June 2017 – Overcoming odds, fulfilling destinies…

It is What we Make It

June 20, 2017June 21, 2017 Ami Beth CrossLeave a comment

Absolutely hating the saying, “it is what it is”, has lead me to really digest the phrase. To me, this popular saying is wildly repetitive. I mean, come on now, of course, “it is what it is.” Let’s put a little more thought into it, why is it what it is? Stuff happens I get it, but in this life, especially as Christians, we are called to turn the “yuck” of what life throws our way into His master plan. Introspectively I contemplate that “is it really what it is?” Or is it an eternal opportunity for us to make it into something that may impact our inner ability to grow and prosper into what God has intended for us in the most magnificent way?
My tire blew out.

“It is what it is.”

I was late for work…again.

“Oh well, it is what it is.,”

My life sucks, I lost my keys…AGAIN!

“Who cares ’cause, it is what it is.”

My wife left me because I’m an addict and can’t stop feeding my want for the numbness drugs bring me.”

“It is what it is.”

I’m back at Rogers Memorial Hospital after promising I’d never have to go back to this place.”

“It is what it is.”

No!!! Stop this complacent way of justifying our situations. It isn’t what it is, it is what we make it!!!

Can I get an “Amen” people?

Life throws many curve balls. The best way to make God laugh is to tell Him you’ve got this great plan for your life, that you’ve got your life figured out.

Reason being: We can’t predict what is going to come our way, the struggle, the torrent, the joy, love, acceptance, rejection etc… None of it is in our hands. All of it is far out of our reach, as far away as the stars we watch on a warm July night holding our loved ones close.

So…it is what it is…right? Let’s take a look at the last week of my life and see.
I recently spent four days at Rogers Memorial Hospital Hospital in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. I saw people of each gender and every race struggling with mental illness and substance abuse. Let me tell you, I saw it all, from depression, anxiety disorder, heroin, cocaine, opioid, ecstasy withdrawals, alcohol dependence, Bipolar Disorder, and Schizophrenia. I met the most extraordinary people fighting to combat the darkest and deepest places in which had created their own living hell.

On my journey, I met…
A homeless man whose love and hope resided in Jesus as he spent a long winter in Wisconsin… homeless. Living under bridges and one meal a day at the local food bank, somehow he managed to find drugs. He was there with me recovering from heroin use to help dispel the fact that he had been raped. I asked him once, “How did you survive being homeless in Wisconsin in winter?” His answer, “Jesus of Nazareth. I continued, “How on earth did you survive being raped. The very worst of the worst. I get it.?” His answer, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Through squinted eyes and messy hair, his hand covered his mouth, as in a showmanship of trying so hard to not vomit up the turmoil he had been through. My hand reached out to meet his quivering broken self. “I admire you more than you’ll ever know,” I whisper. His response…
“It is what you make it.”
A lawyer from Houston, Texas who carried with him sorrowful stunning crystal blue eyes, going through a painful, yet, necessary divorce. On Sunday I asked, “Being it’s Father’s Day how hard is it to be away from your newborn son?” He responded, “that is part of why I’m here. My Bipolar went completely out of control at the thought of my son growing up with me as a part time dad.” My words seemed to echo through the commons area where we spent our free time, “I can’t even imagine.” Bowing my head in introspection and sorrow for this wonderful man who had reached out for help, I smiled at him with tears in my eyes. “So, my friend what are you going to do?”
“It is what I choose to make it.”
I met an addict deep in the trenches of withdrawal symptoms displaying profuse sweating while feeling cold, body aches, tremors, and his nose bleeding out all the poison. Come to find out he had been using heroin for ten years straight, I asked him one night, “Why now, why are you here here in this moment, after many attempts at rehab?”

After a long pause, he stuttered, “My addiction has taken over every aspect of my life. I have overdosed five times in the past week, man. I’m so lucky to be alive. My last OD was at work, my boss found me passed out in the bathroom. I’m most likely going to lose my job where I was making crazy money.” Responding with my eyes wide with the wonder of what can happen to a life I also stutter out, “Why now, what about this time after two stints in rehab is going to make you clean?” He ran his worn construction hands through his dark thick hair. “Because I can’t be buried next to my twin brother. He died when we were 16, I just can’t do that to my mom, my dad, to me.” Tears dripping down my placid face I ask him, “How? How do we do this, never turning back, giving up our crutch?
“Our sobriety is what we make it, man. We just have to Ami, you don’t want to be buried next to your babies, do you? Of course, you don’t.

Let’s chose to make it what we have the ability to make it; which is something so much…better.”

I had these amazing and deeply strong and courageous people surrounding me as I went through one of the most difficult trials in my life. We poured into one another for hours on end. Talking, crying, withdrawing from the poison that we filled our veins with. We played silly games that the counselors made us, after rolling our eyes at the sight of “Loaded Questions”, we all laughed and felt authentic empathy for one another. Our stories were all different, our past, our pain, abandonment, abuse, and total destruction of our hearts. We were united in a common joining of pain yet hope to make it what we had chosen to make it by having the will to seek out help.
I’ll never forget the people I met the four days I was in the hospital. Never ever ever. They were one of the many reasons I had to fight because in fighting we were in the battle together. Cheering one another on toward victory over the enemy’s playground we had chosen to play on. Death was searching for us, each and every one of us, yet by crying out for help we fought the fire of an inevitable end. We battled the turmoil inside us that we had invited into our inner will to fight. Fight. Fight. Fight.
Eventually, seeking the ability to overcome, I am currently in a four-week partial hospitalization program where I spend six hours a day with intense medical observation, coping skills, weekly drug and alcohol testing for accountability. Which is perfect, as God designed such capable people to care for the “us” who have such battles inside our minds.
It is what it is.
I have a mental illness.
It is what it is.
I struggle with alcohol abuse.
It is what it is.
I have had a really rough go of life, facing struggle after struggle since I was two years old.
Oh heck no, it isn’t what it is…it is what I make it!
And I chose to make it perfectly where He needs me to be, ministering to others.
Make it well with my soul. To follow Christ, giving Him all the pain, addiction, sickness and my past turmoil that has an imperative reason as to why I’m here, right now in this place, facing this struggle.
Ultimately, it is what I make it
I chose to make my life the stunning bright light of beautiful glory that God intended for me before I was even me. And that is the true definition of, “it is what it is.” God’s grace tells us that we are perfectly and wonderfully made, and it sure helps get us there when we make it what He desires for us to make it.

The Beauty we Grow

June 14, 2017June 14, 2017 Ami Beth Cross1 Comment

In the glistening sun, I see it, peeking out from the grass. The ugliness declared in all of its form. A disgusting, thorn filled weed.

I’ve really got to pick those evil, prickly weeds before they spread, I think as I wipe my brow of sweat from the bright brilliance that has brought us an unremarkable warm season.

A few weeks later I stand at the same precipice. After failing to pull the weeds out of my garden I find myself facing a multiplied amount of sticker bushes. Yet I feel they are Not capable of extraction, simply left to breed, because I didn’t pull it out when I should have.

Yet I’m so tired, Lord, so very tired.

So, Who can clear the debris if I’m not able?

I just can’t. I mean after being a wife, mom, and work, work work, when do I have time to pull out all of the weeds?

I look up and see the same strong Son making Himself known to my soft blue eyes saying, “I will make it well, I will pull the weeds.”

But how? They are too high, multiplied, and are speaking to one another and soon they will overtake me? How can this burden dissipate?

The Voice continues to Speak:

Because It Will. It just Will.

Have Faith, my child, trust that I will send you what you need to weed out the ugliness and plant the plentifulness I intend for your life.

Please weed out the ugliness because I just can’t. I simply can’t.

The weeds fester on.

They grow and multiply.

Time passes on, as I’ve forgotten about the pests yet unrest has grown in my soul, in my spirit, in my journey.

Weeks later, a day presses on my spirit that requests my strength, growth, and a possibility for something that might transpire even through the weeds.

Turmoil bound, I wander into my garden of peace and tranquility and am met by a thousand peony’s who have made their appearance, and a couple hundred lily’s; yet to my disappointment a million thistle bound weeds that have overtaken my garden of Peace and Loveliness.

REALLY???

In fervor, I recall asking for these weeds to be pulled, gone, far from my safe haven of trust, honor, and beauty. Yet they were still there, multiplying in record speed.

I shake my head in frustration and grab my greatest nemesis to come meet me in a dark room; Insecurity.

It meets me there and tells me I am not enough. That rejection comes in waves, especially when I feel safe. Darkness tells me that the thorns on the green weeds are of my doing. I wasn’t enough so now it prickles all who touch, to the point of a pain that makes them want to never come back. To me.

Insecurity reminds me that rejection has come in waves throughout my life, especially when I start to feel safe. I am not enough so now I prickle all who touch me, to the point of a pain that makes them want to never come back. To me.

So, I do what I do best. I run.

In hiding, I grab my phone, my drink, and my vape thing that makes me feel better in times of duress. I find myself in my safe haven of a room where there are no thistles, no weeds, and no monsters to remind me that I’m not good enough.

Reaching for my contact with God’s people, my phone, I reach out to her… a stranger who had sent me her number in a time of need. Someone I’ve met once, yet who God had predestined me to know a million stars ago.

“Hello.”

She answers. My voice quivers.

Deeply taking her where I am at in my pit of darkness, I hold my emotion until the part of feeling rejected. That is where I completely lose it. For that is my thing. Rejection, abandonment, loss, loss, and more loss.

She cups my tears and tells me more of her tale. See, I had met her on a big ‘ole screen months prior telling the three thousand people who attend Journey Church that she has suffered many of the toils that I have. That day in early spring, where the wind was still deep and the frost continued to bite I took in each and every one of her words. That she had been healed from all of the demons that haunted her and she had created a home to help others in such situations. A miracle indeed had taken place in this beautiful woman who I now knew because she was brave enough. To share her story.

Oddly enough, I found out, she knew me too, as she had read my book of overcoming the tragedy of losing a baby and my tale of God bringing me back despite the bleakest of possibilities because I shared my story.

We were suddenly kindred spirits God knew needed each other in His perfect timing.

“Don’t feed your weeds of insecurity. Know that Jesus is working hard in you to bring His greatness. In that, you are being hit with a loss from the past that manifests itself now.” She bellows into the waves that brought us together as the sun finally decided to set.

Silence on the line because I was sobbing.

“You are good enough. You are plenty. Stop feeding the ugly weeds in your life. STOP giving them life. The people God has brought into your life will rally around you, not defy you. They won’t forsake you, for with God who is against us?”

More tears. An open heart reaching out in a form of surrender I ask God to heal the sad in me that assumes the worst in people who are invested in my life.

We pray and I calm realizing that I had been feeding the ugly green prickly despicable weeds with my fear, doubt, and speculation of loss.

I acquiesce to what I know is True even though it’s almost impossible to believe.

An hour later I walk into my garden and the weeds are magically gone.

Because an hour earlier my husband had ripped them all out, not a single one left to fester.

What we choose to allow to grow will, yet if we give our all and fixate on the strength that will pull it out, zap our insecurity and turmoil from life, the glory will come. It just will, it has no choice.

Tonight, I thank my God who has sent His army once again to lift me up.

To help me defy impossible odds, and overcome the most unthinkable of circumstances.

What we feed becomes the growth within us, so let that be the Truth, the Word, and Grace be our beauty we grow.

My Muse Called Joy

June 3, 2017June 3, 2017 Ami Beth Cross2 Comments

joy-of-joy

I’ve always believed that in times of joy my words leave like the summer turns to fall so fast I can barely blink. Possibly due to the fact that I’ve had much less than happy times in my life than joyful ones. That is why my words feel like the waves of the great Pacific Ocean. Over and over, forming stunning white caps of pain, struggle, and wreckage. The muse has been many times over…sorrow, confusion, and abandonment.

Yet now, the sun shines. A dark heart that is usually completely laden is light, lifted into the blue bliss that you see when you awake from a long slumber. For me, this view is rare forcing me to find gratitude opposed to anger, aggression, and loss.

Sunbeams blind me and in that, I cover my eyes yet still feel the peace of a thousand blue skies and sunlight mornings.

So why have I found that I’ve lost my words in times of such rare…peace?

Searching through the dark basement of my cavern of vocabulary I find my Joy sealed in a box covered with cobwebs and fear of repercussions. Afraid, I open it with more fervor than I’ve ever had. I fear to see a contentment that I’ve never felt, yet kept at bay for fear of eternal repeats of the past pain I’ve felt. I rip open the sealed box to the point of ache just to see inside.

As the brilliant yellow light filters into the dusk overtaking it, despite my reluctance, the dark cemented hole in my world implodes into a brilliance of light, color, ultimately manifesting into an array of my very best friends in the world. In that moment they find me yet again…My Words….everywhere with open arms of need and an earnest to express more than just the sorrow I’ve felt, yet explode the joy I have inside me that now runs through my veins. A brilliance that needs to implode the world as prophetically as my turmoil has. My Joy comes to the forefront. It takes away the darkness, with a glimpse of the sunlight on my face and in that the verbiage flows from me…that of…Acceptance.

Unconditional Acceptance: Ten years in the arms of my gift in this life, my husband Alan has come to pass. We’ve lived through the very best and the deepest of worst. Loved deeper and felt further than our minds could have imagined ten years past. Tonight he said to me, “Even though we had no idea, God was doing all of this far before we knew Him.” Enough said.

Deep Acceptance of myself: Flaws and all. In’s and out’s. Great things about me, and terrible ones, I can somehow now miraculously embrace. The highs and lows of living with Bipolar Disorder can bring one to a place of confusion and ultimate self-doubt. One of the gifts I’ve been given recently is to just rest. Love me through it all. Highs and lows. Ebbs and flows, God somehow produces greatness for Him and manifests in ways I could never explain.

Unthinkable Acceptance of Forgiveness: Recently in my journey, I have been able to forgive things done to me that I could have never been set free without the power of deep intervention. A darkness that has blinded me, incapacitated and imprisoned me for years, I’ve let it go. I completely have allowed it to fly away from me a few weeks ago as several hands were laid on me in a union of prayer and healing. Forgiving the trespassers against me has ultimately allowed the inner demons haunting me to be set free and allowing the Son to shine upon me in a way that I could actually see it.

Acceptance of things I can’t Comprehend: Losing my two babies has been one of the hardest things I’ve had to endure. My husband tells me I’m beautiful when I’m crying for them. I take that in, as I will always mourn Jaden and Zac. I accept the loss as part of who God intended me to be. Yet in that, He has given me a gift of how to accept the beauty we are given after the storm. For me, it’s a beautiful little girl with my eyes and dreams of her own past the stars. I rocked her to sleep tonight deeply taking in the acceptance of the beauty of things I couldn’t understand as I stood at the gravesites of my lost baby boys. But now I hold a gift I never dreamed I’d have. A daughter.

In closing, I’ve been proven wrong. Words can flow in times of Joy. The author inside of me is always at work, banking each and every emotion, echoing hardship yet also unforeseeable beauty. It’s all mine to keep and bring to life forevermore.

My muse is life itself. In all its many faces, in times of turmoil, but now…I proclaim a season of JOY!