Success God's Way

Thanksgiving is here again.  It is a season for gratitude.  I often wonder if I love November because of the gratitude factor, because being grateful is emphasized in this month.  There are talks about gratitude on social media, at church, among family and friends, so I look for things that are blessings instead of focusing on the negatives.  Because of that, I am happier.  Well, the turkey being on sale also helped 😄.  Oh, so many things I miss about being in America during the holidays.

I had quite a few visitors here with me these couple of months, and what a treat that was!!  It was kind of nice to see Taiwan through their excited eyes.  So I thought I would write a bit about Taiwan and what surprised me about being here.  It was tough to transition here but there are also wonderful things about being here that I am starting to appreciate.  It has been almost two years now and it is feeling more like home here.  Even my daughter said that I seemed happier here.

First of all, I am one who doesn't like to admit fault.  If it were not for the wonderful CR program, I'd still be there to think that I'm quite ok and an upright person.  Being able to admit our part and evaluate our behavior is a huge part of a healthy relationship and being human.  Dogs,  chimpanzees or the smartest of animals do not have the ability to do that.  Dogs don't bark or bite and then sit back later and think "was that helpful that I did that?"  We humans are gifted with this special  evaluation ability so we can keep improving, whether it's our character defect or space travel or technology.   

I came from a background of suppressing my feelings.  I am not alone.  Those of us recovering from codependency issues frequently have a cesspool of unresolved pain from the past.  The feelings hurt too much to feel and we had no support or permission to deal with them.  So often we used compulsive or addictive behaviors to stop the pain temporarily, drug, alcohol, relationships, busyness, food.  Then in recovery we slowly allow ourselves to unpack those and feel as we slowly came out of denial.  I am getting a lot better in identifying and feeling my pain.  But lately I am really learning about this phrase in Galatians "Live by the Spirit".  

I have a young sponsee who is facing a difficult decision on whether to continue a dating relationship.  I wrote the following letter to her (of course removing names) and google translate it into Chinese.

I went on a three day personal retreat and one of the things I gained was a new understanding of prayer.  When I think of prayer, I think of either someone kneeling at the bedside and talking to God, mostly asking for something, or a pastor using beautiful, holy language interceding for someone needy.  I don't have very good discipline when it comes to designated prayer time, because my days are often full, but I do talk to God in my spirit at various times throughout my day.  Sometimes when I have trouble falling sleep, I talk to God or just breathe in saying "Jesus, I want more of you" and breathe out saying, "I give you all my worries."  Those prayers do count!  And God hears all those! so surprising, right?  The Holy Spirit uses groans to pray for us.  So sometimes no words are necessary.

In CR, I worked on about 100 spiritual inventories and one thing that was on all of them was:  "Unrealistic Expectations".  That was my part.  I thought at first that everyone had those expectations, but I was wrong, it was only me.  And it was definitely the key to my unhappy life.  I felt like I give so much to others and those people don't give back anything to me.  To me, it was a perfectly "normal" expectation to expect love when I gave love.  But it wasn't.

I love to laugh.  My dad was very humorous, it was one of his best qualities.  The reality is that I am often very serious, too serious.  Our church is getting rid of some very old books and I found one joke book called "The all new clean joke book" by Bob Phillips. copyright 1990.  So sometimes, at night, I would pick it up and just read it.  Most aren't very funny but surprisingly, I actually laughed at some of them!  Here are some that I actually thought were pretty funny, so I thought I share them so you can laugh too.

We are blessed to have a wonderful landlord and recently we signed a two year lease.  For some reason, it triggered many emotions inside of me.  TWO years.... here in Taiwan.  It seemed so long.  Yet my new life is here.  Sometimes it still feels like I don't know what I am doing here.  But that's normal right?  No one figures out everything ahead before they make the first step.  My old identity as a mom, teacher, hard working employee, gardener, nature lover, cook.... they are all changed and different now.  I live in the city without kids, a yard, or a car and I barely cook because it's cheaper to eat out.  New chapter means letting go of the past and taking new steps in a different direction in life.

I became extremely interested in this topic of how to handle toxic people because of a recent experience.  Toxic people are everywhere in every country.  They are searching for a certain type of personality:  kindhearted, willing to help, talented or resourceful, and most importantly no boundaries and easily manipulated.  Once they find those, they will suck them dry and move on to the next victim.  I have been used, and will continue to come in contact with those people.  

Strangely, the one single skilled that I used most often here in Taiwan is how to have a difficult conversation.  This skill doesn't come naturally to any of us.  It's a learned skill but a very necessary one indeed.  It is part of a healthy relationship.  Asian culture especially doesn't like confront, so it caused many problems because a difficult conversation is needed but not done.  

Some people make it look so easy on stage, but public speaking is still a number one fear for most people, next to death.  If I could have my way, I would hide in the back somewhere doing things no one sees.  My Dad liked the spotlight, but my mom hided in the back.  I have my mom's personality.  I don't like the stage or people's attention or have grown people look at me. For some reason, I don't mind kids that much.  But recently, I am having many opportunities to speak in front of grown-ups. So I have to force myself to learn.