Dangerous Engagements

I hate surprises. I have always hated surprises. I hate surprise parties, I hate finding out "good news" I hate present. Sad, I know. I start to have anxiety about a week before my birthday. Christmas is torture and opening presents gives me stomach cramps. Needless to say, life as a child was never that fun.

I've been thinking about that a lot lately. My boyfriend and I have been talking about getting married a lot and engagement rings and all of that wonderful stuff. You'd think I would love talking about it. I'm a girl, I should be looking forward to being proposed to, to the suspense of when and where.

Yeah, not so much. I pretty much have been hounding him hoping I will find out details on accident to put it together so I can mentally prepare. Sometimes I wonder why that man loves me...

The thought of not being able to control the outcome, the worries about the "what if's" the preparation of getting all of that ready, of worrying about whether he is ready and I am ready and whether or not it will be a surprise and whether or not it will be when I want it, or when I don't want it... worrying about if I will be so surprised that I won't cry, or that I will, or that it won't go the way he planned and he will be upset. I just freak out worrying about all of it... and I know I shouldn't. I know it shouldn't matter. But it does, and I can't make the thoughts and the worries disappear overnight.

Like presents and surprises, when you don't control them, when you don't have a plan, when you don't know what is going to happen, you run the risk of allowing them to blow up in your face. Or to be disappointed, or to be revealed as a fool. Surprises don't turn out well for me. They never have.

So this beautiful Saturday morning, I woke up to sun and cool temperatures. With everything I have been struggling with lately, I wanted to start the day with praise. A day dedicated to knowing His love for me and resting in it.

One of the first songs that came on was about Him being salvation and the true hope and trust. My favorite part is when the singer asks "let be not ashamed, no one who waits on the Lord, will ever be put to shame.... You are, you are my hope, you are, you are my song, you are, you are my song, you are, you are my light, you are, you are my salvation..." All of my hopes in You.

If I can take all of my hope, all of my trust, all of my strength, my everything... my expectations... everything, if I can put them in Him, He promises to not fail me. Somehow, somehow He promises not to fail me and not to put me to shame.

I know there are times of what looks like shame and hurt, but if I hope in Him, He promises not to disappoint, no matter how long it takes to see the redemption.

I have lived 3,000 miles away from my family for a year and a half; I lived in Paris for two months with not a soul I knew, completely on my own; I started a job I feel completely inadequate for. They say these things take courage. Not really. What takes the most courage? Trusting the Lord not to put me to shame. Not to let the next surprise around the corner, that I couldn't prepare for even if I wanted to, bring me hurt or loss.

It takes more courage to wake up on a beautiful Saturday morning, get on my knees and offer my day to someone I can't control. To offer my life to someone that promises no ease and comfort or even His presence in every minute of everyday. What He promises is His character. His record, His heart. He promises that every move He makes, every thought He has, every hard thing, every good thing... all of them are meant to love me. To bring me closer to Him, to romance me into greater love.

It's easy to trust when you are happy in life. When it seems to be going your way and you love everything about it. Now, now it's about learning to trust Him when it hurts. When I feel ashamed. I have to trust that's not true, but there are season's for everything and this is mine. I have to trust Him that He knows my heart better than I do. Then I have to sing. I have to get off my knees and sing. I need to raise my voice and tell Him I trust Him.

And then, after I have dusted off my knees, raised my voice and sang out... I have to start walking. Walking towards believing Him every time I step out my door. Every time I meet someone new, every time I talk to my boyfriend about getting married, I have to let him have the reins and trust the man God has given me to love me the way God has asked him to.

The more I live my life and the more I encounter the amazing and the hurtful, there is a controlled chaos about them that I have never really been able to understand. And I don't know if I want to kill it now by trying to figure it all out.

Oh sweet Jesus. Please have patience with me. I am weak in my fears and I need You to rescue me from them. You know my heart better than I do, but I don't want to kill everything around me in my need to understand, to not fear. I place all of my hope, my strength, my songs, all my hope, my trust, my salvation, my needs, my expectations, my fears. Take them and bend them to You. Let them resemble You, not a life that has hurt me. Deliver me from my enemy. I trust You.

And I wait...

There are so many things that come in and out of my mind. Thoughts that flit in and out like they were prophecies I had once held dear. I keep staring at my walls, praying, if I look hard enough, if I think hard enough, if I fight hard enough, the peace, the hope, the redemption I felt a year ago will circle back around and will lift me from my morose state of mind.

Instead, I look into the mirror and let the shapes of my face take me into a deep place of morbid frustration.

Loss never seems too far. I seem to be my most unlucky charm, following me where ever I go. I remember sitting at a table a year and a half ago with friends I thought were family knowing deep in my heart, this change would change everything. I knew it would end. I knew the love I was feeling was fleeting. So I held on, I help tight and I spoke love and did everything I could to love the best I could in the moment, communicating everything I could, hoping, praying, fighting to stave off the loss I knew was coming. And it came. It came the way I knew it would... killing the last bit of comfort and hope I knew.

So now, here I sit, more than a year later, with what looks like the world in front of me and all I can wish for is a past that was never as good as it is in dreams. But good luck telling my heart that.

Instead, I feel a loss akin to a piece of myself gone, circling the drain and I wonder, I wonder what I would pay to get it back.

And isn't that the greatest tragedy of all? The knowledge that I would pay my soul for love that is so less than? Love that is half as good as what is in my head. And if it's in my head.... it has to be possible, right?

How many times have I sold my soul for less? I thought it ended with a divorce. I left that part behind. Never again. No fomance (misspelling intentional) would capture me. And it hasn't. Accept in every other aspect. Why do I always think the only avenue of love and loss in romance?

But alas, it came in another form. Friendships. Oohhhh.... ouch. Loss of what I thought was. What I put my heart and soul into, what I paid greatly for and what I still pay greatly for. I still wonder what is wrong with me, that I am so easily cast aside, but still, there are parts of my heart that have been awakened by a soft whisper and hopes of something more that touch on the pain and make me hope for more.

Redemption had always been my word of the day. As if it was a form of graffiti that was my tagline. Redemption. Hope. More. Enough. Change. All of those things that everyday get me out of bed. It can't be like this always.

So I had a husband that preferred made up images rather than me. So I never fulfilled the ideas of what success looked like to people. So my best friend walked away... then I moved and failed somewhere else... and then my other best friend walked away... then I failed financially... then my other best friend walked away...

I have seen redemption. Maybe not in the ways I thought I would, maybe those that have hurt me never ended up recognized it and told me so... and now, now in my hour of need again, I have to believe He doesn't want the loss to last forever.

I can't believe that He would want me too feel so unlovable.

So now... now I wait. Now I enjoy what I do have and I wait. And I learn. And I wait. And I love. And I wait. And I grow. And I wait. And I pray... and, I wait.

But this time, I wait hopefully, knowing He is redemptive. Knowing my heart is more important than my actions and that He isn't going anywhere. I haven't does something to make people not love me, it's just part of the journey and I refuse to let the journey beat me. I want to know what He has, what this Has to do with Him.

So I wait... and I let the thoughts flit in and out and I let the walls talk back to me and the shapes of my face turn into Picasso's version of art. And I wait...

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.

Multiple Choice

Tonight I had a very interesting position on life posed to me.

See, what I haven't talked about much, which could also explain the reason for my long extended absence, would be my failing grades. I have always been good at tests, but for some reason this semester, I can't muster a sound thought process and it seems I am failing my tests. Failing at multiple choice, within those tests, that is.

For the life of me, I can't respond to multiple choice in a well produced, thought out, adult sort of way. When I see a multiple choice question, the inside of me, the deepest part begins to freak out. Four choices? Really? That's all I have? Oh shit. Are you serious? And there is a RIGHT one? Not even a sort of right one, but a RIGHT one? Oh crap. I'm screwed. It's A right? No way, it has to be B. I mean the ones before that were B and D and C... they wouldn't screw with me that much... right? But A could be right and D could be right.... damn. Why can't I just explain my answer?

See, I used to think I was a pressure player. The one you would call in at the least minute to rescue the game. I was wrong. I am not a pressure player. I way to calculated for that. Damn, not so much. Apparently I am the sideliner that comes in when everyone else is injured or sick.

So tonight, amidst a game of Wii bowling, I had a very interesting conversation. See as I was bitching about my inability to estimate multiple choice, someone very pointedly, to my face, said "Life is multiple choice. And since you have been getting 70%'s... good luck."

I tried to argue. I said, "No way!!!!! Life is an essay, responding to what we have learned." He argued back "No, life is about choices, A, B, C, or D. What will I do RIGHT now."

I had a hard to reacting to that. What do you say? It's the truth. Everyday we are met with decisions that define us based on the moment. Whether it is what I want to admit or not, that is exactly the truth. It's the moment, not the explanation that counts.

But I wasn't settled with that. How can you say that we are just a subject of so few a percent points? So 1 out of 4 are our odds; 25%. Those are my odds that I might make the right choice? Seems a little deterministic. A little too reactionary. Maybe in class, but in life? No way!!! I have worked too hard, found too many paths of righteous and unrighteousness and surpassed the heartache of inability to say that all of it comes down to simple odds!!!! Somewhere in there, I know I listened to a voice, to a spirit that was bigger than mine. Still....

I want so much to be a creator. To sit in the seat of one that deems what is possible or not possible, but I don't. So often I try to create a circumstance of perfection. Like reliving a time that was what I wanted. A place that I liked, a reality that fit me... The creator of the known I always want to sit at the helm of a ship on a sea of memories... or at least romantic realism. But as I wake to reality, I realize, instead, I sit in the seat of those that deem enough. Ironically, at this point and time of my life, I am the one that others have the permission to choose an A, or B or C or.... whatever to define ME as. It's not a garden of Eden that I think of when I close my mind in perfection, it is the imperfect adaptation of someone elses multiple choice.

The truth is, somewhere in between multiple choice and essay is where I exist. Where WE exist. Somewhere between chance and essays is are the lessons is life. Somewhere in between what you want and what you deserve (even as a grade) is what is truth.

I can't explain away every circumstance, but I know He is more than chance. He is more than just throwing caution to the wind on a 25% chance of getting it right. I have partnered with Him to determine my life this far, and I know it can't be just chance, or even my version of an essay right. Some of it, if not only a little, is about me learning from what has been, to know Him better and if not just my choices make it a little more clear and real.

See, someday, if we allow, we become more than circumstance, but still less, than chance. Multiple choice be damned.....

The Bermuda Triangle

I have come into realization of another great paradox that occupies more time in my conscious and subconscious than I would like to admit.

As I continue to struggle with the great concept of what it means to be the fullest expression of me and thus Christ in me, that I can be, a picture of a very different version of myself than is exemplified on a day to day basis exists.

It's like looking in a mirror. Do I really look the way I think I look, or do others see something completely different? Am I the image in the mirror, or the image in my head? And to that extent, which is more real?

The great Bermuda Triangle of thought has been circling my head for a few weeks now. At times, I have found myself almost standing outside my own body watching as I partake in conversations, activities and events that seem to be a product of something other than the truth of who and what I thought I had begun to be introduced to by my Great Creator.

Knowing it was happening, feeling the feelings associated with the activity, feeling the criticism residing with each action or inaction, I have been in the continued fight of trying to understand the root, the birth place of the incongruence that creates a breach between me, and... well, me.

When I was back in California over the summer, like the settling of a wet blanket, I could feel the old me falling back into practice as though it had never been shed. With deep frustration and sense of powerlessness, I felt overwhelmed by the subjective power of what I was coming into contact with and unable to fight through it to regain the lost ground of my own personhood.

Knowing this was the case, when I came home to DC, the best I could do was exist enough to remind myself I was back in a place of safety and seclusion. Like a child hiding in the dark, the me I had been working so hard with God to rediscover, or even meet for the first time, I began to coax myself out of hiding. And slowly but surely, moment after moment, little bits began to come back out. The problem is, as always, this rediscovery process is never perfect, easy, or smooth. The real me tends to be skittish and easily thrown back into remission. The question has been, what makes me run and hide? What is my nemesis?

As God is always, in His graciousness, He began to open me up to a new revelation. Slowly, not to scare me, but to ease me into realization, He showed me something I had never seen before. Not surprisingly, it came through interaction with my significant other.

All of the sudden there was nothing he could do that was right. There was nothing he could do that was good enough. Every action had a justification of why it wasn't what it should be, in my mind that it. I created a picture in my mind of what it SHOULD look like rather than what it did look like, and nothing was acceptable besides my version of "right." The hardest part? Everything I thought was "right" was right... in a sense. All the things I thought that needed to be, were good, and fair things to want and need. They weren't crazy, or unrealistic. Nothing is more deceptive than a half truth.

What was the other half, the half that wasn't truth? Well, they may have been good things to want, I wasn't wanting them because they were good, I was wanting them because I was afraid. If things stayed the way they were, those circumstances would require a measure of trust, faith, grace and hope I wasn't sure I could handle. They would require me to put to bed the fears based on the past, and the wounds incurred from others mistakes. It meant that I would have to risk losing love, to secure safety. Sounds much like the battle I have faced learning to trust the Lord. Funny how that happens.

If I gave all those fears, and all of those past wounds up, I would have to give up something else as well. Something I didn't know was there until I heard how powerful the voice was. I would have to give up the little voice that whispered the comparisons of my version of "right" to what the reality of the situation really was. It was the voice that told me I was "right" to hold onto what I feared. It was justifications for well... judgement. It was the voice that held the bar of estimation, the person I claimed to love, had to measure up to. I realized how inconsistent that really was. I can't love him, and judge him at the same time. I can't always hope for him and I, and criticize along the way.

As soon as I realized this, as soon as God was gracious enough to reveal my own double standards, my own personal hell I had created by imprisoning him and myself to a rigorous set of rules he had to live up to, to be worthy of my love, freedom was able to enter. The vision I had of him changed. All of the sudden he wasn't my opposition, he was my partner. He was someone I could believe in and trust, not begrudge my love until his actions were good enough, or what they "should" be. Sort of like the battle I have fought with Jesus, oh since, I don't know, FOREVER. He is never the way I think He should be, but always what I need.

The kicker comes as it always does later on. Not soon after, did the paradigm shift filter down to the level of my own self. If I was that critical of him, how critical was I of myself? More so, to be sure. So afraid of my own ability to destroy, to break, to make critical errors, I have constructed a picture of what I ought to look like, and the ironic thing is, it is the one thing that keeps me from being whatever it is that I am.

There is an old saying: "Better the devil you know, than the one you don't." If I can behaviorally modify the devil in me, that I perceive that is, much better than letting go and running amok with the one I don't. I mean, I can make it work, right? I mean I can MAKE my "right" way work. I know I can. I just messed up a few times along the way is all. I can do it now. Not that I know what the "right" thing or life or me is. I just know it when I get there.

So I impose a set of standards, a set of parameters I should live within. And when I don't act in accordance with them, better to withhold grace from myself and try to do it better next time. Don't talk too much this time. Don't say something stupid again. Stop always interjecting your opinion, no one cares. Lose more weight. Don't eat that. Study more, others do. Be a better girlfriend, love your boyfriend more. Call your friends more often. Stop spending so much money. Tithe more, it's a command. Pray more, you need it.

All good things, right? All things I should strive for, right? But what's that I said before, oh yeah, the most dangerous deception is the one that is half true. When these are based on fear, or measurements for a estimation of good, or lovable, they are just ways for me to criticize myself day after day, moment after moment. No wonder I am so damn scared to come out of hiding, I wouldn't want to be around me either. The devil I know is worse than the one I don't, I am already scared of it.

The other ironic part of this? Jesus has been working the last year of my life to convince me of not only His goodness, but His love and ability to redeem. Everyday He shows me another way He has answered a prayer, been gracious, been abounding in blessing in every stage of my life. He has taken painstaking measures to open my eyes and heart to His real, tangible, life shaping, giving, big, expansive, hopeful, redeeming love. Not just in figment of imagination, but in real, money giving, opportunity giving, 20,000 miles of travel in one year sort of ways. More than ever possible, literally answering prayers I prayed years ago sort of ways. And none of it, not one ounce of it, came predictably, through my construction of the "right" way. I am just blessed. No formulas, no measurements, no reasons why, never earned, never good enough sort of way.

See, I think the image I see in the mirror is wrong. I think it only shows half the real me. There is a side of me He knows intimately that I am still discovering, but I will never really have the chance to meet if I continue to pass judgement. The side that knows no judgement, is the side that lives out of trueness. It lives out of His grace. It's the side that loves recklessly, that sits in peace, that worships with abandon, that isn't critical of every word before and after it leaves my mouth. It isn't judging out of fear and guilt. It's the side that doesn't subject me or others to a double standard of wanting to love, but withholding when it doesn't go the way it "should." It's the side that believes in redemption, lives for His breath, and waits for His words. It's the side that trusts Him and the Him inside of me, and rather than standing outside of me and criticizing others and me, it takes up residence in my heart and mind and lives everyday in fullness.

The image in the mirror I have is a creation I have in my mind, and sadly enough, it will never measure up and will always feel inadequate. But then again, I don't even have the right to judge, so I am not sure why I do.

Better for me to wait to pass judgement until He does. But then again, I guess that means I will be waiting.... well until the judgement day. Why judge now, I can just wait until then. Besides, I am pretty sure I already know how He will judge me then... and who am I to tell Him, He's wrong?

Oh Jesus, sweet, sweet, good Jesus; thank you for your patience with me. It's saintly to be sure, and far outmeasures mine for me, You, or anyone else. Thank you for never existing in my "right" way. It's the scarier path, but the path that leads to more of You. Your words are the keys to my soul, Your revelation the breath that keeps my heart beating. Forgive me for judging things that are not mine to judge. Forgive my critical voice. Please replace it in all of Your graciousness. I need Your voice, Your truth to be my guide. This is a battle I can't wage in me, it must be You. I give myself over to Your strength and truth. I will do my best to live in the truth of Your goodness and the trust in Your answering of my prayers. Lord, heal any wounds my critical side has caused to others. Show me how to live a different way. Change my broken heart. You are the only one who can do this. You are my only hope, and the only hope I need. I love You. Thank You for being God.