Tag Archives: lies

Freedom! From My Husband

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“You have time for everything but me.” Michael spoke with resignation from his side of the bed.

I sat tense on my side of the bed. We’d had this conversation many times, and it always sounded the same. We knew it so well we probably could’ve saved time and argued in our sleep.

Not sure what to say, I listed a few of the times I had spent with him recently—a three-hour conversation Monday night, a date last Thursday, a movie yesterday after the kids were in bed. It didn’t matter. He was talking about his heart, not my schedule.

We have been awkward partners in the dance of intimacy since we met. We were head-over-heels for each other and spent up to sixty hours a week together—every moment outside of sleep, classes, and our part-time jobs on the college campus. Sometimes I wanted space, but I didn’t know how to say that. Since I didn’t ask for space, I created space with busyness or emotional distance. This had the opposite of the desired effect. Whenever I created space, Michael came closer. He wanted more time, more talking, more touching—always more. I generally tried to keep showing up, but when I inevitably created space in an under-handed way, Michael would be hurt and ask for more from me to reassure him that we were okay.

This pattern continued into our marriage. We were happy together, made decisions with minimal drama, enjoyed each other’s friendship and company, and survived many difficult conversations. But the pattern of me moving away and Michael moving closer (until he lost hope and stonewalled) stayed the same, and perhaps became even more pronounced. When kids came along and being alone was my deepest desire and most cherished dream, it didn’t help the situation.

That thing they say about the only way out of your pain is through it?—they’re right. Over the last few years, we’ve had some awful days and weeks walking through our pain. We’ve both had to make peace with feelings of rejection. Michael feels rejected when I move away from him, and I feel rejected when he can’t respect my desire for space. We both feel wrong sometimes—about ourselves, about each other. But it turns out you can’t mechanically fix a person or a relationship.

Mainly we talked, we listened, we cried, and we felt a lot of pain we had been avoiding. Michael slowly came to believe that I like him and I’m not going anywhere, even though sometimes I crave space. I slowly came to believe that Michael likes me and will still be my friend even if I move away from him. I think this is called trust.

Earlier this month, as Michael was preparing for a work trip, I kept reminding him to give me his flight times so I’d know when he would be leaving and getting back. The info was on his work computer and never handy when I asked. One evening when I brought it up again, I handed him my laptop and asked him to put the info in my calendar. He still didn’t have it nearby. Instead of flight times, he blocked out four days with the heading “Freedom!”

While he was away the following week, I chuckled each time I looked at my calendar, and every time it felt like a small miracle that we could joke about me enjoying some alone time. What used to be a trigger, a subject so dreaded that we tiptoed around it, is now an open conversation and a relational dynamic to laugh about. Oh the joys of setting the thermostat however I want and having the bed to myself.

I can’t tell you how it happened, and I guess that’s why I use the word “miracle.” Yes, we walked through our pain, we went to counseling, we fought and cried and believed lies about ourselves and each other and had to pry those lies up with a crowbar to find the truth. But then there was an element of magic, a change in the weather, a glimmer of hope that turned into quiet trust. And that is something no amount of work can bring about.

Freedom!

Yes and No meet Love

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What are the questions that freeze you inside because the socially or spiritually acceptable answer is “Yes” but your truest answer is “No”?
Can you babysit?
Will you pray for me?
Can you visit Grandma today?
Could you help me move some furniture?
May I borrow your dress? Your truck? Your sewing machine?

Maybe you don’t even know what your honest answer is, because once you feel like you have to say “Yes,” things get really tense inside and you can’t think straight.

Often I have ignored the invitation to engage with my inner dialogue, by quickly saying “Yes” and learning to live with the resentment.

As I slowly learn to be kind to myself, I sit down with my feelings more often, to hear them out. And then I let Love decide. Love is not a yes-woman. Love is as gentle with me as it is with others, and it walks me through these tense places with surprising strength and clarity.

No question has one right answer. Allow yourself to feel all the answers, and make a choice toward the wholeness of every person, including yourself.

Yes and No meet Love

Blessed are You,
Lord our God,
King of the Universe,
for the awful feeling
of being trapped by a question:
“Will you pray for me?”
It’s the kind of question
with only one right answer.
I hate that.

Blessed are You
for this discomfort,
invitation to notice
I have separated from myself.
Yes and No at war,
fully aware that Yes will win
and No is hot with powerlessness.

Blessed are You
for the opportunity to re-unite with myself,
for Yes and No to shake hands,
the signal for Love to step forward
and make the call.

Blessed are You,
Lord our God,
King of the Universe,
for knowing there is no right answer,
and no wrong answer—
only Love, tender and sharp,
hot lava to my glacier of fear,
lemonade to my sweating soul,
permission slip allowing the confused,
“naughty” half of myself out of detention,
joyful reunion within.

It’s Me! Run!

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It’s Me! Run!

Reflections – week 2

Welcome to the second week of reflections inspired by my current small groups. Together with some of my favorite women, I’m exploring these books: Father’s House: The Path That Leads Home, and The Whole Language.

This is week two of eight. I’m finding joy here, and I’m pleased you’re with me on this journey.

The Paddle

When I was a child, a wooden spatula was the “paddle” at our house—used for spankings. I chuckle now, remembering the occasional days when my mother would carry the paddle in her back pocket. How well I know those kinds of days now that I have kids of my own.

I have two specific memories of spankings, one of which must have happened when I was quite young, I’m guessing preschool age. I don’t know what brought it on, but I had a meltdown of epic proportions, involving kicking, screaming, and the works. My parents put me on my bed to spank me, but I was kicking so violently they couldn’t paddle me. To solve this conundrum, one of them sat on my legs and the other spanked me.

As this memory accompanied my growth and development, it grew into a belief: the proper way to handle big feelings is to punish myself for them. Or better yet, try not to have them at all. I’m certain that’s not the lesson my parents intended. They probably figured they were enabling me to grow up and behave like an adult. (No one appreciates a 30-year-old who still throws epic tantrums.)

Fear of Self

Week two in Father’s House is about being lavishly loved. The authors write, “To live as a fully loved and accepted daughter in your Father’s House, He’s inviting you to let go of your former identity. You are no longer bound to your past, what anyone else has spoken over you or even what you say about yourself. As you journey Home, saturate yourself in who your Father says you are.”1 (emphasis added)

As I read and wrote through each day of the study last week, fear of myself emerged as a common theme. Starting as a young child I learned to fear myself, to fear my emotions and desires, my imperfections, my capacity to make mistakes. The religious community further intensified this fear by teaching me that I was sinful and needed constant spiritual supervision to avoid indulging the unforgivable person that I was. I became afraid of turning away from God. I figured He’s pretty nice—you know, amazing grace and all that—but if I intentionally, or unintentionally, turn my back on Him, He will be pissed off.

So there I was, internalizing my parents’ responses to me, into a belief that my emotional experiences are unacceptable; internalizing the religious community’s sin-message into the belief that I am a walking liability; and what did all that do? For twenty years, nothing. I was so good at being good that these fears lay dormant. It was unnecessary to face them when I managed myself exceptionally and performed well for every person in my life who expected something from me.

If you’re familiar with my story, you know when the upheaval began: stay-at-home momming. Suddenly, with loss of sleep and the demands of parenting, I was reacquainted with my emotional self in the most savage way. My best efforts to control and punish myself weren’t working. Anger, frustration, fear, and emptiness consumed me, and—given my beliefs about emotions and mistakes—it’s not surprising that a dark shame enveloped me.

Temper Tantrum

A few months ago when I went through Father’s House for the first time, during the activation exercise (meditative visualizing and listening), I had a (visualized) temper tantrum. It was just as I remember from childhood, heels hitting the floor so hard it hurt, as I lay on the ground screaming and sobbing out of control. Papa God lay beside me. I was so overwhelmed I couldn’t engage with Him. I could not receive comfort or accept reason or respond to reprimand. Mercifully, He didn’t expect anything from me. When the waves of emotion began to subside, I rolled into Papa’s arms. I was ready to receive comfort, and He was waiting to comfort me.

Papa God suggests there is no distance between Him and me. He is not cooled by the things that chill the people in my life: turning away, having needs, being impolite, tired, sick, stressed, confused, emotional, forgetful. God is warmly present with me when I am out of control. All of me and my experiences are folded right in, received without question or critique or hesitation. No part of me is a liability.

Holy Imagination

“Visualizing your future as a lavishly loved daughter is critical to your life,” I read in Father’s House. “In fact, it helps engage your heart with your head when you involve your divine imagination. Describe what that life would look like in as much detail as possible. What would you be doing, thinking, or feeling?”2 Here’s what comes to mind:

  • My insides will be still (not agitated). I will be at peace with myself, not warring against myself.
  • I will have energy to create and to love (not compulsion).
  • I will take more risks.
  • Forgiveness will come as naturally as breathing.
  • Suffering will fall into my embrace rather than being held at arms length. It may hurt like hell, but it won’t be fragmenting.
  • Pain, anxiety, depression, fear and anger will be experienced with God, rather than as separating or isolating experiences.
  • I will be whole, not fragmented, not always looking for parts that have been forgotten.

Not As Scary As I Thought

I assumed God was in on the idea that I cannot be trusted with myself. I am shocked to discover God trusts me with me. The shame is lifting. The fear is shrinking.

Lie: I am loved and accepted if I reject myself so I can be what I “ought” to be.

Truth: I couldn’t be better. I am loved entirely independent of my level of responsibility and emotional control. Papa received me first, to clear the way for me to receive myself. He invites me to love myself as He loves me. Now that’s crazy!

Gregory Boyle writes, “Ensuring, then, that we are never strangers to ourselves will give us access to our deepest longing.” I have been a stranger to myself, but I am learning to roll out the welcome mat, receive myself with open arms, and explore my deepest longings.

Endnotes:
1Father’s House, page 29
2Father’s House, page 34
3The Whole Language, page 18

On Being Dead (Part 1)

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I’ve noticed there are people who catch on to what Jesus is up to more quickly and completely than me. They get the death-to-life thing, the rebirth, the salvation. They speak with confidence about their wholeness and joy, about Jesus and His ways, about life. Meanwhile, I mainly have a lot of questions, I don’t know what to tell my kids about God, and I’m still wondering what in heaven’s name brings about transformation and the fruit of the Spirit in a person’s life.

Over the last year, death has been a recurring theme in my journal. Not the stop-breathing kind of death, but the spiritual one. An awful lot of verses in the New Testament use death as an analogy for … well, I’m not sure what. Something spiritual. In the book of James, which I zealously underlined the entirety of as a teen, there’s this sin-leads-to-death verse: “But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.” (James 1:14, 15) As I read this poetic life-cycle illustration—conception, birth, growth, death—I wondered, Do I have desires that “draw me away”? Two came to mind: my desire to appear without fault to everyone (including, and maybe especially, myself); and my desire for life to be happy (or at least predictable). Have these desires conceived and given birth to sin? Heck, it sure feels like giving birth. Conceiving is the easy part. Giving birth is brutal. But, once conception happens, birth is inevitable.

I have enjoyed too much time in bed with a lot of lies, allowing my desire to be without fault to lead me to conceive and birth a child who reminds me every day of my indiscretion. This child is Judgement, Idolatry, Pride (defensiveness), Angry Outbursts at those who inconvenience me, and, well … a bit of Death.

Late last summer I noticed I had a pallor of death. I was seduced by my desires, blind to the fact they fed the lies I tried to stamp out. I made an effort to imprison the lie that my (and everyone’s) value is in productivity and performance, all the while tossing bread crusts into the prison cell. I fought with the sin-child I had conceived—who was growing rapidly—while still getting back in bed with desire.

The thing about dying is that it’s painful and we’d rather not look directly into it. It’s hard to watch death claim anything or anyone—especially when you have carried that thing in your very center for nine months and given birth to it. But when death does take place, there is a sense of finality. When I realize my desires are dead and I have been in bed with a zombie, when I stop tossing bread crusts to the skeletons in the prison cell, then Life leaps to my side almost as if it had been waiting. Words like “spring” and “abundance” move from Biblical vocabulary into experience.

“There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.” Romans 8:1-2

My desire to be without fault has held me in constant condemnation. I have been in bondage to the “law of sin and death,” seeing myself as one giant aberration from righteousness. I have been living always in weakness, meditating continually on all the ways I fall short. I have made life-giving Jesus a sick joke. Hey, you know why Jesus died? Uh, for my sins? No, because God couldn’t legally kill you, so He killed His own Son. That is the voice of condemnation, of damning. Constant meditation on how I fall short siphons Life out of me, leaving me empty and dry. Jesus invites me to Love—a life unadulterated by the habit of constantly looking behind me, keeping tabs on my “progress” and the impression I leave behind.

Living with my mind preoccupied by circumstances—my physical and emotional experience (the desire for life to be smooth), worries about all my interactions with people (the desire to be without fault), and trying to get things right and be in control—is death. And when I say that, I don’t feel I have somehow been naughty for choosing death, but more a sense of relief at having a proper diagnosis. I have felt dead, going through days shackled and gray, a slave to my desires and impulses. I want to be alive.

One evening my husband, Michael, and I read together from Dr. Tim Kimmel’s book, Grace Based Parenting (pro tip: don’t read parenting books). The chapter was about the importance of secure love for children, and what secure love looks like. The next morning I wrote in my journal, “Not only am I a lot dead, I am also blind. I realize I let my kids get away with selfishness and meanness, but come down hard on them for normal kid (human) stuff like making messes or forgetting, because I am blind. If I saw clearly I would act differently.”

Every autumn we have an influx of flies in the house. They start out perky but gradually slow down until you can easily pick them up with your fingers. (I don’t recommend this. I picked one up thinking it was dead, and was scared half to death when it started buzzing in my fingers.) Often I’ll see flies lying upside down, randomly twitching. One morning as I sat praying, I noticed a fly on the windowsill, lying on its back, letting out a spastic buzzing every once in a while. And I thought, My life has been like this fly on the windowsill, alive … but not really. There is no shame in this; instead there is understanding, because that is exactly how I have felt. And just as I have authentically experienced being half-dead, I may authentically experience being fully alive. I was made for this.

“For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be fleshly minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life und peace.” (Romans 8:5-6)

I’m Afraid Being Me Will Ruin Every Relationship I’m In

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“Life is a journey,” we say. I want a rest stop. I want to stay at a posh hotel for, I don’t know, a couple of years. But in a rash moment I decided healing is a priority. Discomfort is part and parcel with healing, so I carry on. I receive the affirmation of my friends and of my own spirit and I keep taking steps.

My current discomfort comes from the fluctuations and changes of intimacy in marriage. I feel like I’m on a chain and I don’t know when it’s gonna get jerked. It seems we oscillate between politeness and passion, and both extremes are uncomfortable. The truth is I’m really scared to be me. Around all the actual dynamics and realities of our relationship is a cloud of fear. My thoughts are fearful, terrified. Though I’m acting peaceful, some inward part of me is frozen, and if it gets poked it will likely either fight or flee.

What if this fear is not me, not true to who I am? What if it doesn’t belong here and I can send it away?

What if being me is never a mistake? There can be fallout, but it doesn’t mean I ought not to have been me. I am not the mistake. I make mistakes, but I am not a mistake. I’m gonna agree with Papa God and Jesus and Holy Spirit on this one.

“A feeling is just a feeling,” I say, quoting Josh Straub. What is under this fear? What is my internal space without the fear?

I journal the fears. I allow myself to explore them and feel them and write them down. Then I do the same with healing messages. Sometimes it helps to call them “lies” and “truths.”

Lie: I am not and cannot be enough.
Truth: I am enough.

Lie: I am not worthy of connection or belonging.
Truth: I am worthy of connection and belonging.

Lie: Vulnerability may cause permanent damage to my sense of self.
Truth: No matter how someone reaches out to me or responds to me, they cannot touch my identity of wholeness. Vulnerability involves sharing my inner world, but it does not involve putting my value up for negotiation.

Lie: Rejection says something about who I am.
Truth: Rejection is a normal human dynamic, a part of processing experiences in a shared space, and grappling with fears. Rejection does not tell me the truth about who I am or about who the other person is.

Lie: Being different means someone is wrong.
Truth: Being different probably means we’re both right, both have something to contribute. We bring our flat realities and together make a 3D reality.

Lie: I should be able to avoid hurting someone if I try hard enough.
Truth: I cannot avoid hurting other people. Hurting someone does not declare that I am a hurtful person. It means that my movement in the world interacted with another person’s movement in the world in a way that was painful—similar to accidentally stepping on someone’s toe, or elbowing your kid in the head while unloading the dishwasher.

Lie: I am not a safe person.
Truth: I am a safe person when I am a real person. Being me is the greatest gift I can give.

Lie: I can unwittingly ruin a relationship.
Truth: I can unwittingly cause pain, but I cannot unwittingly ruin a relationship. Relationships are bigger than the stimulus of pain. Relationships always hold the potential for repair and shared understanding, connection and healing. Even when there is a rift in a relationship, the relationship continues to hold that potential.

And so it seems I am a lot less dangerous and powerful than I thought I was. The success or failure of each relationship I’m in—including my marriage—is not mine to carry. I am me, and that is good. I will keep showing up because relationships are life, and I was made to live.

Good(?) News

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The gospel as I learned it was bad news, followed by ok news. Somehow the “good” got left out. I understood the gospel as the news that we are all sinners, separated from God, but that Jesus reunited us with God by taking our punishment. Despite being an “up-front” Jesus girl, selling religious books door-to-door and leading worship and Bible studies, I never could tell someone, “You’re a sinner. But don’t worry! God punished Jesus instead of you.” Wow. I mean, my life was hard already. Thanks for this “news.”

I went to the seminars (Revelation and prophecy) most loved by my particular faith tradition, and filled in all the blanks in the study guides. I marked my Bible with dozens of chain studies. But I never talked one-on-one with anyone about salvation. Most people I knew were Christian, or if they weren’t it was because of the experiences they had when they used to be Christian. On the rare occasion I interacted with someone who wasn’t Christian or ex-Christian, bringing up their sinner status seemed a bizarre thing to do. So I never did.

How could I distill spiritual experience into one conversation in which a person “admits” they are a sinner and thanks Jesus for helping them? I’ve had countless conversations that have given life or liberty or love to one or both parties. This is so often how I see God at work. I wonder if people don’t need a three-sentence salvation speech as much as they need someone to hear and affirm their own spiritual experiences. The salvation speech takes the gospel right out of our hearts and places it on the table in front of us for a transaction. If salvation is a transaction, Jesus wasted His time coming down here to be a human for over thirty years. He could have really simplified things by just getting sacrificed for our sins as a baby.

But what if salvation isn’t a transaction? What if Jesus came for another reason? As I continue to engage spiritually, to hunger and thirst and be filled, I wonder what it might look like for me to “share the gospel.” Is there actually something I could say that I believe? That I find compelling?

I am seen by Father/Son/Spirit, loved, held, wrestled with. I can share my experiences. But what about a three-sentence gospel? I’m not sure such a thing has any merit, but I’ve started forming one just in case.

Bad/ok news: You can be be better. Here’s how: you are a sinner, separated from God, but Jesus has reunited you with God by taking your punishment. Trust Jesus. (But not God, since He was coming after you with a flaming sword.)

Good news: You couldn’t be better. Here’s why: You are made in God’s image. You have believed some crappy things about yourself that aren’t true. Jesus came to reacquaint you with your true and holy self.

In his book, No Longer I, Jacob Hotchkiss writes, “We mistook a sinless spirit, a pure heart, to be the end of the Christian life, when actually it is the beginning…” This explains why I have spent my life reaching, heart and hands outstretched, hoping that this might be the time I would receive something good, something healing, something to make me whole. I didn’t know I had it all the time.

Gregory Boyle, Jesuit priest and gang recovery waymaker, lives from the certainty that every person has “unshakeable goodness.” This is hope. Unless I have invested my whole life in being good; then my unshakeable, preexisting goodness is terrifying. But in either case, settling in to my unshakeable goodness is freedom and life, joy and bravery, a lifelong celebration of the unshakeable goodness in everyone. Which is better: looking at every person as a sinner, or looking at each one as a masterpiece?

Jesus said, “God didn’t send me into the world to condemn it, but to save it.” Everyone in the world already has a new identity in Christ. We are all new creations. And as we acknowledge this, transformation happens. We need not strive for something that is already ours. Our belief, then, is not in something outside ourselves, but in an inheritance that is already ours. The good news is that we are whole.

This is overwhelmingly good—great—terrific news, and it is difficult to believe. Whether Christian or not, most of us have spent our whole lives thinking we could be better—with the next self-help book, diet, relationship, or job. Or maybe just with the next cup of coffee, pair of jeans, or good nights sleep. We have believed to our bones that we could maybe arrive someday, and it’s up to us to keep trying. With each disappointment, with each morning we awake and realize, I’m still me, hope wanes. Christians often cope by performing. As Kevin Sweeney insightfully says in his book, The Making of a Mystic, “It’s easier to try and spread the gospel to every part of the world than it is to allow the gospel to be spread to every part of your soul.”

The challenge is not to accept the reality that we are not—and never will be—enough, but to believe the shocking truth that we are already enough. We are whole, we are full, we are loved and lovable, we could not be better. This might change every phone conversation, work meeting, messy room, conflict with friends or kids.

When we look at ourselves, are we willing to say, “I am good”? It’s either that or “I am a sinner.” And since that hasn’t worked well for me the last 30 years, I’m gonna give this a try. Check in with me in 30 years, and I’ll let you know what happens when “I couldn’t be better” is my go-to.

My whole life I have never felt comfortable evangelizing—inviting people to church or doctrinal Bible studies. No reasonable person invites their friends to bondage. Church was a place I belonged, but it was not a place of freedom. It was a place of rules that I was damn good at following, so most of the time I felt pretty good. But the “good” of self-righteousness doesn’t hold a candle to the good of “you are God’s masterpiece. Right now. Already.” Self-righteousness requires a lot of maintenance—painting, roofing, updating furniture, replacing wooden steps before they rot through. A masterpiece is complete, valuable and valued, ready to be enjoyed. People stop and look; they lose track of time.

You are a masterpiece. And so is the person in front of you.

Rest Already

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“Rest first.” This is God’s favorite thing to say to me. It’s incredibly irritating. I am terrible at resting, compelled to be a productive and functional human being. But God is provokingly persistent.

“Rest first.”

But I’m too messy to rest.

“Rest first.”

But there’s work to be done.

“Rest first.”

But people need me.

“Rest first.”

But I don’t deserve to rest.

“Rest first.”

But rest makes me feel restless.

“Rest first.”

But what if I get tired and sleep too long?

“Rest first.”

But what if I’m missing something? What if right now is the moment I need to grab what You have for me and hold on tight?

“Rest first.”

At this point I’m out of excuses, so I sit slumped down with arms crossed, pouting.

I have fought God tooth and nail on His invitation to rest first, and His corresponding refusal to “fix” me before I can rest.

In my defense, it’s impossible to rest when I don’t feel safe in my own skin. My journal bears witness to this ongoing struggle.

August 1 - What am I afraid of? Myself. And I think I’m afraid of admitting I’m afraid of myself, because it took me a long time to write that down, and I’m feeling really vulnerable.
September 22 - I wanted to be alone today, but it occurs to me that perhaps I wanted to get away even from myself, and this is hard (read “impossible”) to do. If I’m scared of me, anxiety is inescapable. Even if I get away from people and distract myself with busyness, in the end I’m still with myself.

I have been plagued with fear that I am a liability in life. Every time I fail, or don’t show up how I want to, it seems my fear is confirmed, and I am, in fact, a liability. Fighting this battle, against what I perceive as my own nature, sucks away time and energy like a board meeting. I struggle against my own self, day in and day out. I am a liability. I must protect myself and the people around me from this truth by performing well. Every. Single. Time.

But fighting and performing inevitably fails. I suppose the redeeming feature of failure is that eventually I become willing to consider what God is saying; consider thinking differently; consider rest.

I am allowed to be a mess.

I am allowed to skip out on some work.

I am allowed to take a break from meeting people’s needs.

I am allowed to rest.

I am worthy of rest.

I am not going to miss out on anything.

In her book Braving the Wilderness, Brené Brown uses the phrase, “Strong back. Soft front.” For me, this is a depiction of what it means to have an identity in Christ. I was created by God; I am inhabited by God; I am destined for perfect union with God. This is my strong back. I am not waiting to find out who I am today—to define myself by success or failure. I know who I am.

And today my soft front is three things: 1) love for people—especially my family, 2) grace for myself, and 3) holding things loosely—especially tiredness, fear, sadness, confusion, and loneliness in my marriage. These things are transient, but God and love and grace aren’t going anywhere.

I am able to have a soft front only when I have a strong back. If I have no back, I rely on an exoskeleton of performance to hold me together. But when I have a backbone of awareness that I am loved and righteous, I become soft and able to rest; and after rest, to embrace the person in front of me.

This freedom pokes its way into my consciousness through friendship, quiet time, reading. I write down moments of grace-full thinking and return to them:

“I am beautiful without adding or taking away anything, just like the lilies of the field. I am clothed by God, and my clothing is not distinguishable from me, just like a violet. I am clothed in dignity.”

“I am not a liability.”

“I am learning how to hold myself, receive comfort from God, and receive comfort from people. This is a valuable skill. I have survived without it, but I will thrive with it.”

“I have permission to enjoy my own company. I get to decide how I treat myself.”

Some time ago I wrote reminders to myself on a notecard, including: “I believe God is trustworthy,” and “I believe my husband is trustworthy.” With some trepidation I recently added, “I believe I am trustworthy.” After a lifetime of being told that sinful humans can’t be trusted, believing I am trustworthy may be what returns me to myself. I can be trusted to make decisions, manage my emotions, spend my time. In other words, I can be trusted to be in charge of myself. I am not on trial with God or anyone else, so all of these decisions are simply opportunities to learn. I can be curious about myself—about life—and I can be compassionate with myself.

Earlier this year I really got my panties in a wad, worrying that I wasn’t receiving what God had for me. After months of struggling I admitted things weren’t looking too good and set up an appointment with my counselor, Beth. When I told her I was worried and distracted by wanting God to fix me, and fearful I wasn’t letting Him do what He wanted to do, Beth said, “But you do know how to listen to the Holy Spirit and trust Him.”

After my long struggle I felt it would be necessary to claw my way back to peace and trust. But Beth said it’s just a tweak, a chiropractic adjustment, and I am back in trust with God. And so I journal again, choosing to trust God, and in so doing, to trust myself.

“God with the Welcoming Lap, I leave behind my perfectionist, outcomes-based thinking, and I return to trust. I am fully capable of responding to Your Spirit.”

In Zach Williams’ song, “Fear Is a Liar,” this line arrests me: “…you could be the one that grace could never change.” Despite (or maybe because of) being a lifelong Bible-believing Christian, I fear I could be the one who can get it wrong, miss out, not respond how or when I’m supposed to. This lie has felt so close to truth.

There’s a whole conversation about whether it’s hard to be “saved” or hard to be “lost,” which I’m not going to get into. I will say that believing it’s hard to be saved is a death sentence for a perfectionist. What helps me unclench is knowing “It is finished.” God already did the thing that rescued me. I can go with what He did, instead of what I’m doing. I can agree with Him, instead of my wretched feelings. He says I am righteous. Full stop.

And so I pray: “I leave behind my stubborn fear that I am the one grace could never change. I am capable of trusting You. I am not a helpless victim. I am able to hear You, trust You, and choose You. I am not in need of the right formula, or the right circumstances, or the future version of me that is better than this one. You created me with the ability to choose and to trust. ‘Being good’ was completed by Jesus, and there is nothing left for me to perform.”

Oh, sweet rest, how I longed to fall into your soft pillows, pull up a thick blanket, and be still. And here I am finally, with both feet tucked in, glasses off, curled up around my pillow, almost laughing with joy before I sink into peaceful stillness. Rest.

In Whose Image?

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Often we see God through who we are, but He’s inviting us to see ourselves through who He is. This is a funny thing, because I see God as judgmental, quick to withdraw, difficult to please, bored with me, hoping I’ll get things right, and tired out by having to deal with me. But God sees me as righteous, holy, treasured child, pearl of great price, a delightful companion, and gracious. He is not waiting for me to be more. He’s showing me I am already all things in Christ.

I have believed I will be loved as long as I don’t cause any stress, trouble or inconvenience for anyone, and therefore my identity revolves around being responsible and having a decent attitude. When I put this on God, here’s what it sounds like: God loves and accepts me if I am responsible and cheerful, and don’t stress, trouble, or inconvenience Him (or any of His children). Although I know that to be a bald-faced lie, I live out of that space, spending nearly all my energy and capacity trying to be good and do the right things. I will sacrifice my family and my own soul to appear above reproach and to have a defensible, “good” life. I have dragged God into this by insisting that His focus be on improving my behavior (which He steadfastly refuses to do), leaving little room for anything else.

As I move from the shack of conditional love to the estate of my trustworthy Papa God, I retrace my steps through a letter to my younger self.

Dear younger self,

I can see why you feel safe only when you are happy and responsible. You make sense. You didn’t have anyone to comfort you or help you process your inner world, so you disregarded your inner world to protect yourself, and your life became all about your outer world.

Control was modeled to you as the only method of security, so you adopted control as a way to manage yourself and the people around you, in order to feel safe. When this stopped working well for you it was very scary. You felt trapped and became depressed and angry. Safety as you knew it had been stripped from you.

You held on the best you knew how, sought help, and grew. You have always been an amazing person. From now on, Papa God’s got you. You are home, and you no longer need to prove or protect yourself.

You will continue to be the courageous, spunky and fun person you have always been, and you have my permission to enjoy yourself and enjoy life.

To life!

Love, Me
September 2022

When I make Him in my image, God can be dark, unpredictable, and hard to please. Fortunately for me, His agenda is to make me in His image. This changes everything. God becomes light, steadfast, and already in favor of me, and I become those things too. His Spirit is in me, inviting me to know in the dark what I have seen in the light, and to live not propelled forward by terror that I am not enough, but anchored in peace that I could not be better.

Codependectomy In Progress

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Before we explore my codependent tendencies, let me say this: I am not a codependent, and neither are you. We are human beings, made in the image of God, with tendencies to forget who we are.

Often I have believed the lie that I must perform for others because they would never choose to be with me if I wasn’t doing something for them. This belief sits on top of another lie: I am not worthy of friendship, or to be loved and cared for by another human being.

I have spent most of my life feeling like a liability to the people around me, or combating that feeling by behaving well to ensure I’m not a liability. This is a tense and fearful space in which to exist. If I assume I’m a liability when I’m not performing well, I also believe other people are a liability if they are not performing well. Which of course leads to judgement and resentment and all sorts of fun. This is a mess indeed. So Jesus has been helping me disentangle from the space in which I believe I must be thought well of by others to be ok.

My safest relationship—with my husband—is the first to undergo a codependectomy. I write in my journal:

I can’t keep Michael happy, and Michael can’t keep me happy. I am ok without him, and he is ok without me. My identity is not in Michael, and Michael’s identity is not in me. Michael will be annoyed with me, frustrated by me, and hurt by me. Michael will be distracted, impatient, codependent and clingy; and he will keep score, be disappointed in me, and sometimes resent the discomfort I cause in his life.

I feel like the world is not right when Michael is not happy with me. I feel like a liability. I fear that loss of intimacy will leave me free-falling until he catches me again. But when I believe these things, I have given Michael power over me in a way that is damaging to both of us. As long as I think I am responsible for Michael’s happiness, I will feel anxious, worthless, and not-enough whenever he or I struggle.

The truth is, I couldn’t be better. God never expects me to keep another person happy. My identity is wholeness, and “liability” has no place in that. I am not free falling. I am standing on solid ground. My reality does not change when Michael moves away from me. Jesus is always in His room in my heart, and I am always in my room in His heart. This centers me. I always belong. I am always desired.

Michael being pleased with me is not welcome relief from being a failure, nor is it my due as his wife. It’s more like him agreeing with God about me: like they’re hanging out together and they’re both saying how much they like me. I get to just stand there and feel the wonder of it… whether it’s both of them, or just Jesus.

Not being responsible for Michael’s happiness doesn’t look like a cold shoulder; it looks like compassion—for myself, and for him. One morning as I grapple with this, I hear the Spirit say, “you don’t need to do anything to be ‘good enough’ today.” And I think, “what do I do with my family while I’m not doing anything?” They need me, continually, relentlessly, deeply. I am set free in Jesus, but often I don’t know what “free” looks like. (Culture tells me it’s getting what I want and doing what I feel like, and I know that’s not true. It has to be better than that.) What does freedom in the midst of needy people look like? I think Jesus knows, considering His three or so years of being followed around by hundreds of needy, clingy, freaked out and insecure people.

Jesus said to the woman at the well, “Those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fountain within them, giving them eternal life.” (John 4:14) And maybe He says this to me: “I know Michael and the girls feel like leeches sometimes, but the life I’m giving you they can’t suck out of you.”

I have been trying to do a lot of things for myself that Jesus is already doing for me. He said, “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper to be with you forever,” and the Amplified Bible adds these words parenthetically after Helper: Comforter, Advocate, Intercessor, Counselor, Strengthener, Standby. (see John 14:16, AMP)

So, throughout my long day of being needed…
God is my Comforter, who eases my grief or distress.
God is my Advocate, who publicly supports and recommends me.
God is my Intercessor, who intervenes on my behalf.
God is my Counselor, who gives guidance for my problems.
God is my Strengthener, who provides additional strength.
God is my Stand-by, who is ready to be deployed as back-up in an emergency.

“All that I have is yours… come in and celebrate,” Jesus says to His children (see Luke 15:28-32). I am rich. I am full. I am righteous. I am daughter. I don’t need to prove who I am, protect myself, or provide for myself. Jesus was tempted by Satan (and others) to prove Himself, protect Himself, and provide for Himself,1 but He knew who He was, and He has gifted me that unshakeable identity.

As Gregory Boyle said, “What saves us in the present moment is being anchored in love and tethered to a sustaining God who keeps reminding us of our unshakeable goodness and the goodness of others.”2

I have to wonder, if I’m not worried about proving, protecting, or providing, then what am I going to do today? I have lived in not-enough so long that I’m hardly aware other spaces exist, and I don’t know what they look like. Maybe this?—Love. Create. Belong. Enjoy. Celebrate.

I don’t need to be doing something to be worth something.
I don’t need to be “put together” to be worth something.
I don’t need to understand myself to be worth something.
I don’t need to be in control to be worth something.
I am full by default. I am worth something when I am wrong, tired, uninteresting, lost (literally or metaphorically), or without reason.

Some days, living in this truth looks like a journal entry:

I don’t need my kids to have affection for me or obey me. I don’t need my writing group to affirm what I write. I don’t need my parents to approve of my choices or opinions. I don’t need my friends to respond to everything I say, or to think well of me. I don’t need my husband to agree with me, or always be kind to me, or do what I think he should do. I don’t need my extended family to think well of me. It’s ok for people to disagree with me, and to misunderstand me. I could lose in any or all of these relationships and I would still be who I am: God’s favorite, the one He is delighted in and to whom He has given His whole self.

Every Friday night our family has a special meal. The food is in actual serving dishes, the table is decorated, and we always have a beverage and dessert. This tradition came out of a conversation with my husband about how to incorporate the Beloved Creed into our family routine. It was his idea to speak it aloud together as part of a special meal. And so we speak:

I’m not what I do.
I’m not what I have.
I’m not what people [think or] say about me.
I am the beloved of God.
It’s who I am.
No one can take it from me.
I don’t have to worry.
I don’t have to hurry.
I can trust my friend Jesus and share His love with the world.

If—like me—you struggle with insecurity, let’s dare to believe we are a good idea, we belong, and we are beloved.

Endnotes:
1Paul Coneff with Lindsey Gendke, The Hidden Half of the Gospel: How His Suffering Can Heal Yours (Maitland: Two Harbors Press, 2014, 2016), 15.
2Gregory Boyle, The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness (New York: Avid Reader Press, 2021), 34.

God, Who Is Asking Nothing

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I have always thought I wasn’t supposed to like myself, and certainly not love myself. I thought loving myself would take me far from God. But one night when I was ruminating at 4am, I realized that God likes me and loves me; so liking and loving myself puts me in alignment and agreement with God, and therefore closer to Him. I can like myself and love myself. I can be kind to myself. I can marvel at what I am capable of as a human being, made in the image of God Himself.

As I mentioned in my March 2nd post, reading The Whole Language, by Gregory Boyle, has been transformational for me. One day I came across these words, spoken by the homie Raul: “I take myself to court every day…and every day…I find myself guilty.”1 And I cried. I sobbed. I could have written those words. I taste the pain they carry.

But what about this exchange? Victor, another homie who is discovering he is loved, says to Boyle (whom the homies call “G”), “Damn, G.—I’m in love and it feels proper.”

“Who ya in love with?” Boyle asks.

“Myself,” says Victor.2

And I wondered, could that be my experience? Dare I move from being on trial to being loved? I wrote in my journal:

I am not on trial. There is no standard I am being held to.

Previously, at times, I have felt some relief by adjusting the standard, but always it has been there, mocking me—jeering, prodding, torturing. I think it’s very much like being a prisoner of war, with perfectionism as my captor. No matter how I behaved, my captor tripped me and then laughed at me sprawled on the muddy ground; yet all the while telling me that if I just behaved better, things would be better for me. There was very little living as a POW.

But outside of camp I am not always afraid. I am treated with tenderness regardless of what I am experiencing. I am not watched, but I am seen. I am not becoming better, but I am healing.

God has been patient with me over the years as I have held Him at arms length with reasons He really didn’t love me—either because of me, or because of Him. I think, surely acceptance is tied to performance (haven’t my fellow human beings made this clear?). Surely God is not a masochist, eager to hang out with someone who is short-tempered and vindictive. I have been a wounded child, over-performing, because being loved is too good to be true.

But if I don’t love myself, God’s love stays “out there.” Every criticism I have of myself is a criticism I have of someone else. So when I learn to love myself, be playful with myself about my shortcomings, wink at my missteps, embrace myself when I have caused pain… can you imagine? Then I will do unto others as I have done unto myself.

My human experience tells me this: people don’t care about me unless I am performing well or operating on their agenda. And poor God, I slathered this mindset all over Him. I figured that since I was not performing well and was way off what I thought God’s agenda was, that He just didn’t care, didn’t have time or interest for me. I would have never put those words to it, but that’s the spiritual space I was living out of, whether I knew it or not. This had nothing to do with God, but with lies I believed about Him. The truth is, my performance was never on His radar, except for that afternoon on the cross when He took it from me and that resurrection morning when He replaced it with His life of perfection. It is His delight to remind me who I really am, to provide everything for me, and then to sit back and watch me enjoy being alive.

I’m reading a Bible study about parenting with the Holy Spirit, and I came across this: “The One who remains with us doesn’t need anything from us.”3 Wait, what? Wow. As a mother of young children, I find this exhilarating. I am needed, all day, every day, by everyone in my home. But God who dwells in me doesn’t need anything from me.

Jesus said it is better to give than to receive, yet we are confused that He is giving to us and not asking anything from us. Boyle writes, “God is only interested in lavishing us with extravagant tenderness, and yet we are convinced that God is thinking we all could just do a better job.”4

“Enter by the narrow gate,” Jesus said, “because wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to death and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and confined is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.” (Matthew 7:13, 14). This is true not because God is not abundantly present, nor because it is hard to be good, but because it is hard to be loved. Love seems too good to be true, so we don’t believe it. We have settled for trying to be better, instead of being loved. But what riches, what broken-open extravagance, await those who receive frightening, crazy, juicy love, and who throw their arms wide open and love themselves.

What is God’s agenda? To love me. I have made this extremely difficult for Him. It is entirely my fault that there have been some necessary precursors to living loved: first, to take my eyes off my performance; and second, to rivet my gaze to His abundance. God who gives: His mind (1 Corinthians 2:16), His Spirit (John 14:16, 17), His resurrection power (Ephesians 1:19, 20), His faith (Revelation 14:12), His grace (Ephesians 4:7, NKJV), His love (1 John 4:19, NIV). He has given us every spiritual blessing, redemption, forgiveness, abundant grace, knowledge of the mystery of His will, an inheritance (see Ephesians 1:3-12), and so much more.

A God whose only agenda is to love me, and who has already redeemed me, does seem too good to be true. And here is where I sit with my back to God. I have come to Him, but I have not dared to look at Him. I have responded to His call, but I have come into His presence with my head down, holding in my hand a wrinkled picture of Him that Satan drew in the garden millennia ago. I know all too well that as long as I picture God holding a ruler instead of a rose—with an expression of disappointment instead of desire—I remain unchanged. But when I dare to let my guard down and look God in the face, for the first time I know who He is, and simultaneously who I am: His daughter. The devil’s drawing in my hand turns to dust as I look at God’s face and see compassion, welcome, belonging, tenderness, and joy.

Just as someone anxious for news looks into the face of their loved one, and without any words knows it is good news, and cries tears of relief; so I have looked into the face of God, known who I am, and cried tears of relief. The news is good. Death has ended in resurrection. Lies have been exposed and turned to dust. Slavery is over. Jesus is alive, and He has brought me with Him.

As I sit with God I can’t help but wonder, why now? Why didn’t I know I was loved when I read the Bible through at eight years old, or when I got baptized—also at eight years old, or when I prayer-journaled daily for 15 years, or when I was in ministry, or when I got married, or when I had babies? How could I spend all that time as a “Christian,” knowing that God doesn’t love as people love, but never truly knowing. This grieves me. I have interacted with myself and others from an identity of not-enough, which looks a lot like fear and anger. So I ask God, why this confused and bumbling journey? And He says, this journey has not been what you thought it would be, but you are what I wanted all along. I have always enjoyed being with you. That you are alive in the world delights me. I don’t need anything else.

It is in receiving the truth that I am loved, and that God doesn’t need anything from me, that I am finally able to give Him anything at all; that I sit down in His lap and know I belong.

Endnotes:
1Gregory Boyle, The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness (New York: Avid Reader Press, 2021), 32.
2Ibid., 28.
3 Jeannie Cunnion, Never Alone: Parenting in the Power of the Holy Spirit (Nashville: Lifeway Press, 2021), 28.
4Boyle, 9.