I think my first addiction to dread as a child, was when I knew my daddy was coming home from work. My daddy drove vehicles for a living. I think he first began with driving taxi's in the city. He then hauled new cars from one state to another on the back of a long trailer. And the last job he had, he drove semi tractor-trailers long distances. Often he would be gone from four or five days to a week at a time. When I was very young, he would be gone several weeks at a time. My mother said that even as a baby, the minute he would come home I would start crying. Maybe it was because I had not seen him in a while and I didn't recognize him as being a regular member of our household. But as I grew older, a sense of fear developed in me because I knew that when he came home... everything as we knew it when he was not there was going to change. What I didn't know as a child was that my daddy was addicted to alcohol. He didn't drink while he was working but he took pills that would keep him awake while he was driving. The sad thing was, I didn't know who my daddy really was. The people who worked with him loved him because they saw him and talked with him when he was sober. It wasn't until later in life that I was able to see the man that they knew. I was close to thirty years old by then. Also, by this time... my life had been built around crisis situations. So, in a sense, the roots of my insecurity began in the crib at home, in what should have been a safe environment, but wasn't.
In my childhood years, we moved from one house to another, one school to another and each move was supposedly an escape to a better place. I made friends and lost friends and then made friends again. I was taught not to hang on too tightly to anything because you can lose it overnight. And above all, never, let anyone see your exposed heart... keep it covered at all times. When we finally settled down and moved into the house I would call home, I had lived a life time of insecurities and fears that no child should ever be exposed to at twelve years old.
Beth says, "The truth is God uses change to change us. He doesn't use it to destroy us but to coax us to the next level of character, experience, compassion and destiny."
Most of us have insecurity issues to work through. As hard as it is though, we need to dig up the roots that have held us down and under for so many years. I loved Julie's analogy about the bush at her house that had roots so deep they could not be pulled up. So, she just cut it down, and set a really cute planter on top of it... only to see it growing again the next year. And you know what? It probably made that bush stronger by cutting it back when she was actually hoping to never see it again.
Well, I feel like I have been out in the garden today. Sometimes it's a peaceful place to be.. other times, you see all the work that needs to be done to make it really beautiful. And, oh, do I need a lot of work! I'm not crazy about dirt and I don't like pruning shears but I love the beauty that it can bring. So... trusting the Lord today as He is working in my heart to let the things go that He is pruning and not pick them up and try to root them again. I have seen my husband do this with plants, trees and flowers when he wanted to reproduce something very beautiful. But some things are better scooped up and taken to the compost or burned with the other dead sticks and brush. It is interesting though, how rotting compost can make a plant grow into something beautiful. And to this I add... God can take the rotting compost in our lives and use it for His glory if we will allow Him to.
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