I have a confession to make. My house is a mess.
And it's not in the cute, "life is crazy," things are hectic, clothes are everywhere mess. Clothes ARE everywhere, but it's bad. I have been RUNNING, escaping from it, avoiding.
I just can't anymore. Today, I had to confront what is going on. See, my classroom is tidy - I've grown so much professionally. And while I can make the desk messy all over again, each week I make sure to straighten and hand back grades and get things managed.
But the house... I joke is like Hoarders, but truly, it's like Hoarders. And I can throw things away and get rid of plenty, but haven't. I've had these conversations with myself like "what is the MATTER?" because it isn't normative. It also isn't what I know. It is, however, the result of deep, abiding, hard emotions I have about my worth and what I believe about myself - it is stuff that isn't true. I know it's not true because it's not biblical. I have a belief problem, though. And self-help books give me nothing - they aren't true either.
So, today, I did an exercise. And I wrote out the things that I do that aren't good to get really honest on paper about what I know about me. But then it morphed into something - it morphed into me taking thoughts I have and refuting them with what I know to be true. And there it was.
Over nearly 15 years, God has been able to peel back the brokenness of isolation (I was healed through dealing with the past), anxiety (I was healed through dealing with the present), depression (I was healed through dealing with others). Today was the day for a new one. Today was the day I was confronted with dealing with hopelessness - I will be healed through dealing with the future. In each case in my life, I am reconciled to my time here. Today, I realized something big and very difficult.
I am carrying around hopelessness - it's not biblical and it is selfishness. But it is caused by a very deep fear of mine - fear of emotional pain. I'd list out all of the pains, but we all have them. What I did distill for myself is that I have two types, which is why my hopelessness is so bitter - I feel the pain of good things destroyed by the fallen-ness of man - death, divorce, destruction, and denial of Christ as the Lord. At one point, things are good and felt good, and time has passed, and nearly all the once good things have gone, leaving a very grief-filled ache. I don't want to move forward because I fear the loss of so much good going bad.
But then there is this other, very awful pain - the pain of regret - the what ifs and could haves and should haves - and that scale is tipping me over these days. I want to do things and be with people, and I am surrounded by fear. And my fear is manifested in a home where I live but I also abandon. "What's the point?" battles against "but I want to have people over" - "it'll never be exactly the way you like" battles against "but it can be better." So, today, I discovered the stuck - stuck between two massive fears, and I escape to avoid it. The stuck has a name - and it is hopelessness itself.
I can't anymore, though. I can't do it because hope is still alive in there - maybe it's blind, but I refuse to give it up. I want to feel normal and not screwed up - I want to know Earth is broken, but I'm living well because of what I believe and how that informs my actions.
Confronting hopelessness, I prayed today - hopelessness is a type of self I need to die to. I told the Lord in prayer that I would trust Him enough to kill my unbelief of hopelessness. I wrote that I would die to my fear of pain and bear what cross I'm called to - I'd live it out and not let pain steal the joy of life and the calling to serve others and show them Jesus. Connected to that is taking care of all that God has given me so that I can use it to serve Him. I'm not doing that with wholeness - and I haven't been trying.
I wanted to share this because it never occurred to me that dying to myself is not just selfish indulgence stuff that I want - but that it can be selfish belief stuff that I refuse to deny. I wrote down evidence I had for hopelessness, and I felt God impress upon me through all the scripture I know and love, "And?" Because we must press through it - we should not embrace it. Like He put to death depression in my heart, so I can feel the truth of hopelessness as a version of self that I must crucify. On the surface, it looks strange - how can hopelessness, depression, anxiety, and isolation be selves to die to? But when you encounter how you have knit your heart to them and called them your own, they are just as much identities to crucify as the hedonist who knits addiction to his/her soul, the money-consumed miser married to his/her greed, the sexually obsessed to lust. They are harder to see because it seems like it wouldn't make sense. But they are there as identities, and let me say, they can be just as overcome by the Lord as those "pleasure"-oriented identities.
My house will take some time to rectify. It's not floor to ceiling in the least, and I'm not eating off of a frisbee like parks and rec, but it will take time. God will need to continue the renewing of my mind - I can't do it - I don't have the authority. His goodness, of which I have no doubt, can be relied upon. I just needed this first push to move forward. I believe others can know freedom as well.
