Today is a pretty personal post.  It’s one that I never thought to write, but is part of my “why”.

“AND A MAN’S FOES SHALL BE THEY OF HIS OWN HOUSEHOLD.  HE THAT LOVETH FATHER OR MOTHER MORE THAN ME IS NOT WORTHY OF ME: AND HE THAT LOVETH SON OR DAUGHTER MORE THAN ME IS NOT WORTHY OF ME. AND HE THAT TAKETH NOT HIS CROSS, AND FOLLOWETH AFTER ME, IS NOT WORTHY OF ME.

HE THAT FINDETH HIS LIFE SHALL LOSE IT: AND HE THAT LOSETH HIS LIFE FOR MY SAKE SHALL FIND IT.” – MATTHEW 10

I’m here to talk about my dad and how real Matthew 10 is.

It doesn’t make sense that you would have to be willing to give up your family, would it?  Jesus requires us to love him more than our Mom, Dad, sister, brother, or else we are not worthy of him.  He says he has come to separate Mom against son and daughter against father.

That doesn’t seem like a godly thing to do does it?  Leaving your family behind seems anti Christian.  Isn’t God all about family?

“That is not loving.  I wouldn’t want to serve a God that says something like that.”

My dad was saved before or around the time I was born.  I never remember this detail, but I was raised in a Christian home.  I went to a Catholic school so I could be around my cousins and stay in the same place my entire school career, but my dad always instilled in me the difference between God’s Word and Catholicism.  I had head knowledge and stood up for the difference when I had to, but was never really interested in the truth…well, I did find it intriguing, but was lost.

We moved to Memphis my senior year of high school.  My mom got sick and we stayed there for 2.5 years.

Can you imagine a 17 year old leaving her friends to be the new kid their senior year of high school??  The horror!  Not to mention one of your parents is gravely ill.  My life was completely upside down and out of control.  I controlled my weight.  I remember walking in from school one day to my dad sitting on the sofa staring at me as I opened the door…

“If you get under 100 pounds I’m taking you to one of those places!”

Cue a shouting match back of how that’s ridiculous.

I mean, like I could hide that I was rapidly losing weight/not eating in a school year?  I lost about 20 pounds.  Nobody ever mentioned it to me before then, but I guess it was massively obvious.  Nobody wanted to bring up the girl with the sick mom’s weight issues… the elephant in the room.  She may be going though some things and we don’t want to break her.

I never cried.  I never did.  I held everything in.  I was really good at it.  Nobody knew what was going on because it was all under control.  My life was under control because I could control my weight.  Everything is fine.  I measured my waist and thighs and hips.  I logged it and kept it under a bin in the bathroom.  I weighed myself several times a day.  The outside circumstances couldn’t touch me because I wasn’t going to eat my lunch or would only have half an apple for breakfast.  I would cut up my chicken and feed it to the dog.  I was so thankful we still had a dog.

At 19 my mom died.  I never cried.

Flash forward to age 24.  I was a caregiver.  I didn’t have a “real job”.  I didn’t finish school.  I couldn’t move forward.  I ran.  I ran myself and exercised into the ground.  I could control ME.  I could control how fast I went…if you want to go faster you have to run fast.  If you want to do this you have to do this.  I was using exercise to break free.  Box jumps… why not.  Learn how to do pull ups.  Yes.  All the challenges.  I wanted to beat myself up.  I deserved it.  I wanted to torture myself and see what I could do and be the best I could be.  Exercise is you against you after all and I was going to beat the old me.

Except I couldn’t out run her because she was always there.  You can’t outrun your past.  I didn’t need to talk to anyone because when I got frustrated I just worked out.  It was a healthier outlet than my former decision.

Why did nobody try to help me?

Not one person in my life tried helping the roots of my issues.  Nobody ever brought up that I may have been depressed.  I found out because I happened to google ‘walls’ and thought “Hey, that sounds like me?”.

It was always “Get a job… go to school… do this… do that”.

Nobody tried understanding that I couldn’t.

All my dad would say was,
“Get into the Word, Aimee.”
“Seek the Lord, Aimee”
“Read your bible”
“Pray”

It sounded like the teacher on Charlie Brown … Womp, Womp, Womp…

Did they not see I was the picture of depression?  Those weren’t answers.  I needed concrete answers.  I needed help.  At one point my dad and I lived in the same house, but had no relationship.  I was bitter over my entire life and how it was flushed down the toilet.  He would just work.  He would say we would spend time together, but would always end up having to work instead.

I was alone now.

It was now too late.  I had no hope left.  Nobody to talk to.  I dug a pit and couldn’t get myself out.

My dad didn’t care about me.  He just tried to control me.

I am now 30.5.

I talked to him about it yesterday.  I don’t remember how it came up because it never had except when I was still bitter and would scream.

“You’ve always been intense.”
Me: “I wasn’t intense before I got saved?”
“Yes you were.  You held it all in.  It was hard to watch you.  There was nothing anyone could do for you.  You were angry.  You were angry at me.”
“I was the picture of depression.  If I did hurt myself or do anything else would it have been a shock to anyone???”
“No.”
“…….nobody tried to help me???  That’s the part that gets me.  Nobody tried to help me.  They covered it up with advice, but didn’t actually see.  That’s why I’m so intense now.  That’s why.  I never EVER want anyone to feel the way I did and if I meet someone that feels that way I cannot help, but try to help them.  I never want anyone to ever feel the way I did.”
“I was just praying you would come to know the Lord.  I knew I couldn’t help you.  I knew nothing else would help until you came to know the Lord and only He could deliver you from that and you would be free.”

He did see.  He saw me.  He watched me hurting.  He took care of his wife for 19 years, was with her when she passed, and had to deal with grief and also quietly watch his daughter lose herself and their relationship.

I wouldn’t have listened to anything anyway and I know that.  I had all the walls.  They were 100 miles thick and 1,000 miles high.  They were armored and secured.  There were moats.  Nobody could touch me.

But, I couldn’t go anymore.  I couldn’t have finished that year.

And then I met Jesus.  I’ll never forget that moment as long as I live.  I am thankful nobody helped me.  I am thankful I was too stubborn to ask for help.  I am thankful for all the shame and torture and that nobody was there for me.  I am thankful I was alone. I am thankful I never went to therapy.  I am thankful because that is what gives me my testimony.  That is what gives God EVERY SINGLE SECOND OF GLORY and not one second can be given to man.  That is what makes me shout and rejoice because it was JESUS.  He stepped in.  He was there.  He watched.  He loved me.  He was waiting.  It was the realest thing that ever happened to me.  I came alive.  I am alive.  I was baptized with fire.  It’s been a wild ride, but the best decision I’ll ever make my whole life.

I’m getting to the point of Matthew 10, but needed background first.

My dad knew he was losing me and trusted God that I would be delivered.

He silently prayed for me.  He never said out loud these things.  We hardly talked to each other, but when we did it was yelling.  A blind person can’t understand what God’s love is so those things are just a nuisance.  I just thought he didn’t care about me.  He was silently fighting for me.  Why fight with the blind?

Then, I went to Ireland in 2015.  I didn’t even tell him I was going.  The only reason he found out was I didn’t call the credit card company before trying to book my train tour so it got flagged for fraud and my dad answered the phone.

He brought me to the airport.  “I hope you find whatever it is you’re looking for!”

But, he didn’t know that it was between me and God.  I was not alone.  I had gotten saved and the only way I could make any sense was spending time in a place I’ve always wanted to go with God.

Matthew 10 is true.  There are many spirits, but only one Holy Spirit.  My dad, having the Holy Spirit, would mess with the spirit I had and we would clash ALL THE TIME.  Unless your eyes are opened you can’t stand God.  You can’t.  It’s impossible to get along.  Darkness runs from the light.  Unless the God fearing one is willing to compromise, which I am so thankful my dad wasn’t, you will never be able to agree.  Until I met Jesus our relationship could not have been restored.  It was a process, but God is faithful.  He is the God of making beauty from the ashes.

His best friend has been one of the greatest witnesses in my life.  I’ve known him since I was 6, but until I was 25 never spoke a word to him except to answer the phone and then give the phone to my dad…  He always scared me.  He’s one of the bluntest, most honest, Jesus loving people I’ve ever met in my life.  I’ve never met anyone so certain of anything.  I’ve never met anyone with more zeal.  I’ve never met anyone who spoke truth and knew God’s word back and front like this man.  I always respected him though because he was who he was.  He was always “different” and he was always there.  Always.  When God was working on me this man would say things and I would constantly be crying.  I never cried, but everything he said (because it was what God said) would touch my heart and the light would overtake the darkness.  He wasn’t even talking to me.  I remember saying I just gave up and knew when he was around I would just automatically start sobbing uncontrollably.

At the end of 2014 my eyes were opened.  I remember when he came to the house one day he had no idea anything was different, but I went up to him and gave him a big hug because I understood him now.  It all made sense in the blink of an eye.  I understood all the righteous anger and the calling out hypocrites and all his standing up for the truth.

I remember him coming to the house and talk to my grandma who didn’t care.  I guess God knew I wouldn’t listen so I was always in the background and would hear it and cry quietly in the next room.  It was crazy to me.  He wasn’t even talking to me.

One day we were all sitting at the table and he told my grandma he had been up all night praying because he couldn’t understand why God told him to “go get my daughter and bring her home”.

He thought he was sent to get my grandma.  He thought he was there to talk to my grandma about Jesus.

He was there to get me.

At 30.5 years old and my two closest friends are my dad and his friend… two men in their 60s that I have nothing in common with except Jesus.  It’s taken 5 years, but “faithful is He who calleth you that also will do it.”

I am also the same weight I was in high school when I thought I was morbidly obese.  I am healthy.  I have Jesus.  I have peace.  My weight is just a number.

“He will restore the years the locusts ate”.

He opens the eyes of the blind.  He repairs the most torn of relationships.  He unites the most absurd.  He makes rivers in the desert.  He does it in HIS time and HIS way.