Crisis.

(This all ties so please read to the end. It's worth your time.)

During one of my mental health training videos it described the word crisis as when a person experiences stressors in which they are ill-equipped to deal with their situation and go beyond their learned coping skills. In this state is when a persons truest, and most undifferentiated, nature comes out. For some this behavior includes verbal hostility, like name calling or yelling, but for others this behavior includes physical hostility, like slamming doors or punching stuff/people.

A lot of times crisis can lead to cathartic (or alleviating) experiences, if only the person proves capable of learning the proper coping skills needed to avoid being overwhelmed by similar future stressors, but most of the time people are so unwilling to change they live their lives in a vicious cycle of being poorly differentiated people lacking the simplest coping skills needed to resolve their stressors.

Basically coping skills are like a "tool belt". Look up good mental health coping skills (and bad ones) if you want more info on that... also look up what differentiation means. Simply put, good coping skills can keep you from going into crisis... or "flipping out". Think about the last time you felt uncomfortable or offended in a social setting and all of a sudden your ability to reason, to love others, to be nice and smile and to be in an appropriate state of mind went out the window. Most of the time when this happens you end up lashing out and remorseful, saying something like, "I don't know what got in to me. I don't know why I lashed out."... Well its simple, you were a lowly differentiated person who lacked the skills to cope amidst your insecurities.

When we are mocked or our pride is challenged or our ability to be successful is questioned... all of these things, and others, target our insecurities and make us suspect to crisis. If properly differentiated and with a good "tool belt", a person will respond knowing that nothing can retract from their own value as an individual. If not properly differentiated and with an underdeveloped "tool belt"... you're looking at crisis.

As a christian my personal biggest coping skill is the ability to rely on a sovereign God who is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent. I also like to exercise, eat well, read, hang with people and watch funny movies... but the love given by a Savior fuels the meaning of all those other things.

However, I'm still suspect to crisis. Most of the time this happens to me when I feel overwhelmingly rejected or even reminded of how I've been rejected. Rejections like thinking about how my biological family won't talk to me anymore or how I've been blocked/excommunicated by Christian communities I grew roots in... or even how our "American church" views me after being divorced. Rejection isn't the only thing that triggers crisis for me either. The feeling of not having control does too. Like not being able to control one of my family members diagnosis of Paranoia disorder.. or not being able to control how I continuously sin against my Savior (which if you're a believer you know isn't even ABOUT control but releasing it).

I'm still in my own process of becoming more differentiated and learning good coping skills so that I don't continually fall into crisis and run to bad coping skills but it's a hard battle. With a lot of pain. I thank my Savior for including me in the beloved though.. I really do.  After reading all of this I want you to ask yourself, What do I run to to ease the pain I carry? What sends me into crisis and what coping skills do I use? Are they healthy ones or detrimental ones? Evaluate yourself... Because by doing so you may be freeing yourself of a vicious cycle. And if you can't find much wrong with yourself after an evaluation then pick up a book on excuses and blaming others because your battle with self realization has barely begun.

I apologize if this reads jumpy. Maybe I'm in crisis :).

God is so good to us... and He has been good to me.

Struggle.

When I created this blog I wanted to call it, "Depraved but Redeemed."

I changed it, however, because my soon to be x-wife told me that "but" made it sound more permissive towards the former term and "yet" made it sound more aggressive towards the latter term.

...She was right.

I am a sinner but I love Jesus. I am a sinner yet I love Jesus.

Often I find myself stuck between those two... Do you? At times feel cheap towards the grace provided by Christ and at other times see it costly (Bonhoeffer terms). It's a difficult struggle. It's one that requires a level of humility thats empowered by God alone (James 4:6). My challenge is this: 

Read Psalms 7:3-5 and James 4:6. CLING to the "yet" term and not the "but" term.

God is good.

Woe.

"Woe is me. For I am lost. For I am a man of unclean lips. And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips."

FYI.. The word "Woe", is a desperate Hebrew cry of emotional distress. So anytime you see this... Know its the equivalent of sending a text message like: @!$%&())#$()#)@)@(#(!  This particular verse comes out of Isaiah 6. Basically what happens that leads to Isaiah saying this is this:  Isaiah is a proud man from a proud culture that knows nothing but a comfortable, wealthy lifestyle. All of a sudden, he has an encounter with God. And its big (Check how many times Isaiah 6 says words like "filled", "full", "all", etc.). Isaiah, seeing now what LEGIT looks like, falls and sees how crappy he is. Then sees how crappy the people around him are as well. This all is a shock, considering he probably thought he was doing pretty good... I mean, most rich cultures think this-- Like ours (burn). Isaiah was broken. Isaiah was Unmade.

This story is the same as Luke 14. Where the rich are "invited" to a King-like banquet by a powerful man and the invited make excuses not to come. In their culture, this was a MAJOR burn. What did the man do? He "compelled" the sick, lame and poor to come. He compelled them... NOT invited, but compelled. (See Luke 14:24). He wanted the broken. He wanted the unmade.

Now look at David's cry to God after he had adulterous sex with Bathsheba and offed her husband in Psalms 51. Basically? David begged a perfect God for mercy for what he did. NOT grace but mercy (See Psalms 51:1). David begged God to purify him like the Seraph did for Isaiah with the burning coal. David begged out of being broken. David begged out of being unmade.

All that said... We live in a culture of comfortability. Of wealth. Of insurances. Of 401k's. Of Entertainment. Of riches. And of binge eating feasts at Chili's after we go and "celebrate Jesus" on Sunday mornings. Quick question: Where did the WOE go? We basically traded in our "Woe" for "Woah". David, Isaiah, Jesus with his parable... they all relay the following: We are 1, too full of other crap to see God like Isaiah.. 2, We are too full of excuses and self to feast with God on Sundays.. and 3, too stinking proud and misguided by our lives to EVER be broken like David A.K.A. "The man after God's own heart". Look at these real quick:

The last shall be first,  and the first last. - Matthew 20:16

Anyone who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. - Luke 14:33

God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. - James 4:6

What are you gathering by reading this blog? I'll tell you one thing I'm gathering. He wants the broken, the sinful, the prostitutes, the druggies, the hateful and the jacked up people with self realization to be at his banquet. And the invited? Like the blind-to-self Pharisees, the self-righteous preacher, the insurance laced worrier (Matt 6:27), the comfortable sunday worker, the binge eatin' entertainment junkies, the socializing church goer and the spiritually complacent communities... Wont.

I'm willing to give all. But hell.. I got NOTHING to even give, hah! I'm the worst sinner among us. I've lost almost anything worth losing in this past year and all by my own doing. In fact, I beat myself senseless with guilt every damn day. I struggle with putting mercy, let alone grace, into perspective as something I can have. I've been run out of churches, left by friends, slandered, gossiped about, etc. Yet somehow... I now fit the description of the people Christ compels to be at his banquet now? unreal. SEE Luke 14:21-24 if you have ISSUES with what I've said. And correct me in my lack of truth if present. Let Him reveal to me all error in this blog and break me more if there's still personal error to be realized (Psalms 7:3-5).

God IS good. Are you the broken and unmade failure he wants to work through though?

Light.

This Monday, I will start my new job. In it I see hope. In it I can take pride in the man God is forming me to be. In it I find the strength to let go of the things that have haunted me. In it I find the light that comes from only one source. This Monday, I will be a Mental Health Paraprofessional at the Ozark Guidance Center.

Ain't he good?

I have fought Him. I have mocked Him. I have disobeyed Him. I have ran from Him. I have cursed, accused, spat and tortured His people...Yet He calls me child. At the foot of the cross I have recently found the grace and peace needed to fuel the rest of this restoration process. At the foot of the cross I have dug into His Spirit and found joy... and have made it my own. Even BEFORE I was interviewing for the MHPP position, I was fasting and saying to myself, Erick... If you don't get this job...


God is STILL good.


I have held my tongue from the evil in my heart and have gotten violent against the sinfulness of my heart. I am a member of the beloved... I will seek to rejoice as such, despite the visibility of my blessings. Isn't that what 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 says anyway? (Yeah... google it). God's imparted righteousness is purifying me like the coals did for Isaiah and in that I'm finding the comfort that only He can provide. Come on. Say it out loud :)

God is good.

Blur.

(Sidenote: This blog is PACKED full of run-on sentences, sentence splices, careless grammatical errors and jumpy thoughts. I bring this up 'cuz it normally ANNOYS the crap out of me but its simply all I can muster right now. I apologize.)

I'm back.

But honestly I think you should know that for months now I've written and rewritten several different blogs with "catchy titles" and discontentedly deleted them without saving. Reason being: A piercing dissatisfaction with the thoughts pulsing through my brain.

And If I am to be MORE honest? I'll tell you that I've sat at work for HOURS in the last two months thinking, "I could write about this" or "I could write about that" but each time ended up staring at this computer screen with a blank face. Wordless... Idealess (if thats even a word)... Speechless...  Without reference to ANYTHING! No book I just read, no brilliant epiphany I just had... nothing. Making matters worse, I've had a NASTY case of writers block musically too.

The other day I read some pastor say Pop culture is the death of true love and I almost puked in my mouth from the atrociousness of his ignorance and almost wrote a blog blasting his idea with an intellectual presentation about God's intrinsic good... but then stopped because I felt convicted. I figured he didn't know any better-- due to his feeble, ignorant mind --and he was probably more scared of how much he HIMSELF didn't know than someone ripping him...

Week later, I read another pastor try to talk about "community" and how its about acceptance and trying to get along with those around you while personally knowing his excommunicative ways -- had to let that one go too... (Similar reasons).

There was one day I came home ECSTATIC to blog about "Acceptance"... but half-way through realized I don't even accept myself so what the hell did I even know about it... So I stopped and deleted. "Purpose"... "Imitation"... "Direction"... "Potential"... all those were also titles I started writing about but then stopped in the middle of. Good titles with potential to be addressed (when I get them)... but for now can't because they draw massive BLANKS in my brain.

I think I'm unable to blog about anything due to the bitterness and heartlessness that spews from my mouth from being hurt. It doesn't even matter if I'm making a point or not anymore! its like.. I subconsciously figure that if I can't write about anything in love why try to at all. My hearts wrong... And because its wrong... I am unable to speak truth in love... I guess its fair to say that everything's simply a blur right now -- With Psalms 7 being the deepest underlying conviction I feel at all times (thats a hint for you to check it out). Quick question... Why do certain people not speak with self-conviction yet preach at others FOR conviction?... Doesn't that seem off?... Anyway..

That's what I got for now. God is STILL good.