Me and the Mariana Trench

It’s really really deep!

The Mariana Trench is the deepest part of the ocean floor, 36,000 feet or seven miles below the surface. The pressure at that depth is a thousand times what it is at sea level. (That’s heavier than the weight of an entire grand piano on every inch of your body.) It’s completely dark, freezing cold and you will find no breathable oxygen there. Since its discovery in 1875, only a handful of people have visited the place. And those were encased in the thickest, toughest deep-sea submersibles ever built.

And yet, I lived there for most of my life. Here’s a picture of my house. If you zoom way, way in, you might be able to see me waving. James Cameron, producer/director of the movies Titanic and Avatar, snapped this photo when he made the descent in 2012.

Okay, I didn’t actually live there, but it is a great visual for the kind of denial I have spent my life living in. It wasn’t that I thought it was normal to live in the bitter cold darkness, isolated from all human contact. My denial was that I believed I was living in the warmth and sunshine of real life. You know with flowers and trees and libraries and the NFL.

Commonplace Denial

We all experience a little denial from time to time, like when we mindlessly plunge our spoon into the open ice cream container for the 15th time. Some people are in a lot of denials, thinking they — like my tiny, 5-pound cat, Daisy — are Queen or King of the known universe.

Specialty Denial

But the kind of denial I was in was a whole different species. It was a total, full submersion, complete lack of awareness denial. Psychiatrists call it Type Three Reality Dysfunction. Actually, I just made that up. But any psych Drs. out there are welcome to it.

While in the Mariana Trench of denial, I looked and sounded mostly like I was normal. In fact, I was trying with all my heart to be a genuinely good person. If you were my friend, you would have sworn I was someone really nice.

But the whole thing, my life and every part of it was an artificial construct. It was the most beautiful, meaningful false image I could create. It took tons of time and effort. I was constantly watching, listening, devising, rehearsing, adjusting, assessing, fixing, and controlling to keep this massive facade from crumbling. On top of that, I used everything I had to create this fake life. I used my body, my mind, my emotions, my talents, my accomplishments, my resources, my jobs, my hobbies, and all of my relationships. I especially used my faith, the Bible, the community of believers, and even God. I used God!

Why, I mean it, why would I do that?

Fear is the foundation for all denial (and a lot of other issues.) Fear drove my denial. Gigantic, all-inclusive, no-holds-barred fear. It was the kind of brain-freezing fear that at any moment, any person could and just might kill me. And I could do nothing to escape it. Except — try to look and act like a good enough, nice enough, loving enough, smart enough person that they might look at me and say, “Ehhh, I’ll let you live. This time.”

Drowning in the “Shoulds”

Add every other kind of “enough” to that list, thin enough, beautiful enough, talented enough, good enough mom, wife, friend, listener, speaker, house-keeper…The list never ended. Any failure felt like death. I lived in constant tension, trying to keep up with all those “shoulds” every minute of every day. The crazy part is that I didn’t see or understand any of this. I thought I was just living a normal life. You see, I was in denial, Mariana Trench kind of denial.

The end of cotton candy

The thing about denial is that it just doesn’t have a chance against reality. Because reality is a 10-ton wrecking ball and denial is a fluff of cotton candy. So, every now and then, reality would kick the door down and tear my false life to pieces. Being already scared to death of everything, these reality blitzes were catastrophic to my soul. But they were the lifeline, the stepping stones for me to start that long journey out of denial

Now, I am beginning to build a life firmly rooted in reality.

I get to live in a world of light and life!

Throughout this blog, I will be sharing my prison escape from denial, fear, the “Shoulds” and the all-powerful inner critic. I’ll also throw in the joyful wonder of discovering who I am.

The Sweetest Part — and the main point of this blog!

It’s been a long, crazy journey with fantastic highs, bitter lows, and tons of confusion. But the sweetest part of this journey has been starting over with God, discovering who he really is and his great love for me

I’ve been slowly reading through the book of Psalms in the Bible and deeply meditating on what I hear and feel him saying directly to my heart. Oh, the beautiful messages of love and goodness he has spoken deeply into my being!

But, when I got to Psalm 23, everything went to the creme de la creme of love and goodness. I spent over six months immersing myself in these six marvelous verses and the Lord opened a storehouse of treasures.

I’m starting a blog series called “My Beloved Shepherd” where it will be my superb pleasure to share these treasures with you.

Oh, may they bless you! And may you feel the tender love and kindness the Shepherd has for you.

Sneak Peak!

Here’s a little teaser of what I’ll be sharing from Psalm 23.

Every single verb in the first five verses of Ps. 23 is in the present tense. In the NIV Bible, there are 13 verbs altogether. Here is a sampling.

“The Lord IS my Shepherd”

“He MAKES me lie down…”

“He LEADS by still waters…”

“He RESTORES my soul.”

The Good Shepherd is with you right now. Whatever this moment is for you, whatever you are looking at, going through, feeling — you are not alone. The Shepherd is with you. He is present.