The Agony and Ecstacy

May 19, 2012

           Today I feel worn out in so many respects. Work at the Water Department, where I am a security guard has become stressful. Two of the women that work there seem to be doing everything in their power to unseat me from my current position. I am one of the only white men and I feel like a target. It an awesome paradox. I have been attending an all black church for two years. The pastor went to the same school I did, so that I became a core leader. I thought I had healed. My adventure in the last few weeks contradicts this truth.

         The morning crew complained to the top brass of my security company and client at Water Department about my lack of orderliness.  My security agency said I need to change my habits or I will lose my job.  There is an emotional hurricane ripping me assunder as I contemplate what to do next. The conflict faces with making peace with my past.One of the secrets I harbor is that of being sexually abused by a black man in my young adult years. The people I work with do not deserve to have to deal with the messes that I bring to the work place. I am praying that I can change. Since my wife lost her job, I do not feel it is safe to transfer knowing I will make a lot less money somewhere else. I am forced to look at my past if there is escape from my self imposed prison.

           When I was much younger I was forced to keep emotions to myself. There were so many secrets in my family of origin, and I had already been threatened for being the least bit nosy. To let people know what I really felt was tantamount to committing emotional suicide. I feared being cast out of the only family I knew. I felt deep within that if I did not keep my parents together, the whole family wound be destroyed.  Who could be trusted?

              Like it or not, suppressed feeling eventually bust out. I was hospitalized at a Christian College when all hell broke loose inside and  outside. I was terrified to think I was reliving this memory. I fought hard to contain knowledge of my own history of abuse because I feared that it would expose what a rotten person I really was. 



           Sunday I will get some overtime working at the caves which contain an underground business park run by a big computer company known as DST. Work in the caves remind of how dark life can get for me.  Paranoia and claustrophobia seem ever with me. I will miss church, again. Nothing is as important to me as church, and yet lately I not been going as frequently.  Am I missing it because of guilt about my work situation or do I really need the extra money so that I and Karen can make ends meet. 



           God please help to know peace and love as only you can give.  I feel the torrential downpour of emotion that persons of a saner mindset find seem impervious to.  The anticipation of next week portends numbness and violation that sucks out my life’s juices. I pray that I am finding my purpose in looking for order in all of the chaos. I hope that people can learn through my accounts that there is a road to God.

 

           I flashback to a time after my divorce when I told the mental health worker that I felt like Elijah, when asked if I was suicidal or not. In the same spirit that Elijah feared getting back to work,  I hoped for the sake of my children, that whatever happened it would not affect there salvation, no matter how good or bad I might feel or act. I am clothed in a garb of chaos and confusion. God let your power be the only thing that matters to me. May I learn how God can reveal to me my limits, so that I can share with others that God is there even despite ourselves.