Journey of Self-Awareness: What is Mine to Own

Counseling is the best thing that ever happened to me.

You don’t think that when you first go. You think counseling is for people who have gone through a divorce or been abused. Broken people. You feel ashamed or embarrassed that you need it. And then you realize that you are broken. We’re all broken—only some of us just aren’t aware of it yet. And those of us that are—we may choose to go to counseling. And it makes us see our brokenness even more. But it also helps us see that it’s okay to be broken. It’s okay because we weren’t meant to be perfect or to fix ourselves or to make others perfect or fix themselves. It’s okay to limp along, because, well—there’s God—and He’s not afraid of our brokenness. He rather likes it when we acknowledge our weakness because it puts things right. We get to be us; and He gets to be Him. And the state of things gets to be made a bit righter.

After I waded through some of the anger and tears, I was prompted to ask the question what in my own wounding made me vulnerable? There are things that Aaron and the farm did that were inexcusable. They were wrong. They grieve the heart of God. They hurt a lot of people. They hurt me. But in breathing spaces betweens layers of forgiveness I’m finally seeing my portion of the mess. In my own weakness I allowed myself to be put in positions where I was open to being taken advantage of. And that is mine to own.

Default coping mechanisms, she calls them. I’ve spent years digging down to my youngest memories, finding the vows I made, the lies I believed that have shaped my heart in a crooked fashion. This is a familiar process to me. And the Lord has come and healed those wounds. The pain of them ebbs away. And so I thought I was safe. I thought when I opened my heart to Aaron it was a sign of healing—the walls of self-protection were coming down. I was ready to be vulnerable, to not do everything on my own. Yes, but what I didn’t understand was that those default coping mechanisms were still ingrained in my thinking, the way I functioned, the way I derived my worth. The behavioral habits weren’t broken. And unwittingly I picked them back up and shouldered on.

My default coping strategies: Having a hero mentality. Being a protector, achiever, trying to please the unpleasable. Deriving my identity from performance-based worth. Over-responsible. Becoming busy with service and sacrifice. Editing myself out of the picture and acting as if others needs are more important than my own. Creating order out of chaos. Hiding my true self. Lacking boundaries.

Now I see how I showed up at a ministry that took away my personal boundaries from day one, but I still placed myself under their authority and buckled down to make it work. I loved a man, and in loving him served and sacrificed beyond what was healthy; I edited parts of myself out in order to please him; I tried to protect and save him from things that were not mine to protect and save. And so I made decisions with my heart and my finances that were not wise.

With this new knowledge comes incredible relief. Answers to the baffling questions of how did I get to this place? Yet it also brings fresh grief. Was this long, painful road the only way to make me see? I thought I was so mature and wise, and instead I am brought low by looking into the face of my own brokenness. I understand so little, have less to offer than I once thought. I am in such need of a savior.

It also leaves me feeling lost. All these ways I thought I was in service to the gospel, and my own striving was more at play than I realized. As I begin to set aside these default ways of coping, I look around and wonder, what is left? With these I derived my worth, my purpose. With these I set the course of my life. With these I learned to express my love of the Lord. I sought to please Him, to love Him with my sacrifice. In laying it aside, I am like a newborn again, asking such elementary questions—What is the gospel? What is it really? What does it mean to give my life to it? What is church? What is it really? How do I love Him? What in the world do I do with my life? For the first time I do not know. I am a soul in limbo, wandering through a desert. I know what is not, but not yet what should be. I wait. I find rest and I am wearied. In my mornings I know joy and in my evenings I know sorrow. Or sometimes in reverse. I become self-aware. I write down question after question after question. And the answers come as more questions.

Wilderness Valley

This past week I traveled with some friends to the Grand Canyon.

I could’ve sat and stared at it for days.

Peace settled on my spirit.

And my estrangement from the Lord diminished.

In part because I stopped working for a week, stopped striving and trying to live up to expectations.

Because I love being outdoors in raw, uncivilized beauty.

And I was in good company and felt known.

But also because the Canyon helped me—is still helping me—come to terms with this season of my life.

A wilderness valley.

Vast. Harsh. Arid. Sheer.

This is what the Canyon is. And yet it was breathtakingly beautiful.

I’m in a wilderness season, a season marked by deficits, absences, loss:

lack of vision & purpose.

loss of long-held dreams multiple times in one year.

lack of self-definition.

unfinished grief.

absence of partnership and marriage.

seeming estrangement from God.

lack of reward for doing the right thing.

The Lord keeps stripping me bare, even down to the conventions and familiar ways I know Him. I am like an infant again, learning to crawl before I can walk—who are you God? Who am I? What is it to hear your voice? Can I claim to read and understand your word? What is it like to worship you, really?

I have resisted and cried and been angry and fought with God. It’s too hard. It’s taking too long. I don’t want to be in this kind of season. How long will you keep me here? And all I sense is the Lord’s gentle hedging, an inner knowing that I’m supposed to stay in this barren place. We’re not done yet, he whispers, and it is left to me to decide whether I will surrender to this valley and pitch my camp or weary myself clawing at the walls to get out.

After the Canyon I was in Denver. I gazed at the snowy peaks—lofty, majestic, challenging—and I wanted to climb. But I was thwarted on all sides. The peaks were closed because of snowfall. I was limited in transportation and time and by the group I was with. I tried hiking a small bluff and found myself led around to a valley again. In frustration I sat down and cried. Again, I felt the Lord’s sovereign hand hedging and hedging me in. Would I accept his wisdom and covering for my life—or would I make it a prison sentence? I have chosen both, depending on the day. But the more I lean towards wanting to learn contentment in my barrenness, the more I feel our estrangement beginning to thin.

What does contentment look like in the midst of pain and fallen hope? Can I hope for things to change and be content at the same time? When Paul says he has learned to be content is every circumstance, that word content means to be possessed of unfailing strength, to be strong, to suffice, to be enough, to defend, to ward off, to be satisfied. It’s the same word used at the feeding of the five thousand, when Philip challenges Jesus and says, “Two hundred denarii worth of bread would not be sufficient.” But then Jesus makes less than that enough. So will I, in my utter weakness, allow this God to be my unfailing strength? Even though I struggle with doubts of His goodness and choices over my life, will I allow him to suffice when I am stripped of all else? Will I choose to be satisfied in this valley?

Standing at the canyon rim, I could imagine myself down at the utter bottom of the gorge, sheer cliffs on either side, no way of seeing a path out. And yet here is the Lord with me up at the surface. He sees the pathways leading up and out. He sees the breath-taking beauty of the climb. He knows on the other side of the wilderness, a promise land awaits. Even though for now, those are not for my feet to know.

A Lament*

How long, O Lord, will my soul be sorrowful,

will my heart remain weighted with grief?

How long until you lift my head,

restoring strength to my bones?
You are there and yet I cannot find you.

Your voice remains a mystery to me.

How long will you keep yourself removed?

How long will I remain in this dark night of the soul?

You have hedged me into a wilderness on all sides.

I wander, oh how I wander.

All I have known I know no longer.

Where once I had surety, now I wrestle with doubt.

I have lost and I have lost again,

and still I feel you stripping me bare,

your lion-like claws shredding my idolatry

until I wonder what of myself remains.

Anger overcomes me;

and my heart grows weary.

My enemies came and I welcomed them;

I offered them a place and they took from me,

leaving me naked and alone.

Will the scars of their slander ever heal?

Will I never be the same?

When will my heart be restored?

Was love someone I ever knew?

Or only a stranger seeking selfish gain?

Where was your protection, Father,

when a fool came to woo my heart,

when I kissed his lips in a wooded park?

Why did you wait so long to save me?

I followed you into a den of lions;

were you standing by when they slashed my tender spirit?

Though I looked for it, did I miss the sound of your voice?

Though I diligently read, did I fail to heed your Word?

And why must my heart hold on to these ‘whys’?

What will it take for me to release my hold on them?

What will be strong enough to restore my trust in you?

When will I walk with you again in the cool of the morning,

and be satisfied by the sweetness of your voice?

I remember how I once loved you,

how I was compelled by the greatness of your love for me.

Now I wander aimlessly, wondering if my days matter.

I sit and wait in the darkness,

running my hands along a wall of unbelief,

sensing your nearness, yet unable to lay hold of you,

wanting to know who you are, who I am,

to have faith I will be made whole again.

*For scriptural laments, see Job, Lamentations, and various Psalms. For more understanding I recommend reading A Sacred Sorrow by Michael Card.

Singleness & Sexuality: What to do when it Burns?

No one ever talks openly and honestly about the physical side of loneliness.

I used to think I was called to singleness because I didn’t burn. I didn’t struggle much with self-control. I thought it was a sign. I assumed God was calling me to a lifestyle of ministry where my singleness would be a gift. I loved Paul’s passage in 1 Corinthians 7. But that was before my walls of self-protection came down. That was before being engaged to Aaron. Before kissing a man.

Then there is now: my hormones respond at the slightest implication—reading a Christian blog about someone getting married, engagement photos on Facebook, observing the affection of a husband towards his wife, the tenderness of a kiss on the movie screen. Suddenly my body is warm and alive and searching. My physical cells pull my thoughts and emotions into the vortex until my loneliness is heightened and raging on all sides. I find myself breathing deep, clamping my mind shut, waiting for the hormones to subside, rehearsing the reasons why waiting is wise. And suddenly I begin to understand the epidemic of teen pregnancies and pornography and affairs.

Before I thought—you fools—don’t you see the brokenness this causes, the disease, the fractured homes and hearts, the fatherless family units, the financial hardship. The fruit. It’s rotten to the core. And you bit into it? Idiocy.

Which is still true. But I hadn’t yet felt this wild, awakened dragon inside of me. I hadn’t understood how hungry he could be. I hadn’t tasted the tantalizing flavor along the perfect shiny skin of that fruit. I hadn’t let Aaron hold me. Now I can empathize. And I live with gratitude that the grace of God has been strong, is still strong. I came so close to a disastrous marriage—and as deeply as this division has wounded my heart, I can’t imagine the endless depth of it if there had been a sexual connection to peel apart as well. The last thing I want to do is go to bed with the wrong kind of man, or to do it outside the safety of a marriage where I am covered by God and a man who will provide for me and not use me as a means to an end.

And yet, I do want to go to bed with that man. Now. When he is not here. When I do not yet know his face, his name, or can even say with confidence he for sure exists at all. And so my body burns, and I turn to the Lord and say, what do I do?

Solomon, suddenly is yet wiser—I adjure O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or the does of the fields, that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases.

Hell yes. If only we could understand before we understand and have to live with the aftereffects. It begs questions. Did the Lord use this first relationship to ready me for my husband? Was this the Lord saying wake up; it’s time. That’s what I assumed was true when I was saying yes and letting a man put a ring on my finger, when I gave him my first ever kiss. So is the right man coming—soon? Or did I awaken love out of its time? Am I somehow at fault? Am I reaping the consequences of my fallen nature? Or at least the fallen nature of a sinful world?

And I’m just a woman. From what I’ve gathered about being a man, this struggle is magnified times infinity, always there, always pulsing beneath the surface, whether married or not. So to all you men who have walked this road with integrity for a long list of years—my deepest respect to you. Mistakes and all. I’m sure in your head you think you’re not doing as well as it looks on the outside, but I still say well done. And that I’m not doing as well in my head as it looks on the outside either. Who would know this petite, virgin, worship-leading, golden girl of a small town community who works in a church office and has taught sexual purity retreats to young girls would secretly really love to make out? And I’m not ashamed to want that, or to open a forum to be honest about it. Walking in righteousness is pitched as such a straightforward, pristine, beneficiary trek. But few warn us of the wrestling it takes to get there, the muddied complicated questions you encounter along the way. Worth it, yes. Straightforward, not so much. Easy--definitely not.

Frankly, it blistering burns.

Christ's Lament

I have been captured this Lenten season by the scene in Gethsemane. Christ’s lament the night before he went to the cross. His raw humanity, his grief, his longing for there to be another way.

My soul is sorrowful, even unto death.

He fell on the ground and prayed. There must’ve been dirt under his fingernails where he grabbed at the earth in desperation, clenching his fists in anticipation of the pain. His sweat thickened into blood.

Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me.

Within this prayer I hear the lament:

Please, father, you can do anything. So why are you asking me to do this? Why must I have to suffer this way? Don’t you love me? Take this away. Don’t ask this of me.

Even Jesus—even God (who was also man)—was allowed to grieve. He was allowed to bring his fear, his doubt, his dread to his father. He was allowed to be honest. To cry. To be appalled at the prospect of becoming sin, of being separated from his Father, of bearing all the demonic force of hell in full assault on his body, soul, and spirit. And this grief was not a sin. If it were, our salvation would be null and void.

I am compelled to draw near to the suffering Christ, one who begged his father to find another way. I see in him one who can sympathize with my weakness, with my grief, with my apprehension to surrender and trust.

Simultaneously I want to draw back from the Father who asks his son to go through this horrific pain. It begs questions—Would God ask me to go through such pain? Is this what following and obeying and surrendering look like? I desperately want to understand the Father’s relationship with his Son because I see my own journey wrapped up in this theology. Would such a father who sacrificed his son to save the world ask me to sacrifice myself for the sake of others? What about my heart? What about Jesus' when he went to the cross?

And yet Jesus was not a victim of the cross. He went willingly. He went as a King, intentionally claiming his throne. He went as a Son, trusting His Father’s intentions.

Yet not what I will, but what you will.

So what did Jesus understand so implicitly about his Father that have gave him the courage to surrender and trust in the face of such agony? This is what I need to know. Who are you, Father, to be good and love your children and yet lead them through such suffering? Who are you, Christ, who surrendered in the face of such agony? And who am I, caught between them with my doubts and fears and grieving hesitation?

Abba, if I see what Christ saw in you, will I too be able to move forward through suffering and trust you? And is it possible for my blinded eyes to see you rightly enough for that to be true?

Anniversary

I'm traveling east on I-80 today with friends. The last time I traveled this highway I was newly engaged, enroute with my fiancé to Ohio to meet my future in-laws. I can't help recall memories of today's date one year ago. Waking heavy hearted. The nauseous dread in my gut as I picked up the phone. The pain of breaking someone's heart. Breaking mine. The ring nestled in the folds of the down comforter. Staring at it and feeling the naked gap on my finger. The voice of grief summoning my pregnant friend from upstairs. Being held around her swelling belly. Fear that my sadness would penetrate her womb. Sleepless nights, my fingers working jigsaw puzzles to help distract my brain. 

I wish this anniversary marked a point where I could look back from a further place of moving on. That I could see how all this fits into a story for my good. That I could be grateful. I know the truths people gently try to tell me. The new me on the other side of this will be a better me than I knew before. Anger only hurts me, not him. But today my fists clench tightly around that anger. And I won't voice it here for fear of saying something I'll regret. But I don't want a new me. I want something easy. I want my heart to feel normal again. 

He seems to have moved on. Dating someone else. Telling her the same things he told me. Unconcerned with fulfilling his responsibility to me first. He told me over and over I was worth it. But I was only worth it until I broke up with him, until I stopped reassuring him and feeding him and making things work out. That's how it feels at least. Was I only worth what he could get from me? His words feel so empty. And now I worry that I just sound whiny and obsessive. That no one will want to read this because it's not filled with some profound revelation or theology for how to pass through such an anniversary with grace and poise.

 I'll get to a place where I believe the truth. Where I let go of the livid diatribe in my mind. Where peace comes and I trust hearing the Lord speak to me. That's about all the confidence I can muster. But today is not yet that day. And to claim anything different would be a lie.

Audacious Grief

Grief needs room to grieve. The feelings have to come up and out—betrayal, anger, sadness, aching loneliness, despair. They can’t be dispatched with a hug or a prayer or a simple word of affirmation. They can be stuffed and buried, but then they never really go away. So how do we, as the church, create a culture where grief is okay?

Pain makes us uncomfortable. Especially watching it in someone else. So we develop these Christian platitudes that get passed around like fruitcake—we have no problems handing them away to someone else, but come our moment we don’t want to actually eat it.

            God works all things together for good.

            He’s fashioning you into something extraordinary.

            He’s got great purposes for your life.

            He loves you.

            Things will get better.

            His desire for you is to live in joy.

In my grief I shy away from environments where I sense expectations to be happy or to get over my pain quickly. Instead I feel drawn towards sad stories, bittersweet novels, music fraught with swearing. In these I find companions who attune to my pain, who don’t ask me to be anything other than what I am. In scripture also, I feel drawn to those characters that know how to lament. So I’ve spent a bit of time in Job. And in what Job says to God, I’m struck by his audacity.

            Why did I not die at birth?

            Why can I not die? God crush me.

            The arrows of the Almighty are in me; my spirit drinks their poison.

            I am allotted months of emptiness, and nights of misery are apportioned to me.

            I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.

            I loath my life.

            God passes by me, and I see him not.

            My days see no good.

These are words of anguish, hopelessness, complaint. They are raw and honest and unmasked. If Job were here with his pain in our modern congregations, we would turn to each other in our pews and murmur, is he allowed to say that? He doesn’t fit the tidily boxed version of Christianity and the prosperity gospel that subtly infers, how dare we be sad or angry or depressed because Christ has come and made all things new. I command you, rejoice!

Yes, but—more than one thing can be true at the same time. Christ has come. He will make all things new. And yet we still live in this limping, twisted, crap-shot world where broken hearts are more common than not, where every ministry and hope is flawed because every person is human. We all suffer in some manner or another, every day. Because things aren’t right. And Job called it as it was. And God didn’t find wrong in him for doing so.

I don’t trust you, God.

There it is—the gut wrenching truth. I finally got honest with myself and with God and told him that last week. And strangely enough, I felt Him respond that he was pleased with me. As if all he really wants is for me to be aware of where I am. Because He’s not afraid of my pain or distrust or uncensored feelings. He can meet me where I’m at.

I want Him to meet me. It’s hard to find Him, to hear His voice. I feel lost. Like everything I’ve always assumed was solid, suddenly feels uncertain. The floor may entirely fall out and where will I land? And yet, I’m afraid to surrender, to say, What you will, God. It feels like inviting Him back will cause me to cringe and wait for the next painful slug to hit. Like Job, I have my own list of laments.

            Trusting you hurts, God.

            Haven’t I endured enough? Why does the pain keep coming?

            When will there be relief?

            You gave me a hard portion. Too hard. Do I have to say it was good? It doesn’t feel good.

            You are crushing me.

            How do I reconcile your goodness with your choice for my life?

            I hate what you have chosen for me.

            Why will you not speak to me and give me the answers I need?

Admitting such things—though at first feeling dangerous—brings peace and relief. Like maybe, knowing where I’m at, there is hope of moving forward.