It’s True. It’s True. It’s True.

October 8, 2009

My apologies for not blogging yesterday as promised but I’m still at the stage of recovery where I spend more hours each day in jammies than jeans and where naps tend to determine the course of the day rather than any plans I might make.

Anyway, here’s something I’ve been wanting to share with you . . .

During the week that followed my surgery I had the alarm clock on my iPhone set to ring every three hours, day and night, as a reminder to take my pain medication. It was annoying to have it go off during the night but when given the choice to be awakened from sleep by a ringing alarm or throbbing pain in my stomach, groin, arms, and legs, I’m going to consistently opt for the alarm. That’s just how clever of a girl I am.

Even after following the same routine for an entire week, when the alarm would go off during the middle of the night, I’d wake up with a start and momentarily be disoriented about where I was and what was going on. I normally don’t wake up all that clear headed to begin with but add in a hearty dose of pain medication and I turn into a drooling semi-comatose cotton head.

But after a few “deer in headlights” seconds I’d remember. I was in our living room in a rented hospital bed. I’d just had surgery to remove excess skin that remained following my ten year journey to lose nearly 170 pounds.

I’d remember all that but rather than having those memories clear up my confusion, I’d end up feeling all the more unhinged and anxious because I couldn’t believe that any of it had really happened. The evidence was all there in the creaking hospital bed and my aching body but still, I doubted reality.

I’d longed for all this so much of my life and had given up hope so many times that it would ever be more than an unfulfilled fantasy of mine that now that it had come to pass I simply couldn’t take it in. There I would be, in the middle of the night, covered in suture tape and gauze, my hands passing back and forth over my now flat belly (don’t even get me started on my adorable new belly button!), and in a whisper I’d be chanting to myself, “This is real, this is real, this is real.” I’d lay there saying it over and over again until at last the truth would sink into me and when it did, each and every time, without exception, I’d begin weeping and my chanting would turn to a prayer, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

I’ve found myself doubting reality at other times besides the middle of the night when doubting seems to come more readily. When I see my reflection in a store window I do a double-take to be certain it’s my reflection. When I hold up a pair of new jeans fresh from the dryer I genuinely can’t believe they’re mine or that I could ever fit inside them even though I wore them them just the day before. When I step on the bathroom scales and see a number that hasn’t been there since I was in grade school I question the accuracy of the scales until I step off and back on again and the same number appears. And often during the day, I say to myself, to my wife, or my God, “I can’t believe this is my life and I get to live it,” and when I say that I’m not just referring to the size of my jeans but all the gifts of life that fill my days.

There are exceptions to every rule and to every saying, like the one that goes, “If something is too good to be true, then it probably is.” My recent experience is an exception. I’m at a healthy weight in a body that at long last fits me. As hard as it is for me to believe my dream has come true.

This has all caused me wonder what other things there might be that I, that we, don’t believe that are just as real. What other facts in the here and now have we diminished by relegating them to being nothing more than dreams we wish could be true but might never be? What else falls under the category of being too good to be true but in truth really is?

• I am a beloved child of God in whom God delights.
• I am held in the presence of God every moment of my life.
• I am fully forgiven.
• I am worthy of being loved.
• My sexuality, along with every other aspect of my being, is a gift from God.
• My life is precious.
• I have God-given talents and gifts that can bring life and healing into the world.

In faith, all these are true and present realities. God’s love for you is as real as the chair on which you sit. God’s presence is as near to you as your own beating heart. That you are fully forgiven is as certain as the setting and rising of the sun each day. All this is what our faith has taught us. All this is part of the message that Jesus came to bring us. So why do we continue to struggle in believing what is true? How often do we question and doubt that it’s all too good to be true, that it can’t be true because we want it too much, or that it can’t be true because if it were we wouldn’t even know how to receive such a good and wonderful reality into our lives? Why is it that we can hold a thousand negative, condemning thoughts in our heads while we continue to struggle in holding onto a few life-giving overarching truths in our hearts?

I’m beginning to think that maybe we all might benefit by setting our alarm clocks a little more often so that when they go off we can consider whatever truth it is that keeps slipping through our fingers and chant in a whisper to ourselves “This is real, this is real, this is real, ” and that we would keep on chanting until the truth of God’s love and of our worth soaks through to the core of our being, so that our chanting and our lives would become a prayer of “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

What truth is the reason that has your alarm clock ringing?

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Posted in Grace Meditations, Love and Grace