Sarah Nyhan

I now know what the problem is.  Fortunately.  Unfortunately.  It is disappointment.  Profound deep disappointment.  And that is why I can’t start writing either.  There is a deep grief.  Deep to my core.  Disappointment.  Sadness.  Hurt.  And anger.  I want to be honest with Maryann.  I pray for the right time and the right way.  She is hurting.  Deeply.  Both emotionally and physically.  Plus she is heavily invested in this.  I don’t feel unprotected by God in coming to this conference.  I think it was important on many levels.  Probably many more than I am aware of right now.  Hopefully God will help me gather my thoughts and communicate them.  First there was the disappointment over Maryann volunteering me for the merchandise table -which I’m strongly opposed to selling the word of God.  Or selling things while trying to tell people about God.  I hate it!  To my core.  I listen to Linda and followed instead of listening to my gut.  I regret that.  But the theme of not relying on others begins to develop with that incident.  Then I’m not comfortable with the “ministry” holding back the material unless you pay for it.  Yes there is free information but then they charge a lot for some material that could be provided for free.  I can see recovering costs for book production, but we live in a digital age where there is little to no cost for publishing material online.  I hear these other men have things they are also charging for: Malcolm Smith, John MacMurray, Francois Du Toit.  It makes me sick.  In my view, give the information for free if you really want them to have it.  And then God will put it on someone’s heart to cover the costs of production if production is part of the plan.  I could go on and on.  Not a fan.  And I feel strongly about it.  I don’t think everything Baxter has said is false.  I hear in him a jealousy of sorts.  An ego issue.  A problem of not taking his own advice.  Saying this, I have to be careful because I have the same problem.  But I think he is a little miffed at Paul Young’s “success”.  Paul Young has his own issues, which I don’t care to go into our think about now.  But Baxter just finished telling us how there is no basically second-class “secular”, but he’s got into the “ministry” trap as he is speaking specifically about the trap.  Do I think he is aware of it?  No, not fully at least.  Maybe this peddling the gospel is the only “ministry” model he has been exposed to and knows.  I think there is also part of him that still thinks he needs to prove his worth by doing something great.  I think he means well but I think he is so embedded in a particular group of people that I imagine it would be terribly difficult to swim upstream against the grain and just be a fishing lure designer or a fisherman or an outdoorsman.  Even though he’s telling everyone else that the everyday is just as worthy as the global.  Another thing I see is his fan club is probably the pushers in most of this production.  Oh man, like that Robbie lady – yikes!!!  Double yikes!!  Bad, super bad vibes and energy from her.  Completely self-absorbed.  The Caucasian version of Elvira Garcia.  They could be twins.  I was blown away.  There is probably a beaver dam of insecurity inside her.  I’m not sure about what.  But it was like nails on chalkboard to my spirit to hear her speak.  Her poor husband.  She’s basically in love with Baxter.  Like my mother with Mr. Kelley.  Like Nancy Jones with Ron Arbaugh.  Like maybe Maryann with Baxter and Paul Young.  I think a little bit at least.  That’s why I asked Maryann if her husband was into this.  A little bit of man worship going on.  No condemnation.  I get it.  I’ve been there.  Also.  It happens.  It’s very easy to happen.  Most recently with Dr. Rosenauer and Jonathan and Taqui.  That verse about men taking advantage of women with guilt comes to mind.  Although I haven’t heard her say it, I wonder if Maryann has guilt for her daughter’s spiritual state because she divorced her first husband.  I wonder if Sandra was mad.  I wonder she committed suicide.  I wonder if it was to finally get her mother’s attention.  Attention she felt due her that Maryann gave to so many others.  That is deep deep stuff.  I feel like Maryann probably hears echoes of this calling so deep and her soul.  I think she probably wants to face it but I have a feeling she doesn’t feel strong enough to face those things alone without someone or Someone to hold her up, literally, and get her through it.  I think I have similar situations.  I blame myself for Alan.  For Rose.  For Denise.  For my brother.  For the whole Jonathan/Bethany fiasco because I didn’t or wouldn’t lose weight.  How much of my stuff, how much of Maryann’s stuff, the stuff I’m putting on her and myself, how much of it is condemnation from satan and how much is conviction from the holy spirit?  Sigh.  There is so much to unpack there.  I don’t know if I’m up to it right now.  In a way, proving my point.  Add Manna Huse, Mickey, Namine, and Angel to my list also.  I pray you will walk me through that minefield, Father.  I don’t want to be deceived.  I need food.  So much more I have to say but I need a break.  I can see God answering my prayers.  Thank you, Father.  Just not in the ways I expected.  Which is fine.  I want his will when it comes down to it.  My flesh will always be my flesh.  But there is part of me, hopefully a growing part, that wants his will above all.  Thank you, God, for so much.  This is not what I thought I’d be writing about.  Just like Sandra maybe wanted her mom to herself, without her mom trying to change her, maybe I want, yes I wish, Maryann and I could spend time like the old days – just sitting and talking about whatever comes to mind.  Listening.  Honesty.  Real rawness.  I miss that.  I have a feeling she would be open to it and welcome to it if I pushed the envelope a little.  But then again she shuts down on me when I get too real sometimes.  I can tell she has her own pain these days.  Will my boldness help her break out?  I can’t figure it out.  I’m afraid of hurting her.  But I don’t like seeing her go down this path.  Like Paula also.  But there is something they don’t want to hear or see.  I feel like the answer is to love them.  Keep loving them.  Keep being very honest about my stuff.  Super honest.  And maybe something will click in them and resonate and they can be honest a little bit also.  They can crack the door to their vaults.  There is no way I can figure it out on my own.  I need holy spirit to guide and protect and give me God’s heart and words.  Mine will ruin if I’m in my own strength.  I’ve probably already done enough damage to both of those ladies in my ignorance.  Even though I value both of them so much.  Maybe this is me reclaiming that part of me that never stood up to my mother.  God is leading me deeper and deeper into healing from past traumas that never really passed.  This weekend, unfortunately, feels like a burning down somewhat of the pedestal I’ve put Maryann on.  And God is so good.  From her own mouth she has told me in many direct and indirect ways that we are all in this together and she is still in progress.  I still trust that she loves me very much.  In my imperfection, in her imperfection.  She is still such a beautiful gift from God.  I hope it is only my view of her that is burning down.  I hope she will still be in my new growth.  I still love her.  She is still beautiful.  I had this epiphany of sorts yesterday or maybe earlier today.  That when I was super young, I think I was being sexually abused on a regular basis.  I think somehow I knew that my mother knew and I hated my mother for hating me and sacrificing me for financial security.  But I think God protected me by not letting me remember too much.  I think he left me enough breadcrumbs so I wouldn’t go crazy from knowing or go crazy from not knowing.  I think my God-created ability to dissociate and split off into different parts was engaged at a disturbingly young age.  But I think he also helped me get through it by sort of encapsulating parts of my pain in my dreams.  There were plenty of nightmares for years.  But there were a few dreams that were not terrifying that I think he used to comfort and calm me so I could not be killed off by the trauma of it all.  One of the dreams was me laying in ocean water as the tide washed over me as if I had been washed ashore.  Looking back I wonder if this was immediately after I had been used and abused.  Because in my dream, my body is so weak that I am so broken that I am unable to move or call for help or help myself.  In the dream there is this feeling of complete weakness and a complete brokenness and shattering of me.  In the dream there is a man and he is walking the beach.  And he finds me and he picks me up and carries me in his arms with my head on his upper chest/shoulder, I am completely limp, and he carries me to a house where his mother takes care of me.  They clean me up and put me in new clothes and put me in bed.  And then the mom nurses my strength back.  She feeds me a little at a time because I am not strong.  She makes me feel safe.  That dream always brought me great comfort.  I now think it was a dream sent by God.  But I think today during communion I felt like I always thought maybe God would provide a human man to find me and he and his mother would love me back to health and wholeness.  But now, as of today, I think God showed me that Jesus is the man in the dream and the holy spirit is the mother.  And I think he showed me that Jesus and He and the holy spirit partnered with Maryann to the great majority and then other women such as Dianne Rowton, and Becky Coronado, and Maria Clark to at times be the human version of that mother in my dream.  That mother I never had in biological form.  But so cool that he has used Maryann so much.  When I was younger she told me she would be proud to have me as a daughter.  I don’t see why but that always spoke volumes to me.  Then the day before her daughter Sandra died she told me that in her heart I am one of her daughters.  I was so happy.  That blew my mind when she said that.  I felt like I finally had a real mom.  In heart.  Which is the only place that really matters from my perspective now.  And then it seems like hell was allowed to ruin that moment for me then and for all of this time because her daughter died the next day.  I guess I felt like bad in the sense that if anyone gets close to me then they will get hurt.  I was mad at God because it seemed like I couldn’t have that gift without a big black cloud of pain and sadness associated with it.  But now I think my thinking is incomplete and wrong.  I know God’s character is only good.  Maybe whatever that timing was is related to more, much more, than I know behind the scenes.  As much as for Maryann as for me.  God only knows.  I don’t want to accuse him.  I need food.  Now to go drive around.  Thank you God for saving me and loving me.  Thank you so much for Maryann loving me.  Please help me love her.  More and better.  Please help me see and hear and love and speak as you do.  Thank you for caring for me and giving me your best and loving me.