Finding my calling (long)

[I wrote most of this a few days ago, but am just getting around to posting it now. It was originally posted in a private folder at CHR.]

Still don't know what to say. Just trying to let my head (and the dust from the scuffle) settle. And I still can't put it into words yet.

Let's see. New Year's was good. Brad came over and we ate low carb pepperoni pizza (from a mix - very good). A few minutes before midnight we opened a bottle of champagne and toasted every living creature in the room (cats and humans). Then we watched the fireworks in San Francisco from my kitchen window. I wanted to go into the City, but I had to be up at 8 a.m. New Year's Day and staying home enabled me to kick Brad out the door by 12:30 or 12:45 so I could get to bed at a reasonable hour.

New Year's Day of course it all fell apart. I got banned at SAM, the ministry I helped start and name. The day after I was banned at the Moot for asking for help. I wrote and later nuked too many blog entries to count. I was allowed back at SAM stripped of all privs, which is just another way to punish me, so I declined.

Amid all this chaos, Kathi thought I was suicidal and sent the police to my house, then begged me to make amends with her for the fiasco at EW two years ago, not willing to take any blame for what happened of course. My silence was my answer. I didn't answer one of her queries and she tried to reach me in three different ways. I don't feel she's safe nor will ever be. She'll hurt me again and I'll have only myself to blame. Same for the people at SAM.

I trust easily, and don't lose trust easily, but if you manage to lose my trust it's nearly impossible to regain. I can't think of a single instance where someone was able to regain my trust after burning me.

I've wanted to be involved in ministry for so long. All my life, ever since I was a little girl, I have wanted to serve God. My life has been a search as to who God is and how to serve Him/Her/It.

When I became an ex-Witch and got involved with Kathi's ministry, it felt so right. I have never felt more in the center of God's will as at that time. I was on such a high. I was being used by God, enjoying the work, and felt like I was really and finally living out that childhood dream of serving God. Life was great.

Of course, the dream turned into a nightmare and I won't go into the details. Many of you already know the gory details anyway. I felt like God had put me on the shelf and stopped using me. The dream was out of reach again.

When John-Luc came along I though here was my ticket, here was my way to serve God again. And we all know that dream became a nightmare because I very strongly believe in my diet.

When will I learn? When will I stop believing the sweet words people tell me and start asking God for His view? Why do I have to get hit with the clue-by-four because I'm too stupid to ask for His opinion to begin with? Maybe if I had asked about John-Luc I would have known that wasn't the way I was supposed to go.

Lately I've been reading a low carb blog (http://livinlavidalocarb.blogspot.com/). It is written by a man who is a committed Christian who also lost 180 pounds on Atkins.

(Stay with me. I have a point behind that seeming digression.)

Last Saturday I got to thinking about ministry and how I can serve God. I'll copy the following from this post as it will save me retyping it all:

After all my whining about God not using me (and indeed, being stopped at every effort to do so), I wonder if maybe He has different plans for me than what I think. Just because I'm an ex-Witch, does that mean God must use me to minister to Witches? Could I be looking at this all wrong?

Perhaps that's what I've been doing. I know I command a certain amount of respect at both the official Atkins forum and About.com's Weight Loss forum. Maybe my ministry is to help teach people better nutrition, to share the knowledge that has been so freely shared with me. What if God has been using me this whole time and I've simply been too blind to see?

Could it be that these health forums are exactly where I should be right now and I'm doing exactly what I should be doing?

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So now I see that I have been ministering to people, just like the Christian man who runs the low carb blog.

I guess the only thing left to do is apologize to M. for posting where I wasn't wanted (I still feel he was wrong to ban me), apologize to D. for acting as bad as she was when I could have stopped it, and apologize to J-L for using some foul language. They may never realize the harm they have done, but God's answer to that has always been to let Him deal with that. I only need to worry about doing my part. Their part is between them and God.

Finally, I need to apologize to Brian for needlessly worrying him. I maintain that I did not break the agreement, but I should have e-mailed him and discussed my change of plans.

And oh...Brian posting the prayer request to CHR was totally okay, Greg. No worries there. Prayer can never hurt, right? You guys at CHR are the only online Christians who have stood by me through everything.

To tell the truth, I learned a lot about myself from this. For one, I learned from my experience two years ago when SHE showed up in my room asking me to come back. She didn't show up this time, but I was sorely tempted to call on her and ask her to come. The memory of what happened two years ago, along with the realization that I had no clue how it might pan out this time, nixed that idea.

The other thing I learned is that I still put too much stock in His children rather than in Him. I falsely equate their actions with His. I falsely equate their punishment with His.

I still feel out of place at Christian forums, even ones where I implicitely trust everyone, like CHR. I feel much more comfortable at the official Atkins forum and the weight loss forum. Everything has a time and season. I know this too will end. But it is for now. And that needs to be enough. Just as there were times for me to help at EW and the Depression forum, so now it is time to share the diet and health knowledge I've learned. I'm in my element when people are looking for information on losing weight or want to know how to do Atkins. Perhaps that's why it went over at SAM like alligators in a baptismal pit...I'm in health teaching mode right now; it's my charge from God. I can't NOT speak the truth. But I need to be in places where my teaching is honored and listened to. SAM can't do that. And that's why God got me out of there. I've entered a new era in my life. It's not better or worse than any other era. It's just the next step on this rocky path of life with the One who holds our lives in His hands.