this new highway

thank you, Land of the Rising Sun friend

for seeking and by the grace of God,

finding me here in these unseen narrow passages.

Please contact me at: indiarubyflower@yahoo.com

strange how rich a response this blog has offered...to be found by a friend living on the other side of the world...in no conventional way did this friend find me. Not phone, or letter, visit or friend, but through tiny unseen wires. I really appreciate this new highway.

this friend of mine quoted a woman who both offered and received true miracle-making-love in India almost 100 years ago. She said, "In acceptance lieth peace". I have no idea what that meant to her at the time, but it has struck a very deep chord and is still resonating within me.

those four words express what I have been attempting to articulate in this bloggin' highway. I have been working a twelve step program related to compulsive actions/thinking towards food for a month now. In addition, I recently ended a four year marriage that has left wounds in need of time and healing. So, to contemplate those four words, "in acceptance lieth peace", a sense of relief sweeps over me. Yes, that is what I have been striving for. Twelve Steps teaches to first recognize we are powerless over our addictions and that our lives have become unmanageable. My faith in Christ would make that step a cinch right? As a new Christian, I was fully aware that I was an inflated mess totally in need of God. But over time, the sting of truth has been overthrown by the numbing sense of control, which has made this step process all the more critical to my life not only as a food abuser, but also as a child of God needing His help, not to mention His love and acceptance.

The second step is to grasp and embrace that there is a Power greater than ourselves who is able to restore sanity to us. In this, in this...we find peace. As this is translated into the crevices of my existence, I say to self, "hey, this or that may be just as it is and I have no power to change it...in this Lord, I surrender and set it before you, please come and reign. Not just reign, but guide, teach, counsel...transform". Yes, in acceptance I do find peace. I accept that I am so not perfect. That at times I have BO, that my clothes are sometimes tight, sometimes dirty, that my house is less storage-unit-feeling than it was yesterday but not the architectural-digest-version-of-me yet. So it is.

the simple and profound miracle is, He is. Behaviors and actions are being transformed. The sanity is the peace I find in letting myself be in process. For too long have I measured value of self by perfection-oriented pictures. Life is too short and I am tired of trying to please others by wearing the glazed smile of someone totally unaware of her core value as daughter of Christ. Maybe the truth is, nobody expects me to be anybody other than me? Maybe that is why I related so much to Largeman in "Garden State". His transformation from glazed silence to honest living feels so right. It hasn't been drugs that have kept me from experiencing pain, it has been fear of people and change. I expect the deeper I go in surrender and sobriety, the higher I will go in living and dying. Pain is the bridge to cross or else I will drown in addiction, complacency and self pity.

who wants to come with me?