Sometimes I Write

Benny and I started renting the TV series LOST this weekend. We weren’t able to get into it last year when it was in the first season, though several people told us how much they loved it. Since it just came out on DVD and the series premiere is September 21st, we thought we’d get caught up and let that be our 2nd cult favorite this year. (ALIAS is first – ofcourse! Which premieres September 29th) For someone who doesn’t watch much TV, I’m hoping this will be a weekly bonding ritual for us.

This series is rich with issues that face us today and how we have a choice on how we handle them. There is a doctor who is a hero and a leader but struggles against those labels because his father had repeatedly told him as a young boy that he didn’t have what it takes and he shouldn’t try to be a hero or leader. There is a older man that is wild at heart and though he has spent his life in a wheelchair, he dreamed of a better life – one without his younger nasty boss continually telling him what he can’t do. His legs are somehow miraculously healed in the plane crash – at which point he embraces what he believes to be his destiny. He’s more than a survivor. There is a young man who is a musician and has a drug addiction. He will have to give it up either of his own choice or when the drugs run out. We watched him agonize with his choices. There is a pretty, unwed pregnant girl who looks like she will be in labor any second. There is a Korean couple that have a very troubled marriage. There is a woman who was being escorted by a U.S. Marshall for a crime we don’t know yet. There is a black man and his son (and his dog), who are just learning about each other and trying to form a family. The boy had lived with his mother until two weeks prior to the crash when she died. The man was bringing his boy back to the U.S. to live with him. There is a con man, a brother/sister duo with their own issues, an Iraqi man, a friendly and obese man, a older black woman who had been sitting next to the doctor on the plane and he had saved her life after the crash. There are many more stories that I haven’t even mentioned yet. Do you see how this has the potential to run for a very long time? There is a character for each of us to relate to if we look hard enough. There are many more stories of the people in this multi-faceted show including something invisible to us – an unseen monster of some sort that is killing people. And I just thought from the previews last year that it was a TV version of Jurassic Park. Was I ever wrong!

I can actually relate to several of the characters, and I thank God that he spoke to me through these shows. The lesson for me right now, and the one that hurts the most, is my relating to Charlie. He’s the musician with the addiction. He is well portrayed by Dominic Monahan(sp?) of Lord of the Rings fame (Merry Brandybuck). There is a scene where he is with John Lock (former wheelchair guy) in the jungle, and Mr. Lock confronts him about the drugs and demands he hand them over which he does. He promises Charlie that he will help him through his withdrawals. Charlie reluctantly agrees. Later he asks Lock to give him back the drugs. Lock says he only gets to ask for them back two times, then on the third time – he will give them back. He gives a great speech about how we are free to make our own choices, some good and some bad. The 2nd time Charlie asks for them back, he is visibly going through physical hell as his body begins the withdrawal process. Lock takes him over to a cocoon and asks Charlie if he knows what’s inside. Charlie shrugs and guesses a butterfly. Lock smiles and says no, this is a moth cocoon. Butterflies get all the glory because they’re so beautiful, but a moth is much stronger and it spins silk. He shows Charlie a little hole in the top of the cocoon where the moth is beginning to break free. He tells him that he could take his knife and make the whole bigger and “help” the moth gain its freedom much quicker, but then the moth wouldn’t be strong enough to fly. Breaking free of the cocoon is all part of the process and it makes the moth stronger in the end. His point has been made, and he reminds Charlie that the next time he asks for his drugs back, he’ll get them. I cried when Charlie approached Lock for the third time and demanded his drugs, then cried harder as Lock handed them over and Charlie threw them into the fire.

I too have an addiction. I’ve mentioned before that I’ve struggled with my weight for years. My addiction is food, and let me tell you – I believe the pull of food is as strong as any drug addiction I could have. Go back and read my post about the obesity problem in this country. I am far from alone – though that isn’t comforting to me. How long have I been in this cocoon? I feel like I’ve been waiting for someone to come along with their knife and cut me free. Is it possible that I’ve set up home in the cocoon fearing the struggle of breaking free? Do I have help keeping me in here? I finally read the book I talked about, The Insulin-Resistant Diet. It was quite an eye opener for me and I am sure that this has been a big part of my problem in my dieting history. So I started following the eating plan and did awesome for two days, then regressed back into the cocoon. It is painful and it’s causing other problems in my life.

I’ve been in a funk or awhile now. I do have days that everything seems to go right and then there are days that I’m grumpy with Benny and the kids, and I just want to curl up in a hole somewhere. I’ve been suppressing these feelings, afterall, I’m not facing devastation like the hurricane victims. Who am I to complain and cry out? I need to be grateful that I even have food when I want it. BULL!! Who ever said that just because my problems aren’t as visible and dire as the victims of Katrina, that God cares about my problems any less? I’ve been reading on a lot of blogs that my friends don’t feel they should ever have anything to complain about because they haven’t been displaced from their homes or lost everything like those poor people in LA and MS. While I agree that we need to be continually grateful, I believe that this line of thinking can also be False Guilt. God is hurting with me as I struggle to overcome my addiction to food just as much as he is hurting for those who have lost their homes and family members.

Watching these shows lastnight showed me just how LOST I really am. Thankfully I also saw the messages of HOPE, and banding together for survival. I’ll be o.k., just like Charlie on the show, I’m a survivor and I will beat this thing. Not because I have no choice, but because I DO have a choice. I’m going through the fire and I once again plead for the strength that comes with your prayers. Pray for me and Benny. Satan is attacking our marriage harder than he has in years. Pray for my patience and that I can diffuse my temper before spewing angry lava on my babies. Pray for my perseverance. I want so badly to be healthy and to get my athletic body back. Pray for my relationships with my friends. I’ve caught myself pulling away from people, or atleast holding back from being completely “me”. Pray for my heart. I didn’t realize how many layers of protection I had created to protect it, and now those layers are suffocating me. And finally, pray boldly against Satan and his army. They are camped on our doorstep. Pray them powerless to hurt and destroy us. Pray that God will bind up our wounds and heal our hearts and restore us to the people He created us to be. Thank you. Amen.