rambling rosemarie

I have been a vocal opponent about taking anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medications for years now. For years I have been called ignorant, unaware, unkind, and by those who are more civil, just plain wrong. I come by my opinion honestly. I hail from a long line of people who suffer with depression and anxiety, not to mention alcoholism and addictive personalities. Yeah, I come from a long line of crazy people. But I am not ignorant nor am I unkind. And apparently, I am not the only one out there questioning the value of medicating ourselves into happiness. I was surprised to hear Paulina Porizkova talk about her decision to stop taking anti-anxiety meds. I have off the chart anxiety over the strangest things. Each time I let my dogs out I am afraid there is a wild animal or predatory bird that is going to swoop down upon them and take them away from me. I can hear their cries of pain in my mind and my heart drops a few beats before taking off on a wild rampage within my ches...

Last night I had the honor and privilege to present some information to the women of my church. I cannot begin to tell you how much I love and appreciate them. The seminar I did was on fear. God is clever and He had me present the information to them because I needed it. It's not that I don't want to study things for my own benefit and growth, but whenever I do a topical study to teach it, I see how badly I needed it and how much more I have to repent of than I realized. Sometimes you don't know what you don't know. That's a topic I want to return to in another post. I want to talk about the ladies for a moment. They are an incredibly loving group of women. Women who seek God and are teachable. They have gone out of their way to include me and love on me, which speaks volumes of their characters because I am not all that lovable. I am not being self-deprecating here. I am a mix of endearing and maddening qualities like anyone else. What I am telling you is ...

I hate Mother's Day. It dredges up every raw emotion I have about not being raised by my mother, about losing my mom when she was so young once I did get to have her in my life... about the guilt of being young and stupid and not wanting to recognize my step-mom/auntie as mom on Mother's Day. Now that I have been in her shoes, it's especially difficult. I get the sting of being ignored and the larger more painful sting of knowing I deserve it. As you sow.... so shall you reap. I am doing a study on fear for a seminar I will be giving. I have titled it Fear Knot or Fear Not! It's been beneficial for me as I can see how many areas of my life are tinged or controlled by fear. As I sit here feeling the pain of regret and neglect, I have to say I wish God had told us Hurt Not! He didn't though. There's no place this side of heaven where we aren't guaranteed pain, suffering and tears. This morning a backhoe arrived in the vacant lot next to my house. It...

As a counselor I have determined that when God puts me in a position to teach on a subject it's a sure bet that the topic is going to be an area I most need some soul work. I have been studying fear and anxiety for the past several weeks and it has been invaluable to me, both in equipping me as a counselor and equipping me for life. You cannot study anxiety and fear without studying their remedy, grace. God's cleansing grace found only in Jesus' atoning sacrifice. The grace extended to believers on a moment by moment basis is the balm for our souls but we too often don't recognize it. We think deliverance from fear and anxiety should look like deliverance from trial and suffering and dark things that bump our souls. "It is good to understand that Christ's service never did secure a man from all the ills that flesh is heir to and never will. If you are a believer, you must reckon on having your share of sickness and pain, of sorrow and tears, of losses an...

Last night I threw myself into a tizzy because of a couple of words spoken to me. They were delivered in a nonchalant manner and were benign, but because they fell into my heart where fear resides, they became bigger than life. The more I thought about them in an unbiblical fashion, the more they grew and caused me grief. After talking to a dear friend, I gave myself a time out and went to bed. Today I feel sheepish for having reacted in panic. My focus is no longer obscured by fear and doubt. Much of our lives we spend hanging on a word. Words have the power to heal, discourage, empower, humble, belittle, strengthen and wound. Whoever said "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words shall never hurt me" was living on another planet. Words are important. Words are as dangerous as fists. They can lead us straight into hell itself. Words can protect us from harm and help us keep our wits about us when our world is falling apart. The bible has a lot to say about words:...

You cannot come to God with bargaining and with promises. But if you will throw yourself recklessly upon God, trust His character, trust the merits of His Son, you will have the petition you have asked of him. You can have this confidence in God, and you can have this respect for His will. Do not expect God to perform miracles or you so you can write books about them. Do not ever be caught asking God to send you toys like that to play around with. But if you are in trouble and concerned about your situation and willing to be honest with God, you can have confidence in Him. You can go to Him in the merit of His Son, claiming His promises, and you will find the way of deliverance. God will move heaven and earth for you if you will trust Him. *A.W. Tozer, Faith Beyond Reason It is certainly not enough for me to identify fear as an obstacle for women and not offer godly solutions to fear. In I John 4:18 we find this gem. "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, bec...

One of the most frequent answers I received to my questions regarding the complementarian position went something like this. "Of course you don't like it, the bible says you aren't going to like it so your rebellion to being submissive is expected." That sort of answer infuriated me. The idea that sin is the primary obstacle to understanding the Word of God is a no- brainer . This answer struck me as condescending and dismissive. Which may or may not have been true. It also seemed to assume that I wanted to rebel more than I wanted to understand. I am fully capable of rebellion, obstinacy, pride, arrogance and a list of other besetting sins. No question about that. However, what I really wanted was someone to engage my mind, answer my questions and see my challenges as an attempt to learn. I felt like I was hitting a brick wall. I did become bitter and angry but mostly because I couldn't find a way to get my questions answered. So I left the topic ...

Emotions are tricky things. Just when you think you've figured them out, they set you spinning in another direction entirely. I've said it before. We need to be suspect of our emotions. Jonah slept peacefully in a boat going the opposite direction from where God had just directed him to go. David was overcome with his desire or perceived need of Bathsheba and as a result the sword never left his house. Elijah challenged 850 priests of Baal but then ran in terror from Jezebel. Paul felt justified in his zeal for Judaism and executing Christians until Jesus stopped him on the road to Damascus. In his book, When People Are Big and God Is Small, Ed Welch makes some great observations. Here's one of my favorites. "The rise psychological needs was inevitable: If you exalt the individual and make emotions the path to truth, then whatever you feel most strongly will be considered both good and necessary for growth. Whatever you feel most strongly are seen as your God-giv...

There are differences between men and women and one of them is what and how we fear. There are common fears between us. Men have different societal roles and therefore different pressures and fears, but a man cannot know what it is like to have fear simply because you are a woman. Women make constant evaluations based on safety. While driving his car a man gets a flat tire and he thinks, "Drat! How inconvenient! I will be late and I will get dirty while I change the tire." He's glad to see someone pull over and ask if he needs a hand." A woman thinks, "Oh no, someone has pulled over...are they safe....will I be safe?" A man calls a plumber to come help him fix the problem in his master suite bathroom. He wants to make certain the plumber will do a good job and not over-charge him. A woman wants those things too, but she is mindful that she is allowing a stranger, most likely a man, to come into her bedroom in order to fix her bathroom. She wants to make cer...

I saw a program on the National Geographic channel called Dogs with Jobs. In this particular episode, a dog that was being trained for an elite defense team in Austria was being tested to see if she would make the grade. She was a young Belgian Shepard who obviously loved her work. She watched her master's every signal and command and obeyed him, doing all he asked with all she had. She located bad guys who were hiding, disarmed one gunman and cornered another. She scaled walls and crawled on her belly under barbed wire. All of these things were perfectly executed but her final test would be the deciding factor. She and her master went up in a helicopter- way up-and parachuted out together. The dog and her master were clipped to an expert skydiver, whose job it was to guide them to the earth as if they were going in on a mission. If the dog balked, became disoriented, sick or frightened, she would be disqualified. The dog so trusted her master that she didn't seem to notice ...

I am an adrenaline junkie. I have been described by people who thought they knew me as "fearless." Truth be told, I have always enjoyed a smidgen of fear to make my heart race and senses tingle. I think that's why I enjoyed my public safety career. I like earthquakes and thunderstorms and am at my best in a crisis. Joseph Wambaugh nailed it when he said police work was "hours of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror." I couldn't agree more, public safety is like that. Some fear is addictive. I like anticipatory fear. The best part of riding a roller coaster is that long, slow, why-in-the-world-did-I-think-this-was-a-good-idea climb to the apex of the ride with that teeny tiny bit of time you are suspended just before you fall. Yowza! I have had the great pleasure of swimming on the Great Barrier Reef. To say that it was incredible is an understatement. The colors, the beauty, the wildlife, it was all breathtaking. And then the person heading ou...

For several years I was a member of a volunteer fire department. It was the 70's and not too many women wanted to be firefighters. In fact, I wasn't there because I wanted to be a firefighter. I was there because I wanted a job with the county's emergency dispatch center and I needed some emergency experience to get my foot in the door. Being a volunteer was a transforming experience. Not only did it prepare me for working in public safety, it helped me to think systematically. The hours spent training and drilling were helpful to me, though most of the things I learned to do, I never had to use. I could put on my SCBA (self-contained breathing apparatus) in the same time as the rest of the crew, making certain the seal was good and the regulator working, but when it came right down to it, I wanted to be in the dispatch room, not the room that was on fire. Years ago there was a 20 minute rule; if the fire was 20 minutes old, you assume the structure was unsafe. I had...