction for what it is and know how that affected us as a child and continues to affect us as an adult
 Learn to keep the focus on ourselves in the here and now
 Take responsibility for our own life and supply our own par-enting
 See beautiful changes in all our relationships, especially with God, ourselves and our parents.