Tag: reflection

Transformation

Just Write!!!

Debra Worden
May 30, 2011

So here I am beginning to blog.  I’ve only been talking about it for a month now but resisting.  What was the big hold back?  Well… DOUBT.  Every time I began contemplating what to write, my thoughts would turn to all kind of questions… the defeating kind of questions… the kind of questions that tell me I’m worthless… the kind of questions that stop me in my tracks from being a useful source to humanity.  But the real waste isn’t in sharing worthless material… it’s in not sharing at all.  So here I am… writing about the questions. 

Questions like…

  • “Who would really want to read your blog? I mean what makes you so special?”
  • “What makes you think you have anything worthwhile to say… to read… and do you really think anyone is going to get any REAL benefit out of it? REALLY????  Who are you kidding?”
  • “Aren’t you being a little high and mighty and grandiose by calling your blog ‘The Calling’?”
  • “Do you really have a calling? If so, why aren’t you out there ministering to the world instead of spending all your free time on Facebook when you’re not working, doing domestication stuff,  mothering 2 kids and hosting a plethora of neighborhood kids?”

I mean look at you Deb… you’ve got THREE kids and one of them isn’t even speaking to you right now.  Yeah okay… people love you… people want to hear what you have to say… you touch people alright.  Look at all of the people who’ve been fleeing your life because of YOU!! 

Ministry should start at home before trying to help heal the world!  And look at all the brokenness in the relationships around you that YOU caused because of YOUR decision to divorce your husband!!  Look at your damn life for God’s sakes!!!  What the fuck are you thinking???  Get a freaking grip!!!

Okay… I’ve said it!  I’ve exposed all my fears.  I’ve let the cats out of the bag.  They can really claw at me now!  But maybe… just maybe… the cats needed to be released.  Not so I can be wounded by judgment or failure….so I can make space… so the cats can run wild… away from here. 

The truth is… there really aren’t any cats… and there is no bag.  It’s all in your mind and you don’t really believe what your mind is projecting anyway.  Deep down… you believe in YOU… the gentle, loving, strong, giant Light that you ARE… king of the jungle… Leo the Lioness.  So let yourself ROAR girl!!  Share what you’ve got to say even if you’ve got no clue where you’re going with it.  JUST WRITE!!! 

Alrighty then!  Let’s look at those questions again now that the imaginary cats are gone.  Let’s look at them with the eyesight of the Lioness.  


“Who would really want to read your blog? I mean what makes you so special?”

Well… LOTS of people!  Just look at all the people who read and intimately respond and react to your Facebook stuff.  Look at all the people who seem to truly care about Deb and Deb’s world and what Deb has to say.   You ARE special because you FEEL special by all of the wonderful people you label as ‘special’ that you interact with.  You say it ALL the time… “water seeks its own level”!  Believe it!! 

I’ll be honest… sometimes I ask myself why people care to interact with me?  I am continually in awe over the people… total strangers… who find me on Facebook and make very real soul-felt connections with me.  I am amazed at the time people take out of their day to read through what can sometimes be very lengthy threads on my wall or very LONG comments I make on their posts.  I know they do because of what they add to the conversation.  They WANT to participate and I can clearly see they have a desire to share their own personal experiences, wisdom and words of encouragement with me… not to mention other viewers who may benefit.  So yeah!  I’ve got an audience and I KNOW it!


“What makes you think you have anything worthwhile to say… to read… and do you really think anyone is going to get any REAL benefit out of it?

Well… let’s look at the evidence.  There are numerous people who’ve told you the impact you’ve have had on them by what you’ve shared on Facebook.  How many times have you taken a leap of faith and posted things you were hesitant to put out and people have appreciated your honesty or told you it was EXACTLY what they needed to hear?  Or how about all the silent observers you thought were laughing at you for putting your personal stuff out there and sharing your candid openness with respect to God and spirituality?

Yes indeed…  there have been many of them who have sent private messages to tell you how much you inspire them and given them courage to make some very REAL changes in their lives.  Yes Deb, YOU’VE GOT IT!!  You’ve got stuff to say!!!  Not only that, but the stuff you have to say is THE most valuable stuff a person can talk about… soul stuff!  You believe this with all your heart so DON’T doubt the worthiness of what you’ve got to say for a second, because this is the stuff that makes living your life worthwhile. You believe in it!!!


“Aren’t you being a little high and mighty and grandiose by calling your blog page ‘The Calling’?” 

Well… NO!  One thousand percent NO!!!!  Of all the questions you could ask yourself, this one is filled with the most bullshit and you KNOW it!   You know it because the answer came so quickly and you felt your energy shifting towards conviction.  You can see it in the point blank “NO”, nothing further needs to be said.

Why do I know I have a calling?  Well… because I’ve had it for a really, really long time; because I’ve answered it on various occasions in a variety of ways and witnessed the results; because it pulls on my soul continuously in a way that I cannot ignore; because I always seem to be in a waiting state for the next Call; because I’ve experienced the magical mystery of an open line of communication with and without words between myself and others through the speaker of all speakers… GOD. 

I’ll never forget when I first knew I was called to be a voice for God in the world.  It was at a group gathering held weekly in a private home.  Initially, I had been the seeker in that group.  I had so many questions and rarely received answers.  One member, Kevin Dixon, recognized the strong desire for truth in me and introduced me to another type of group where I engaged in the most soul-searching process of my life.  I found the answers… they were within me the whole time.  Simultaneously I became engaged to the greatest love of my life… my God. 

Well, one Sunday night the topic of the meeting was about the God of our understanding and there were many in the room that had little to no understanding.  As each person took turns going around the room, I listened and my heart was breaking… they didn’t know.  They were pondering, they were inquiring, they were ridiculing, they were angry at him, but not one of them KNEW God.  I could feel an energy building inside of me.  It felt like a fear-based energy because there was a heat… a build-up… a rushing feeling inside of me… like a flame turning into a powerful fire very quickly… the fire of God. 

When it came time for my turn to speak, I opened my mouth and the words just flowed effortlessly.  Gone was the intensity of the fire and it was replaced with a peace.  The words that came from my mouth were gentle, yet strong; simple but conveyed deep wisdom; promoting but yet attracting every single person in the room. 

I still don’t even remember what I said, but I will never forget the experience of it.  There was a spellbound atmosphere in the room.  It was as if time stopped and everyone’s souls were wide open and deeply hungry and there was me… I was not the food… but I was the delivery girl.  I could literally feel the transference of something going on while I was speaking, as if there was an invisible umbilical cord between me and all of them.

When I was done speaking, the room was speechless and there was a sense of awe in everyone’s eyes that asked “What just happened? What did I just witness? What did I just experience?  Give me more!!”  I could feel it in all of them.  I would hear from each of them individually in the days following telling me how powerful it was. 

There was one guy, Wayne, who never looked at me quite the same after that day.  He actually made me feel uncomfortable at times the way he would look at me as if I was different.  He would openly refer to me with other people as a very deeply spiritual person.  I didn’t feel like I deserved this kind of reference because I felt I had only just begun my walk on the spiritual path.  Not only that, the power was not from me.  I was the messenger but the message was not mine.  It was from God. 

Because of this experience I knew exactly what the bible was referring to when years later I read it and discovered the passages that said” Jesus spoke as one who had authority” (even though he was not in the authoritative role of a Pharisee), and what Jesus meant when he himself said “These words are not mine, they are from my father”. 

To this day, I still get those warning signs that God wants to use me and I am supposed to speak and someone always comes up to me afterwards and confirms I heeded the Call.  So why am I not content to just continue to do what I do with speaking?  Well… because God isn’t content with that.  He’s been calling me into new directions for some time now.  I don’t know the “what’s” or the “where’s” but I’ve felt the tremendous pull and I’ve remained open to the details falling into place. I don’t think writing is the only direction he is calling me to either.

Why a blog?  Well… a number of people have told me I write beautifully and say I have an ability to share things beyond the copy/paste quotes that I put out daily.  It was mentioned to me a while back by my friend Marie that I should start my own website or blog.  I tucked it away and felt like it was a good possibility but didn’t feel it was the right time with everything I had going on in my life. 

Recently I’ve been developing a new friendship with my co-worker Cindy who is a writer.  I shared a few of my writings with her and she spoke to me as “one who has authority” and told me very strongly to “JUST WRITE!!!”  It was a different type of authority if you know what I mean (haha).  Through my resistance the past month, she keeps encouraging me in a very adamant way.  Something tells me she won’t give up until I do it, so here I am.  If anyone is helped by my blog, they can thank Cindy, the force who pushed me and helped me set it up.  She may not realize it, but she is a messenger herself… because God used her to push me for His purposes.


“Do you really have a calling? If so, why aren’t you out there ministering to the world? And what about your current messed up life situation?” 

Well… I believe I have given much to those who appear to be broken or who have vacated my life.  I trust that God, in his infinite wisdom and bearer of blessings, is going to be the power that transforms their lives and I am very clear that it’s NOT going to be through me.  If I have any part in it at all, it’s only that I allowed the opportunity for God to make such transformations by heeding the very real, very strong Call on my own life for a re-direction.

So what do I hope to accomplish with this blog page?  To do exactly what I do on Facebook but on a more extensive level of writing…. to be me… to share me… to share what God would have me share of my doubts, my fears, my strength, my wisdom, my faith, my experience, my hopes and my dreams for myself and the world.

It has always been clear to me I am not supposed to be a religious leader, in part because there isn’t any one religion whose dogma I believe in whole-heartedly and in part because I don’t like the spotlight.  I prefer to remain a humble behind-the-scenes kind of servant of God… quietly touching as many lives as I can and bringing healing in a way that allows people to touch and heal a deeper part of themselves and remove what blocks them from knowing true joy, true peace, true happiness, and true love… for that is what God IS.

(Written in 2011… my initial calling… which I heard but put on pause in 2012 due to a detour to love and release a devil disguised as an angel delivered to me through Facebook. It took years for me to recover. Break time is over!!! Time to play catch up!!! ~8/2/2020)

Transformation

Re-Framing Suffering As Love

Debra Worden
November 3, 2010

(Written during my daughter’s Rebecca’s recovery period from spinal fusion surgery.)

I have been reflecting on a situation that was killing me to witness a little while ago. I now realize it was a beautiful, intimate exchange of love between my son & my daughter.

Rebecca was bawling in pain from doing a little too much today and nothing I did to reposition her seemed to help.  Frankie was watching the whole scene of her crying and me struggling to help her to no avail.  His face was becoming bright red as the stress of the situation was escalating.  It was too much for him and his Tourette’s tics just started to flow from his face. 

After a little while Rebecca finally regained her composure and she says to me “Frankie has a new tic mom” and then goes on to describe what she saw.  She asked me to explain to her why he can’t control it and what it is inside his body that makes him do that.  I tried to give my best explanation in a way that a child would understand and explained to her that he can try to control it but then eventually he has to let it all out.

Then she directed all her questioning towards him and the two of them started this open dialogue with her asking questions and him answering, although he couldn’t really tell her how he is able to control it.  Then Rebecca says that Nicole, (big sis who also has Tourette’s), was doing her tics when she was sitting on her bed in the hospital and it was hurting her back when the bed was shaking but she didn’t want to say anything.

Being the mother, the whole thing was heart wrenching for me. To know that one of my children was laying there in pain, my other child suffers with trying to control an energy in his body that says “let me out, let me tic”, and remembering how much it broke my heart when Nicole would come home from school and release all the tics she had suppressed so kids wouldn’t make fun of her and that she still struggles with it today when she gets stressed. It was just too much for me to handle. I wanted to puke from all the suffering.

But what I realized afterwards was…

That it was the first time Frankie has ever seemed really comfortable talking openly about his condition and I see that as a blessing and a freedom for a kid who has no freedom of choice in what his body does.

That Frankie’s tics came out tonight because he cares about his sister.  The tics overflowing translates to the level of his love for her.

That Nicole’s love was also overflowing as she sat on that hospital bed shaking away with concern for her sister. 

That Rebecca could have been solely focused on her own agonizing condition tonight but she was tuned into her brother’s condition because she cares about him. 

That she sacrificed her own comfort so as not to make her sister uncomfortable when she was shaking her bed.

That I have 3 kids who love and care very deeply about each other. 

That we are one blessed family in spite of our difficulties.

Transformation

When The Wind of Change Calls

Debra Worden
June 21, 2011

There is something to be said for the ground of stability, even it is unhealthy soil.  There is just some sense of security in “the known”.  But that’s about where the something ends.   There is absolutely no real security in anything that is slowly killing you inside.   At some point, you’ve got to face reality that in order to really live the way you’re meant to live, you’ve got to make a change.

Change is a scary thing, even when you know you want it, even when everything inside is calling you to make it.  On some level you know it’s going to shake up some dirt and there goes your sense of stability, your false sense of security.  Something inside you just doesn’t easily allow you to comfortably and peacefully make the change.  Perhaps its procrastination, perhaps it’s the fear of “the unknown” or perhaps it’s your intuition telling you now is not the right time. 

All the agony you’re trying to avoid by making a change… the fear… the potentiality of regret… the affects to other people… those aren’t the real things that keep you in agony. All the thoughts of “what ifs” and all the self-sacrificing in the world to insure the ground of stability is not compromised for others isn’t what keeps you in the state of discontentment. No. The agony… the lack of peace… the state of continual turmoil… is nothing other than you NOT answering the call placed upon your heart to make a change.

Sometimes you know it long before you get up the courage, but you don’t really want to know it.  You ignore it and deny it as much as you can.  You question yourself continually.  You engage in long, windy discussions about it, but you do nothing.  Even still, because you’ve recognized it on some level, you find no sense of peace in doing nothing at all.  You just agonize internally.

The truth is… you know it; you’re just not prepared to know it.  You feel it; you just don’t want to experience all the feelings you may have to face in making a change.  You wait… hoping for the precise moment when it’s going to be simple, easy, and you’ll feel the least amount uncomfortable, but that day may never come.   

There aren’t too many changes that are as easy or simple as changing your underwear.  There are very few changes that feel as good as putting on fresh, warm clothes from the dryer on a cold day.  The time you take in between the recognition that you need to make a change and when you actually make it, is really nothing other than you… trying to control it.

The reality is… what feels the most uncomfortable is existing in your own skin when everything inside you is telling you that you MUST make a change and you don’t listen to that call.  At some point, it just becomes unbearable NOT to make the change.  Like a plant that’s outgrown its container, you feel constricted.  You know in your heart that you’ve exceeded the limitations of what you will accept for the conditions of your life.  No amount of watering or fertilizing seems to help. 

The longer you wrestle, ponder, agonize and sit in that uncomfortable space waiting for the right moment, the more you start to die inside. The root of your life… who you’re meant to be, how you’re meant to live, of WHO YOU ARE starts to corrode. You wither and people see it in you.

Just before you’re ready to completely keel over and die, you experience the moment… the shift.  You let go of control and you surrender.   

Suddenly, all the pros and cons of making the change disappear.  It’s all pro and grow through the change or else let the shred of life that’s left of you go away completely.  The peace you’ve longed for is suddenly there even though you may be in for one of the biggest transplants of your life.  You consider the fact that you may lose a few of your precious roots in the process, but there is no fear because everything inside you seeks to preserve that one major root…your own life… the only one you’ve been given. 

You then know… you then feel… you then experience the empowering conviction that now is the time.  You look back at all the agonizing and all the waiting for the right moment and you realize that there never even would have even been a struggle to begin with if the change wasn’t needed.  We just don’t struggle when we are content with “what is”. 

So if you’re struggling with making a change, you can ask yourself all the questions, you can talk-talk-talk, you can sit in the fear of shifting into the unknown, you can wait all you want to, you can attempt to control the change as much as you wish, but hopefully one day you will surrender as I have.

Don’t worry… if you don’t like the outcome, you can surrender again.