Backed Up and Restored – Cristine’s Story
Another Mouthpiece
From the time of Moses, Aaron was always known as “the mouthpiece” for the prophet. As Executive Director and “Chief Tellum Boutitall” of Seasons of Life, It’s no surprise that I’ve been the mouthpiece of our organization and for our “prophet”. This year, considering all we’ve been through, I’ve felt the prompting of God to have Cristine share some of her story and give you an update on how she’s doing and what God has done for her, for us, and for those who call Seasons of Life their “running partner”. “Take it away, Cristine!” -AP
I was sooo exhausted in July. It’s so weird to be so tired, but not being able to get a whole night of sleep. I was sleeping only about two hours a night for most of the month. I could tell I was starting to show signs of burnout from the nonstop pace we were living at.
We had fasted in July – a “Daniel Fast” (no meat, no dairy, no bread, nothing to drink other than water, and no sugar). Fasting always exposes what’s going on in your life at a deeper level. But, my husband and I have four kids, 3 of them were under 3 then and they always got up at 7 o’clock and it was a lot to keep them going throughout the day. Aarron’s family lives in Massachusetts and my Mom lives in Florida, taking care of her parents, so we had almost no support to help with the kids. What our fast exposed was that we were nearing burnout, quickly. So, when the fast, the burnout, and a few really bad relationship explosions collided, the insomnia got worse.
A lot of people thought it was just nutrition and gave us all kinds of vitamins and supplements (St. John’s Wort, Valerian Root, L-theanine, B-12, Benadryl, Melatonin) to get me to sleep, but none of it even touched it [the sleeplessness]. I mean, I wasn’t drinking caffeine at all that month, but I was taking all these supplements and eating all this food that’s supposed to help, but I’m still awake at 2:00 in the morning.
That’s because it wasn’t about insomnia. At all. Insomnia was just a symptom of what I really had, which is called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder – a severe form of constant “fight or flight”. Even with support groups and counseling, most people take years to recover from PTSD. So, we had to go see someone that knew the Lord, His word, and what they were talking about with PTSD. So, I started seeing Dr. Bob Montes and he had already treated people for PTSD with this thing called EMDR. It would have taken a few years to heal from what I had been through without it, but with prayer (a lot of yours, adds my husband) the power of God, and the EMDR, instead it only took a few months.
The Storm before the Calm:
Before the recovery, I was reading a lot of books and praying like, all the time. “God, you’ve got to deliver me from this.” And I got really nasty. I was raging all the time over stuff that wasn’t really all that bad, but I just felt like nobody understood what I was going though, so I would explode screaming and throwing things.
One Sunday in August, we were packing up for church and Aarron had put all the kids in the van and I was getting in, when Presleigh (our almost 3 year old) spilled her breakfast shake all over her and Aarron started cleaning it up. Then, I just lost it. I got out of the van and went back in the house and just grabbed the closest thing I could and threw it against the wall. It was these champagne glasses from our wedding and they just went flying into the wall and shattered. So, I reached for something else and threw that and finally Aarron came over and just hugged me really hard and kept telling me he loved me and I was like “Why?!”
Carry Each Others’ Burdens?
I kept feeling guilty because my husband had to do all kinds of things that I just didn’t have the energy to do, activities of daily living – like 5 loads of laundry and cleaning the house and taking care of the kids and all of his own work and running the ministry. Then he kind of broke down one day and realized not only was I depressed and exhausted, but he was suffering from burnout.
Some of the books we were reading talked about how to minister to people going through the deep wounding I was dealing with, but we both kind of got nervous when Aarron started to show signs of burnout. There was a lot of load to carry and he was carrying it, but if he couldn’t carry it suddenly, it would be a disaster. All the books we were reading talked about “the dark night of the soul”. They described it as something that when God says it’s time for you to go through it, you’d better go through it. But, we were like “how can we both go through it at the same time with four kids?”
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| Would you save these wilting flowers? |
Aarron was telling me this morning that sometimes we have to defragment our computers or even “wipe” them clean, but first you have to back up the important files. Sometimes the computer gets a bunch of junk on it that slows it down. We had a lot of junk from our past slowing us down and just needed to have it wiped clean. But, isn’t that great that our Heavenly Father, who is making us look more like Jesus is already doing that?
As things were getting really hard for me emotionally & physically, I had a moment where I took this vase of flowers my husband had given me and brought it outside. Some of the flowers had been wilting, so I chucked them on the far side of our lawn. Then, the Lord spoke to me so clearly – “Not all of those are done for… wilted to the point of no return.” As I picked several of them up, I discovered there were still gorgeous petals underneath some of the bad ones. I heard the Lord say “this was you and all the others like you.” The world would have tossed them.
In our lives, God already has a backup of the important files. As we walk through life, past hurts, fears, and brokenness leaves junk on our life. But, God knows the value we each have to Him. The world might throw us aside when our beauty doesn’t match up, but God hadn’t forgotten about them, me, or you.
Today, I feel restored – almost 40 people who are very dear to me are about to show up for a late birthday party for me. Aarron was shocked that I would have a big party because he’s done surprises for me before and I didn’t like them because I usually hate being the center of attention. This time, it’s different – I want to celebrate this new season of my life with the people who mean the most to me and tell of the great things He has done. My recovery has been nothing shy of a miracle from God.
We are stronger and better today because God has backed us up, wiped us clean, and restored us. But, like Job, I think He has made us better off than we were before. In order to face my dark night of the soul, I had to cancel a small group study I was going to lead. When I told the girls I’d have to bow out and why, they were more than supportive of me. But, three of those same girls emailed me back and said that they had been going through past hurts, too, but they hadn’t been willing to talk about them or seek help until they heard my story… God’s story. Today, I am grateful to my Abba-Father, Jehovah-Rapha “The LORD is my healer”, that He has healed me, but also restored me to be able to lock arms with other women who have yet to walk through their own dark night of the soul. (Now, if I can find time to meet with all of them, it will really be an act of God!!!)
Praise and honor to Him,
Cristine Pina