I love my church so much that I hate to leave it but I hate to stay in Los Angeles. What a situation I am in. Fact is, now that my brain has snapped back,. I remember why came here. It was so easy to see today.

I woke up early and went to worship practice to just be there in the atmosphere. Didn’t take a rocket scientist to see the real Susan was back. Terry BEAMED at me. I glowered at her—okay not really GLOWERED but the joke is that I am mad at her for opening me back up. I still don’t understand how all this happened. But I sat there writing in my journal at worship practice and my chin was literally trembling because I wanted to cry and cry and cry. It wasn’t a bad cry this time—it was a crying of the ICK in me out of me. I mean, I wanted to sit down right there and cry it all out. I felt so safe and free being there. I could feel the anointing in that place—again; I could feel it again. But I kept the tears in check and wrote. It was like it was months ago and I was visiting. Of COURSE I wanted to be here. It made sense. Maybe that helped—I was not a total fool. Anybody with half a spiritual brain would want this if they saw it—maybe not everyone would run to GET it, but they WOULD want it. It wasn’t crazy. Actually I think if two things would have been different (excluding my minor emotional breakdown, of course), it would have worked. The first thing was my job. I hated it. The dread of going could ruin a day. The other was living in Pasadena. Now go figure, but I think I made a mistake there. I should have lived in the Valley by the church. I think I was determined to prove I was “above” that. Instead I missed out. Of course emotionally a lot was wrong too, but now that it is right and my brain snapped back to who I am in Christ and it is not just blind faith, now I can admit it even more. If I had a different job and simple apartment, I would even stay. But I am caught in a bad place—I can’t stay and am pained to go.

I will never find a church like this; it is why I came. I LOVE this church. You all reading this have no idea. But I have to earn a living and you can’t sacrifice yourself 5 days a week and then keep your spirits up that way. I can’t. Not without a family or a husband or personal fulfillment. I think I could work a dead end job if, when I left it each day, I had something. But I don’t—not consistently. You can’t live that way for a Wednesday night and a Sunday.

Terry really warmed my heart today when she told me that she really understood what I tried to tell her last night in my letter. She said she could see that some of this spiritual holding on is harder for me. It was not in a pitying way, and I was not trying to TELL her in a pitying way. She said she could see that because of my past and my life. You know, I guess the reason she can, and David can too, is because they knew me when. People in my life now, like Robin or other friends, they know ABOUT me when, but I think it makes a difference to see. To Terry it was easy to see how something as small as that connection could be life changing. While others only see that as a DEMAND at times. I felt so good knowing that it made sense. It does make sense, but I am only accused of being demanding—think back to Sue. When you look at it in the big picture it was a systematic destruction of the sanity God had given me. But it was unintentional. She didn’t know. People don’t know. We lived in the same house and could be the best of friends today if we had stopped yelling and sat down to pray—once a week even, if we had loved each other enough to follow through on our hearts. I think both our lives would be different today. That is old news, but I guess it helped me when Terry said she could really understand that. It makes total sense if you knew me before. But I wonder if it is too late now.

She says that if God created us that way, then isn’t it HIS responsibility to fulfill that? And my answer is yes and no. Sure it is, but people have to be willing. She is the one who always prays. She says if you send time fellowshipping with people then the King of Kings is there and you should not end without thanking Him. But she acknowledges there are few people like that. So what happened is because in my heart I share that desire, if I am with people who did not see prayer that way, they see it as demanding and divisive—it becomes an ISSUE instead of what we do naturally. That is why I get so upset and vow to stop forever. They don’t realize—I think Robin knows me better than anyone but even she can’t fully understand—it is the very thing God used to save my sanity.

It is life and breath. It is not rote, not a routine and not minor. It is the healing balm, and it is just like God too because the things He used like that were a benefit to OTHERS. It was never prayer for ME that was healing but when I joined with people to pray for OTHERS. So what He does for me goes to the heavens and touches others. Uh, yeah, that sounds like GOD! And maybe that is why in my heart it has been so hard to see the rejection and destruction in an area that was only healing and so pure in the beginning. Nothing has had a greater continuing effect. I remember back to that one and only prayer meeting at Beverly’s. And then I remember how no one would ever come to a second one. I remember coming home that night and the way the Lord spoke Isaiah 61 to me—laying on the kitchen floor. I was so consumed by the Holy Spirit I just laid right down with that Bible.

The next week my life went NUTS. I could even see why at the time—I knew I had had major revelation. But the attack came—and it was an attack from the pit of hell—from one of the people at the very prayer meeting that had affected me so. I guess if I didn’t know before I knew then that this healing had a price.

I believe—on my good days in truth when I am free—I believe that I am called to prayer in a deep way. I believe that there is power in my prayers and I have, many times, believed I have an anointing for praying for emotional healing for others in my praying too—that that is all part of what God has done in healing me. But I have seen all that die. Although Robin and I still prayed when I lived in Texas, after all the funkiness, I had kind of pulled away too so it was not that kind of praying—I have not prayed like that with people for a very long time—and the truth is, I need that reinforcement. I need another person at times—not all the time, but if I don’t have it nothing builds me up. Real prayer is draining—it drains your emotions and sometimes even your physical strength. If I give it all out of me but it doesn’t come back, I dry up. And now I can’t remember how long it has been since I was last like that.

But I know that is who I am inside even if it NEVER comes out because it is still there. I still sense it and nothing extraordinary has happened.

So that is my prayer story.

Meanwhile, church was great. Worship was great. I took my new streamer, Elegant Grace, and found myself a place by where the side door is. I wanted room—and I let loose. I think I probably scared a couple older ladies behind me who may not have knows that I was skilled enough not to slap them, but I didn’t look. I danced and spun and twirled and danced some more. I was breathing hard and had to fight a coughing fit, from the ending cold, when I was done, but I wrapped myself in that grace and stood there. Alive.

I know it may go away tomorrow—the world may fill me with its ick and Terry or anybody else won’t be next to me saying “you want to pray” and the ick will grow and the connections will subside and maybe a week from now I will cry again and then this memory will hurt more because it was another up followed by another down. But I am still a person consumed with, sometimes against my will, Interminable Hope, and I have to milk it for all its worth because I have missed it. I think maybe I have missed it for years. I am not even sure how long. I would do anything keep it. Yes, folks, I would live here and work in Glendale if it meant keeping it. Of course I have already quit my job, but I am not kidding. If I KNEW I could keep this, if I knew there was a connection, a way, I would stay. But there has never been a way. I don’t know if Robin would agree with this, probably not because she looks at the whole picture of my general life and job and stuff, but I would say the time of my life I was the most stable was the time she and I were praying every week at least. It changed my life forever. I love that and hate it at the same time. How do you find a unique thing again? How do you live without it and live?

Some people take Prozac; I take prayer. I am not kidding. Really. The very chemicals in my brain change. It sounds funny when I say this—not that I really have and now I am exposing it to the internet (!), but sometimes I know I can actually FEEL my brain shifting. I tried to explain that to Terry today. When I say emotional healing and talk about what a miracle it is, I am telling you my brain chemistry literally changes and I know that as sure I as I know I have ten toes that are cold right now! That is why I also knew when I got here and things went awry that my brain shifted the wrong way. I felt it. I really did. The other night it shifted back. This is why there is never a hopeless depressed person truly lost in worship and adoration to God—the two cannot coexist. That is why I have struggled in worship all these months too. The brain shifted and even that did not un-shift it because there was no connection—only Robin on a phone 1500 miles away. There is a truth here that probably makes no sense to people who have spend their entire lives 100 percent sane and stable, but I know this because I have lived it. I have the cure. God gave it to me six years ago in worship and prayer and praise. I have two and 1/3 of those things (prayer is threefold: alone, with a partner and corporately, so I have one)—but the missing thirds matter. It is almost like a pill that is made up of a chemical compound which is missing a precise proportion. The pill still has some effectiveness, but not what it should have. On good days it will work and do okay but in times of more illness, that pill needs to be complete or it is useless.

I am SO looking forward to Thanksgiving this year. Where am I going? To the homes of BOTH my pastors. I LOVE THIS CHURCH! Terry hates cooking and I love it so I offered to do anything she wants. So I am really excited because I am going over there early and she says she will be my assistant. I get the big kitchen and a Thanksgiving feast to work on. I love cooking for Thanksgiving. I haven’t had any place to go for a couple years so I am really excited. After that I will go to Pastor Dan and Cindy’s and enjoy dessert. I think will come back next year. Why not? There is a part of LA that will always be home, because of Terry and this church—and Pastor Darrell. If I ever were to get married he would have to be the one who did it. I adore them. They are special and this church is exceptional. I wanted it to be mine. But there would have to be an earthquake big enough to move the church to Texas at this point. Regret on both sides. I guess what Terry said is true—they will always be here for me to come to. And the weekend visits will be special—times of laughter and prayer and worship and church. I wouldn’t even HAVE that if I stayed, so I guess it is a good thing. I wonder if I will ever have both from one place.

We had lunch after church and we hung out and talked. We cleaned later—then gabbed. I enjoyed talking to Darrell a bit today too, before church and after. He is being so kind, so loving. They are so loving. Thank God. He actually told me his home email address too—gutsy guy! He is getting better at at least short email replies. I didn’t want to leave when I left. I arrived at church at 9 a.m. and it was almost 4 when I drove out and I could have stayed hours longer.

Yes, today the spring break trip made sense all over again. The only way this could have been avoided is if I had never gone to visit Darrell and Terry that Wednesday afternoon. I can STILL see why I did this. And when you get right down to it—I did it for the hope of that spiritual connection that would give me more breath. This is why I could minister with a team building churches in Nepal for six months with no contact with home easier than I could live alone in Chicago for a month in an ordinary life. It is not a perfect world of heavenly bliss, but it is connection that preserves me—spiritual bonds and intimacy. If I didn’t have debt I would probably be a long term missionary. Some people would think if I couldn’t do LA without the spiritual pressures, how could I do something like that—but I could—on a team or with a spiritual partner.

It is the compound of the pill. God’s spiritual Prozac. And the answer I have but am still searching for.