It’s been a minute since I felt truly stressed - graduating from a grad program and no longer having class has that effect. But, I’m feeling it. School feels overwhelming though I feel more on top of instruction than ever. I return from Boston the night before we start testing. I can feel the ire toward state testing bubbling up in my heart - that I want my grandma to be okay for much longer, partially because leaving school at year end to deal with what the fallen earth throws at me is hectic and impossible. It’s hard enough dealing with grief without the thankless and unforgiving struggle of working as a public school teacher. There is pressure from every direction, and duty wrapped up in many of those. Testing means nothing to what I teach, but it feels as if the whole earth stops rotating for testing - and I feel like a person who has been robbed - I feel like testing has stolen from me, and I’m powerless to stop the theft.
All of these pressures and busyness remind me what I really want - I really want more time at home. I feel like I have no time to make my house a home and to enjoy the fruit of my labor. Today, I wrote in my bullet journal that it’s not the job I work so much as it’s the freedom a job would offer. I want to be at home more, but I don’t want to sacrifice serving at church. That feels like my current option. I enjoy working with the kids at my school - I enjoy working with people in general. But I am over the systems in place and the workload and the legalism of American education - and it keeps taking. Legislators keep taking and entitled people keep taking and county ideas and initiatives keep taking. I have run out of life’s blood to give. I’m nearing the end, which is a shame because I work hard to have positive relationships with people I work with and for. The standard I am held to while at the same time the treatment we teachers receive, means that the cons are truly beginning to outweigh the pros. I hate it though - most of the teachers I work with are selfless individuals - what other industry will I find coworkers like that? Many of them ARE my family. I am struggling to make a decision because of the family I leave. Time is ticking though.
And then there is life before me. My grandmother is ailing - the one who took care of me and my brother while my mom managed her currency exchange part-time. She’s the one who was the boss of the applesauce in the States for her nieces and nephews. She was Hispanic Woman of the Year in Chicago one year. My heart is just plain sad. She jokes about being ready - and I have to say, I am not. A lot of times in my life, I simply don’t feel ready - and for this time of life, I am the very most not. I’m not ready to shift generations - the loss of one and the continual growth of the next. I’m not ready to lose the Queen Mother, and I am begging the Lord to have mercy on me. I longed for my mom’s mom to be at my wedding one day, but losing this hope feels particularly hard amidst all the other painful adjustments. I have mourned life being radically different than what I hoped for before, but not with such immense sadness. My mom’s family has endured so much, and it feels a little impossible to believe that we must endure more. My great hope is the comfort of Jesus - that our mutual faith in Christ means that goodbye is not forever. But I reiterate - I am not ready. And I don’t know what to do with that besides weep every day that I need to. I’m reminded to love my people well through all of this - what our energy should be spent on. I can tell you, it isn’t anger. But what I wouldn’t give for a little more time - a little bit longer.
Thursday, April 4, 2019
Sunday, March 24, 2019
Dying to Hopelessness
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.
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.
Saturday, January 19, 2019
Girl, Plant Your Face
It's a rare thing that I miss work (please don't think it noble - it is so much work to lesson plan when away that it's easier to show up even while mildly sick), but for a conference with some incredible Bible teachers, I didn't hesitate nor hem nor haw about burning my last two personal days on sitting under teaching that I knew would help my weak understanding of things. What was fantastic about this conference was being with my church family as well. A massive group of members from my church attended - not even at the behest of the church itself but simply because we are people who want to hear God's word and God's word preached.
I wanted to distill some of the things I came away with in my heart and share those things because I think they may be of value to other women interested in going deeper in God's word. These are my own feelings, so please do not feel pressure that I feel if it is not for you. But I want to share just the same.
1) Women have a great responsibility to the Church for the Gospel of Christ - this has a vast many contexts not limited to wife and mother. I hope other single women like me hear that - you may have many roles, but the greatest defining characteristic is not what you do or who you are to others but Whom you have been called to worship. Women can and do evangelize other women, and they should. Women can and do teach other women, and they ought. I love what Dr. Paul Washer said this weekend - that women could arguably be the most unreached people group - SO MANY are illiterate. Those women cannot read the word for themselves, and the implications of that for future generations are huge. Envision women empowered to read God's word and teach those under their care - children, family members, students, etc. There is so much that a woman can do that has gotten lost in the discussion of what little the Bible says they can't. I was reminded of God's provision for women, as leaders in their own lives, when He tells the Hebrew people that a father's inheritance should not be entailed away on account that he has no sons. That is RADICAL considering the things we women read in 18th and 19th century European literature. God has given us serious duty to uphold His word in the Church, care for, support, and minister those whom God has given us, and walk according to a way that honors Him. And I say all this with the deep conviction of my own sin weighing heavily on me that I have not been diligent in fulfilling my duty of others first in my own heart. There is so much we can do!
2) One of the great and awesome privileges that women can undertake that, to my mind, is neglected in this instant gratification world, is interceding for churches to be planted in the mission field. The theme of this year's G3 conference was missions. So often we again are consumed with what we cannot do, that we neglect the mighty thing we can: pray. We can pray. God was laying this on my heart over and over again this weekend as time well-spent for missions. As a woman, I will never plant a church - and I'm relieved, honestly. But I felt the great need for intercessors to pray for men who will - that God raises them up and that He keeps them honorable in their endeavors. In my overactivity on social media, I'm privy to the near incessant charges leveled at abusive pastors, which ARE serious, but also the minor gripes of people expecting perfection of mortal men. What amazes me about the current church climate in America are two issues: 1) that there is an absurd elevation of teachers we run to idolize and 2) that the vilification of men with minor/correctable failings is completely acceptable. Before we make another post, another comment, another blog post, another proclamation in this belabored public square called social media, let us stop and PRAY for these teachers - for real - for the one that has abused and shown himself/herself our enemy (because we are commanded to do so), for the one that blew us off and hurt our feelings inadvertently or in a moment of human weakness. I am GUILTY, especially when it is a teacher who has fallen into people-pleasing. But I'll tell you, the times where I stopped to pray and rethought a post or comment - I realized that adding to the online conversation would not do nearly so much as praying to the Lord would. I am a work in progress in this regard, but God will teach me to be quiet yet - may it be before I need to repent of something worse.
3) Women need quality theological teaching as much as men. AS MUCH AS. You may not think it's for you as a woman, but, WOMAN, it IS for you. The relational depth that we long for is only satisfied in a relationship with Christ - you will find that a good theology satisfies your longing heart that aches for MORE. While I don't talk to many women on the subject, my guess is that my own sense of longing for MORE love and deep relationship is not isolated to me. Though not married myself, I know enough to fear the expectations that my woman's heart can come up with for an imaginary man - He may love like Christ, but He isn't Christ. The sooner we see that our earthly love, while a precious gift and sanctifying mercy to us, is NOT enough and that we require more, we'll be in a place to seek what lies in the deep ocean of God's character. Good theology is not boring technicalities of God's Word - it feels like riches you have discovered; it will kindle your excitement for Whom God is, for what He has done, for what He will do, for the great hope we look forward to, I'm convinced of its curative properties - that plumbing the depths and breadths of God's Word can resolve depressions and anxieties, can replace deep grief with lasting comfort, and can enable us to BEST serve the Church and the lost. It can sustain a waning passion, and we find that it provides us the fuel for sustained joy. I cannot think how many times, in the midst of a heavy or exhausted heart that God reminds me of what I've read or studied or reminds me to rejoice in all that He had given me or done, and the more that women are in the Word of God and study it, the more frequent the rehearsal of what is good over what is fallen.
4) Submitting to God is not independent from submitting to a local church body for leadership. Submission still seems to be such a controversial subject for something to clearly laid out in Scripture. But as I see more and more women emboldened, there is this concerning, sour-tasting uncorrectable nature to this boldness. I surmise this is attributable to women constantly being told to do things that are by nature superfluous and extra-biblical, but just because we may have felt condemned does not mean we ought not be corrected. We have to sit under leadership - and for those of us where Christianity is freely proclaimed, it is possible to find excellent teachers. If you're single like myself, you have the exceptional luxury of choosing on your own. In either case, submitting to church leadership is an issue of obedience - and if you aren't in that position, you will not be nearly as effectual for Christ. God reined me in when I was drowning without a church family after college. He led me to a bible-believing church, and even just this year showed me my issues with submission to Him. That would not have happened without the near constant influence of the teaching and encouragement of my church. If you don't know what's good for you, submitting to a local body is such a joy - I feel like I have a true family alongside me. While we sometimes... oftentimes... fear that word submission, there is JOY found in the prospect and, quite paradoxically, abundant freedom.
I titled this post the way that I did because it is not about how God will elevate us, but how He magnifies and glorifies Himself through us. A worldly interpretation of that statement would say that doesn't seem like our best life. How wrong though, for it is the VERY BEST - it's what we're built and made for. The sooner we start operating in that "what we're made for" life, it will become abundantly clear what is the better life to lead. So girl, plant your face - in God's Word for wisdom and knowledge and on the floor, praying in humility and dependence.
I wanted to distill some of the things I came away with in my heart and share those things because I think they may be of value to other women interested in going deeper in God's word. These are my own feelings, so please do not feel pressure that I feel if it is not for you. But I want to share just the same.
1) Women have a great responsibility to the Church for the Gospel of Christ - this has a vast many contexts not limited to wife and mother. I hope other single women like me hear that - you may have many roles, but the greatest defining characteristic is not what you do or who you are to others but Whom you have been called to worship. Women can and do evangelize other women, and they should. Women can and do teach other women, and they ought. I love what Dr. Paul Washer said this weekend - that women could arguably be the most unreached people group - SO MANY are illiterate. Those women cannot read the word for themselves, and the implications of that for future generations are huge. Envision women empowered to read God's word and teach those under their care - children, family members, students, etc. There is so much that a woman can do that has gotten lost in the discussion of what little the Bible says they can't. I was reminded of God's provision for women, as leaders in their own lives, when He tells the Hebrew people that a father's inheritance should not be entailed away on account that he has no sons. That is RADICAL considering the things we women read in 18th and 19th century European literature. God has given us serious duty to uphold His word in the Church, care for, support, and minister those whom God has given us, and walk according to a way that honors Him. And I say all this with the deep conviction of my own sin weighing heavily on me that I have not been diligent in fulfilling my duty of others first in my own heart. There is so much we can do!
2) One of the great and awesome privileges that women can undertake that, to my mind, is neglected in this instant gratification world, is interceding for churches to be planted in the mission field. The theme of this year's G3 conference was missions. So often we again are consumed with what we cannot do, that we neglect the mighty thing we can: pray. We can pray. God was laying this on my heart over and over again this weekend as time well-spent for missions. As a woman, I will never plant a church - and I'm relieved, honestly. But I felt the great need for intercessors to pray for men who will - that God raises them up and that He keeps them honorable in their endeavors. In my overactivity on social media, I'm privy to the near incessant charges leveled at abusive pastors, which ARE serious, but also the minor gripes of people expecting perfection of mortal men. What amazes me about the current church climate in America are two issues: 1) that there is an absurd elevation of teachers we run to idolize and 2) that the vilification of men with minor/correctable failings is completely acceptable. Before we make another post, another comment, another blog post, another proclamation in this belabored public square called social media, let us stop and PRAY for these teachers - for real - for the one that has abused and shown himself/herself our enemy (because we are commanded to do so), for the one that blew us off and hurt our feelings inadvertently or in a moment of human weakness. I am GUILTY, especially when it is a teacher who has fallen into people-pleasing. But I'll tell you, the times where I stopped to pray and rethought a post or comment - I realized that adding to the online conversation would not do nearly so much as praying to the Lord would. I am a work in progress in this regard, but God will teach me to be quiet yet - may it be before I need to repent of something worse.
3) Women need quality theological teaching as much as men. AS MUCH AS. You may not think it's for you as a woman, but, WOMAN, it IS for you. The relational depth that we long for is only satisfied in a relationship with Christ - you will find that a good theology satisfies your longing heart that aches for MORE. While I don't talk to many women on the subject, my guess is that my own sense of longing for MORE love and deep relationship is not isolated to me. Though not married myself, I know enough to fear the expectations that my woman's heart can come up with for an imaginary man - He may love like Christ, but He isn't Christ. The sooner we see that our earthly love, while a precious gift and sanctifying mercy to us, is NOT enough and that we require more, we'll be in a place to seek what lies in the deep ocean of God's character. Good theology is not boring technicalities of God's Word - it feels like riches you have discovered; it will kindle your excitement for Whom God is, for what He has done, for what He will do, for the great hope we look forward to, I'm convinced of its curative properties - that plumbing the depths and breadths of God's Word can resolve depressions and anxieties, can replace deep grief with lasting comfort, and can enable us to BEST serve the Church and the lost. It can sustain a waning passion, and we find that it provides us the fuel for sustained joy. I cannot think how many times, in the midst of a heavy or exhausted heart that God reminds me of what I've read or studied or reminds me to rejoice in all that He had given me or done, and the more that women are in the Word of God and study it, the more frequent the rehearsal of what is good over what is fallen.
4) Submitting to God is not independent from submitting to a local church body for leadership. Submission still seems to be such a controversial subject for something to clearly laid out in Scripture. But as I see more and more women emboldened, there is this concerning, sour-tasting uncorrectable nature to this boldness. I surmise this is attributable to women constantly being told to do things that are by nature superfluous and extra-biblical, but just because we may have felt condemned does not mean we ought not be corrected. We have to sit under leadership - and for those of us where Christianity is freely proclaimed, it is possible to find excellent teachers. If you're single like myself, you have the exceptional luxury of choosing on your own. In either case, submitting to church leadership is an issue of obedience - and if you aren't in that position, you will not be nearly as effectual for Christ. God reined me in when I was drowning without a church family after college. He led me to a bible-believing church, and even just this year showed me my issues with submission to Him. That would not have happened without the near constant influence of the teaching and encouragement of my church. If you don't know what's good for you, submitting to a local body is such a joy - I feel like I have a true family alongside me. While we sometimes... oftentimes... fear that word submission, there is JOY found in the prospect and, quite paradoxically, abundant freedom.
I titled this post the way that I did because it is not about how God will elevate us, but how He magnifies and glorifies Himself through us. A worldly interpretation of that statement would say that doesn't seem like our best life. How wrong though, for it is the VERY BEST - it's what we're built and made for. The sooner we start operating in that "what we're made for" life, it will become abundantly clear what is the better life to lead. So girl, plant your face - in God's Word for wisdom and knowledge and on the floor, praying in humility and dependence.
Thursday, June 21, 2018
When the Head meets the Heart...
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.
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.
Sunday, June 17, 2018
The Sinister Selfishness of Depression: What God Is Teaching Me
I want to preface this post with a caveat: this is what God is teaching ME about MY depressive state and moods. Depression is complex in that it can be brought on from many sources and not usually just one. That being said, I am sharing what I am being convicted of in the hopes that someone in my similar position may find hope and freedom. I pray against anyone who may feel condemnation because that is not what God has for anyone who is in Christ Jesus.
I have been working through depression lately because life is just not what I hoped for. Add to this that I don't know what I hoped life would be, so there is this often despairing feeling I find myself deep in. It is a real feeling and real tears have been cried in earnest.
But God convicted me of something even this week about it. Depression is making me ineffectual as a believer, as a friend, as a person. That is exactly what Satan wants. Rather than fighting it, I just keep talking about depression. I think most of us have heard the term "broken record" - the broken for me is sure there. Just like music lyrics, just like a phone number I rehearse, just like anything I practice, I become good at being and talking about depression. Constantly. And I'm tired of being good at it and tired of talking about it because my life is not depression. My life is Erin and it is hidden in Christ, in the folds of mercy, redeemed forever, sanctified daily. It is not perpetual grief about what life looks like now nor the real hurts of the past and present. Depression is not my life. I need to stop rehearsing it over and over, bringing it up over and over.
I need to breathe that God is on His throne and that I have good works stored up for me to do. So long as I continue in a pattern of focus on what my life is and isn't, constantly refocusing on that, I will never be of use to anyone, not even myself. And that is exactly what Satan wants. If there is anything I do not want for my life, it is his victory over my ineffectual wallowing. God has put it in me to fight it - to fight for joy in my life and to stick it to an enemy that will stop at NOTHING to kill, steal, and destroy the good God has allowed me to have. I won't be an easy conquest in self-pity and demotivation. I will not be lifeless on the front of great need before me because I'm consumed with inadequacy. I refuse to let depression just happen and not confront it with REALITY. The truth is, every minute I focus on what I am not, what I have not, what I have lost, the trouble I have found, what I regret, what I wish, is a minute I don't focus on loving someone else who needs it. It is a minute I don't spend on checking up on a friend. It is a minute I don't spend calling a family member. It is a minute ineffectual. It's even a minute I didn't use to solve my own problem.
Well, people, I am done. I'm done with bad minutes. I'm done with the perpetual grief. I know that life comes in seasons, some long, some short, some exquisite, some excruciating, some quiet, some loud. I can survive them because God is vastly bigger than seasons, never-changing, ever present, always glorious, unceasingly gracious. I can do it. I am still mopping up the mess in my mind - the plans, the hopes, the hurts, but I am done with the constant cloud - the dreading of the coming day - the frustration with my faults. I was reminded today that I can plan all that I want, but anything undertaken without God's counsel, without His consideration is total vanity. He must be my first consultation and my ultimate consolation as I walk this daily life. I am exchanging Jesus daily for depression, constantly reminded that I must start my day with the Lord, learning (reading the Bible) and dependent upon Him (praying), acknowledging that without anything else, I fall prey to myself. That's the only way I'm going to get through it or accomplish anything because that is how much integrity I lack in following through on my own plans. And I am done with the hopelessness and embracing the authority God has given me in Christ.
This has been a process and it is by no means complete. But I want to share some transitional steps that have helped me arrive at the place where God is helping me see great, dramatic victory over my tendency to be ruled by my emotions:
1. The change started with thankfulness. When I started to go on a downward spiral, I began to work on thanking God for every big and small blessing in my life - those things I take for granted as an American in the most comfortable place on earth: hot water, a running car, the availability of groceries, the luxury of entertainment, air conditioning! It may seem stupid, but it puts what life looks like for the rest of the world vs mine in great perspective and helps to shut up the complaining of my heart over what is truly minor.
2. Crying when I gotta cry. There are zero points for being stoic. None. I can attest that for every tear I held back as a child, I cried three fold in my twenties and continue to. I do it before the Lord and I let it happen. And then I work it out in prayer to get to a point of peace. I don't let it stay there. I get reconciled in my heart and I move forward what I can do.
3. I stopped running. I left my over-planning and I started just doing one thing to make something done - one phone call, one load of laundry, one room, one dish! The power of one has helped me get out of the all or nothing funk and I can enjoy small movements in the right direction. The "power of process" when I want to have it ALL finished is what I am working to embrace more of now. God is helping me to see that tiny steps of progress toward a task outweigh all-or-nothing hopes that overwhelm me into inaction. Slowing my thoughts to daily, small things that lead to big process is HARD for me. But what's harder is the drift in life to where things get so out of control and coming to terms without how it got there. I am like a child in this phase, but I can recognize this as my greatest area of weakness and God's mercy is overwhelming me with patience for myself and willingness to fight my penchant for 100% perfection in theory over 90% completion in actuality. Overcoming lingering depression is so key to this fight because my emotions are so powerful over my pragmatic living - meaning, if I don't "feel" something, I struggle greatly in "making myself" do it. I don't want this. I want to master those emotions and push through. And that is why the power of one effort means so much to me - it means that I CAN fight - small, but mighty in the face of a negative mindset.
My prayer in sharing all of this is that it might give some inspiration to those with similar struggles. I have come to find that for myself, my emotions have way too much authority over my effectiveness. Until I master them, they master me. I want to have more integrity with myself than letting myself plan and fail. But for that, I have to fight. Now's the time.
I have been working through depression lately because life is just not what I hoped for. Add to this that I don't know what I hoped life would be, so there is this often despairing feeling I find myself deep in. It is a real feeling and real tears have been cried in earnest.
But God convicted me of something even this week about it. Depression is making me ineffectual as a believer, as a friend, as a person. That is exactly what Satan wants. Rather than fighting it, I just keep talking about depression. I think most of us have heard the term "broken record" - the broken for me is sure there. Just like music lyrics, just like a phone number I rehearse, just like anything I practice, I become good at being and talking about depression. Constantly. And I'm tired of being good at it and tired of talking about it because my life is not depression. My life is Erin and it is hidden in Christ, in the folds of mercy, redeemed forever, sanctified daily. It is not perpetual grief about what life looks like now nor the real hurts of the past and present. Depression is not my life. I need to stop rehearsing it over and over, bringing it up over and over.
I need to breathe that God is on His throne and that I have good works stored up for me to do. So long as I continue in a pattern of focus on what my life is and isn't, constantly refocusing on that, I will never be of use to anyone, not even myself. And that is exactly what Satan wants. If there is anything I do not want for my life, it is his victory over my ineffectual wallowing. God has put it in me to fight it - to fight for joy in my life and to stick it to an enemy that will stop at NOTHING to kill, steal, and destroy the good God has allowed me to have. I won't be an easy conquest in self-pity and demotivation. I will not be lifeless on the front of great need before me because I'm consumed with inadequacy. I refuse to let depression just happen and not confront it with REALITY. The truth is, every minute I focus on what I am not, what I have not, what I have lost, the trouble I have found, what I regret, what I wish, is a minute I don't focus on loving someone else who needs it. It is a minute I don't spend on checking up on a friend. It is a minute I don't spend calling a family member. It is a minute ineffectual. It's even a minute I didn't use to solve my own problem.
Well, people, I am done. I'm done with bad minutes. I'm done with the perpetual grief. I know that life comes in seasons, some long, some short, some exquisite, some excruciating, some quiet, some loud. I can survive them because God is vastly bigger than seasons, never-changing, ever present, always glorious, unceasingly gracious. I can do it. I am still mopping up the mess in my mind - the plans, the hopes, the hurts, but I am done with the constant cloud - the dreading of the coming day - the frustration with my faults. I was reminded today that I can plan all that I want, but anything undertaken without God's counsel, without His consideration is total vanity. He must be my first consultation and my ultimate consolation as I walk this daily life. I am exchanging Jesus daily for depression, constantly reminded that I must start my day with the Lord, learning (reading the Bible) and dependent upon Him (praying), acknowledging that without anything else, I fall prey to myself. That's the only way I'm going to get through it or accomplish anything because that is how much integrity I lack in following through on my own plans. And I am done with the hopelessness and embracing the authority God has given me in Christ.
This has been a process and it is by no means complete. But I want to share some transitional steps that have helped me arrive at the place where God is helping me see great, dramatic victory over my tendency to be ruled by my emotions:
1. The change started with thankfulness. When I started to go on a downward spiral, I began to work on thanking God for every big and small blessing in my life - those things I take for granted as an American in the most comfortable place on earth: hot water, a running car, the availability of groceries, the luxury of entertainment, air conditioning! It may seem stupid, but it puts what life looks like for the rest of the world vs mine in great perspective and helps to shut up the complaining of my heart over what is truly minor.
2. Crying when I gotta cry. There are zero points for being stoic. None. I can attest that for every tear I held back as a child, I cried three fold in my twenties and continue to. I do it before the Lord and I let it happen. And then I work it out in prayer to get to a point of peace. I don't let it stay there. I get reconciled in my heart and I move forward what I can do.
3. I stopped running. I left my over-planning and I started just doing one thing to make something done - one phone call, one load of laundry, one room, one dish! The power of one has helped me get out of the all or nothing funk and I can enjoy small movements in the right direction. The "power of process" when I want to have it ALL finished is what I am working to embrace more of now. God is helping me to see that tiny steps of progress toward a task outweigh all-or-nothing hopes that overwhelm me into inaction. Slowing my thoughts to daily, small things that lead to big process is HARD for me. But what's harder is the drift in life to where things get so out of control and coming to terms without how it got there. I am like a child in this phase, but I can recognize this as my greatest area of weakness and God's mercy is overwhelming me with patience for myself and willingness to fight my penchant for 100% perfection in theory over 90% completion in actuality. Overcoming lingering depression is so key to this fight because my emotions are so powerful over my pragmatic living - meaning, if I don't "feel" something, I struggle greatly in "making myself" do it. I don't want this. I want to master those emotions and push through. And that is why the power of one effort means so much to me - it means that I CAN fight - small, but mighty in the face of a negative mindset.
My prayer in sharing all of this is that it might give some inspiration to those with similar struggles. I have come to find that for myself, my emotions have way too much authority over my effectiveness. Until I master them, they master me. I want to have more integrity with myself than letting myself plan and fail. But for that, I have to fight. Now's the time.
Friday, June 15, 2018
Does Everyone Have a Dream?
What is your dream?
I don't know what mine is. I am quite stuck. Thankfully, serving in church helps me love on others to glorious distraction, but frankly, I cannot conceive of what my dream is or was. My parents would tell you I wanted to be everything under the sun. I loved learning and school up until 8th grade when academia had finally burned me. But amidst all of the learning, I cannot drudge it up. Practicality has virtually neutered my creativity, and my penchant for the creative has killed my motivation to embrace complete practicality. I feel like a living paradox. And it really grieves me as I drift further into a career of public service that feels like it's out to crush both me and those whom I serve. I can't keep living like this.
I also feel as though I can talk myself out of every idea. Making sure I'm not in love with a romanticized notion of something is very hard to sift through - do I like ALL of the idea or just my imagined story of what I think it will be? I have some of the entrepreneurial spirit of my maternal grandmother in thinking big and even taking steps but the hesitative caution of my dad in knowing exactly how good I am at failing and the unpredictability of life. I am at a loss.
I have little, small goals. But I find without a big dream in the long run, I have no drive. I was not like this as a child - I was not so heartsick and sad. What takes the light out of us? I'm desperately trying to answer this question for me. I think I'll heal if I do and find the drive that was lost to me.
I don't know what mine is. I am quite stuck. Thankfully, serving in church helps me love on others to glorious distraction, but frankly, I cannot conceive of what my dream is or was. My parents would tell you I wanted to be everything under the sun. I loved learning and school up until 8th grade when academia had finally burned me. But amidst all of the learning, I cannot drudge it up. Practicality has virtually neutered my creativity, and my penchant for the creative has killed my motivation to embrace complete practicality. I feel like a living paradox. And it really grieves me as I drift further into a career of public service that feels like it's out to crush both me and those whom I serve. I can't keep living like this.
I also feel as though I can talk myself out of every idea. Making sure I'm not in love with a romanticized notion of something is very hard to sift through - do I like ALL of the idea or just my imagined story of what I think it will be? I have some of the entrepreneurial spirit of my maternal grandmother in thinking big and even taking steps but the hesitative caution of my dad in knowing exactly how good I am at failing and the unpredictability of life. I am at a loss.
I have little, small goals. But I find without a big dream in the long run, I have no drive. I was not like this as a child - I was not so heartsick and sad. What takes the light out of us? I'm desperately trying to answer this question for me. I think I'll heal if I do and find the drive that was lost to me.
Tuesday, February 13, 2018
The Better Friend
I struggle with balancing the scale in my life. I'm not speaking of balancing work and home life, but balancing the actions of others and my own response. We could boil it down and give it some cheap name like "tit for tat," but to simplify it like that is to be dismissive of the enormous amount of emotional math my brain goes through to reconcile things. It is mental and emotional exercise to reconcile things that happen, things that happen to me, my emotions, and my response to anything based on those emotions - the most complicated math always involves people.
In my quest for maintaining equal in my head, I often lose my heart in the mental math of things that happen. It is hard for me to function when things are unequal in my perception, which is why I try to balance the scale... which is why I struggle to push my heart into a disadvantage - to where I'm willingly in pain for the sake of other(s). I'm finding that God is shoving me out of my attempts to balance things.
I feel grief keenly - it just doesn't leave me - and I'm actively trying to embrace grief as a rather incessant reality and find Jesus and joy in it. It is hard to field the notion that your sorrows won't be resolved this side of the cross - that there are irrevocable actions here on earth. I practice reassurance with my students and with people who are prone to panic that "it is fixable" - that is a mostly-true statement in the reality where and when I live; most things are fixable. But we all wade into the deep end sometimes and lose precious things to the sea. I have lost some precious things and figuring out how to live with that without really losing myself to the sadness is work that my heart is navigating constantly.
I truly believe that God has given me insight and discernment through this in pushing through hardship - knowing what hardship really means. Consequently, I am facing what it really means to love when life becomes adversarial - when we become adversarial people. What does it really mean to bear with one another? What does it really mean to love your enemy? Or someone who became your enemy? What does it mean to forgive really? What does it mean to forgive selfishness? What does it mean to forgive deception? Dishonesty? Disloyalty? Adultery? Theft? Ridicule? Rejection? Pride? Anger?
I mean, if I believe this stuff that Jesus says - that I am to obey what He tells me to do, love others more than myself - I have massive amounts of self to die to... it means I knowingly allow myself to endure pain for the chief end of demonstrating I believe what I say - that I am to live the Gospel out for others so they might know it too. Others suffer in prisons and forgive, I probably should have the fortitude of the Holy Spirit to endure those things that don't threaten my physical being. That's not to say that it's easy, but I live in a land where leaving any commitment, a promise, a marriage, a bond is more convenient than ever. Removing yourself from any circumstance in America, in my American culture, is more a matter of mind than, well, matter. It's a hard decision sure, but most often, we have the means to make it happen and the means to minimize our pain in doing so.
But is this giving up? I ask myself this constantly. If a situation is terribly abusive, likely not. But that's not what I mean. Surely parents know well what "not giving up" is. They know that you don't give up on your kids - you stop enabling, you stop coddling, but you don't ever give up - that love is too on fire, too strong to give up on your child. Isn't that what God the Father lives? He is the longest suffering of any of us. If I have any goodness, God's own goodness is unfathomably greater than mine. If I have love for someone, God's love is immeasurably deeper than mine. What does that say of Christ then? Of what He did for His brothers and sisters, His earthly father, His earthly mother? And if I am called to be like Him? As He forgives each who left him to bear the cross to the point of crucifixion without solace? As He, who has done no wrong, dying for those who will glory in wrongdoing until God continually sanctifies them?
Surely then, the chasm between me and those who have sinned against me is a might smaller than the chasm that once stood between me and God. Greater were my offenses against Holy God than those who did offend me from where I stood. Yet He continually teaches me kindly, not with the punishment I am surely due (for certainly, we have ALL felt anger against those whom we have born, helped, nurtured, when they turn their weapons of sin on us). In light of what I know, I have immense pressure to let my love overlook sin, even unacknowledged sin, and be kind and loving in any rebuke I undertake to give. I'm hard-pressed to caption any betrayal or lie perpetrated against me as worse than what I am guilty of toward the Lord.
I'm being reminded over and over again, through tears, through ache, to call upon the Lord to do what I cannot and be whom He always is: be The Better Friend. Do I really love my friends? Do I really love my family? Do I really love those who position themselves as enemies against me and mine? Do I really mean it? It is the worst struggle - the lack of reciprocation - that my brain mathematically contends with on the human level. But within the context of God's scale to mine, there will never be reciprocation for the Lord; He is my beginning and my end. My debt can only grow because God is the source of any good I do. He must be both Author and Perfecter, I do nothing of my own good-making.
So lately, all of the impossible that I feel led to:
Ask for forgiveness though my offense may not be "greater" so that my pride continues to die; be the first to forgive; be fast to forgive; be patient if my forgiveness isn't asked (as God does His work and patiently waits for us); be the mature believer, reserving anger for appropriate times and seeing God's work as paced differently in the lives of others, even though I may be wounded in the waiting; trust God to work in those whom He has called at the speed which pleases Him; be the mature believer who does not take offense deeply into heart but patiently waits in kindness to offer grace and speak truth in love; give thanks for all the good I still have in this life; always be willing to hear my offender if they reach out as a check on my hardness of heart and self-righteous pride; be quick to listen; resist the evil one who thrives on suspicion, lies, deception, and pride; fight for peace and unity without compromising truth nor conviction; acknowledge the Lord in all my ways; allow others to lean into and lean on me; be a minister of reconciliation.
As Christ must increase, I must decrease. My grief may never be truly acknowledged, past, present, future, but still He bids me: be the better friend. Though it cost me much and I do it with tears, may I obey with joy.
I feel grief keenly - it just doesn't leave me - and I'm actively trying to embrace grief as a rather incessant reality and find Jesus and joy in it. It is hard to field the notion that your sorrows won't be resolved this side of the cross - that there are irrevocable actions here on earth. I practice reassurance with my students and with people who are prone to panic that "it is fixable" - that is a mostly-true statement in the reality where and when I live; most things are fixable. But we all wade into the deep end sometimes and lose precious things to the sea. I have lost some precious things and figuring out how to live with that without really losing myself to the sadness is work that my heart is navigating constantly.
I truly believe that God has given me insight and discernment through this in pushing through hardship - knowing what hardship really means. Consequently, I am facing what it really means to love when life becomes adversarial - when we become adversarial people. What does it really mean to bear with one another? What does it really mean to love your enemy? Or someone who became your enemy? What does it mean to forgive really? What does it mean to forgive selfishness? What does it mean to forgive deception? Dishonesty? Disloyalty? Adultery? Theft? Ridicule? Rejection? Pride? Anger?
I mean, if I believe this stuff that Jesus says - that I am to obey what He tells me to do, love others more than myself - I have massive amounts of self to die to... it means I knowingly allow myself to endure pain for the chief end of demonstrating I believe what I say - that I am to live the Gospel out for others so they might know it too. Others suffer in prisons and forgive, I probably should have the fortitude of the Holy Spirit to endure those things that don't threaten my physical being. That's not to say that it's easy, but I live in a land where leaving any commitment, a promise, a marriage, a bond is more convenient than ever. Removing yourself from any circumstance in America, in my American culture, is more a matter of mind than, well, matter. It's a hard decision sure, but most often, we have the means to make it happen and the means to minimize our pain in doing so.
But is this giving up? I ask myself this constantly. If a situation is terribly abusive, likely not. But that's not what I mean. Surely parents know well what "not giving up" is. They know that you don't give up on your kids - you stop enabling, you stop coddling, but you don't ever give up - that love is too on fire, too strong to give up on your child. Isn't that what God the Father lives? He is the longest suffering of any of us. If I have any goodness, God's own goodness is unfathomably greater than mine. If I have love for someone, God's love is immeasurably deeper than mine. What does that say of Christ then? Of what He did for His brothers and sisters, His earthly father, His earthly mother? And if I am called to be like Him? As He forgives each who left him to bear the cross to the point of crucifixion without solace? As He, who has done no wrong, dying for those who will glory in wrongdoing until God continually sanctifies them?
Surely then, the chasm between me and those who have sinned against me is a might smaller than the chasm that once stood between me and God. Greater were my offenses against Holy God than those who did offend me from where I stood. Yet He continually teaches me kindly, not with the punishment I am surely due (for certainly, we have ALL felt anger against those whom we have born, helped, nurtured, when they turn their weapons of sin on us). In light of what I know, I have immense pressure to let my love overlook sin, even unacknowledged sin, and be kind and loving in any rebuke I undertake to give. I'm hard-pressed to caption any betrayal or lie perpetrated against me as worse than what I am guilty of toward the Lord.
I'm being reminded over and over again, through tears, through ache, to call upon the Lord to do what I cannot and be whom He always is: be The Better Friend. Do I really love my friends? Do I really love my family? Do I really love those who position themselves as enemies against me and mine? Do I really mean it? It is the worst struggle - the lack of reciprocation - that my brain mathematically contends with on the human level. But within the context of God's scale to mine, there will never be reciprocation for the Lord; He is my beginning and my end. My debt can only grow because God is the source of any good I do. He must be both Author and Perfecter, I do nothing of my own good-making.
So lately, all of the impossible that I feel led to:
Ask for forgiveness though my offense may not be "greater" so that my pride continues to die; be the first to forgive; be fast to forgive; be patient if my forgiveness isn't asked (as God does His work and patiently waits for us); be the mature believer, reserving anger for appropriate times and seeing God's work as paced differently in the lives of others, even though I may be wounded in the waiting; trust God to work in those whom He has called at the speed which pleases Him; be the mature believer who does not take offense deeply into heart but patiently waits in kindness to offer grace and speak truth in love; give thanks for all the good I still have in this life; always be willing to hear my offender if they reach out as a check on my hardness of heart and self-righteous pride; be quick to listen; resist the evil one who thrives on suspicion, lies, deception, and pride; fight for peace and unity without compromising truth nor conviction; acknowledge the Lord in all my ways; allow others to lean into and lean on me; be a minister of reconciliation.
As Christ must increase, I must decrease. My grief may never be truly acknowledged, past, present, future, but still He bids me: be the better friend. Though it cost me much and I do it with tears, may I obey with joy.
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