Water!

Isaiah 43:18-19  "But forget all that, it is nothing compared to what I am going to do .  For I am about to do something new.  See, I have already begun!  Do you not see it?   I will make a pathway through the wilderness.  I will create rivers in the dry waste land"

I look backwards and remember describing myself as a flower wilting in the dessert desperately trying to find water to bring the flower back to life.  I also began to think about water and how essential it is for life as I watched my father die.  I know that a human being can go three weeks without food, three days without water, and three minutes with out air before dying.  I count backwards from the time of my father's death and realize that he died just after three days without water.

It has been one month since my flawed hero, handsome Henry Kleinfeldt, Bop, Hank, The Hankster, Pops, Dad, and Daddy went home to be with the Lord guided by a glorious full moon.  Dad did it his way and waited until he was alone with his savior.  I know he didn't want us all hanging around fussing and crying. Or repeating Christmas Vacation word for word. ( That drove him crazy). He never was comfortable with being the center of attention, but I so wanted to hold his hand and walk him home just as he walked me to school, and my children to school on their first days.

I was tired and my heart ached as the nurse suggested that we go home 2 at a time to rest as she thought he would make it into the morning.  I walked over to his bed and lay my hands on his one more time.  Ok, "now"  I thought "it is time."  So I lean down and speak to him the words I couldn't bring myself to do earlier.  "Dad, it's Liz,  I love you so and forgive the last two years and I know from the core of my being that you are so very sorry and that you love me with a love that is deep and everlasting.  The past two years can not erase the other forty-seven years.  I am so grateful that the Lord gave us to you when you were so young, and although you will die young I had you for almost 50 years.  My boys, now really men,  adored you as much as you adored them.  I praise God that I was young when I had them. You gave them the gifts of love, support, friendship, faith, and fun.  And fun they had with you, although I probably wouldn't have let them watch Terminator, or Jaws when they were eight and ten years old, it is one of heir fondest memories.  Really they seem no worse for the wear."

I stop for a moment to catch my breath and say to him  "Dad I want to be here with you when you go home, but it is ok if you need to go before I return.  You have suffered long enough.  You deserve to be set free from all the pain; The physical, and the emotional.  Jesus suffered for you and he is waiting for you, to present you washed clean and forgiven to your heavenly father 'Abba'.  I will be alright."  I stop short of promising him that I will leave the eating disorder behind.  I couldn't make I promise that I knew I couldn't keep for the immediate future.  And just as I walked with the eating disorder back into his room, it was with my trusted friend that I walked out.  However this was searing pain that even Anorexia couldn't numb.

So it is in the dry waste land of death that I see the new thing that God has already begun to do as I allow myself to feel, to grieve.  Feeling my tears roll down my cheeks is like releasing a torrent of water from a dam.  It is grief for more than my father's death, but that of my feelings that I  have held in check for years, sometimes with the eating disorder, sometimes by my fear of not being heard, and more often than not disguised in anger.  

This torrent of water is different.  It isn't one of misplaced rage swirling out of control waiting to suck anyone or any thing under its surface to drown. A rage,  that like a swirling rapid, would cause anyone to seek to go around it; Not through it!  This rush of water is like the water that flows as the sun warms and slowly melts the snow pack of the hills allowing it to flow towards the streams, river, and eventually the lake.  As I allow the warm memories of my father to come to the surface, and learn to trust my heavenly father, his Son begins to soften the hard protective shell the eating disorder formed protectively around my heart.

Like the water of the river that flows in to the lake, there is an ebb and a flow to my life and my recovery.  There are times when my anger explodes like rapids, although there are few times that this happens.  There are times that I am calm and move slowly forward, making progress like sitting in an inter tube going with the flow of the current.  It is these time that I sit back and soak in all that surrounds me, and allow myself to be connected with the people in my life.  More importantly it is these time that I allow myself to just be. I connect with me allowing myself to feel happy, sad, lonely, cranky, and hungry.  Hungry, yes for food, but also for life.

Then there are those times that I feel more like the salmon that I sit and watch on the Bear River fighting to get up and over the dam to even begin the arduous task of insuring their survival. Some will fight with all they have to survive.  Time and time again they move backwards then thrust themselves with great effort to make the leap just to keep swimming upstream.  Some will keep this up for hours on end until they succeed.  Others will try once, twice maybe three times and then give up allowing the river to carry them back into vast cold waters of the lake where there future is uncertain.

This past week I was the salmon that tried a few times and gave up.  I felt like just riding the current backwards even if it meant falling into my rage, that leads to restricting, and eventually purging.  then waking up the next day feeling horrible not from the purge, but because I purged.  Even if I had the energy to make the leap I wasn't sure I deserved to try again.  How many times do I get to begin again?


The sun rose Sunday and again today, and a new day dawned.  So I guess I get to begin again.  Today I am the salmon fighting to take the leap.  Mine isn't over a dam, but a leap of faith.  Faith that He holds my future in His hands and has already begun something new that may be just out of my view. The tears that I feel hopefully are making a stream that will forge its way through this wilderness of my life and finally water this flower allowing her to bloom.