Avoiding Toxic Meltdown

Beginning in December 2009, I climbed on a roller coaster that zigged, zagged, rose and fell in ways that left me wondering, even though I would have told you God was in control, whether or not He planned to sweep me off the tracks into thin air to fall and keep on falling.  Within the next 24 months, my single adult brother had a cerebral bleed, came 600 miles to live with my husband and I--and still does.  My husband Terry was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer at the base of his tongue, endured and survived induction chemo and then radiation/chemo concurrently.  Three friends died--heart, cancer, tragic accident--leaving holes in our hearts that we were too exhausted to deal with until much later. My father- in-law died in February 2011. My brother was diagnosed with cancer and our mother died.

To deal with the toxicity generated by life as it sometimes happens, I put up a brave front determined to do it ALL.  Maintain a demanding career, be a loving caregiver, a good friend and by Golly! Smile till my face hurt.  The problem was my insides, my spirit, my soul were rotting not because external events, but because of the acid of victimology.  The "BIG I " had taken root and literally was straggling my faith and my life.

One morning I read the following : I pray that  according to the wealth of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner person, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, so that, because you have been rooted and grounded in love,   you may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and thus to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.  Now to him who by the power that is working within us  is able to do far beyond  all that we ask or think, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. (Ephesians 3:16-21 NET)

Did I believe this? Yes.  Was I living this? No  Did I want to? Yes, maybe, yes.  It meant toxic Carolyn, the victim, had to embrace love and live out of that wealth.  Avoiding toxicity has become an ongoing reversal of self agenda to "getting over myself"