Fearfully Frozen

Like I said last time, fear is a powerful motivator for deep privacy. I am really only beginning to recognize the depth of the role fear has played in my life.

I read, a lot, and one of the benefits of reading is that you can observe all angles of a situation, you can see clearly the battle, and often the solutions that evade me in real life, and my eyes are opened. One of the eye openers lately has been this theme of fear. Fear is isolating. Fear is restricting.

In a recent book I'm re-reading, the heroine fell to her knees in tears (and in private) and her tears were healing. God spoke to her in that moment of brokenness. He also spoke to me.

In my thoughts, I fall to my knees often. In my head I collapse in His arms.... but I rarely, if ever, do it in life. I'm a whole different person in my head. Part of it is that I fear falling apart. I feel like a shattered windshield, held together solely by the shatter proof threads built into a windshield and if I fall, if I drop, I will break completely into a million pieces, never to be whole again.

There it is. Truthfully, I don't feel whole now, but at least I "look" all together... sort of. Those looking at me see that I'm all together, that I'm all there, nothing glaringly obvious is missing. If I let people in, if I open the door of my heart, they might notice there are cracks in the windshield. They might see I'm being held together with ugly duct tape and mud. If they touch me, I might shatter in front of their eyes and who would want to see that?

I don't have time to fall apart. I don't have the energy to fall to pieces. .... at least, that's what I tell myself, but maybe it's that I don't have enough faith to let it all go. If I stopped trying to hold it all together, maybe I would have the energy I need to fully live.....

Maybe not.

Dreaming

I have always been a private person, and in the last 6 - 11 years I have found myself becoming more so. It's not easy for me to open my heart and soul, to expose myself to others. The reasons for this are varied and all boil down to fear. Fear of being taken advaantage of, fear that what I say will be used against me, to hurt me. Sadly this has happened. These aren't irrational fears, they are based on experience. Those who purport to love me the most have taken advantage of me and hurt me deeply, using what they know of me and my story to do so.... overcoming those fears is a journey. God keeps calling me to it and I'm doing my best to answer His call.

So, now you know where I am coming from. Why my blogs are sporadic at best. Please bear with me as I endeavour to share my heart with you.

About 15-16 years ago I began to dream a dream. I started thinking of something that I would love to do. Around the same time God put in my life people who believed in me, people who encouraged me, people who set up opportunities for me. I am a singer. I love to sing and I'm not horrible at it. I was put in a place where a tv show would hear me sing and I was encouraged that it could be an opening door. Somehow while I sang of God's love I was overcome with the feeling that this was not my path. That this dream would (also) not come true. I felt that God was saying "no", or at least "not right now". Nothing came of the experience and I believed that dream was not meant to be mine... and yet I haven't been able to truly let it go.

Along the journey of my life almost every one of my dreams has been abandoned, shattered or blocked in one way or another. Many of the messages I have received have been that I don't deserve happiness. That my lot is to be disappointed, pushed to the background, to be a shadow of someone else and never to shine on my own. If that is God's call for my life, I will accept and be happy with it... but then I feel guilty for dreaming of more, for wanting what is not mine to have. And yet, is it not God who gives us the desires of our hearts? Is it not God that reveals to us what the desires of our hearts are? How do I reconcile the desires of my heart, my dreams, with the realization/belief that what I dream of will not come true for me? As I get older it feels like time is running out on some of them, maybe on all of them.

I love being a supporting role for my friends and family. I love knowing that what I do can help them succeed and pursue their dreams. Many times I don't know where my value is if I don't have that. Other times I experience envy and wish that I could have my dreams too. I have spent my life doing good for others, serving wherever there was an opening, helping wherever I could be of use.

It's likely my own fears, my own resistance to being vulnerable that stand in my own way. Maybe one day I'll recognize the open door and be able to walk through it. Until then.... I cling to God, I cling to trusting His plan for my life and I'll keep helping those I love pursue and realize their dreams. I'll keep asking Him what my goals should be, what path my life should follow.

Faith as a Child

When I was a child, I had faith as a child....

God tells us in Deuteronomy 7:18 to "Do not be afraid of them; Remember well what the Lord your God did..." I've been remembering lately. I had the privilege of attending Captivating Advanced (with Ransomed Heart Ministries) this past October and while there God reminded me of how He's been with me all my life, how He's taken care of me. Which has brought me do doing a lot of thinking about my childhood. My retrospect has been heightened by the recent death of my father, helping my children live theirs and praying they find God in the midst of their journey, as I did.

I see the faith I had as a child. I was fearless. I knew God was at my side, I did not doubt it, it was as real to me as the walls of my house. His angels were at my side and that was sufficient for me. I didn't know what anxiety was, and there was plenty to be anxious about in my childhood.

How do we lose that as we age? The older I get, the more fears I have, the more worries I cling to, the more I see the dangers that are spread along the path ahead of me. How do I regain the faith of my youth? How to I hold on to the certainty that Christ is my rock and my strength. 

How do I balance Jesus words "Unless you come to me as a little child, you cannot see the kingdom of heaven" with the words of Paul "When I was a child, I spake as a child, but when I became a man I put away childish things". 

I need to return to the "childish" faith of my youth. That sure confidence that God would take care of me, no matter what was happening around me. Call it a blind faith if you will, but it was sustained by evidence time and time again. To return to it, I need to Remember, so remember I shall. 

You'll find me in memory lane this year - pulling out the dusty memories of how God has walked with me, protected me and saved me for all of my life.

Oh, and if you need your heart refreshed in the Spirit, I absolutely recommend you check out the Retreats offered by Ransomed Heart. God spoke to my heart in a blatantly clear way, refreshing my soul and bringing me home ready to face the world again.

Rescuing... continued

After my blog last night I ran into a few difficulties...


1. I couldn't change my thoughts to something else;
2. Despite being exhausted and going to bed early, it was after 2 am before I finally slept; and
3. I had a horrible nightmare about not being able to rescue my best friend... I won't go into details.


Where did this leave me this morning (besides reeling a little from the too-realistic images of the dream)?


It left me realizing that my desire for rescue in my life is for me to be able to rescue the people I love from the difficulties and traumas in their lives. I realize that I feel responsible for the bad things that have happened to those I love. I have experienced this realization before, when I felt I should have prevented my children from getting hurt, feeling like I should have been there for them, protected them, seen the dangers. I am beginning to realize that this extends to others as well.


People like my sister. I feel like I should have been able to save her, both as a child and as an adult. Intellectually, I am aware that there is nothing I could have done, I am in no way responsible for the way her life unfolded; that there is no way I can protect my children from every trouble that they will come across.


Knowing that doesn't mean I don't feel responsible. It is an extension of the question "why was I not enough?".


Why was my word not enough to protect my sister from a lifetime of abuse?
Why was my love not enough to keep my brother from committing suicide?
Why was my advice not enough to convince my sister to stay safe?
Why were my instincts insufficient to recognize the full dangers my loved ones were facing?


There it is.... I want to be infallible, I want to be omniscient. I'm not God... I don't even want to know everything... until it comes to rescuing my loved ones, and then I want to know it all, to protect them from it all. I don't even want to live in a bubble or to put my boys in a bubble... I want to and want them to fully experience and embrace life. To chase down the dangers and fight through the difficulties.


Where does this leave me?


I feel like I'm spinning, spinning, spinning tonight and need to take a few different steps in my dance.

Rescuing

This is actually a hard one for me to type tonight. I am putting myself on the line, my fears of who I am.

Sometimes I wonder at the types of stories I am drawn to. There seems to be within me a deep need to have a story of survival. Which, is actually kind of funny if you ask the people who know me best, because they will tell you (and me) that I have that kind of story. I guess to me it seems very surreal. Like it's somebody else's life. Like it couldn't have really been my life. Anyone else's life and it would be traumatic, dramatic and horrid. The kind of story fairy tales are made of, the damsel in distress, waiting to be rescued.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm really someone else. If my story doesn't truly belong to me. It's as if it happened to someone else. Perhaps that is because I WAS rescued and when I was young; not by a flesh and blood person, but by God.  Does it make sense that I feel as His protection and strength that sustained through the worst things has left me feeling less whole?

That can’t be true… so, if that’s not true, then perhaps it was not wholly His strength that carried me through. Perhaps there is a large part of me that is completely dissociated from my personal history. Perhaps because most of it was not my fault, that there was nothing I could do to stop it, escape it or change it I cannot fully accept it. That should be a good thing too.  At least I recognize the truth of the matter, but….

I made some pretty stupid mistakes too. Those things I am responsible for. Some, when I was a child done out of ignorance and a cry for help, some as an adult done out of a desperate need to feel. To be loved. To be wanted…

I feel lost within myself. I love the TV shows, movies and books where someone comes in and saves the day. Where the police catch the bad guy, where the stranger sweeps in and rescues the hurting person – be they child, woman or man, where good triumphs over evil. That’s not a bad thing.

I find it hard to believe that someone will want me for me. That I can or will be loved because I exist, because I am enough. Too many have rejected me, too many who were supposed to, or promised to have caused the most damage to me.

I am strong. I don’t NEED to be a part of a couple to be whole, I acknowledge that, but I yearn for it. Just because it is necessary doesn’t mean it isn’t greatly desired. I believe it is part of our make-up, part of our humanness to want to share life with someone else, to not be alone. In the beginning God said “It is not good that man should be alone” and made him a wife, a helpmeet. I want to be a help meet. I want to be a part of something bigger than me.

I waffle between feeling like a giant, something so big it’s untouchable and feeling like a tiny grain of sand, beneath notice and walked on. Both leave me feeling lonely, unnoticed and unwanted.

Where do I go from here? How do I learn to be satisfied with what I do not have, what I (seemly) cannot have? I love my life. I love what I have, but I’m starting to desire more…. How do I balance contentment with that desire? How do I push to have the “more” in my life without losing the appreciation for what I already have? How do I fit more in my life?

Lots of questions today. Very few answers. I do know that I’m going to keep dancing, keep singing and keep searching. Life’s a dance, we learn as we go. (Garth Brooks)

Perfect?!

So many thoughts running through my brain these days. Sometimes it's too much for me to sort through and sift... Tonight I thought I'd write them out here, because... well, because I need to and maybe someone out there needs these words too.

There are times when I wonder if I left my marraige too soon, if I gave up too quickly. Then I look back and read the words I've written before, here and in my journals, and I realize that I didn't. I gave it everything I had and then some.

Something a counselor told me once was that I have the right to divorce my husband simply because I want to, I don't need a reason. I have reasons, but that wasn't her point. Her point was that it is my life to live and I don't need the approval of anyone else for the decisions I make.

I tend to be a perfectionist. I'm recognizing this more and more about myself. More importantly, I'm recognizing that this is not a good thing about me! I am human, I need to accept myself with all my flaws, failings, mistakes and humanness. I don't need to do it all "just right".

Someone else asked me recently who put this on me? Who asked me to be perfect, who told me I had to do it all "just right", who ordered me to climb every mountain.... I'd never been asked that before. I'd never thought of it before. It's me.

It's me who had to have the perfect marriage, who had to be the perfect wife.
It's me who has to be the perfect mother, who beats herself up when I falter (okay, there are also plenty of other people out there waiting to jump on me if I make a mistake, but if I'm okay, their opinion will matter much less!)
It's me who has to have the perfect documents sent to print, no errors allowed.
It's me who has to be the perfect friend.
It's me who has to sing perfectly every time
It's me who has to look perfect.
Be perfect

To be honest, the only thing I'm perfect at is failing. I'm not perfect at anything. I am perfectly imperfect. It's time I learned to be okay with that. No one else expects it of me, why do I keep expecting it of myself?

Where did this need for perfection come from? Satan sure loves to take something good and twist it into something evil. Christians are quick to tell you we are expected to become perfect, as Christ was perfect. That we are to live sinless... I think we need to revisit the definition of perfect. My BFF tells me  perfection is constant communication with Jesus and if we have that, our mistakes are simply... mistakes, not sins.

So, I declare today:

I am not perfect.
Furthermore. I do not need to be perfect.
I will stop expecting perfection of myself.

I will slip and I will fall in this dance of life, but as long as I keep getting up and trying again... that's okay.

Loneliness...

What is loneliness. I'm dwelling on that this evening.

It's been a rough week, a longer day and I'm wide awake at 2 a.m. instead of sleeping like I need to be, like my body is craving and my mind won't give in.

I've been feeling lonely lately. Interesting how I felt lonely almost all of my marriage and then the loneliness changed. I'm growing, changing and realizing that I crave a social life. I need to be heard... That's what I discovered tonight. I need to be heard, I need someone to hear me, to be listening.

Loneliness is not always simply the state of being alone, for me it is often the state of being unheard. Of not knowing who is near or far, no knowing who wants me, who misses me... I don't know the thoughts of others. I know the people who love me, the people who care... but I can't know what they are thinking, I fear when they don't communicate that they are tired of me, that I have become less important in their lives. I allow myself to be easily set aside, to be walked away from. I don't fight for people to stay in my life for very long or for very hard. I'm sure my best friend might argue with that, but I can quickly accept (right or wrong) that someone just doesn't want to be around me anymore.

Sometimes it's hard to dance alone all the time. Sometimes I crave a partner, even a temporary, short-term friend who is willing to dance with me. Some days I just need someone with skin on (who is older than 18 years old).