Burned out, Hurt, and Exhausted – My last three Posts on PTSD

Misty Hollow Carving
This BLOG is sponsored by “Misty Hollow Carving”. You are welcome to visit Misty Hollow and see all of my carvings.
If you have followed the progress of my Web Site Yesterday Misty Hollow Carving’s Web Site hit a new all time record. It reached 11,903 hits in one month as of Yesterday! WILL IT GO OVER the 12,000 Mark today or tomorrow? I THINK IT WILL!!! Woopieee! So close I am holding my breath!!!!

To help me promote my Web Site please copy this URL address and email to someone today http://www.murraylincoln.com/

Thanks a million!

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Blog Post for today…
Burned out, Hurt, and Exhausted – My last three Posts on PTSD
As I read Scott Wisely’ s words on Wm. Paul Young’s Blog I was moved again.
Scott states…
“I am reading “The Shack” for the 2nd time. I read about 3 pages a day and cry alot. I am an MK and now at the age of 43 dealing with boarding school and all the abandonment issues that go with that. I've now been a tentmaker/missionary for 14 years in Papua. Lived in Pyramid for 8 years and now in Bokondini. We are burned out, hurt, and exhausted and here in the states to recover. God has used you in a powerful way in our lives. I have a zillion questions... much in re. to healing, forgiving and letting go of past hurts. God is doing a slow work and I am finding some answers from your pen. Thanks.”
I felt for Scott… deeply… symptoms that I know and have walked with different times in my life. I have been to Papua a few years back as well…a very long airplane ride… the Irian Jaya end of the great Papua.

I witnessed the deep effects of the hatred and the violence in that area as well. Yes there was much between the local tribes people – but the Missionaries had caught a belly full and tried to emotionally wound each other. I didn’t know the story until I arrived there… but then the story erupted after I left… until many lives were destroyed. And the people in charge covered it all up – because lives were at stake and money was involved. (But that is another story… yikes!)

Quite a while ago Brenda dropped off a book and asked me to read it. Inside the front cover she placed a
yellow sticky note that stated,

Murray –
This is your copy… I’d be interested in hearing your take on it.
Brenda

The book was “The Shack” by William Paul Young.

On the front cover just below Young’s name is a statement by Eugene Peterson that states, “This book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress did for his. It’s that good!”

I had read that part right after Brenda gave me my copy. Eugene’s words stuck with me – but I wasn’t ready to read it yet.

Two weeks I ago I started reading this powerful little book. I am not able to stop reading it. Oh yes it has had an effect on me. People around me have noticed a difference.

In so many ways my own journey in the last years has been a parallel to the story that is recorded here.

The very naming of my own new business, “Misty Hollow Carving”, is so similar to The Shack – that I was floored when I read this. In so many ways I was dumbfounded. How could a man I never knew and have never met – write such a similar story?

Could it be true that MANY people have walked this walk of Elijah – but are not willing to share their stories because of whatever!

Thank you Brenda… for a well times gift… and the impulse that you followed to deliver it as a Gift. But then you already know your part in my journey back.

A person identified as “Waynesydneyaustralia” wrote of his reading of The Shack…
Paul, I have a hunch from previous experience as a Christian Conference speaker that embellishing the truth, or even conveying fictional stories as true is not a big deal in American culture. In my culture though, Australia, this is seen as blatant lying. Your story is amazing and I have to say I enjoyed it but to convey, for what ever reason that it is true, and you certainly do, is very unhelpful, especially when there is theological implications. If the Shack was written and published in Australia this book would have received phenomenal criticism due to its misleading content. I do commend you on writing a great story however I criticize you for conveying it as true, no matter what the motivation was.

In fact I am just sorting through much of what people are writing to me and stating on this blog.

I haven’t yet completed the book… I keep reading over the parts that I love… that are so special right now… that I couldn’t have read one year ago. Now the time is right.

So if by chance I have knocked you a little off kilter with the last few days of posting… well – I am off kilter… and people that know me well have a hard time walking beside me sometimes.

More to come on The Shack..

And in case you haven’t read this part of the story… here is why it is called Misty Hollow…

Misty Hollow by Murray Lincoln

http://www.murraylincoln.com/story%20of%20misty%hollow.html

"Where’re you going Grandpa?” My short legs followed his stride through the tall golden grass out past Grandma’s garden. The grass was dry and shimmered in the sun. It led us to the edge of the farm yard that was marked by the fence line. Grandpa bent over and slipped through the fence wire and then held the wire down for me to scamper through. He still hadn’t answered me.

Then he said, “I want to show you a special place no one knows about. Want to come along and see?” My short legs quickened my pace as I followed him over the little rise up ahead. He was taking me somewhere special – his and my secret I was sure. The golden grass rustled as we walked along.

I was maybe eight years old. Mom and Dad had brought us down to the old farm from the city for this weekend – and then the kids stayed with Grandpa and Grandma while they got away for a few days down to North Dakota and Montana. My brother and sister were back at the farm house with Grandma.

It was just me and Grandpa. I was the oldest grandson out of all the grandkids – and grandsons were really important to Grandpa… better than the girls I was sure.

As we walked over the rise… suddenly down below us was the Hollow. That day there was a kind of haze, a mist that formed when the weather was just right. It hung in the Hollow.

The Hollow was carved out of the countryside by water running down from the Blue Hills in the distance. In the bottom of the Hollow was the “crick”.

It was maybe a quarter mile until we arrived at a special place in the Hollow where Grandpa stopped, sat down and just looked. He was quiet and so was everything around us. Only the never ending sound of the prairie wind was there – the forever wind. When you were down in the Hollow it was quiet with a peace that almost bothered young boys.

Grandpa simply sat there and savored it all. This was his quiet place and he was sharing it with me. He pulled out his pocket knife and began to carve on a stick that he had fetched from the willow tree. A slice here and a cut there, another few cuts over on this side… something was happening. A new “something” was appearing in front of my eyes. It wasn’t long before he handed me the brand new willow flute and said, “Try it.”

Amazing! From that small fresh branch he had quickly carved a willow flute.

Then something else happened that was even more magical. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pocket knife and gave it to me. “This one is yours. Try it and see what you can make.”

As I began whittling on a stick he gave me, he sat quietly looking over the Hollow. It was as if he had been here many times. It was his special place away from the noisy places in his life. This day he was sharing it with me. It was our quiet place together – just me and Grandpa, our pocket knives and the Hollow.

In my mind it was “Misty Hollow” and has remained that way for 56 years. Grandpa is gone now… and I am a Grandpa. And now I return to the Hollow every once in a while – in my mind.

In the past few years I was able to go back and actually see it again personally. The peace is still there and the wind is always blowing. Nothing has changed in the Hollow. The old farm is only a memory now. The row of bushes around Grandma’s garden are still there but there is no evidence of the life that used to live there, of the happy and sad days, of the noise of the house and the need to get out to sit somewhere in the Hollow.

Everyone needs a Misty Hollow. Over the years I have been able to find one wherever I have lived. I walk out to it away from the madness of my life.

About 10 years ago I joined some friends for a very early morning meeting on top of one of our highest hills. It was just before sunrise. Few people below were up yet. From the top of Amour Hill you can watch the beauty of the sunrise.

There to the east was the glowing ball rising again. Down below the mist had gathered in the dozens of Hollows that lay to the east. Each Misty Hollow was a place where some one lived. The smoke hung from some one’s chimney mixed with the mist of the early morning. It was so peaceful in the Hollow.

My Aboriginal friends told me that they believe these Hollows were made by the finger of God as he created the earth – making a special place for people to love – a place of peace.

Back to the Family Farm…
Grandpa went to the Hollow often. I imagine it was to escape the fact that the house was small and with 8 kids at the fullest time, there was always noise in his life.

When his first son was born a paraplegic, I imagine that is when he found the need to go there.

When times were really tough through the “dirty thirties” he likely walked there a lot too.

During the Second World War, when his one son was possibly going to be shipped out overseas – he walked there more often.

In his pocket was the same knife that he cut apples with, whittled his wooden sticks and also dug out the manure/mud from his boot treads. He cleaned the knife on his pant leg between uses…but that is another story about Grandpa…

Back home…
Wherever “Home” has been in my life I have always found and kept a "Misty Hollow" for me. In these past years I have retreated there often when the swirl of the business was nuts. When the human hurt around me is bigger than my soul can bear I retreat to the Misty Hollow again and again.

Today I welcome you to Misty Hollow. I haven’t taken many here – only my friends… and my grandkids.

After you spend some time with me… I hope you will find a Misty Hollow of your own.

~ Murray Lincoln ~

http://www.murraylincoln.com/
Source:
From William Paul Young’s Blog
http://windrumors.com/2007/08/is-the-story-of-the-shack-trueis-mack-a-real-person/
and
Willie’s Personal Journey
http://www.theshackbook.com/willie.html