Wednesday, March 24, 2010

A Prison for your Thoughts

The brain is a wonderful part of the human body. In it, emotions, memories, learning and motility are controlled through a unique and intricate system of neurons and other supporting cells, that, in unison maintain you healthy and alert. Our brains can store our memories and in it, we analyze our thoughts.

Thoughts, are an important component of the mind that distinguishes us from the rest of the mammals. We can have positive thoughts such as the birth of a child or negative thoughts such as those of neglect and abuse. These thoughts, via a fascinating and complex process, have the potential of becoming a part of your memory.

Recently, I learned that some researchers believe that adults are able to recall more vividly the negative events in their life than elderly people. I wondered about this. Why does the majority of our life linger on the bad thoughts and not the good ones?

Until now, the majority of my life was full of negative thoughts that prevented me from getting closer to God. My mind became a prison for my thoughts. The first memory of such an example began when I was five years old. During a fall night, my dad came home late after attending his mother, my grandmother, who was in the hospital. My mother was boiling water in the kitchen and was waiting for him to tell her about his hospital visit. Instead, my father said he was tired and went to brush his teeth. I followed my father. I was worried and wanted to ask him more about Grandma. However, before I could get a single word out of my mouth, my father ran to the kitchen.

I wasn’t sure what had happened so I quickly followed him. I scanned the kitchen and found it had changed. The pot that was in the stove was now in the floor. My mother that was calming boiling water now had a look of fear in her eyes as she was cornered between the wall and my father’s hands. As she attempted to scream weak words came from her mouth. My father’s grip on her throat must have been incredibly strong. Since no audible voice came out of her mouth, she decided to scratch his face. After several attempts, she managed to scratch him on his left cheek. Big mistake.

He went to grab the pot from the floor, which I am guessing was to hit her with it. As he crouched down to pick up the pot, she managed to loosen from his grip. Immediately, she ran to the living room. Unfortunately, my dad was fast and managed to grab her by the arm. He turned her around towards him and began slapping her hard. Then, he grabbed her head and started banging it against the wall.

I was afraid. I screamed, “Stop! Please stop!” without any results. So, I decided to push my father away from my mother. I dug my little feet firmly in the ground and with all my strength I pushed. However, all I accomplished was to squeeze my hands in between their stomachs. This seemed to work because soon after, my father and mother looked at me and stopped. And just like that my father went to his room, my mother went to the guest room, and I was alone in the living room, full of questions and thoughts.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I cried and cried not understanding what had just happened. “It is my fault,” I muttered. “I must be a very bad person, if they had to fight that way,” I thought. Days went by and no one spoke about the incident. Every day that went by, my thoughts progressively tortured me more and more. Days became weeks, weeks became months, months became years. On numerous occasions, I was the only witness to the domestic abuse that occurred at home. And every time it happened, no one spoke to me for days. The silence drove me literally "crazy".

That single event caused, in time, my thoughts to evolve from “It is my fault” to “I am so unworthy”. Towards my pre-teen years, my feelings of unworth were so great that I did not look at anyone directly in the eyes. I would not dare. I was afraid that if people would see me, they could point out that I was a bad person. Even when I heard from others on God’s love for me, I couldn’t see it. In my mind, God could never love such an unworthy person such as myself.

For many years, I was a prisoner of my thoughts. I was enveloped in this dark world of thoughts, emotions, and misconceived notions of the events surrounding me. During this time, my relationship with God became stagnant and no growth in my spiritual life occurred. I know that many of us could relate to this anecdote, in one way or another.

When I started to write this blog, I had no idea that God would show me clip by clip my life. I never realized that for every instance in my life where I felt unloved and misunderstood, God was there hugging me, loving me and telling me “Its OK if your life is not good because I have always been and will always be here for you”.

In my opinion, you have two choices: (1) you can allow your thoughts to control you and prevent you from experiencing the much needed change that God wants in your life or (2) you can hold those thoughts “by the horns” and say that with the authority given to you by Christ who died in the cross for your sins, you control them. The choice is yours.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

To Believe and Not Love, THAT is the Question

Sickness has always surrounded my family. When I was thirteen years old, my five-year old cousin died of brain cancer. At fifteen, my great-grandmother and grandmother died of bone cancer within a span of a few months. At twenty-one, my uncle died of colon cancer. At twenty-two, my sister died of a heart attack. Three months ago, my uncle died of throat cancer. And that is not counting those cousins, uncles and aunts that are currently suffering from diabetes, high blood pressure and mental problems.

In my immediate family, sickness surrounds us as well. For the past nine years, my brother has been treated for a disease that doctors are yet to diagnose. Subsequently, in trying to determine the root of his disease, doctors have subjected him to numerous treatments and hospitalizations that have spanned from clinics to mental institutions. While many doctors are well-intentioned in trying to find the cause, they also disagree on the full diagnosis of his physical manifestations. Consequently, their disagreement has led to constant changes in doses, types of medications and treatments. With each change, another side effect compounds to his long list of symptoms. At the age of 24, my brother now suffers from liver failure, heart problems, muscle degeneration and constant epileptic attacks, half of which he did not have at one point in his life.

The not-fully resolved mystery of my brother's sickness have caused doctors to be cautious of allowing my brother to be an active member of his own life. By doctors' orders, my brother cannot travel by plane, drive a car and even go to school for fear that he will have one or many of his physical "episodes" in the middle of a classroom. Because of this, my brother has been isolated from the world. He has no friends, never has had a girlfriend and his hopes to get married and have children get slimmer and slimmer as time goes by.

Recently, I received a call from my brother. He was depressed and like always he wouldn’t let us know what was happening with him. I tried my best to talk to him and cheer him up but he hung up soon after. The next day, my mother called. She begged me to call him more often. She indicated that he was very sad the day before because according to him, “I have had to suffer more than anyone else I know. I wish I could have a normal life.” I pondered about this. Surely, I have had a rough life but in comparison to him, I am very blessed. I have a husband, have traveled, drive a car, have friends and am learning to know God.

I decided to call my brother the next day. He seemed in better spirits so I took the opportunity to inform him that I have started to go to church. As I completed my announcement, my brother screamed. “What are you doing? Don’t you know they are a bunch of fanatics? They are all hypocrites that want your money,” he indicated. Of course, these comments were not a surprise to me as these are the exact words of his caretaker, my father. I recollected myself, smiled, and told him that God loves Him. He responded, “I know He exists, I just don’t love Him.” I was hurt by his words. How could he not love God? “The Lord has always been with us despite all our problems,” I thought. After a few minutes, we changed the subject and hung up.

That thought though: “I believe but I don’t love” kept revolving in my head. To me, it didn’t make sense. I thought about it a bit more but then quickly forgot. The week went by and I continued to read one of the chapters for my homegroup. As I read about the Israelites in the base of the mountain and Aaron making them a calf god, I realized that believing without love is an actual possibility. Here are the Israelites at the base of the mountain believing in God but not loving Him enough to dwell with Him at the mountain top.

What a sad reality. God had done so much for them yet when it was the Israelites’ turn to love Him back, they retracted. Or at least, they did not love Him enough to go the top of the mountain and dwell with Him. Three million people at the base of the mountain blatantly told God, “I believe in You but I don’t love You that much to have a relationship with You.” How sad! I can’t begin to fathom how God must have felt when He heard that or how He feels when to this day, our nation asks Him to leave our schools and our lives.

Then and there, I realized that my brother’s words were not so far away from the truth. Can you imagine how many people are telling God that they believe in His existence yet because society doesn’t see it fit, that they can’t love Him enough to follow and interact with Him? How many of us need serious healing in our lives (emotional, spiritual, physical) but don’t understand how to begin believing and/or how to love Him enough to allow Him to perform those miracles in our lives? I don’t have those answers nor do I know at what point will God bless my family and heal/free them from all of their suffering. All I know is that I love Him and that no matter how life pans out, He is my Savior and the one true thing that I will ever need.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

The Freedom to Obey (Part 2)

Step by step, I climbed up the ladder. I looked straight ahead. I did not want to look down! I thought to myself, "Hey, this isn't so bad. The ladder is stable and I am slowly going up." As I climbed, I saw more and more tree branches while the people got smaller and smaller. Suddenly, I arrived to the step before the final one. I hesitated. Temptation sept in and I looked down. For the first time during the climb, I was scared. I thought to myself "What if I fall?" and I held tighter to the ladder.

Although I don't recall everything at that moment, I do remember hearing a voice from below say, "Just try to go up that last step and see how it feels." Hesitantly, I followed the person's advice and I climbed up that final step. At that precise moment, I was ecstatic. I couldn't believe I had gone up that final step! I was so happy that I pushed myself from the ladder and instantaneously floated in mid-air, held by very vigilant harness rope holders. As I descended to the ground, I pondered about what just happened but as the activities of the retreat continued, I soon forgot about the incident.

The next day, we drove back home and that night I could not sleep. I kept thinking about the ladder activity and about the homegroup talk we had the week prior about getting Egypt out of the Israelites. As I tossed and turned, I kept hearing the recurring phrase: "To obey you need to let go." I wasn't sure what that meant exactly. My natural mind thought that if to let go means to free yourself from something and in order to obey you need freedom, then freedom and obedience contradict each other. However, I knew that couldn't be right because I continued to have this phrase "follow" me throughout the week.

Yesterday, as I continued to ponder on this phrase, I thought again about the ladder and the story of Moses bringing the Israelites into the wilderness. I realized that they were both related! Praise God!

As the students went up the ladder, many hesitated to go up the final step. Why? Clearly, everyone in the group made sure that they were doing their part. Furthermore, why did I hesitate on that final step when I had been a guideline and a harness rope holder and knew what both encompassed?

I realized that although it was not an ideal situation (e.g., up in a ladder in mid-air), I had very quickly adapted to that awkward scenario. It must have been instinct that caused you to adjust to the ladder steps. Was it possible that the Israelites had grown accustomed to the mistreatments by the Egyptians? I then pondered more about getting to the final step and letting go of the ladder. Why was I scared? Even as I was told to obey and let go, I hesitated. Maybe the Israelites were also afraid to take a leap of faith and let go of what they knew, even if it was not the best situation. The ironic part was that the Israelites were so close to dwelling with God! So close and yet when the final step came, they hesitated.

And then I thought that I should be proud that I let go of the ladder because I was able to see the consequences of my actions: an exciting and unforgettable experience. What would have happened if the Israelites had "let go of Egypt" and obeyed God's desire to dwell in them? Things for sure would have been very different.

I can't help but think how many times in our lives have we been close to a breakthrough in our relationship with God and yet when we get to that final step, we hesitate. If to "obey you need to let go", how many strongholds in our lives prevent us from obeying God's will? How many times and how long must we stand in that final step before we can truly have the freedom to obey?



Monday, March 1, 2010

The Freedom to Obey (Part 1)

This past weekend, my husband and I were invited to a retreat from the University of Maryland-Baltimore Campus. The retreat's intention was to promote education and encourage minorities to continue towards completing their graduate degrees. Our role was to simply listen and provide the students with positive encouragement during many of the outdoor activities of the retreat.

I thought that the activities would include a small hike and some form of camping. But the activities that we were a part of were completely different from what we expected. Let me show you an example of such activity:
The images you see is an example of one of the outdoor activities we were a part of this weekend. For this activity, 10 people were required. Four people held 4 red ropes that were attached to the top of the ladder: two ropes were holding the front portion of the ladder and the remaining 2 ropes were holding the back of the ladder. The people holding the four red ropes were referred to as guidelines. Their role was to extend all the red ropes simultaneously with the purpose of lifting the ladder in mid-air while keeping the ladder straight. The other 4 people were in charge of holding the ropes that were attached to the harness of the climber. Two students held one rope, which attached to the right side of the harness and the remaining two students held the rope that was connected to the left side of the harness. Their role was to help the climber go up the ladder steps and served as a "safety net" for the climber in case there was a slip-up. The ninth person was the project manager, which overlooked all of the tasks and the tenth and most important person was the "volunteer" climber (although everyone was volunteered!).

The climber in my opinion had a hard task. He/she had to climb the steps while communicating to the guidelines if the ladder was unstable or to the others if the harness was loose. In addition, once the climber reached the second-to-top step of the ladder, he/she had to let go of the ladder's sides, raise their hands in a cross-like fashion and push themselves from the ladder to mid-air. What a task!

My first thought was "There is no way I am going up that ladder!" Instead, I decided to be delay my climb as much as I could. In order to delay this process, I volunteered to be one of the guidelines first. After my duties as a guideline were completed and it was time to rotate roles, I then volunteered to hold the ropes tied to the harness. Trust me. I did not want to go up and did all I could to avoid it!

The first climber that volunteered was an 18-19 year student. He was super excited and started going up the ladder very fast. It was very scary from the rope holder's perspective as we had to be very aware and make sure the student was stable while he climbed. After all, his life was in our hands! To ensure the climber's safety, we worked in teams. We communicated (mainly shouted!) if one of the rope holders was not paying attention or if the climber was going too fast for the rope holders to keep pace.

One by one, the students all had a chance to go up that ladder. Many students were very confident and without hesitation let go of the ladder. Others, were very frightened and hesitated to let go for fear of falling and/or that the rope holders were not paying attention. As I watched every student go up the ladder, I noticed that although every single one of them successfully let go of the ladder in the end, there was a moment of hesitation once they reached that final step. As I kept thinking about that, one of the team leaders said, "OK, it is your turn." I was harnessed and the ropes attached to my harness were fastened. I took a deep breath and commenced to climb.

(TO BE CONTINUED....)