"And Every Virtue We Possess"

Once God has begun the process of sanctification in your life, watch and see how God causes your confidence in your own natural virtues and power to wither away.

I've never heard anyone put this process so very well. Wither away they did and in an awfully painful way. My pride held on much too long, but God was faithful to rid me of what was holding me back even when it meant having to face a harsh reality.

It's taken a long time for me to appreciate the growth that took place those long years ago. The result is wonderful, though I couldn't begin to see even a glimpse of wonder while I was going through it.

Pilot blinded by stroke is guided safely to ground

Without a doubt, this is one of the most incredible things I've heard of in a long, long time. A former pilot myself, in theory this should be fairly straightforward, but I can't imagine anyone willing to try it just to test the theory. Landing at night without a landing light can be challenging enough, but with NO frame of reference save what some stranger tells you (albeit a member of the RAF), boggles the mind. For all the training pilots have in trusting their instruments, literally flying blind, having to trust one's knowledge of where everything is in the cockpit would test anyone's intestinal fortitude. Think of driving blind at 60+ miles per hour (97 kilometres per hour) and having someone guide you. Now add in that you can't just pull over and stop. Eeeek.


It occurs to me that sometimes our walk with God is like this. Mine certainly has been. At a time when my marriage was rocky, I had no friends or family to support me, and my church had just abandoned me, I felt like I was flying blind. I knew God was still in control, but I wondered if He really loved me and, if so, why I was so alone. I can imagine the pilot felt entirely alone when he found himself blind at 5,500 feet. The pilot's only way to survive was through listening to a friendly voice that would tell him things he had no way of verifying. Still, he knew the voice was of a fellow pilot who was there to help. I can't imagine, though, that there wasn't a measure of apprehension and doubt, a thought that "I can't do this". Then again, the pilot had little choice. In an interview I saw with him, he spoke of the people on the ground who might be killed if he crashed. I can't help but wonder whether that perspective isn't a certain amount of the key.

Three Little Words: We'll Talk Later

The New Pastor has been with our church a while now. Not unexpectedly, the first few services he wasn't used to our church's normal order of worship. There were a few slight rough spots. It was not a big deal -- except, I was sure, in the mind of the narcissist. After all, an entire congregation was watching. Ouch.

The church staff are known to make friendly jabs at each other during Sunday services. This past week, it was the new pastor's turn to be on the receiving end. A comment was made about the rough spots. Anyone else would have taken it as a moment of friendliness that just happened to mention the understandable mistakes by someone new. The new pastor's quiet reply of "we'll talk later" was obviously not a continuance of friendly repartee.

I have no idea what actually happened behind the scenes and I like it that way. I've spent more time than I care listening to the rantings of a narcissist who believes he's been slighted. When it came to his job, its impact was felt for weeks and even months. I feel for the pastor's wife and children.

I am comforted, however, in my belief that if there were anyone able to handle the workplace ramifications, it's our church's senior staff. They're not wishy-washy. They know where they stand and why they stand there. Given that the common wisdom is there's really no way to reform a narcissist, perhaps this guy has a chance to experience the one surefire way of reform: God's grace.

The New Pastor

I met The New Pastor this past weekend. It was his first church service with the congregation. I also read his CV. You've heard it said if something seems too good to be true it probably is? It seems to apply here. Everything is just a bit....too much. I stand by my first comments after reading his of his accomplishments and credentials: there's something wrong here.

After meeting the man, I don't feel any better about him and I *really* tried. Call it intuition, vibes, a gut feeling, or whatever, but when I feel this way it's nearly always turned out to be right. Something was just not right.

I was so troubled in my spirit -- I couldn't believe this was the man God had called to our church. It all seemed impossible. I trust the people who selected the man, so how had this happened?

Then I remembered prayer. (OK, so I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer....) After worshiping God, pouring out my heart to Him, praying that His will be done, I still felt uneasy. So, I prayed for God's help, for His reassurance.

I was turning to the appropriate scripture passage for the sermon, preached by the pastor who will be the new pastor's boss, when God spoke to me: "who better for this man who troubles you to serve under than this man?". Answer to prayer is so sweet! Over the past months, this "boss" pastor has boldly preached his way through very challenging parts of God's word. He's pulled no punches. He's faithful preached The Word, even when it flew in the face of political correctness, even when it made him less than popular. I couldn't imagine a man more capable of shepherding this new pastor. God is indeed remarkable!

Although my spirit was no longer troubled about this new pastor, I now knew that his boss would need much prayer for he had been given a challenge.

The Golden Child

I've blogged before about my role as The Golden Child as well as the other roles that I played in my narcissistic family. My narcissistic father raised me to be exactly like him. He trained me to think like him, like the same things he liked, behave like him, and to look down on those he looked down upon. Think clone.

Being a clone was a great ride. Until, just like in the science fiction movies, I became self-aware. It took me until I was in my 30's to get to that point. By that time, I had graduated from university and worked in my "chosen" career for a decade.

Until that time, I lived my life as the perfect clone of a narcissist. I behaved in the nasty way he did. I looked down upon those he had taught me were unworthy. I sought a career in an area that met his approval. I took a large portion of my understanding of what was good from his teachings. I knew that these were the correct ways of behaving and thinking and being because I knew that my narcissistic father was right. He had told me so.

The only chink in my clone armor was my Christian faith. How I reconciled my faith and my clone behaviour is still puzzling to me. The most likely reason lies in the immaturity of my faith, combined with my earthly experience of an angry, autocratic, judgemental father colouring my understanding of Father God.

Then reality hit. Suddenly I could see being The Golden Child as the curse it truly is. I had no idea who I was -- something with which I still struggle. I didn't know what *I* liked, only what I was taught I was supposed to like. I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, only what I was taught I was supposed to do. I didn't know how to evaluate other people's behaviour, my own behaviour, or even how to live life itself, in any way other than within the strict framework which I had been taught. *I*, my self, my human person-hood, was hiding all those years, pretending to be the person I was taught I was supposed to be. All those childhood experience of trying things, forming an opinion, finding what I liked and those things in which I found special satisfaction, they didn't happen. The learning and growth that comes from it didn't happen either. My scope was arbitrarily limited and I made the best of what I was allowed.

My childhood compliance that served me so well at the time, is now an adult challenge. As I strive to find what *I* like, the results are fascinating. I enjoy the creativity of art, playing my piano, making things with my hands, all things I was taught were a waste of time and entirely worthless.

Being The Golden Child certainly had its advantages at the time. I bought years of approval from my narcissist by being who he wanted me to be. I also lost years of my self by being who he wanted me to be. Given a time machine and the choice, would I make the same choice? I have no idea.

A Tale of Two Deaths

It's an odd thing, the difference between how I felt when my n father died and when my father-in-law died. Neither man professed any real interested in their Creator, although my father often cursed God. I was there when both died, both of cancers.

My father-in-law died, with all his children, his adult grandchildren, and the spouses there. Out of town family members had stayed in contact daily with local family and drove through the night to be with him before he died. It wasn't a conflict-free time, but we all made our way through it, still caring for one another.

While sitting at the foot of my father-in-laws bed, listening to him struggle to breathe, I felt an amazing *need* to pray. It's not something I can easily describe. It was a deep, urgent, feeling that I must pray. So I did. I prayed in a way that day, pleading and praising like I never had before, or since. I could feel an amazing spiritual battle happening around me, but I had no idea how or why. It was only months later that I was told a family member there, who was taking a lead role in caring for my father-in-law, had been studying and practicing shamanic rituals. She'd been working with my father-in-law with special stones and other objects. I believe this was the reason my spirit felt so burdened to pray.

When he died, I was sitting next to his bed, holding his and my mother-in-law's hands, listening to her share loving family memories.

When my father died, my mother and I were there: she asleep after exhausting herself attempting to meet the demands of my n father, I by his bedside. I advocated for him, for pain management and other comfort issues. I watched and listened to him die.

The scene was so different from that of my father-in-law. There was no spirit of family, no shared comfort in a time of distress. It was just me, a sleeping mother and a dying father. And the machines.

I tried to talk to God, but there was nothing there, only a stagnancy that defies description. I was not without God presence, but there was no call to pray, no spiritual battle. My father's impregnable fortress of narcissism had held strong. I couldn't even muster a struggle to find sadness. He had made his choice.

My mother awoke just before his end came. As he struggled for breath, panic-stricken she urged him to keep breathing. Before long the time came that I needed to urge her to let him go. He died with his anxious wife and stoic daughter at his bedside.

Now, years later, after typing all this, I see that both deaths are a perfect summation of the lives that preceded them. My father-in-law knew he was far from perfect, but he had done his best to be a loving husband and father. He died surrounded by his imperfect family, doing its best to make it through a difficult time. My father was perfect in his own mind. He'd done all he could to make the world around him serve him. In his death he was surrounded by the anxiety and cold distance he had so well cultivated. The world provided its service to him one last time and then it was finished.

Real Parenting

The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.

Genesis 3:21

It's one of my favourite verses. Even leaving aside the deep theological issues, this is a picture of real parenting at work. Adam and his wife blew it. Big time. (And, just in case you think I'm casting stones, I have no doubt that in the same situation I would have done no better.) They deserved the severest of consequences. Yet God, a loving God, clothed his children even as he sent then from the garden. By all rights, God could have taken an attitude of "you made your bed, now lie in it", but He didn't. God provided for His people.

With amazement I watch as God provides for His people still today. As I strive to learn and heal from the bumps and bruises of life, God brings exactly what I need into my life. It's comforting to receive some real parenting.

I still don't understand the whole principle of Mother's Day. But as I contemplate the goodness of God and the loving kindless He's shown me, maybe I can get closer to understaning the celebration of a real parent.