Sucking on Lemons

I’ve started thinking again. Being sick will do that to you. Being sick for three weeks will especially do that to you. Finally you get sick of the TV, you can’t read because your head hurts too much and writing is something you have to save your energy for research papers and political philosophy essays. After a while, you just sit and look at the ceiling, or maybe get enough gumption off the couch to do the dishes that have stacked in your kitchen sick from being to tired to take care of.

As I did all of these things, I kept wondering back to some of the hard things I have encountered and about being 25 and feeling 40 and about wondering if I would ever get better at being a person and what a shame it would be if I didn’t.

My boyfriend has that amazing ability that I have mentioned before, to say the most profound things in the simplest of ways. Sort of the way Proverbs makes a whole lot of sense, but really hard to implement.

I had been talking to him, lamenting over a broken heart. I cried and told him how much I didn’t understand and asked the inevitable why question. As if no one in the world had never felt what I was feeling and I was the first to ever land on a new beach of pain and injustice. I could hear myself sounding ridiculous, but I am never one to stop and bring logic to the table of emotion, so I just talked and cried and told him he would never understand. I laugh now, but it wasn’t funny in the moment.

I asked him how he could be so okay with people that had hurt him. Now that I think about it, I didn’t really ask him, I sort of threw it at him like an accusation. As if he was somehow the defective one and I was normal for being bitter and angry. He said the same thing he always says, “People are people. They are who they are and I have learned to accept them for what they are. You can’t sweat the small stuff.”

I sort of wanted to throw something at him from 3,000 miles away. I am glad sometimes he can’t see the look on my face at times. I am a little afraid he would see a side of me that I don’t even like. I am sure at that moment I had the classic ‘I just sucked on a lemon’ face. My selfish nature could not easily comprehend the simple truth to what he was saying, or see the wisdom in it. Instead, I just stopped crying and changed the subject. Funny how easily the tears can turn off and on at times, especially when you are suddenly realize there is an answer to the question you didn’t want an answer for.

Later, I was washing dishes, thinking over what he had said and what I had said and what I wanted to be different. I kept thinking how unfair it was that I would always try to seek reconciliation, or how I would apologize to people and they never would back. I was feeling fairly self-righteous in my own desire to become a better person, and thus seek out others to make right the times I had failed. Irony and self-defeat dully noted. It’s no good to ask for forgiveness for the purpose of trying to garner a return sentiment.

I circled the airport of self-pity and had just about pulled up to the gate when I was stopped in my tracks. As He usually does, Jesus moved into the small space I had created (even in and around my narcissism of the moment) and asked me if it would be good enough if He asked for forgiveness on the behalf of those that had done me wrong. He repeated what He said on the cross and simply asked for forgiveness on their behalf. They were unaware of the damage they had done and I wasn’t going to be any happier if they came and told me they were sorry and knew what they had done. It wouldn’t make the pain go away, and it wouldn’t make me want to forgive them anymore, but He knew that and asked for them.

Everything fell into place. Humbled to the enth degree, I realized His cross had been for me, for my ex husband, for my ex best friends, for the people that would do me wrong in the future, for the wrong I would do in the future.

No matter how many times I can come to a realization of the wrong I have done and ask for forgiveness, it will never be complete. There will always be more, something I missed, but the amazing thing? Where I can’t complete, where I fail, where I come up short, His purpose is to step in and complete. He can heal what I didn’t know I wounded out of the selfishness that is me.

The same can go for others as well. Incredibly humbling, but I think just as necessarily, He steps up and takes the place of those that have failed to reconcile what needs to be reconciled and asks on their behalf. He can, more heartfelt than anyone in the universe, begin to undo the damage of imperfection. He is aware of the failings I commit and others have committed against me and He is so grieved over both. He brings freedom through bridging the gap, not only between the Father and me, but Him and me and then others and me as well. His heart says “Love freely, love wholly, love completely and when they fail, when it is crushed, when you fail, come back to me and I will make it right. I will heal and send you out to love again and be hurt again and come back again.”

It’s his reminder that people are people. They are who they are and accepting them is accepting Him. Forgiving them, is acknowledging His sacrifice. There is no ignoring, or excusing just accepting.

My relationships with others may never be perfect, but the most important one I have is with Him. It’s the deepest, the most meaningful, the one that changes me, that saves me, that loves me when I look like I sucked on a lemon. It’s foolish to try to love someone to get them to love you back, it only leads to believing you aren’t worth loving when they fail. But if I can learn to love from His love, to love from a place of freedom, to love because loving is what I am meant to do, and when I don’t, it just hurts more, then maybe it will become less about me, and more about Him and them and everyone else. Then maybe I won’t have to worry about lies swirling about who I am and what I mean to people. Maybe I will start being secure in His love for me and stop worrying about how other people love me or if they even do. At least that’s the hope.

That and I will stop sucking on lemons.

Home is Where the Heart is

I was doing laundry the other night, walking back and forth from the basement in pajamas, no makeup, hair undone. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirrors on the elevator walls and was shocked at the look on my own face. It was pained. Strained.

I thought about it as I walked back into my apartment and as I unlocked the door and stepped in, I felt a twinge in my stomach, like I didn't recognize my surroundings. It all came together as I realized I was beginning to no longer feel at home in my own home.

There is an anxiety that exists in the places I have called home. As if I am always waiting to get to the next step, the next place, so I can be at home there. Everything I have built an image of home on, no longer exists anywhere I can rest my head. Community, peace, comfort, stability, the attributes I seek the most have escaped me.

Amidst this, I have found myself in some of the deepest heartache I have ever faced. For weeks I have been swimming in it, refusing to let it pull me down. Today, I could no longer fight. A knife sliced through my heart, breaking it anew. Drowning all day, never have I faced a moment of questing who and what I am so deeply. A divorce could not even shatter me the way I have been broken down in these last few months. I never thought it was possible, but it was.

So as I do when I don't know what to do, I went to the gym. Pain the body to match the soul. On the way back, I turned on worship music. I have been avoiding it lately. It has seemed to be source of failure. All of the work He seemed to have done on my heart in the recent years, and it seems I am no different. What did I do wrong? It's too much to bear burdens and be perfect, so another failure is cast onto the growing mountain.

But still, why not?

So I turned it on, and the first song that came on was titled "Where I belong." It took the full six minutes of the song for it to sink in. I had forgotten everything He had taught me.

It's not about running after Him, it's about turning around. It's not about trying to please Him, it's about assuming He is already happy. At the darkest moment, when I wonder why those I have reached out to have shunned and rejected me, it's about believing that doesn't reflect Him. I have judged God by men and convinced myself if I am unworthy to others, I am unworthy to Him, and my deepest pain has come from that break. I did leave home, I left Him. I trusted Him in the good and He taught me then, but now I have to trust His love is there when loneliness threatens to pull me under. I have to believe that love I encountered is just as real now as when I was on top of the world.

Sometimes the messages are so powerful. They come from a best friend, a husband, a brother... those that you think you are safe with for a moment. The ultimate rejection feels like the ultimate truth and for some reason those messages are so much easier, so much more powerful, so much more frequent than those of the consistent, true, invaluable love of a Savior.

Ironically, the most powerful part of the worship song is when it repeats a phrase from Song of Solomon: "I am my Beloveds and He is mine, so come into Your garden and take delight in me."

Who is saying it to whom? Can I invite Him in to delight in a garden that so many have passed by? Would He delight in me? Will he see beauty when others have seen the overgrowth, the weeds and deemed it ugly and walked away for more fragrant, well-maintained and manicured gardens?

I can only pray that this is part of His path and journey. That this is a time of pain meant for growth. I pray this has a purpose. That I find myself in Him and nothing else, that I learn that I can never earn the love I seek so whole-heartedly. Maybe this is part of the path of letting go of control and value based on action and creating my own outcomes.

Oh sweet Jesus, delight in me. Let me be something You love and cherish just for what I am in this moment, wounded, confused, hurting, jealous, angry, bitter, failing... please find value in me. Find something good, find something worthy in me... and let me see it too. Don't pass my garden on Your way to someone else's. I pray something catches Your eye and You find my hidden treasure I have yet too see. Only You can heal these wounds. I am lost without You. Bring me home....

Value of What?

It's finally about to snow here. The first snow of the year, and maybe the last. The warm nights and days have held on later than usual. Maybe a kind nod to my Californian spoiled roots, or maybe just luck.

The nights come so fast. Before I know it, it's dark. I always laugh a little, turning on my lights at 3:30 in the afternoon. East facing windows, right?

Just like the weather has been avoiding turning cold, I have been avoiding dealing with certain realities that just won't go away. Have you ever been soul tired? The kind of tired that isn't physical, and isn't mental, but its a sort of tired that expresses itself in the form of too much TV and not enough laughter? Its a tired that comes from running around your own mind. A thought pops up you don't want to deal with, so you quick step away, distracting yourself with a shiny object. Then you turn a corner and there's another one, so you retreat somewhere else, finding another distraction, then another, then yet another, until you are spending most of your day avoiding yourself and every thought you can think, forgetting in the first place what you wanted to forget. Quiet is no longer quiet, its judgement, your journal is no longer a friend, tear stained with sympathy, but instead mocks you from the bedside table, reminding you of your failings.

But maybe that's just me.

The end of the year is coming fast, and I can't help but be reflective over this last year. It's been a crazy time for sure. I have been to an airport, either to fly, or pick up every month, except October. That's right. EVERY month. I packed a suitcase 6 times, not include the return trips. I have gained a few friends, and lost some even closer ones. I have lost 20 pounds, struggling with the fat sister image I always had. I have continued to fall more deeply in love and ultimately realized that imperfection in relationship is just a normal as imperfection in self. Dreams have been fulfilled I didn't even know I had. I have smiled and cried more in this year than ever before in my life.

I spent so much time sitting with Jesus, letting Him explain me, to me, then Him to me, then me again, and back around. At the end of it, I sit here, no farther along, no wiser, no more whole than I was before, in fact, at this moment it feels worse than ever.

When God first really took me to a place of reflection, I fell in love. I fell in love with silence, with Him, with coming to grips with who I am and my past, and everything that made me me. I fell in love with peace.

Then the shit hit the fan. It's really easy to love peace when you are surrounded by it, but the minute I left it, and the real world hit, it was just as I thought it would be, cruel, unkind, unforgiving and unrelenting. The hard part is fighting the battle between truth and lies. See, if anything, this has been a year of contradictions.

It started with such promise. I was being given everything I ever wanted on a silver platter and for once, it seemed that silver platter wasn't fake. There were no strings attached and I it wasn't on loan. I reveled in the message from God, being loved for the sake of love. Having Him shower me with love and the attention I had always craved. Value. I had value for once. What I was, for once, was enough. Nothing more, nothing less, there was value in what I was just for what I was. It was a breath of fresh air. The kind of truth you aren't sure you want to believe, because if it isn't true, it's going to crush you. Absolutely crush you.

Enter stage left: everyone else.

With perfect timing, it seems everything fell apart. One of my best friends and had a falling out, shattering a friendship I thought was unbreakable. It was like my ex-husband all over again: you are not worth me having to admit I am wrong. You are less valuable than this object over here.

In the middle of that, another friendship I thought would never be shaken, started hurting. The same message was coming through: your value is replaceable. Then I looked up and realized, I didn't have any friends left.

Weeks without calls from family members, combined with their requirements for love repeat the same message, over and over again.

To those of you that think I am being over dramatic, my boyfriend tried to plan a a surprise party for me on my 25th birthday. Three people showed up, two were my sister and brother. I didn't know who to feel worse for, me for not having any friends, or him for realizing it too.

Then the nail in the coffin. My sister, brother and boyfriend went out on the town after a birthday dinner on Friday. The more we drank, the more my brother lavished love on my sister. He would hug her and tell her how much he loved her and talk with her. I thought I was being sensitive, but when he actually pushed me out of a hug and started to ignore me... well some things are hard to ignore.

I started to cry. I couldn't help it. My sister knew immediately what was happening, as my boyfriend did, and both tried to do something about it, but there was nothing that could be done. I was crushed. Message received.

I don't blame my brother at all. There is such an age difference, and he never lived with me. He has so much more history with my sister, but over the last few years, I have tried so hard to change that. I admire him and look up to him so much, I have always wanted for him to get to know me as a person. I always felt he saw me as the spoiled one and I know how much he respects my sister for the hard things she has gone through, and I secretly, I guess thats why I have always tried to prove myself to him.

I think in reality, I have been trying to prove myself to everyone, in one way or another. Trying to make everyone see that I have value, place, that I may not be the most beautiful, or the most witty, or the smartest, or the wisest, but I do have something to contribute. If I just had the chance to prove it...

The ultimate question, the ultimate truth between the lies comes in the form of one question: is it them, or is it me?

Pure mathematics and statistics would seem to say the problem lies with me. But I just can't figure out what that is. I keep asking myself, what could I have done to push all of these people away? What is so wrong with me?

I think I have always known that love is fragile. I used to tell my friends all the time how important they were to me, how much I loved them, somehow having that sense of foreboding, knowing it wouldn't last forever. It seems to fall apart so easy. One wrong move, and the whole house disappears. What was my misstep? What about me, is so less special, has so little value, that people can walk away without a second thought? What can I do different to make people want to stick around?

Sometimes it feels like the bone tired feeling may be born of trying to please everyone, in an attempt to please myself. My mother says you can't fear rejection, that its inevitable, and I agree with her, but when it hits so close to home and you find yourself at home on a Friday night, experience seems to dictate the script running through my mind. I have battled the enemy of action not dictating love, but it seems to only have gotten bigger, and smarter. Or, I was just wrong from the start.

Answers refuse to come as sit here hoping for a reality that is bigger than this pain, but nothing comes. Instead, I sit, wishing I could drink, but knowing it would not mix well with my antibiotics.

Lord, I know these things aren't Your fault, and I know You can't control me, or others. And I don't want You to. But I ask for Your patience, Your peace, Your wisdom.... mostly, just Your love to surround me now. I need You so much, and I am sorry I avoid You at times. Please forgive me and show me what I need to see. Show me Your truth.