#blogpost Archives - Lynette Bishop Snell

OK without knowing the WHY

Administrator — Wed, 19 Jun 2019 00:07:33 +0000

So many years ago my journey to this moment started with a stupid dream. It was January 2013. Six years later I am divorced, still single, broke, lonely and fat. I don’t say those things to elicit sympathy. I state them as basic facts.

While I currently feel stagnant and unable to get out of the sticky, sucking mud, it’s not a new feeling for me. I’ve been here before, and the painful truth of life is that once I release myself from the grasp of the muck, I will eventually land in another puddle, just like this one, again.

Ebbs and flows. The circle of life. Ups and downs.

Call it what you will, it affects me time and time again. Like the old adage, “the only constant in life is change.” Sometimes change comes at a rapid pace and at others it slows down and I find myself drift at sea with no wind in my sails.

Stuck.

And while I’m slogging along in this place, it causes me to stop and think. I look back at the path I’ve just taken which led me here. What turns in the road, what decisions in life, what choices every day did I make that brought me to this exact spot where suddenly, I slowed down to what … look around? Was it beautiful and peaceful at first? Was it a trick to get me to look elsewhere instead of where I was going and I tripped, landing in a spot that would take months, perhaps years to get out of?

Two years ago I was stuck also. I was reeling from the aftershock of my divorce, trying desperately to come up for air and breathe freely again. I wasn’t just stuck then. I was drowning.

Then came a time when I felt wholly un-stuck and lived in a whirlwind of drinking, debauchery and denial. It was exhausting. Fun, but exhausting.

Oh perhaps I moved for a while during that time. I got to the here and now by moving on from that place. But it’s almost as if I’m trapped in a mine field of boggy mines that keep getting me stuck! I hop from one to the other and though in mid-jump I feel light and carefree, I land and WHAM!

Yep. Stuck.

The real problem for me now is I can see the edge of the mine field, whereas four years ago I couldn’t even move. I think seeing the edge is almost as bad as being in the whirlpool of drowning. Because while before I couldn’t even see a way out, now I can and I can’t seem to get there.

It’s like the dreams you have where the phone is ringing and you can’t answer it. Or you need to run and your legs won’t move. I can’t escape the mine field anymore than I could four years ago. Except the mines are now mocking me with one simple question.

Why?

Why? Why did it end the way it did? Why did I make the choices I did? Why am I still alone? Why am I unable to meet anyone to share my life with? Why does my life seem to be draining away? Why do I feel a sense of urgency about doing something…anything…and quick before I die?

Why? WHY? WHY???????

I sit quietly in my bog, laden down with burdens, choices, outcomes, and I wait for an answer. And what should my wondering ears hear?

Silence.

No, not silence. It’s more of a rustle. I look at God and I keep waiting. He just smiles at me, shifts in his seat and slowly shakes his head.

Nope. He’s not gonna tell me.

I have a dear, dear friend who suffered the unimaginable and lost her 4-year old son to a drowning accident many years ago. She tells the story of going to his graveside a few weeks after his death and standing in utter defiance, looking up at the sky and saying “God, I will NOT move until you bring him back. You brought Lazarus back. Now bring back my son!”

She waited, devastation-filled blood pumping angrily through her veins. And waited. And waited. Nothing happened. Until she began to hear a sound breaking through her wall of heartache.

Music. She heard music. She turned and looked up. Someone had placed a wind chime in a tree near her son’s grave. She realized in that moment God had gently touched that wind chime to let her in on a secret: He heard her cries. He heard. But he wasn’t going to answer. Not today. Maybe not ever. After several peaceful moments of listening to the wind chimes, she was able to pull herself together and leave.

She has loved wind chimes ever since. They are a stark reminder of God’s love, God’s presence, but ultimately God’s unwillingness to let her in on the biggest Why of them all…and teaching her to be okay with not knowing.

I ask the Why question a lot less than I used to. But like the wind chime, something reminds me that while I might always be alone, single, broke and fat, and never know why, at least God knows. He has all the answers to every single why I’ve ever asked. And while that is not always easy to take, I can take comfort that he does, in fact, know.

And that will have to be enough, because if I focus on the why’s for too long, I will miss all the wonderful what’s and when’s that are happening all around me every minute of every day: my precious granddaughters. My wonderful children. My family. My job. My friends. I can ask, but I can also learn to accept not ever knowing the answer.

Why? Because I said so. That’s why.

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Touching the Wound

Administrator — Tue, 15 Jan 2019 18:01:07 +0000

My friend and I have our own secret language. We have reduced complex, emotional experiences down to simple words or phrases. One that is most commonly used is “I touched the wound today.”

How often have you had a wound, whether a bug bite or cut or blister that you just can’t leave alone?

Have you noticed that the more you touch it, mess with it, pick at it, the longer it takes to heal? But isn’t it so satisfying to get the nasty scab off your skin? Disgusting? Yes. For me, however, it fulfills some base animal instinct to mess with it. I work with animals all day long. So many times we have to send them out with the dreaded “cone of shame” to keep them from messing with healing wounds. Why?

So the wound will heal.

Cones are awkward, inconvenient, and frequently damage walls, or the legs of the owners as the pet, their peripheral vision messed up by the cone, barrels through the house. I always tell owners, “don’t give in to the temptation to remove the cone. Trust me, you’ll end up dealing with it much longer if you take it off your pet. Push through the challenge and stick with it until things have healed.”

Interesting advice. I should listen to myself sometimes.

My friend and I read an article a year or so ago that resonated with us so completely, it created this phrase in our secret language. In fact, it seems to form one of the core pillars of the foundation of that language.

I don’t have to know any of the circumstances when I get her text, “I touched the wound…” and she doesn’t have to ask me when she gets my text, “wound touching, party of one, your table is now ready.”

Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could just put a figurative “cone of shame” around our wound and force ourselves to leave it alone? To focus on living instead of the wound. To focus on anything else but the wound.

But that damn wound. It’s so hard to stop touching it. Oh we go for days without mentioning our respective “wounds,” but inevitably something happens, we get a random text from the source of the wound, or we hear something or see something on social media. Whatever the catalyst, the result is always the same.

We touch the wound.

The results are always the same: depression, sorrow, loneliness, anger, hurt, rehashing really old history–the list goes on. I have yet to solve the mystery of wound touching. It’s hard. It’s messy. It’s time consuming. It’s a journey, not a destination.

Do I foresee myself touching my particular wound in the future? Duh. (Have you read my blog?). But when I look back, I realize something. I am touching it much less these days. I still, however, could use that cone of shame sometimes.

Now, don’t expect to see me driving down the road wearing a giant plastic upside down lamp shade around my neck.

If you do, please call the appropriate authorities and get me off the road.

It’s time for my wounds to heal.

The post Touching the Wound appeared first on Lynette Bishop Snell.

Control-Alt-Delete

Administrator — Sat, 25 Feb 2017 21:25:29 +0000

Yesterday, I sat down and wrote a blog post. Â It was amazing, outstanding, profound, life-changing and quite possibly the best thing I have ever written. Â Of course, in my haste to post it before my lunch break was over, I managed to somehow delete the entire post.

Gone! Â Forever! Â My immortal words suddenly became the worst thing possible: Â merelyÂ mortal.

I was frustrated and irritated. Â An entire post just poof! Vanished. Â Then a thought popped into my Â mind: Â Perhaps you were not meant to say those things, Lynette.

Hold on for a minute–I actually have a shocking confession: Â I don’t really remember what I wrote. Â I wracked my brain, trying to recall anything, but it was all gone. Â For whatever reason, my words were not meant for human consumption–apparently not even this human!

It did make me stop and ponder for a moment. Â Was that God’s hand gently pressing those ridiculous buttons on my keyboard to eliminate something he did not approve? Â Perhaps. Â I don’t remember the specifics of my post, but I do know it wasn’t anything scandalous. Â Then another thought came to mind.

Maybe it wasn’t about what others might read, but more about what God was ready for me to say. Â I know that sounds a bit convoluted but my point is, I think he was telling me, “you have more lessons to finish and I’m not ready for you to go blabbing to the world everything you thinkÂ you know.”

He was right. Â Within a couple hours of what I now term, “The Big Delete,” I got an email that sent me on a completely unexpected tailspin. Â I was crying at work, angry and swearing in the car on the way home, and ready to cause some serious damage to my liver by ingesting copious amounts of alcohol.

It was more of what I constantly fight: Â two steps forward, three steps forward, four steps forward, and then wham! Â I’m clothes lined, my feet swept out from under me. Â I’m lying flat on my back, staring up at heaven and asking “Why? Â Why? Â WHY?”

God doesn’t give me answers when I get demanding and cranky. Â I often feel he doesn’t answer me at all. Â But I know He’s up there, planning, scoping things out, working out details I know nothing about.

Recently, I discovered a new song that has risen to the top of my playlist. Â It’s called “Tell Your Heart to Beat Again” by Danny Gokey. Â The entire lyrics, from start to finish grab at every sinew and fiber of my heart. Â But these lines, especially, resonate with me.

Beginning. Â Just let that word wash over you
It’s all right now
Love’s healing hands have pulled you through
So get back up
Take step one
Leave the darkness
Feel the sun
‘Cuz your story’s far from over
And your journey’s just begun

I’m all about story. Â And my journey is chronicled here every time I sit down to write. Â But beginnings? Â I feel like every day is one more step into quicksand. Â I certainly neverÂ expected to be where I am at this stage in my life. Â But, here I am.

Is it a beginning? A reset, like the magical combination of “control-alt-delete?” Â If it is a beginning, I wish I knew the beginning of what, because I surely am not getting much direction.

I’m like the Psalmist in the Bible who wrote, “…my spirit grows faint within me; my heart within me is dismayed…answer me quickly, Lord; my spirit fails. Â Do not hide your face from me…show me the way I should go for to you I entrust my life…”

My control-alt-delete seems to be stuck in repeat mode. Â Please, Lord. Â Show me the way and help my journey move forward.

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