On this day…

Taking off and going to Wal-Mart, Costco, Publix or any other store by myself.

Meeting a new friend for lunch, dinner, and finishing after the sun goes down.

Going to a stranger’s home for coffee.

Walking to my vehicle alone, even in the noonday sun.

If you had asked me to do any of these items (and many more) after January 2011 and prior to November 2017, I would have politely declined or found a way for my husband to take me and not leave my side.

Even though these things have once again become second nature to me, I have recently found myself being grateful to God that He healed me.

Today as I was scrolling on my Facebook Feed this came up. Your most loved photo…

Here was the story behind that memory from 2 years ago today.

This picture was taken on the plane on the way home from Washington DC and here was my status:

I am so proud of myself. For those of you who know me, I suffer from PTSD and for the past few years have not strayed too far from Rob….but today I flew to DC by MYSELF to have meetings with 2 Congresswomen. I drove to the airport at 3:30 am and did the park and ride (thank you, Meredith Gabel Pratt, for the referral.)
Before the meetings, I walked around DC by MYSELF and took pictures. And did not get triggered… NOT even ONCE!
For those who suffer from PTSD know how big this is.

I still remember driving down 65 South that evening, calling my husband so excited that I had not been triggered. It wasn’t till a little later that I realized that God healed me that day.

As I was continuing to scroll, this was my memory from today 2012, almost two years after my attack and the beginning of my PTSD.

Yesterday I got an amazing phone call… it was from the Prison in Ohio. They want me to come back in the beginning of 2013 to speak to the guys again… Fast forward to today: I am still in Philippians 1 and this is what I read:

“And I want you to know, my dear brothers and sisters that everything that has happened to me here has helped to spread the Good News. For everyone here, including the whole palace guard, knows that I am in chains because of Christ. And because of my imprisonment, most of the believers here have gained confidence and boldly speak God’s message without fear.”

Why do I think this scripture is so cool? Because almost 2 years ago is when I was attacked: I did not see how God could use that for His kingdom. But I was wrong, because of the attack I now have been able to speak to groups in other states about being a victim of gang targeted violence and God’s forgiveness. Without God’s forgiveness in my life, I would never have been able to set foot back in our local jail week after week teaching; knowing that at any given moment he could be sitting across from me.

God wants to use all of our circumstances for His kingdom work. So as you go through your day watch for God to open doors for you to share with either words, a hug or even a prayer with someone who needs to know there is hope and they are not alone.

So how does this apply to 2018? As I have attempted to skillfully navigate my new life in Florida, I find myself in awe of God’s grace and mercy. I cannot tell you how many times over the last year, I have said a prayer of Thanksgiving, that I have been freed. I find myself at least weekly thanking God not only for the freedom from PTSD but that He is allowing everything I have gone through for the past 53 years of life, to be used in some form or fashion in a place I now call home.

What are you holding on to? What has you “stuck” saying there is no way I can overcome that?

I thought mine was PTSD, but GOD!

He is waiting to heal you so He can use your story to heal others.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. Romans 8:28 (NIV)

Truth be told, all He asked was to Follow Him

For the past 2 weeks I have been fighting with God about a prescription I received almost a year ago. It read, “must have Florida Beach time often over the next year perhaps permanently.” This prescription was given in response to my doctor telling me I needed to see a pulmonary specialist. I told him it would have to wait 3 weeks seeing we were heading to Florida for family time and a church planting conference. In which he said the Florida air would do my lungs good.

More Florida Beach time

With prescription in hand, we headed to Florida.

That prescription was a catalyst that God used to get our hearts to be thinking of Florida. I was under the assumption that once I moved to Florida then my asthma type symptoms would magically disappear. Instead for me and my body, (if you have followed any of my story), I don’t fit the mold. So why would I expect this to be any different?

I have been to a walk-in clinic now 3 times since our move to Florida. I am on the exact same schedule I have been on since 2017. Every 45-60 days.

I have made every excuse.

I cheated on my diet.

I was in the cold weather.

I was traveling.

For the past 18 months or so I have told doctors and myself. “God is going to heal me. I just need to work out a few more things with my past. I just need to quit cheating on my dietary restrictions.”

In November, I was told that if I had one more flare up then I would need to see a specialist. Well today I once again found myself in the walk-in clinic. The Doctor was not so pleasant. She let me know without a shadow of a doubt I needed to find a primary care doctor sooner than later and get this under control.

So why this blog?

I had to come to grips that even though the prescription is part of our church planting story and why Cape Coral Florida, God knew I would need something that was of benefit to get my mind around moving 823 miles from my grandchildren and children.

Not being on steroids every 45-60 days and living in an area that is by the ocean and beautiful, was a great incentive and plus at that time we could do our job from anywhere. We were traveling for work 30-40 weeks out of the year anyway and it really didn’t matter where we started from.

By the end of February though, we were being called to plant a church, God even gave us handwriting on the wall, an 18-wheeler appearing out of nowhere as I am driving to the doctor because I am once again having an asthma flare up.

Fast forward to the past couple of months. Nothing I thought would happen when we got here has come through. Everything I had put in motion to make the transition to Florida not feel so lonely, has fallen through. And to top it off, I have been in the walk-in clinic 3 times since arriving.

I have silently been dealing with rejection and feeling like I was short changed. I have asked God to heal me. I have praised God for healing me. I have worked through more of my past. I have cried. I have laughed. I have screamed. And recently I have questioned. Why? Why are you not healing me? I have faith. I believe. Why are you not healing me?

Then God gives me a flock of Ibis’s in the Wal-Mart parking lot. To remind me He did heal me of my PTSD and there is no way I would have been able to move to a new area and plant a church with the anxiety and PTSD I had lived with for many years.

But God why are you not healing me of my asthma symptoms? Why did you bring me down here under false pretenses?

Then I read a book called Prodigal God by Tim Keller.

In the book was a story that went something like this.

Jesus says to pick up a stone and follow me. You look around and because Jesus didn’t give you any specifications you pick up a small pebble and put it in your pocket. A few miles down the road Jesus says to take your stone and place it in front of you. He turns your “stone” into food. You get very little because your stone is a pebble, others who were carrying bigger stones had much to eat because the food was commensurate to the size of the “stone.” Jesus now asks you to pick up another stone and follow Him. This time because you saw what He did for lunch you pick up the biggest stone you can find. You struggle and struggle. Finally, you get to a lake and Jesus says, “throw your stone in the lake.” There is no food or any reward for carrying the big rock. Jesus sees your frustration and He simple says, “All I asked you to do was follow me.”

As I was reading this sobbing, all God asked was, for me to follow Him. He also reminded me that the prescription came from man not God. God used it, but today I really know the meaning of the Proverbs.

In their hearts humans plan their course,
but the Lord establishes their steps.
Proverbs 16:9 (NIV)

You can make many plans,
but the Lord’s purpose will prevail.
Proverbs 19:21 (NLT)

Church Planters Cape Coral FL

I know beyond a shadow of a doubt if we had not moved we would have been disobedient. But I am still human and as I was having a pity-party wondering what I had done wrong and why God had not healed me yet of my asthma symptoms, He reminded me that sometimes healing comes in the form of modern medicine I need to be okay with that and praise God for it. And that the prescription for more Florida beach time was just a “sign” God used to get me ready for the next chapter our book He is writing with our lives.

To follow our church plant click the link Restoration Christian Church

Satan will no longer take me hostage

I suffer from Asthma which is induced by food allergies. Over the past few years, I went from “yes you have food allergies, but you should be able to add things back into your diet; to I am sorry, now you can’t have… and the list gets added to.

To date I have to stay away from:

Gluten
Dairy
Eggs
Corn
Soy
Safflower/ Sunflower
Refined sugars
Peanuts

I have had doctors tell me:

Your body needs to rest

You need to heal

You are too stressed out

You have adrenal fatigue.

You need to take care of you.

So for the past few months, I have tried to lay low and to care for myself, especially when I was told, “you need to get rid of the stress or the stress will get rid of you.”

I was also told during this time that my food allergies may be the result of stress.

In reality though, I did not understand what any of that meant. No one was banging down my door to tell me what to do in a way that I understood it, so I muddled through the best I could.

It became apparent that I needed to figure out something because my asthma attacks were getting more and more frequent. So we made arrangements to change the way we did ministry; allowing me to REST.

But problems can become apparent when you allow your body to REST. You may find out there are more layers of UNREST below and it rises to the surface.

This happened on October 7^th. I was teaching in my hometown in Michigan. I did not think anything of it, but I guess my body did. By the time the training was over, my neck was hurting. It got so bad that I couldn’t sleep well, I had to hold my head to turn it while I was laying down and I had to hold the back of my neck just to swallow without pain.

By Wednesday I was in so much pain that I finally went to the Urgent Care Clinic. I needed relief. I still had one more training before I would be able to get home. The Doctor said there was nothing wrong with me medically, but my neck was in knots, so she gave me a steroid shot, a prescription for a major steroid, a muscle relaxer and sent me on my way.

I was grateful for modern medicine but I also knew that I needed my chiropractor back home.

The rest of the trip went OK thanks to the steroids, but as soon as I was done with them and they were out of my system, it was back to the same level of pain.

I got in to see my chiropractor that week, he adjusted my neck and it started to feel a little better.

On October 24^th, it was flared up and I was living on the muscle relaxers and pain relievers, so back to the chiropractor I went. As the doctor started checking me, he adjusted my back and did a few things through reflexology, but he never adjusted my neck. He sat me up, looked at me and said “Meredith, there is nothing wrong with your neck. It is all stress related. It is what I call a psychosomatic response. It’s all in your head.”

What? No! There has to be a medical reason. Food allergy. Something. Not a psychosomatic response. I was working so hard for the past few months to reduce my stress, because this is the same doctor who told me that if I did not reduce my stress, it would be reduced for me when my body shut down.

As I was on my way home, I texted my mom, “The verdict is in… its stress”. When I was in Michigan earlier that month she told me it sounded like stress, and I answered, I have no stress.

The rest of the evening Rob and I started talking through things. My childhood. Our marriage.

As we were talking, I wouldn’t have to say yes or no that did or did not bother me, my body did it for me. These talks turned into me having an ugly cry face, but I went to bed that night for the first time in 17 days and slept pain free.

You see I am really good at helping others figure out their life. Over the past 15 years, I have been working on myself, but only in a form of teaching and using my story to free others. In September I was given a self-study that was geared toward healing my body.

On November 16^th, a blog came out about what self care really means. Click here to read it

In this blog there were a couple of things that stood out. The main thing was:

“how much (anxiety) comes from the way you were being trained to think before you even knew what was happening.”

In our program we teach on this very thing, but we don’t put this way. For whatever reason, this statement hit me like a lead balloon. I got out my journal and started thinking through her statement with The 180 Programs diagrams and my past. Listening to the lies of satan through the voice of my step dad. I believed what he said about me then and unfortunately I was allowing his words to shape my current thinking.

As I read and re-read the blog, I realized I was allowing the antics of satan to tell me that I was not good enough and that I was not being healed because I did not have enough faith. I was also allowing my “lens of life” to be one that unfortunately still had the blurred lines of lies that I was trained to believe.

The day after I read this, I was able to journal my thoughts and feelings, God brought a woman into my life and she led me in a one-on-one prayer of self-reflection. During this prayer time I was directed to events that were troublesome. I was then directed to just talk it out. When I was finished talking, she would ask Jesus to tell me where He was in all of this. What were the lies. Where was the truth? As I sat in the room with a total stranger, I wept until I could cry no more, but I felt free.

For quite a while I have been praying for healing. I was asking for healing from my food allergies… but what I realized was God healed me from something greater.

When I woke up this morning, I realized I was happy. I have been asking God to make me happy in my journal for a long time. I had not realized how many lies I was still allowing to engulf my daily life. I was still allowing satan to take me hostage in my own thought life. It was subtle, but I realized how I framed my questions, how I framed statements, how I allowed the voices from my past to become the lens I walked my daily life through, and they were keeping me in bondage of fear.

Today I choose to walk with a renewed mind. I will work to see myself through lenses of a loving Jesus. He may choose to allow something bad to happen again, in fact I’m sure I will face difficulties, but I will not let those events be the lens that I filter my tomorrow through.

I have a choice and so do you.

Worthy

If you were guaranteed success and money was taken care of, what would you do with your life?
Many of us had dreams when we were younger and for whatever reason they were dashed by the time we became adults.
We were either told, you can’t become a princess because they only exist in fairy tales or you were told to be realistic because you aren’t tall enough, skilled enough or thin enough to become “that”.

Do you remember being a kid and saying, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never harm me?” Now that I teach life recovery classes on a daily basis to people who are overcoming addictions, abuse or negative cycles of life, I realize that whoever wrote that was trying real hard to do the “Positive Self-talk” or they were trying to strengthen their child because of the horrible parenting they had done. Whatever the reason, if we are really honest with yourselves the words of, “you can’t do that”, “that will never work”, or “you’re not good enough”, still haunt us today and we may find ourselves stuck on this cycle of letting life happen.

I teach every week in the darkest corners of the United States, in our jails and prisons. I know what hopeless looks like. I know what oppression feels like. I also know what it is to be locked up inside my own prison filled with doubt and self-sabotage.

To know me, you would never guess I deal with the feeling of being worthless. I am full of self-confidence because I am a survivor. I have survived being abused as a teen by my stepfather. I overcame the feelings of abandonment by my father. I survived being neglected by the church, because I didn’t know all the hidden rules and I didn’t fit in, which just added to my feeling of worthlessness. I even overcame feelings of neglect as my husband worked 3 jobs and the emotional trauma of marital infidelity from both my husband and I. And just when I thought God was finished, I became the survivor of a gang attack in 2011 which has produced PTSD.

To be a survivor, you can have all the confidence in the world. But self-esteem is an estimate of yourself, and if you have been beat down by words and events, you start to believe this as truth about yourself.

This year my husband and I read a book called “One Word that will change your life” by Jon Gordon, Dan Britton and Jimmy Page. My word this year is “Worthy”. I started 2016 by repeating that “I am worthy of: (and then I would journal what I was worthy of), after a couple of weeks I realized that in order to overcome the “less than feelings of unworthiness” I needed to start taking a serious look at who I was internally and ask myself “Do I even love myself?”

Old habits are hard to break and one of my biggest habits is self-sabotage. The definition of sabotage is deliberate destruction. So if you put the word “self” in front of that you get “deliberate self-destruction”. When you couple self-sabotage and low self-esteem with a high self-confidence you find in a survivor, the results can actually be disastrous.

I have around me a support system that I can call on when my days don’t go so great. The challenge for many is that they look so put together on the outside, that they can’t be honest with what’s going on inside and all the while they are dying for someone to say “it’s okay, you do not have to be all put together for me”.

Please don’t go another day without reaching out to someone if you are that person dying inside. For more information about The 180 Program that we use everyday please click here.

If you want more information about having me speak for your women’s group or retreat please fill out the following form.

Life is measured in before and after

January 20, 2011 ended up cold and snowing; pretty much like it was this morning, as I sat and wrote this. That morning was cold but beautiful. The sun was out and I had to be in Nashville first thing to teach a class.
I drove to my newly self-appointed parking spot on the side of Albion Street. I gathered the items I had brought for the mothers, diapers, wipes etc., and made my way back up the street to the facility where the mothers were waiting.

That morning I had also brought my digital camera because we needed a picture of me teaching for a brochure. As the class was ending and I had asked one of the mothers to take a picture while I was finishing up.

I said my good byes and told them I would see them next week.

As I walked to my van I was talking to my daughter who was in college 90 minutes from Nashville. At 11:29am we said our good byes and by 11:32am, I was calling 9-1-1, because I had just been attacked.

Today is the 5^th anniversary of that attack, and it still is a very real part of who I am. As I sat down to do my quiet time this morning I realized that God has quite a sense of humor. I started my quiet time by praying and my prayer this morning went something like this “God, thanks to PREA (Prison Rape Elimination Act), I can’t get into jails and prisons like I used to under the victims awareness program, so why again did I have to go through the attack?”

To give the backstory to that prayer: 18 months after the attack, I was asked to speak to a group of men in an Ohio Prison. I went under the “Victims Awareness” program. After I had finished my talk a gentleman approached me and said, “I was praying this morning for a sign from God that He was real and in you walked.” (He actually knew of the 180 Program that we founded because he had been incarcerated in TN first).

At that moment I understood that God had to allow me to become a victim of a gang attack in order to be allowed to speak in that prison at that time. But today it’s a different story. With PREA you have to be trained by each individual jail, prison, by that county or state, there are no federal trainings. Just to give you an idea by the end of January I will have sat in 4 different PREA trainings just so I can continue to teach here locally.

So this morning 5 years later, I was having a pity party. Why did this happen? I opened up Philippians where I have been studying for the past month and I see this verse:

I want you to know brothers and sisters that what has happened to me actually served to
advance the gospel.

Today I am alive and I don’t take that lightly. Two women died at the hands of their domestic abusers within 30 days of my attack. They had the same injuries I had. I do suffer from PTSD and some days are better than others. Five years later, the right side of my face is always asleep and tingles or twitches. It is very irritating when I try to kiss my husband, but at least I am alive to kiss my husband.

Life is measured in before’s and after’s. I have a daily choice to let the PTSD that I now have control me or I control it. This year I am looking for a new why?

I may not be allowed into the prisons and jails like I used to be, but God… He gave me this platform. He allowed me to walk away with just a tingling face and PTSD, so today’s quiet time showed me that this happened to advance Gods Kingdom and now my job is to keep my eyes open for the new where, to answer the why?

Feel free to fill out this form if you want more information

Traditions and trip ups- Not allowing PTSD, anxiety and depression dictate your holiday.

There was a couple who had recently gotten married and were celebrating their first holiday by having everyone over for dinner.

As she was preparing the ham she cut off the ends and placed it in the pan to cook. Her husband walked in and saw the ends sitting there, he asked: “why did you cut the ends off?”

“I don’t know, it’s just the way my mom always did it.”

As the ham was cooking the young wife calls her mother, to ask why she cut off the ends of the ham.

Her mother chuckles, and says, “because I didn’t have a pan big enough to cook the ham”.

Traditions and trip ups- Not allowing PTSD, anxiety and depression dictate your holiday.

In 2011 I was the target of a gang attack. As a result of the attack, I was offered counseling, and therapy. During this time, I was diagnosed with PTSD, but I was also opening lots of worms from my childhood and the abuse I endured as a teenager.

Through all of this, I realized that I was allowing traditions to trip up my holidays by triggering my PTSD, anxiety and depression.

So where did this start:

Growing up I used to love Christmas. Christmas was filled with snow, lots of it.

It was filled with a fresh tree and lots of homemade sugar cookies with homemade frosting.

It also was more importantly filled with Grandma, Grandpa, aunts, uncles and cousins.

You would wake up to see what Santa brought you, then rush to grandmas house.

There was piano playing, singing and the cousins would get our ice skates and head to the swamp to skate on the pond.

There were no cell phones or technology just the outdoors and a “be home by dusk”.

The evening was finished with homemade chocolate malts.

Then my childhood as I loved, came to a crashing HALT!

My mom and dad got divorced, my mom remarried and my grandmother (who I did EVERYTHING with) at age 55 was diagnosed and died of leukemia in less than a month.

Now, Christmas looked like this:

No laughter, No one hurrying to grandmas, and to top it off pack your bags before we go because your dad is coming to get you.

It went from bad to worse….fast forward to my getting married and moving 600 plus miles away.

We went home once and never went back. I couldn’t explain it, but I had no desire to be pulled here and there.

Now that I have kids who have kids, I so badly wanted to replicate my memories of the “Norman Rockwell” Christmas traditions that I grew up with, but that came at a price…my anxiety and depression were at an all time high and worse yet, I could not wait for January 1st so this “Scrooge like” person would go away.

Epic fail every year. Again not knowing that I was allowing my yearning for a tradition to trip up my holidays by triggering my PTSD, anxiety and depression.

So what started the change was 3 years ago…. We finally decided to go home for Christmas. The kids all had places to go and be so we went home to Michigan.

On the drive back home to Tennessee, I told my husband we can go home again, but NOT during the holiday season. That’s when it hit me like a ton of bricks. As I was trying to recreate traditions and make everyone happy during the holiday, I was made painfully aware that I CANT do that for my own well-being. And I have to be OK with NOT being at every family function or worse yet trying to recreate the tradition.

Two years ago, we became empty-nesters, and I had to make a conscious decision to no longer allow the traditions to trip me up, become full of anxiety, fall into deep depression and a SCROOGE.

I had to give myself permission to start over with NEW TRADITIONS.

So here are a few ideas I have come up with:

Don’t keep yourself so busy that you don’t have to think about the holiday

Do come up with new things for you and your family to do

Acknowledge the holidays, but be OK with the change that you want to do

Don’t feel guilty for NOT doing a tradition; especially if that tradition creates a trigger for your PTSD, anxiety and or depression.

Realizing that boundaries are a key part of keeping your sanity

Learning what your triggers are and saying “NO” to those things that flare up your anxiety, PTSD etc

Start NEW traditions.

As a woman who speaks life into women all day, why can we advise, instruct others to change and live life free, but we have a hard time granting ourselves the same freedom?

Giving up the “Good” to do the “Great”

Ask my husband and he will tell you I have a real hard time saying “No”. I can be a real giving person with little to no regard to the how, the outcome or, worse yet, how it will affect me.

I recently said “yes” to something without thinking everything through. I just knew it was for a good cause and I kept rationalizing that “it was for a good cause.”

As the days came and went and the weeks came and went, my anxiety and panic attacks increased. I blamed it on being re-triggered from the motorcycle accident.

As the event that I was going to be a part of was getting ready to take place, my anxiety increased to the point that I could not handle it and I had to walk away at the last minute.

As soon as I walked away, my anxiety subsided. I could not believe it, could it have been that easy?

I am not sure if you are like me but I like to fix things. I want to fix people. I have a real hard time with “boundaries” all in the name of “it was for a really good cause” or “they really needed my help.”

A major thing that I have had to deal with these past few weeks, which is NOT in my DNA as a first born, take charge, make it happen, bull in the china shop personality is; it is not my responsibility to fix everything or everyone.

God gives each of us gifts but more importantly He gives us a calling.

I am gifted in many things and it’s ok to do those things once in a while. For example, I love to have people over for dinner, but I am NOT called to be a caterer (yes, I do know that: been there, done that).

God over the past few years has been giving me subtle hints that my ministry was going to start taking on a different look. I was so set in my “no, it has to look this way” that I did not listen.

Just recently I realized that I have been doing a lot of good things, at the expense of not doing the great.

Part of my new learning experience is “boundaries” and asking the question: what is this going to cost and is God asking me to do this or is it part of my human DNA of wanting to help?

My question for you as you wrote down your goals yesterday:

What is God asking you to stop doing, which may be “good”, but He wants you to do something “great?”

Giving myself permission NOT to be Competitive against myself

Have you ever been to or watched a bidding war? And the person who really wanted to win starts bidding against themselves?

I feel that since January 2011, I have been bidding against myself and didn’t know it; I just knew that the PTSD was not going to win. I had to overcome it and be healed.

Sometimes God does not take away the “thorn” and you (I), have to be OK with that.

My new normal started in 2011, but today 2015, four and three-quarter years after the attack I am still bidding against myself.

I still use that dysfunctional coping skill I learned so well growing up; “act as if nothing happened”, and just keep doing things the way you have always done them.

I read the book “The Go-Giver” by Bob Burg and John David Mann the other night. In the book a statement was made: “what you focus on, is what you get”.

I realized that I have been focusing so much on “overcoming” the PTSD that I continue being competitive with myself instead of taking the words Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 12: 7-10. You will find them here, this is from the Message (a paraphrase version)

Because of the extravagance of those revelations, and so I wouldn’t get a big head, I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. Satan’s angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty! At first I didn’t think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, and then he told me,

My grace is enough; it’s all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness. Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ’s strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size—abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become.

So my question to you is: what’s your thorn that you are trying desperate to be healed from and maybe God is saying “if you continue to focus on being healed, you won’t focus on Me and what I want to do with you”.

Remember today is a new day, no matter how bad yesterday was, no matter how bad your past….the only thing under consideration is your very next step….so make it count.

**** secondary***** I have attached a goal sheet. Less than 3% of people actually obtain their goals and the number 1 reason is because they are not written down. So here is a goal sheet for you to use. It’ll be interesting to see when we get to the end of the week how well you stayed on task and actually accomplished the goals.

Goals sheet participant

Surviving Church with PTSD and Anxiety

The last month or so I have left church with almost this panic attack, anxiety feeling.

My inner most being has said “suck it up cupcake, it’s church you are secure.”

Even as I am writing this the tears are flowing and the anxiety I feel is about a 9.5 on a 10 scale and I have been home from church for an hour.

I don’t like feeling like this~ the girl who loves serving~ who loves to teach~ is floundering trying to figure out how to get involved and subside this emotional roller coaster of anxiety and panic attacks.

As I talked with my amazing husband, we decided we would first try a different service time. The 9am service is not as packed and maybe the overflowing service has triggered something. So today we attended the 9am service. I did well, but as the service let out, and we were leaving the anxiety started to fill me again.

We head home,but first we need to stop at Kroger. My husband realizes that my arms are folded and I am walking with much more of a purpose. “I’m fine”, is my reply. All the while my inner being is saying: “as long as you don’t say much, keep busy, you won’t lose it.”

Yeah, I make it through Kroger. Now home. My husband comes over to me, wraps his loving arms around me and starts to pray, I start to cry.

I am so tired of feeling like this. This cloud. This anxiety. This very easy could become a dark depression if I let it.

So I sit down and start writing, the tears flowing as I pray “God, something’s gotta give, and I am afraid it’s going to be me.”

I start to let my mind wander.

These are the words I come up with:

The accident

The man who didn’t fit in

The bathroom

No more happy place

So the first word: Accident (totaling the motorcycle on June 28)

Adding additional Trauma to someone who already deals with PTSD, and their go to behavior is to stay busy so you don’t have to feel…is not a recipe for a beautiful wedding cake, but a recipe for disaster.

I have realized that growing up, when things were bad at home, I kept myself busy. I figured if I just locked myself in my room, the bad would happen, and I would just walk out when things were done blowing up. Again not a healthy way to cope with real life and feelings.

Second word was: Man who didn’t fit in

Right after the accident and right after the Chattanooga shootings, there was a gentleman who came to our church services. I did not recognize him. His clothing choices, did not fit the 90 degree weather we were having, and seeing we are in the suburbs, having this person being someone of the homeless population that I minister to in the Nashville area, wasn’t even on my radar. The whole service long my anxiety was heightened, again to the panic attack mode. I wasn’t even safe in the church building, was my thought.

During this time, I had started using a different set of bathrooms that were off the beaten path. There was never a waiting line before or after church. Here is where the issue was, this was the bathroom, in which right after the attack (January 2011) I found myself in when I started bleeding from my nose and it was so bad that we had to call the doctor to make sure everything was ok. So, now every time I walked into this bathroom, I immediately went back to that night, which went back to the attack.

And then my happy place.

My happy place was destroyed through words of discouragement.

So why did I write about this. First because my therapy is writing. It may not fix all my anxiety and panic attacks today but getting it out and verbalizing it allows for satan to not take up any more residence in my thoughts.

Secondly, I know I am not the only person who deals with PTSD, anxiety and panic attacks. Not everyone has such an amazing spouse who is in-tune to your feelings and can give you a safe place to think, vent and strategize. If you are that person who does not have a special someone where your feelings are safe, please do not let this anxiety, panic attacks become a deep dark depression please, please talk to someone. Don’t let it engulf you.

And thirdly, even though church is supposed to be a safe place, it can also hold a lot of triggers for people.
My question to myself is how am I going to work through this? How am I going to control it verses letting it control me?

You see having these issues don’t define you unless you give them permission to.

The Blessing of a Bad Day

June 28th was a B E A U ti-Ful day for a motorcycle ride. As we were ending the ride, still not quite sure what happened, but we ended up in the ditch, with a totaled motorcycle.

Even as I am writing this, I am reliving the scene and can feel the anxiety filling my body from my toes all the way up to my head. I can still see my husband laying in the ditch lifeless. I am screaming and screaming trying to get him to answer. I call 9-1-1. Rob is still lifeless. Finally, he starts to moan, my body just wants to scream, don’t leave me. The moans were so death like, I thought he was taking his last breaths.

Rob has a dislocated collar bone, a sprained shoulder and a concussion. I have bumps and bruises.

Fast forward to the last few weeks of a new normal for our lives

Because of Robs limited use of his arm (we find out later that he had tears in the muscles around his rotator cuff), I drive him a majority of the time. The concussion though, is another story. He is sleeping most of the days away. He can’t get on the computer to work. When we do think he is ready to venture out, he can’t even make it 1/2 a day without tiring. Up until this week, all evening outings were put on hold. And I become a full-time care giver.

This is just the physical aspects of what has happened.

Rob is not 100% yet, but he at least has better movement in his shoulder and his “smart butt” attitude is coming back.

The wreck 6 weeks ago, created another trauma in my life. The anxiety has been so great that it created a depression that was so heavy, that many times, I would want to cry, but my body wouldn’t let me because I needed to be strong.

My husband needed me to care for him.

I needed to stay strong, because my husband was in no shape to care for a wife who was losing it.

During a recent trip downtown Rob said, “I hope you are ok with walking down here, because I won’t be able to defend you if anything happens”.

I did not realize how much the reality of that statement along with the anxiety I was feeling started a spiral downward into a deep depression because I was NOT strong and I couldn’t do anything about it.

Now for the reason for my blog

Rob and I have talked about our deaths and what we would do if the other one died and we survived. I have always said, “well, I know where you would be, so I would be happy for you and I would NOT get remarried but throw myself in to the ministry and keep going”.
What God has shown me through this wreck is that I have not waited for Rob to die, to act as if he was. For many months God has been reminding me about how much I used to be the wife who kept the house clean, I was always cooking breakfast and bringing it to my husband in bed. Over the years, I have become a very focused person, which can be good and bad. Good in the business world, but bad because I have realized how much I get focused on the “busy-ness” of life that I have neglected my husband and his need to be appreciated and loved like I used to.

So God used a motorcycle wreck to show me how much I love my husband and how weak I am and there are things I need to change.

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