Finders Keepers

I really enjoy plans. The actually planning aspect of plans could happily be delegated to somebody else, but I do so enjoy putting plans into a schedule and following through with them.

Accordingly, I dislike being spontaneous. It's erratic and there's no sense of reason. I can't control it.

That makes my decisions of the day a little shocking. I had coffee (I think I use the term "had coffee" as a generic "spent time in a public location" term. There was no coffee involved) with my friend Layden today. Near the end of our talk, he mentioned a conference happening tomorrow and told me I should come.

Next thing I knew, I was signed up.

So, this will probably be my last post for a few days, as I will be staying in Kansas with my buddy Steve and his family for this very Charismatic conference.

A year ago, I would have thrown a fit about going to anything related to the International House of Prayer (IHOP). I grew up Assemblies of God and, therefore, charismatic, but there was a massive break between myself and my church (I may have mentioned all this before, but I am going to again. Feel free to skip).

After a very, very long period of unhappiness and hurt, I left my church at the age of 17, and spent the next few years meandering from Catholic (there was a boy involved), Presbyterian (there was a boy involved), and Methodist (there was probably a boy involved).

Among other things, my AG church just stopped feeling real to me. I stopped believing in its sincerity, and I felt personally its inconsistency, though I'm sure my own wretched attitude didn't help my likability factor. I saw the way they rejected people I loved but weren't put together, favoritized and rewarded those who were, and seemed to make church a game of conversion and numbers.

So there was that, and my brother, who I regard (especially at that time) as my spiritual role model, wrote a series of blog posts admitting to the same things I already felt unsure about. To be very frank, hearing it from Jon especially really messed me up, even though he was writing in an attempt to salvage for himself pieces of our pentecostal upbringing.

I was bitter. And I held on to that bitterness for so so so long. I even wrote a paper in college about my disbelief in the practices of IHOP, specifically taught prophecy, or "prophecy rooms."

An awful fault of mine--and one I've been working for several years to alter--is the way, once I am deeply hurt, to cut off, throw in a box, and bury everything related to the issue at hand. All the good, all the bad. It's all thrown away to be remembered no more. I've done it so many times.

That means when I "threw away" my church, I threw away the Holy Spirit as well.

Those who grew up in non-Pentecostal churches wouldn't be able to fully understand the degree to which this would impact a person.

For those 17 years, the Holy Spirit's manifestations and that church were my life.  I was there more than I wasn't there. All my major memories have to do with that church. I was throwing away an enormous part of my life and identity.

Even in my anger, though, I couldn't bring myself to a place of disbelief. I stopped praying in tongues, couldn't bring myself to lay hands or pray for anyone's healing, and never agreed to participate in any kind of spiritually led exhortation (prophecy).

But yet, something in me would erupt in anger if anyone spoke against those same gifts. I remember a particular day in Evangelical Theology class where an AG pastor was guest speaking and the girl in front of me attacked him and attacked him. I was mad with fury. But I couldn't defend him either.

The Holy Spirit in me, so hidden that I didn't remember it, was what called out telling me those attacks were wrong.

Still, I couldn't do it. Any of it.

I didn't return to the Charismatic church at all until I moved to Belfast. I wrote in support of it many blog posts ago, but it really, really bothered me at the same time. You can believe something is real but still not be able to reconcile yourself on a personal level what it looks like lived out.

Then one day, I finally understood.

All those pieces of Woodlake that broke my heart or rejected me. All those pieces that broke and rejected my best friend. All the ways I was let down, felt lied to, felt exploited by, Jesus wasn't in it. The Holy Spirit wasn't in it.

At the same time, there are things I have seen and heard and experienced which are not of this world. I have heard the voice of the Lord through the spirit language and translation of old, feeble men resound through the absolute silent sanctuary and felt the ripples of electric presence pulse through the air. I have spoken in my own spiritual language and known that what I was speaking was the truest form of my own soul. I have dreamt things that I couldn't possibly have known. I have seen healing.

That's where the Holy Spirit is.

When I got there with myself, to that place of recognizing and sorting the truth from the lies, everything changed for me. I felt like the prodigal son received back into his father's arms and home. So right. And the separation terribly long and unnecessary.

I'm still going to have moments of cynicism, thinking everything is a performance and disingenuous, but I'm never going to lose that integral part of myself again, that I know.

So, I am going to this conference. Time to spend playtime with my friends, experience Jesus with thousands of believers, and take a serious break from the monotonous, boring pattern of just trying to stay in the black with my emotional state. It's fun. Spontaneous. Different. And distraction from my circular thoughts.

Cheers to you, God and Serotonin.

Today I opened a fortune cookie: "Advancement is achieved through hard work." and my chinese word of the day was "europe."

...

Good evening, and welcome to the conclusion of the long-awaited 26th of December.

For a long while, I'd had this day marked as the day I had to "make it" till.
Here I am! Making it.
Wrong country, but same girl.
And also, not the same girl.

I received a letter today from my sweet friend Leslie (have I spoken of Leslie before? Surely. Les is my NI roommate from our Family and Human services trip summer 2012. and also my personal Charles Wallace. Invaluable human.)

I actually received two letters today. One which made my room smell of lavender but both marked with the name "Emmanuel." Emmanuel is God with us. To quote Les (sorry if you read this and are horrified. I'm probably going to do it again, though.): "Not only did God care enough about us to come down and be a part of humanity, but He also still dwells with us every single day. God is with me. And at the same time He is with you. How very special I feel when I remember I serve Emmanuel, who never leaves me."

I couldn't think of a better way to word that. Beautiful. Such beautiful truth. God is with us and through us and around us.

My two other favorite highlights from her letter are when she compared me to Frodo on return from Mordor (Her impressions of my person when she saw me in Siloam last week. Yikes. Re: "not the same girl.") and her comment just after.

The Mordor thing is meant to make you laugh, not deepen your worry for me, by the way.

Her after comment, though, was: "I saw you, and there were no layers to peek under to find you, as there sometimes have been."

I don't think I could receive a higher comment from a higher source.

All my life, I've been trying to hide or to become. When I finally realized what I was doing (a much more recent event than I'd like to admit), I honestly had no idea where to even begin to pull off the layers I'd built around me. Sifting through the actual and the constructed, impossible.

Will the real Jamie Odom please stand up?

I guess the real Jamie Odom wasn't standing up at all. She was kneeling. She was curled up in a ball on the floor. And I didn't even know there was anybody else in the room to see her. I didn't see her.

I guess the real you doesn't show up when you're looking for her; she shows up when Jesus himself rips everything else away.

I'm not really even sure what I look like right now. Have kind of a blind spot. But others seem to be able to see me, and they couldn't before. So whether or not I would know me in a crowd, praise God He and others can.

Today, I woke up kind of anticipating I'd want to be alone and hostile. I wasn't.
I actually woke up very cheerful. Jansie and I had a nice long chat, had lunch together, wandered a trendy part of town (decided neither of us are trendy enough to desire a return visit), and walked along the pedestrian bridge. It's supposed to be over the river but, in pure Oklahoma fashion, our river is dry, dry, dry.

After, I'd settled into an inverse parabola. Definite sink.

Spent the next three hours in a coffee shop with my cuz. Krissy, with (not despite of) all her craziness and her very definite, passionate opinions, makes sense to me. One of my most favorite people to be around and has a knack for shoveling me out of any foul mood. Half distraction, half no-nonsense "let's deal with this crap and move on" attitude. It works.

Day 2 in a row of almost total clearmindedness. I'll take it, with thanks.

The Christmas that Could

I love my family.

Anyone that knows me knows that one fact. That, and my deep love for the three best friends, but that's a given. :)

My family, no matter how uncommunicative or overcommunicative or awkward or spazzy, is where I intrinsically sense to go when I feel unsure or so sure. They're the ones I want to share my most happy moments with and the ones my heart immediately needs when it gets broken.

They're the base line. Even when I lose sight of my identity and everything else in my life, I know who I am with them. I am a little sister to three big brothers, a sister-in-law to three as well, a niece, a cousin, an aunt of five, a daughter. I am my family. And what a wonderful one to be known by.

I needed them. And by the grace of God I got them.

Christmas Eve went as expected. Jansie and Daisy Ree whirlwind cleaned, and I putsed about, wandering, disappearing, holding the dog so it looked like I was actually doing something. Useless creature, me. I think it's my learned defensive behavior. My ma gets frenzied near holidays (or any event of any kind at our home. Though, admittedly, she has gotten so much better) and cleans/throws away everything in sight. It ain't pretty. You'd hide, too. I've never gotten as good as Chon, though. He was a master at getting out of things without anyone noticing that he was doing nothing.

The evening was at First Methodist Church, a lovely carol service. Our wee group was comprised of my parents and me, my aunt Joycer, uncle ed, Krissy, her husband Jeff, and my cousins Crista and Noah.

I'm not going to lie. I almost didn't make it. Christmas Eve, I didn't pull it together. I tried. The heaviness took me. I felt like the grinch, and I could see how my darkness was hurting my parents and grandma. I just wanted to be alone and cry. Throw it in my face: "But you so wanted to come home!" Yeah, I know. But not yet. You've got to understand. I so wanted to come home because nobody else wanted me, and the idea of sitting 4,000 miles away from familiar, soaking in minute by minute that knowledge on top of the horrors of the past four months? Acid to my soul. I could not do it.

Yes, I want to be home. I am so terribly thankful to be home, but being home and having to reconcile my brokenness with the expectations of behaving like a normal creature and contributing to a positive atmosphere is hard. And it's hard on my family. I'm hard for my family.

That's who I went into that Christmas Eve service as. Amazing how a guy snoring behind you, really great black singing, and family that can make you laugh and forget can change your inner atmosphere. (nerd moment: laughter really does chemically alter your mood.) I came out better. So much better.

I'd like to give a shout-out of thanks to serotonin for carrying over until today. Despite bad, exhausting dreams (usually a signal for an awful day ahead), it was a truly wonderful Christmas.

A skype with my brother joey, his wife Cristin, and their two kiddos: harrison and gianna.

Later, we were joined by my other two siblings, the kids opened a few presents (the siblings decided to skip Christmas with one another) [side note: thank you to whoever invented gift bags. Honestly, if you ever receive a present from me which is wrapped in something other than a gift bag or a sweat shirt, I probably love you more than any other person in my acquaintance arsenal], and we snacked while watching home movies. It's kind of a tradition of ours. One of my absolute favorites. In a way, it makes it feel as though we're all a part. With them, my Jesus-resting Papa can be with us (now who was in the manger? mary and joseph and the baby.) and my uncle johnnie, aunt lynne, cousins, ruthie and charlie, jojo, all of us.

It's funny how our personalities really haven't changed either. Chon trying to steal the camera, incessantly talking, and being goofy always, Jacob the ultimate caretaker (I dare you to find a single scene in any picture or video from my childhood which features me without him), and Joey...well...Joey actually has changed. He didn't really know he was alive back then. He was sweet boy. He became a great man.
And my niecer Ella actually looks a ton like what I did at her age. Hadn't noticed before.

The rest of the day, we ate, drank, made merry, and were rejoined by joycie, ed, kris and jeff, and daisy marie. We were all relaxed, played some games, doted on the darling kiddos, and were just your basic, garden variety happy. It was very nice.

Merry Christmas from the Odoms.
We probably love you.
Or we will learn to.
Or we will relearn to.
Or we've never met you, but we're sure you're very nice.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Highlights Reel

There needs to be some temperance here. I'm not all doom and gloom.

Lovely moments since I've been home (old pictures):

*the reunion between Jamie and Kraft Mac and Cheese (one of those odd cultural cravings)
*My best friend coming over the evening I got home. She was very kind about the fact that I was practically asleep in front of her.

*Coffee with my friend Anna. We have the most consistent friendship of all my acquaintances. Once a month, without fail, we spend time together.

*Drinks with Maddie Stewart. I don't know how to describe her. The perfect combination of sass, spiritual, and snuggles.

*Sleepover with Heather, Becca, and Allison.

*Getting to see the happy shock of several of my friends to see me in the country.
*meeting my nephew, Superfly. Or Sam. I prefer the former, though the latter is pretty good. :) Baby snuggles cannot be topped, really. And he makes the sweetest wee grunts when he's asleep. They're so contented.

*More bonding time. This time with my dear friend, Sadie. She's one of those friends with which humor and spirituality are always pretty tightly knit.

*lots and lots of this handsome guy.

*driving. There have only been two incidents of "what's this guy doing in my freakin'...NOT MY LANE! NOT MY LANE! NI's got me all mixed around.
*yesterday, I was shopping and got caught waiting in line between four sassy black ladies. We had a great talk. I've missed black people. There are three in Belfast. Really. Like there actually are just three.
*Today I went out with one of my mentors. She was my high school AP Biology and Anatomy/Physiology teacher turned friend/mentor. Giant. More giant than I am, bigger boned, louder, and always wears big ole heels (a trait I have recently embraced for myself). All that, and she can work a sex talk into any conversation topic. It's like a spiritual gift. She used to do it on purpose during class to watch me about crawl under my desk embarrassed.

*my ma drawing tattoos and facial hair on lingerie models in a magazine

I have no idea how or why this picture is snowing. That didn't happen, and I'm not smart enough with technology to make that. But the picture and the ice behind the fake snow is real! aha! "google + 'auto awesome'" did this. 

and this: 

This is so fun! 

And this is the United Airways Dublin way of saying, "You're about to be in the USA! Get pumped!"

 My beautiful Oklahoma.

Tulsa from the plane. :)

*and last but very much not least (and I'm sure I'm forgetting several), I finished two of my three papers. 

24 hours, 19 sources, and 6400 words.

Following Jesus is Putting on Pants or “Structured Depression”

This past summer, I waited on tables for a bit. And, except for the excessive weight and sleep loss, it was a really good experience.

One thing I learned from it is that one crappy table does not make for a crappy day. It makes for a crappy table. Your next table might be the best table ever. Check in with me every 45 minutes or so, and my day assessment would be completely different each time.

That principle is the same with my current struggle against my depression. A morning of exhausted defeatedness doesn’t resign my whole day to the same. It’s hard to maintain that perspective and not sit down in my grief and stay put.

I thought, being home, I would be better, that I would leave this dampered state in Ireland or in Arkansas, but I didn’t.

And I see my siblings and their kids and my parents and I want to be engaging or ecstatic to be with them, but I can’t get there. I feel trapped. I so want to be fun and chirpy or even pretend to be, but I can’t even manufacture that like I used to be able to.

I’m frustrated with myself.

I’m frustrated with who I’ve become, and I don’t want to talk to my friends or “my people” because I don’t want to be such an unending killjoy. Or I don’t want to talk to them because they hear my semester’s story and miss the point. They hear only the superficial struggles, easy to fix and apologize for or only the parts which are congruent with their own delusions of reality, but they don’t hear my heart.

And then, out of nowhere, the plexiglass that stands between me and everybody else melts, and I can hear them and feel happiness and have fun and let go! So wonderful!

Then one comment or well-meant question trips me off again. “Oh you live in Ireland? So jealous. You’re so legit.” You couldn’t be more wrong, but you so don’t want to hear about it.

This was not the plan! This was never the plan! The plan was I go to Ireland and have adventures and the experience of my lifetime, then spend a few days alone, then reunite with people I love for a while, and then come back to my rose-colored life on the emerald isle.

Extended and strangling anxiety was not in the plan, nor being forgotten, nor hatred for almost every moment of my life there, complete aloneness, rejection, replacement, depression, constant misunderstandings, a worry to my family and friends, a worrier for friends who are broken and breaking themselves and, finally, being sent home in disgrace and failure because I just couldn’t take it anymore.

I’m not supposed to be here yet! This was not the plan. I failed. I failed and I’m not getting better. What is the big picture? What is my “why”? And when will I see it?

Being alone, you can be in bad shape and know it to a certain extent, but it’s when you’re surrounded by people that the mirror of reality is shoved in your face.

For instance, I knew I had lost some weight, but I didn’t realize just how much. I’m currently two pounds under my thinnest weight of my thinnest summer, and this the result of “I gained it all back I swear”. No telling how low I got this past semester. Food and I aren’t getting along.

Neither are sleep and I. My sleep schedule has been all kinds of everywhere, but not until I’m around people with normal sleep schedules did I see how odd I’ve been allowing mine to be. 4.5 hours here, 12 hours there, never a pattern, never the same.

Following Jesus is putting on pants; it’s building a steel structure of normality for my fog, and forcing my will and body to cooperate. Like sleep and food. Like making some progress on my looming papers (oops…) or leaving the house. Following Jesus means giving up the last piece of my dignity and self-dependence and getting some help.

I pray so dearly that I never again become so self-important and callous that the Lord has to bring me back to this place.

One More Time With Feeling

I had a dream once. Not like Martin Luther King Junior. The real kind. The kind your sleeping self creates.

In this dream, there was a path. A silent man to my left, but to my right were two people standing with their backs to me talking a ways down the sloped road. But I walked past them, walking straight and toward a hill.

I walked with big strides up the pathway, hooking my feet into the creases in the cracked dirt and making good time.

The hill got steeper, though, and as I looked forward, I saw it wasn't a hill at all but a mountain. The nearly ninety degree up kind, and the air was thinning. I got slower. Still long strides, but with so much more effort and not enough oxygen to keep up even that pace.

The man wrapped his fingers into my rib cage. He was having no problem keeping a consistent pace and now steel-grip, half-dragged me up along with him. I could feel his fingers bruising into me.

Feet no longer catching hold but slipping. Air coming less. Rim of sight fuzzing, darkening. Dizzy. Still those fingers in my ribs pulling me up.

We came up and I saw the burning edges of the sunset over the crest of the mountain. And passed out.
_________________________________________________________________________________

There was one more chapter to my pain. I left Siloam perfect. My memories there, perfect. And they needed to be rewritten into reality.

I prayed extensively beforehand, knowing that I was to be watched and knowing I would face questions.

Lord, What do I say? How am I to be gracious? How am I to speak the truth? With what words do I fill my mouth?

Then came the moment when I fully grasped it: No matter what I say, no matter what I do, others will believe what they will believe. I cannot make for myself my reputation. It is the Lord who writes my name.

Therefore, whether it makes me look weak or undone, I will speak the truth. I will speak the truth with deep humility and without shame. "The Lord has dealt with me."

In Siloam, I learned of more betrayal, of secrecy, of broken, broken journeys, and of pain.

I was left with nothing but compassion and a deep ache, knowing of self-destructive bonds forged out of ignorance. You  know not what you are doing, but it is your journey. Not mine.

To my supervisors, professors, and friends, I told the truth of my current state and of my own journey. Never have I been not more open but more raw or present in my answers. Never have I been less lovely.

And yet, and yet, the Lord was seen. In the wreck that is my body and my life, the ones who know me spoke over me favor. I, who have sought my whole life for that favor and respect; I, who have twisted myself mangled to achieve honor; I, who have always fallen short of what I wanted, am only to receive it now, when I am the least deserving of the words I once fought so hard to win.

Then, I walked away and didn't look back. I did not get my closure. I did not seek my closure. I chose my closure. I chose to walk alone and allow The Lord to do his own work without me putsing about in somebody else's path.

Muted by pain and so present in my pain, but I am so thankful.

My future husband and children and friends will bless, bless, bless these past four months. I myself will bless these past four months.

I am changed, told I even look it.

My story is not my own. The Lord has closed my journal and opened a new book, writing my pathway with blood and tears and truth.

I am home, but I am not better yet, and that is difficult for me to accept. However, a whooped boxer doesn't spritz away dainty after his rounds. He is taken out of the ring, cradled away, and nursed back into battle mode.

I have been taken out of my ring. I have been cradled. And now, I just need time to heal.

At the end of the day: Jesus.

At the end of the day: soundness of mind, right alignment of body and spirit, grace, humility, forgiveness, love, compassion, shameless truth, and the deep recognition and value of friendship and of being human.

At the end of the day: hope.

Pre-Release Reflections

While I've been here, every single thing has gone wrong.

An aspect of each and every one of my most deeply seated fears has come to pass from my nightmare dreamscape and into my reality.

Every single one of my figurative bones was fisted and crumbled in the hands of my God through people and circumstances I had put faith in.

And I did not come out a phoenix.

I came out as blubbering, desperate, shaky, pale, unrecognizable pulp, asking "Who have I become here?"

I have experienced great darkness in my life before. It is terrible and has brought me to moments of unbelievable agony I once felt I could never escape.

This was different.

It was not suffocating darkness but a sword of light.

Lies didn't stick to me. Anxiety didn't overcome me. There was nothing for me to "overcome" necessarily.

Rather, I was being loved so fiercely that He couldn't allow "me" to survive. Good doesn't always feel good.

And then I hit the end. I spoke hope to myself and wrote hope on my blog (or tried to), but I absolutely could go no further.

And it was then, only then, when I was pulverized and defeat had been announced on every front, that God exploded into my life and provided for me a way out. 

The fight that's been so always present in me was beaten out. My hope, my faith in myself, beaten out. Even when I thought everything that could be beaten out was beaten out, God found more.

And yet, I would choose this all again.

No question. No hesitation.

I am not afraid of next semester. After my time of restoration and recuperation, I will come back to the tepee of a life that God and I have built. It will be so good, and I'm even a little excited about what could be in store.

One day, one step at a time.