Are You Attached To Your Struggle?

by Ann Ferguson

When I was a child, I asked my Mom questions.  I didn’t ask usual questions typical of a three-year-old. I asked the kind of questions that even adults don’t quite have the answer to.

I have a memory of asking my Mom one morning, “How high is up?” I didn’t have a lot of understanding of the world or how it operated, so it was difficult for my mom to give me an answer that would make sense.  I remember her taking a long time to answer.  After a while, she just said, “Annie, there are some things you get to ask God when you see him.  But I think it’s pretty high.”

This morning I woke up to a new experiential understanding of how high up is.  To know up, you have to understand down.  When I think about the law of polarity, I typically think about times when I have been in the lowest of times and had to muster the will to try to believe that there is an equal and opposite good.  I don’t know about you, but some days I really struggle to believe and envision the possibility that something good is on its way.  Especially when all the evidence around me is pointing out that the hard stuff is my reality; believing that anything positive seems impossible.

I am well acquainted with the discomfort of the low times on the polarity scale.  Actually, I’m pretty dang good at living through struggle.

The lowest point of my life was back in 2005. I lived in a tiny townhouse in the Washington DC area. I was 2000 miles away from any extended family and felt very discouraged and alone. My husband had a consistent paycheck, but the cost of living in the DC area was extremely high. I supplemented his income by babysitting during the day and teaching dance at night.  Most months, we ran out of money before the month was over and were living in constant crisis mode.

I firmly believe that when a couple is united, they can get through hard things. Unfortunately, we did not operate as partners who had an “us against the world” attitude.  We were at the end of our marriage and did not speak to each other unless necessary. We had not been in the same room at the same time for more than five minutes for over a year. When we did communicate, it was quick, defensive, protective, full of blame contention, and competition.  We were caught up in the I’m right you’re wrong way of relating.  There was no equality or peace in our relationship.

The house we lived in was not only small for our family of seven. It was also in extreme disrepair. For instance, for over half a year, no one in the house was able to shower (baths only, even adults) because when the shower was on, water would pour out through the kitchen ceiling.

It wasn’t just the house that was in disrepair, the car was in bad shape too. The radiator had a leak in it and would overheat. I made sure I had a jug of water in the vehicle at all times. I poured water into the radiator every other trip I took. If I forgot, the temperature gauge would move toward the red zone and before long I was on the side of the road with steam billowing out of the engine.

Our power and water were shut off every other month, and we would experience the panic of trying to scrape up the money to pay utilities companies to get them back on.  We were living in and resonating with the energy of lack. There was no stability.

The divorce was excruciating, and the grief was debilitating.

It was all so confusing. I was doing all the “good and righteous” things. It seemed like the Lord just kept pushing me to see if I would break.  I wanted to believe in the opposite high, but it was so hard.  Everything in my life pointed to lack.  When my husband moved out, I was alone with five children and all of the disrepair. For me, this was the lowest side of the Law of Polarity.

Mornings were rough.

When I went to sleep, I would have a reprieve from it all.  Then the morning would come.  I would open my eyes, and the realization of what my life had become would hit me. I hung my head and gazed at the floor. Down…that was all I saw. Up seemed so beyond me. Strangely I was familiar with the discomfort of it all.  I knew how-to live-in lack.  There was a weird prideful nobility in me that I was a survivor and was good at struggling.  Down…

I was good at down.  Down was all there was, I just had to make it through another day until I could fall asleep and dream again.

Fast forward to 2020.

When my dreams ended last night, and I opened my eyes this morning, I slowly became aware of my current reality, and it freaked me out! I experienced a new level of up last night, and I’m uncomfortable. It feels like I’m too high up.  It feels a little unsafe, and yet, it’s okay. Up is okay this morning. That’s what I keep telling myself so that I will be comfortable with this as my new normal.

The reality of the life I am living is hard to fathom.  Finances are stable, I’m equal in my relationship, and blessed beyond my understanding.  I find myself fighting feelings of unworthiness. It’s like my subconscious is trying to get me to look down again.  But, due to the Mindset Mastery program and studying the Laws of thought through Leslie Householder’s works, I know that God is delighted in blessing me. Up is where I’m supposed to be looking.

Up is my destiny. That’s what I want my subconscious to understand and adopt.

This morning, there is a Porsche 911 in my garage that my husband purchased last night, with my consent. Even though I was included in the decision-making process, I’m uncomfortable. I’m not afraid about how we will handle the payments; we CAN, and that’s what is scary. I realized a few hours ago that I’m sitting on a higher end of the law of polarity than I have ever experienced before. It turns out that I’m a bit afraid of heights, so to speak. It’s interesting how easily I accepted the negative feelings of lack as the reality of my life, and now how receiving the polar opposite abundance is my struggle.

This is what the Porsche represents:

  1. It represents a functioning partnership and a healthy marriage with a man who honors me.   Yesterday morning, when Tom, came to talk to me about his desire to purchase the car, he came to me with respect.  We had a healthy conversation where I voiced my concerns, and he expressed what he had done to make it possible and keep our financial life safe.  We are partners. If I had said no, he would have walked away from it and honored my feelings.  This conversation was the extreme polar opposite of the competitive, defensive, and conflicted conversations of my past.

 

  1. It represents stability and security. Tom was 33 years old when we met.   He had never been married and had no children.  This brave soul stepped into a marriage with a woman with five children, ages 15-4. He has spent the last 13 years, ensuring that the children and I have been provided for and are safe.  He swallowed his pride by accepting side jobs. He asked for raises and worked crazy overtime to make sure that rent was paid, the utilities were always on, and food was on the table.  He put his dreams aside and paid for braces, medical care, prom dresses, missions, and a myriad of other things. He even sold his beloved Jeep Wrangler to make a college tuition payment for one of the kids.  For 18 months after that, he drove an old beat-up Subaru Outback that we lovingly named “The three-legged dog.” This fierce loyalty to providing stability and safety is the opposite of worry and instability of my past.

 

  1. It represents the fact that it’s okay to accept the blessings the Lord has offered.  I am still doing the “good and righteous” things.  I am serving the Lord, blessing the lives of all who the Lord puts into my path, AND my husband drives a fancy car.

 

When I was sitting on the bottom end of my polarity scale, I had no idea that it would feel weird on the opposite side. What’s really fun is that as I’m writing this, I know that there is so much more in store for my husband and me.   Not just in material things but in real wealth and abundance.  Wealth in relationships, health, and financial resources. The Lord’s ability to give is unlimited. He has everything at his fingertips and his supply never ends. The only limiting factor is me.

How high up?   The Lord is set and ready to show me. There is no end to the polar opposite of down. Up is as high as I am willing to receive.