As I described in Is It Really Safe?, Part 1, I have been in a funk. It’s a tropical storm of emotions, fueled by the lie that my value is based on my performance. It’s not the first time this lie has pounced on me in my weakness, and I am certain it will not be the last. I find some comfort knowing that God sees me and loves me. He invites me to be as I am, to be known by Him, to take a deep breath with the knowing: it’s ok to not be ok. As I continue to battle the monster and alternately fight and give up as each day goes by, God keeps inviting me into His goodness.

Invited To Be Sought

Unsurprisingly, my funk takes a toll on my marriage. It’s exhausting to live with a depressed person, and it’s exhausting to be depressed. With my husband I feel compelled to take the path of least resistance. I don’t have much energy for intimacy (emotional, physical, or otherwise), but neither do I have the energy for a big breach or fight and then repairing. So I’m walking on eggshells, somewhere in between (if that’s even possible). As I write about this in my prayer journal, God says, “I’ll help you walk on eggshells.”

Uh… Wait, what did You just say? I am stunned into silence. This is not what I expected. When I find my voice I say God can’t possibly mean that. Doesn’t He have a solution? Isn’t there something I ought to be doing differently? Slowly I internalize that He does, in fact, mean what He said. He affirms my struggle and joins me in it. Perhaps this isn’t as bizarre as it seemed to me at first. After all, didn’t He save us humans by becoming one of us? This is central to the way He operates. He seeks me, He finds me, and He stays with me. Oh God, Your companionship would mean the world to me.

Two weeks after the “God, what did You just say?” conversation, bedtime with the kids crashed and burned. It was late. Nothing went well. It ended with my five year old crying herself to sleep in the guest room and me in time out downstairs. As I sat in the recliner crying and staring out at the trees, I was again reassured of God’s companionship. No advice, no fixing. Instead, a quiet spirit.

The lessons of love are freeing: I am invited to be. This invitation stands even when I am seen – no masks, no filters, no protection. God wants to be my companion, exactly where I am. Even when where I am is unhealthy and un-beautiful and unpleasant. Even when it is lonely and sad and frustrating. He will be here. With me. Emmanuel: God with us.

I am invited to be sought, and to be found. And when God finds me, hiding under a blanket of shame, red-handed from my latest sin, deeply mired in my mistakes, He stays there with me. Oh precious gift! My failings do not sentence me to solitary confinement. This God-Man Jesus knows what it is like to be human, and He stands with me, sits with me, struggles with me. I always thought God didn’t really get it. Yes, he was tempted, but He didn’t sin (Hebrews 4:15). So how could He possibly understand what it feels like to fail: to find myself again and again on the other side of a choice I wish I’d made differently; to treat the people I love the most with aggression, disdain, selfishness. He doesn’t know what it feels like to suck at life.

But I think I was wrong. Paul says, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us” (2 Corinthians 5:21a). Sin separates. Jesus cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). The only reason He could have felt forsaken is if He became sin for us and experienced the feelings of separation and despair that plague every human. He does indeed know how heavy it is. How lonely it is. How desperate. And this is what He does: He seeks me. He finds me. He shares with me this ugly knowing of sin and separation, and He doesn’t run. He stays.

Invited To Enjoy

In his book Come to the Cradle Michael Card observes that children are occupied with playful imitation of what they see adults doing. He asks, “Could my work become playful imitation of what I see my Father doing?” I mull this over. It is so different from how I think about life, it is a foreign thought. Card goes on to say, “The point of work is to finish. The point of play is to not finish…” Again I pause, unsure what to do with this observation.

Finished is safe. Unfinished is negligent. Given my point of view I suppose it’s not surprising that I excel at finishing. I am so determined to finish that I even try to finish my children. Do the tasks, learn the skill, become mature.

I am realizing that often the way I think about my life is unhealthy and counterproductive. So I approach God one morning with a question, and we have this conversation:
How do You think about my life? How do You want me to think about it?
“Life is to be held loosely. Even people who are deeply sad or troubled can enjoy life. You have more capacity for enjoyment than you think. Keep slowing down. The answer is not more.”
Are you sure? Because I feel like I’m hardly doing anything.
“Think about the gift analogy. I have called you to play, not work. There is so much to enjoy in your life, but we must take this slow, because you will be tempted to turn enjoyment into work.”
I sigh. You know me so well.
Why do I always think of martyrs and people in concentration camps when I think about goodness/happiness/enjoyment?
“You are still living in fear. That’s ok. You won’t always.”
Ok. Will You help me enjoy something today?
“Of course I will. I love to help you! This will be fun!”
Ok. (Pause) Do You really feel that way?
“Yes, I do.”
You’re trying to speak life over me, aren’t You? I’m sorry I make it so hard.
“It’s not hard, because I love you with my whole big self. I don’t think you know how much patience I have.”
No, I suppose I don’t. Ok Lord, go head and make me alive. (Pause). Are you sure it’s not hard? Because I feel like a tough case / lost cause / disaster.
*Laughter* (is anything too hard for God?)

I find it very odd that God wants me to enjoy life. It’s not a new concept, but in all honesty, I always hear it through the lens of “doing the right thing” and it sounds like work: there are so many wonderful things in life we ought always to be joyful. Ugh. I guess there’s something wrong with me.

God enters into my misconceptions and fears and invites me to enjoy, to hold life loosely. I am so accustomed to holding life with an iron grip that I’m not even sure where to start. I have the “scarcity mindset” Brené Brown describes in her book, The Gifts of Imperfection: “We’re afraid to lose what we love the most, and we hate that there are no guarantees. We think not being grateful and not feeling joy will make it hurt less. We think if we can beat vulnerability to the punch by imaging loss, we’ll suffer less.” This is a lie I have believed. I protect myself behind the safety of pessimism/realism, hard work, and control. Enjoying is scary because it’s vulnerable. Brown continues, “If we’re not practicing gratitude and allowing ourselves to know joy, we are missing out on the two things that will actually sustain us during the inevitable hard times.” Hmm.

Why is it that I don’t want to enjoy what I have now, because I don’t know what I’ll have tomorrow? I don’t want to drink in abundance when I can imagine a future without abundance. It’s like I want a guarantee of a long and happy life, or I won’t engage. I want to know that if I do things right everything will turn out well, or that if I trust Jesus I will experience safety in all things: relationships, finances, health, my faith community, and the list goes on. Not knowing sets me on edge. Being set on edge is the opposite of enjoyment. So here I am trying to perform an impossible balancing act while holding onto – well – nothing, with an iron grip.

And here God is, inviting me to loosen my grip and to enjoy. To play. To have fun. To be grateful. To slow down. I feel like God is laying out a lavish banquet before me, but I have not yet partaken. I’m still looking at it. When I fill up a plate and start eating, perhaps I’ll write another blog post about enjoyment.

For now, I am grateful that I need not hold tighter or try harder. I can be still and know that God is seeing me, seeking me, celebrating me, and being the companion my soul longs for most deeply.