Tag: Flying Ghost Monkeys

My Demons Wanted This To Be A Suicide Note

stacey - back

 

I have been fighting to survive a Supernatural storm. Actually, it’s more like a monsoon. And it’s not been a single storm, but an entire ‘strung together’ season. In fact, that season has lasted three or four years instead of just a single season. Oh, and it has gotten worse recently. I grew up with real hurricanes and thought I could get through pretty much anything. Even when dealing Supernatural situations, I always had this amazing faith in God; that the storm would calm, and the sun would come streaming through. I’d comment on the silver lining, and move on. Everything worked out in my favor.  Not this time: it was a monsoon. An entire new kind of storm, and it raged on and on, in waves. Torrential rains pound me with little or no relief. Floods almost drown me, and then recede. Only to come racing back trying to catch me unaware. I gasp for air and I wonder if this time the clouds will part and the sun will appear. The water rises, the wind picks up, and my hopes are crushed. This storm has tried to kill me, and it is still raging.

Like I said before, it hasn’t always been like this. I was God’s favorite; I knew it, and I lived it. I had this HUGE faith, and I loved sharing it. I was my best and most beautiful when I operated in my gifts, and the greatest of all of them was an unwavering faith that God simply adored and loved all of us. Period. I told everyone of this amazing love that was always FOR them. I guess you could say my heart has always been to be a “Rainbow” for everyone around me. A rainbow the way Maya Angelou describes them; an encourager and someone that lifts people up when they are down. I had a way to speak life into folks. On top of that, I knew the demons that people dealt with, having encountered my share. I knew how they operated. I knew how they lied. I knew how they strived to steal and kill. I knew how to help people over come after hearing the rumors of death that their demons whispered. I knew how to fight them, actually, and I was really good at it.

So what changed? I embarked on a huge adventure, which itself was an enormous leap of faith. (A ‘jump’ if you listen to Steve Harvey.) Actually, it wasn’t the fault of the adventure, but it was sort of related. Our adventure consisted of selling everything we had to fund a couple of years on the road, during which I would speak and write about this amazing love and faith that had sustained us. My mistake, in retrospect, was to start excluding God from the stories I was telling. I didn’t want to be branded ‘Religious’, and have my message thrown out. So I reduced, or in some cases eliminated, the role that God played in my stories. He went from being the source to having little or no role in the amazing things that I talked about. I was trying to make myself more ‘marketable’ by avoiding the ‘God issue’, or so I thought. What actually happened was pretty insidious. As I spoke about God’s role and love less in my stories, I, myself, heard about God’s love for me less and less. Just the way my brain works, I guess. I gotta hear it for it to make better sense, then it sticks. But I wasn’t speaking about it anymore, so I wasn’t hearing it anymore. I can trace the first band of this extended monsoon season back to the day I decided to pull God from my stories. The winds started up just as my faith was not getting ‘fed’ and reinforced as much or as often.

I wound up getting beat down more and more by the storm. It raged, the water rose, and it tried to kill me or kill my hope. I felt more and more impacted by it as I had less and less confidence in the faith that I once wielded like a sword as well as a shield.  Where once I was frequently a ‘rainbow’ in people’s lives, now I was hearing whispers from the demons on my shoulder; “you aren’t a rainbow. Just look at you.” Where once I felt completely favored by God, and now I was asking, “God, do you believe what these demons are whispering as well?”  I was shaken to my foundation, and then my foundation was starting to fall apart. My own thoughts turned on me as well, it seemed. I heard myself saying things to and about me that I would NEVER say about someone else. It was hateful and hurtful, but it just rolled off my tongue so easily; shame, disappointment, failure were all clearly in focus. I could talk endlessly about this stuff.  They were right; I was no longer a “rainbow” for folks.

Once I agreed with that statement, they kicked it up a notch. They told me three things; first that I had NEVER really been a “rainbow” and nobody was every really encouraged by what I had told them. Second they told me I was at death’s door, and had some horrible disease or condition. Third, they tried to convince me that my family would be better off without me, and it was kinda selfish of me NOT to die at this point.  I started to agree with what they were saying. I had become estranged from friends and family, and I felt thay had just humored me before.  I had pains and aches that were never there before. I’ve gone entire weeks with the same headache. And when I thought about my family, I saw very clearly all the people that would rush to their support if only I wasn’t in the picture. It would be tragic, but it would be for their best in the long run. I saw it all so clearly.  I saw devastation, destruction and collateral damage all around, all with my fingerprints. I saw no path forward that included me.

But I remember a time when my demons were powerless. They would suggest the worst to me, hoping I would line myself up with them by taking the bait, but they were no match for the love and faith I had in God. I was once told I have never seen a mountain, because all the mountains look like mole hills to me. Years ago, when the surgeon looked into my eyes and said, “prepare to be a single mom because this cancer will kill your husband”, I did not take the bait. Those demons were hoping to dance and celebrate, and instead we got mad; I told them to piss off, and we responded with faith like a superpower. They were no match for what powered my life, and my husband was healed and set free from that death sentence. I remember that Superpower feeling, and I remember my response.

And yet, here I was; believing I was at death’s door, ready to surrender without a fight, because I believed the lies my husband and kids would be better off without me. I turned to various vices to distract me and perhaps make everything crashing around me hurt a little less. I am so tired, I reason. Nobody would blame me. It would all work out for my family, and that was the most important thing to me. If I was gone, the storm would stop for them, friends and family would reconnect and support them. It sounded like a good deal in my waterlogged state. I needed a ‘port in the storm’ yet only found rocks. I needed to catch my breath, yet only choked on more water. I needed dry clothes and to rest, yet I was getting dragged down by the constant weight of everything. I realized my coffin would be made of cardboard because of the financial state I had inflicted on my family, and decided I deserved nothing more.

It’s been almost five years of some crazy stuff, and I am trying to remember what the old me would have done before, when I wasn’t so lost and broken.  I am trying to remind myself how I used to get through this stuff. I try to imagine what I would say to someone I saw in my situation back when I could encourage people.  And that has started to work.  I decide that I’m of more use here than dead. I declare that God doesn’t need another angel in heaven. I decide that the best thing for my family is ME and not a fond memory. I am tired of being the target. I am exhausted. But I’m also now mad at having bought in to their lies for so long. I am pissed off at what has been stolen, and I am catching my breath. I am standing back up instead of rolling over. My demons; these liars that perch on my shoulder and whisper lies in my ears, shall soon tremble in fear of me. I hear the voice telling me to fight. It is faint, but I hear it above the whipping wind and the thrashing rain. I draw power from it, and I know that soon, I’ll be ripping the heart out of this storm. I shall turn every attack that I have been subjected to against my accusers, and their camp shall be destroyed. Because I am a Fucking Rainbow. And I am a storm killer at heart. I just forgot for a little while, that’s all.

So a little note directly to my demons is in order:

You won’t get away with this. Your lies shall be exposed and your strategies turned against you. Everything you used to disable me, I shall use to be even better for the next person I see that needs a rainbow, and a boat and dry clothes and safe harbor from their storm. I will be your worst nightmare, and you can look back at when you made the mistake of picking a fight with God’s favorite. He still loves me like no other, and I still have the superpowers He gave me. You have exposed your strategies, and leave me with a better understanding of how you operate, and an empathy for folks that are still mid-storm. I shall go forth and tell everyone I can that they, too, are God’s favorite, and that things look different when you know who you are. We shall all watch amazing things happen as lies get exposed and you demons tremble while we walk in our truth. So demons, Devils, and flying Ghost Monkeys. . . Watch as I get up and pull a 180

 

Dealing with a New Symptom

Sometimes I forget how I’m allowed to deal with a new symptom hitting my body. Sometimes I let something ‘sneak in’ and I baby it and coddle it.
Here’s my advice; spend at least as much time telling the symptom to go away as you do researching what it might be. And do the ‘telling’ before the ‘research’.
I feel like I’m fighting for my life here, because I’ve picked a fight with the devil. So all kinds of crap has been thrown my way; most I’ve identified early as an attack and dealt with it. But not all.
Backache three weeks ago: I didn’t remember tweaking my back, but I woke up one morning like I had been hit by a truck. I just took it easy for a few days and coddled it.
Backache yesterday: 20 minutes after I told my husband that my back didn’t hurt anymore and I could move my own chair, that same back pain came back with a vengeance. THIS time, I told it that it had no right, and I didn’t have time to deal with it. I sent it packing, and it was gone in 30 seconds.
Cough: I was doing a video and was about to ask for someone to pray for me, when I started to cough like I’ve never before. While it was throwing all these diseases and outcomes my way, I got mad and called it ‘down’. I immediately stopped coughing, but then I heard, ‘you can’t ask for healing for your lungs when you’ve caused the problems yourself.’
I go through some other recent examples, but the long and short of it is that you have authority, and you have the choice of what symptoms you ‘coddle’ and which you ‘send packing’.

In a different dialect, I would say, ‘do you have faith/belief in the symptom, or in the healing?’ Your faith/belief adds reality to an idea, either positive or negative. If you believe the symptom indicates you are sick, then the probability of that being true just went up. When you tell someone you are sick because of your symptom, then the probability of that being true just went up.

Be warned though; as soon as you have victory with one symptom, they will come at you with something else. In my case, when I had put the cough ‘down’, I immediately heard that it was selfish of me to ask for healing when I had done the damage to myself.

Or they will try to get you to agree to a lesser disease. Something like getting you to say, ‘I can deal with the flu, as long as I don’t have GI issues’. Bam; you got the flu.

God would never say, ‘you made your bed, now you gotta sleep in it’. He has lived through every hurt and pain and disappointment in your life, and saw every decision you made. He knows what happened, and why you did what you did.
If you had the ability to heal your kids, wouldn’t YOU? Do you think you love your kids more than God loves His?

Posted in Elevator Speech

My Elevator Speech with Chaz Bono

Posted on by Stacey

Have you ever thought of what you would say to Chaz Bono, if you ever were riding in an elevator with him?  Well I have – take a listen!

We are about the same age. And when I was a kid, I wanted to BE you. Primarily because I wanted your mom as my mom.  It hit me that while I wanted to be YOU, you didn’t want to be you.  I’m so glad you got to a happy place, and I’m still jealous that Cher’s your mom and not mine.

Like my Elevator Speech?  Let me know your thoughts, please share, follow, like, retweet.

 

 

 

Posted in Demons, Devils, & Flying Ghost Monkeys

Four Little Words that stop me in my tracks!

Posted on by Stacey

I have four little words that can stop me in my tracks at times!

‘What would people think?’ has made me pause, second guess and stop an embarrassing number of times.

I decided to ignore those four words on my visit home to take care of my mom.

I went to the pharmacy to get wound care supplies. I looked like a million bucks because I dress up to fly, and had just arrived from the airport. While in line to ask a question, I noticed in the security monitor that the ladies behind me were making fun of how I was dressed and had done my hair.

While I was in the middle of a good pity party, God told me to pay attention to the woman who was already at the counter for a moment.

God told me to step in and take action on her behalf. In this case, I was supposed to pay for some medicine after her card was declined. The Pharmacist finally agreed to take my card and allow me to pay for her medicine, but startled me when he told the lady what I had done. I don’t like the attention, and wasn’t ready for the lady to grab me. I didn’t know what to tell her about why I did it, but God told me to tell her that He was her provider. (This was remarkable because He’s never asked me to share that message before with anyone. ) Of course, it turns out that was exactly what she needed to hear, and had been praying about since her husband’s accident would mean not only expensive medication, but no paycheck for the foreseeable future.

It was exactly what she needed, and exactly what she needed to hear.
She was excited about getting home to tell her husband all that had happened, and their message from God.

She left, and I noticed that the ladies that were in line behind me had seen and heard what had happened, and their disposition about me had completely changed.

The Pharmacist then proceeded to make the ladies in line, who had been mean at first, wait while he escorted me around the entire store to make sure that I had everything that was needed. At the moment of purchase, he pulled out his personal card to pay for everything, and said, ‘please allow me to do this for you and for your mom because I’ve never seen anything like that. That was the kindest thing I’ve ever seen anyone do.’

Even after being delayed in line, those ladies still had smiles.
What an amazing, high impact event in a bunch of lives. That woman and her husband, the ladies behind me, the pharmacist. And me more than anyone perhaps, even though I was just a messenger.
I don’t always say yes when He asks.

When I’ve declined, it’s usually because of those four little words, ‘What would people think?’. In this situation, in which I was already embarrassed by what these ladies thought of me because of my dress and hairdo, I went forward anyway. And it changed me forever.

And just maybe, some women in Winter Park Florida learned not to judge a book by it’s MomHawk haircut, and to stop being ‘mean girls’ at 45 years old.