Having had a breakthrough last week that culminated on Sunday, I'm finding I'm not fighting myself - not fighting my life or circumstances emotionally, but operating in those boundaries and being productive. I am losing perfectionism in the process. It's not completely gone, but I'm not attacking myself. I'm feeling the urgency without the overwhelming powerless feeling. And I knew it was coming - that I would stop fighting myself so much because I realized a month ago that was what I was doing, but I didn't know the level of peace I would feel.
The past couple of days, I have felt something new and old at the same time. I have felt equal to everyone I was interacting with - I wasn't comparing seasons of life, I wasn't thinking that I am not "equal" just because my life looks different. I wasn't thinking that I'm "the help" or that I'm "less than" - I was just thinking "I'm me" - no subtext, no running conversation of life stages in my head, no judgment about my messy basement, no comment on my financial reality, no comparison that I'm not married but that I have a lot of degrees, no back and forth. I felt like my time was MY time, valuable and useful and for what's important to God's plan for me. It's not the time that I should spend worrying how I should be like so many people I know, so many people I love. It wasn't so comparison-y as I make it sound - it was a depression over not being where I had thought I'd be. The catch is, I have no idea if I would be happy where I'd think either. And that should tell you to strive for peace where you are. We lie a lot to ourselves how we think things should be.
But do you know? The knowledge part of my brain knows that stuff wasn't true anyway. The knowledge part of my brain knows that God has a plan specifically for me - there are good works for me to do that He wrote into reality before the foundation of the earth. I know that we are equally depraved. I know that all have sinned. I know that I am not under wrath or under punishment. I know that my single life isn't some sort of punishment nor is married life a reward. It is the life I have been given and God is to be praised because I live in the most blessed time, in one of the most blessed places. I do not suffer like other believers and that is a thought I refuse to leave me. I will remember where God placed me.
But now, I have finally come to believe what I know... God is writing it on my heart as His Spirit leads me to lay all my thoughts down before Him. Being completely honest with God - not giving what I think "should" be how I should think or "should" be how I feel, and approaching God with the depth of the ugliness I can currently own (there are always untouched places, dark, that we don't even want to or can't own just yet), I feel like He heals me when I can be real. The minute I pretend, though, I can't get down to the work of it... it takes admitting what I can't or won't admit. And I finally was able to do what was bothering me for so long because I was so tired of it. In quitting depression, it was like I could really see the mess for what it is, but also that it is not a consuming crisis. I could also see how little steps aren't painful because the emotional fighting I have been doing has stopped. I'm not ruled by those emotions, so I am able to do the little at a time to keep making small, but meaningful steps.
I'm still lost as to what to pursue after I leave teaching. I found out some disappointing news today, but I'm not spiraling. My mind is working and I believe God will meet me again at the right time with the map I need to get to the next stop. In the meantime, I will continue to sing His praises because I never would have escaped my own mind. I feel like I can finally believe what I'm being told in the word and fight against the lies that I've believed for a long time.
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