By Sarah
Sitting here again feels strange. I feel "rusty" at this. My brain darts to and fro as I try to quiet it to create a concise message here; I'm far out of practice. But time to get back in shape, brain.
As I prepared to sit down and write this I was filled with anxiety "It's been so long. I just fell off last time. I'm just so inconsistent." But you know, none of that really matters. As Amy said in her post, we felt called to do this, to find our voice, to stumble our way through what we felt was a mutual calling and here we are again... and again and again, and I think that matters much more than all the failures.
Amy and I started
this blog in 2016 with so many goals. We planned to post weekly for a year to exercise what we felt was a calling. Shortly into this commitment - just a few, maybe only a couple of months - life got "busy" (as it always is) and rather than writing weekly, I missed a few weeks and quickly fell into a weekly habit of beating myself up rather than writing. Rather than spending the remainder of the year practicing writing, I spent the remainder of the year shaming myself for not meeting my commitments. This
shame seeped in to my relationship with Amy. I told myself she couldn't really
forgive me, she couldn't really be OK that I wasn't meeting these commitments
I'd made with her. And for a while I almost hid from the relationship, feeling
this shame every time I'd reach out or she would. I feared my shortcoming would be brought up and I'd be flooded with the shame, so I avoided situations where the topic would be discussed. Any time I just wanted to
talk with a good friend I had a hesitation because I hadn't written in months.
And then my wedding
happened.
In and amongst all
these shame fests, I processed getting engaged to my then long-time boyfriend.
Since we had been together so long we wanted to make it a short engagement. (Oh
how naïve we were…) About 2 months in to this planning I was still low-level
ridden with guilt about not blogging, but distracted by the monumental task I
had signed up for in planning a wedding - overseas - in 4 months. It was at
this time that Amy and I met up. She gave no slights about how long it had been
since I had written, there was no shaming at all, and instead she said the doors had been opened for her to
come to my wedding and she asked if there was anything she could do to help. I
can't tell you the relief I felt at this get-together. I was anticipating a
detailed review of my shortcomings - as I had regularly been subjecting myself
to - but instead she diverted the attention from my shortcomings and offered
her aid in a completely new area where I was clearly crippling under the weight
of this work too.
I am prone to
hyperbole, but it is not hyperbole to say Amy saved the day. She brought sanity
and organization and energy to my fatigued and overwhelmed mind. I
unfortunately lacked the decisiveness to hire a wedding planner and she came in
and stood in the gap - and it was quite a gulf of a gap. She showed such
incredible grace and friendship. So much about this reminds me of Jesus. I'm
busy listing off my shortcomings to Him while I think He's probably just trying
to break in and divert me in a new direction and help me get some stuff done in this short life.
After the wedding I
worried yet again that Amy would not like me -- this time not for the blog but
for all I had asked of her for the wedding. I was ashamed of what I felt was
taking such advantage of a friend, of demanding so much. I found myself wanting
to hide again. I wrote her a long obsequious thank you and would reach out occasionally to
see how she was, but I felt again and again, a voice, an inkling saying she
wanted nothing to do with me, I had been too selfish, too demanding, that I was
no longer deserving of her friendship; I had asked too much.
At some point Amy
told me her impression of my wedding, that she had had a wonderful time and
would do it all over again. And something finally changed… I believed her. I
believed she was actually my friend; I believed she had actually had a good
time on the planes, trains, and automobiles to my wedding; I believed it was
actually her pleasure to help; I believed she truly didn't hold it against me
that I fell off the blog bandwagon; I believed all her grace was real and I
could actually accept it.
I feel a little
awkward sharing all of this; it feels like I'm sharing my "crazy"
with the world, but I don't think I'm the only person who suffers from these
thought patterns and I write in case I'm not. I write to be honest and
vulnerable about the lies we hear that attempt to prevent us from living fully
- living abundantly. Lies that tell us we don't belong, we don't deserve, we're
unworthy and unlovable. I spend a lot of time fighting these thoughts - too
much time -- but I need to hear and hope some of you do too that they're flat
out wrong.
In the time between my last post and this - some 2-3 years - I've become a big fan of the writer and actor Lin-Manuel Miranda - creator of the Broadway musical Hamilton. He published a book of daily encouragements that he posted on Twitter. He describes this book as things he needed to hear himself that he wrote to everyone else. He has one daily poem that says
"Gmorning.
I don't know how to tell you this,
but
you're not perfect.
You never will be.
You keep growing and messing up
and learning,
and your quirks become strengths.
You are SO much better than
perfect, love."
I don't know Lin-Manuel Miranda's affiliation to God - if any - but I hear God in this, even if unintentional by LMM (my lazy shorthand). I think God sees us as so much better than perfect through His son and His love for us as His children. It has taken me - and still takes me - a long time to understand God's overwhelming love for us. I can't accept it often, only seeing my failures. I focus on my shortcoming and mistakes, diminishing anything going well or any gift from God to focus on what went wrong or where I can improve. And it may feel like we could always be doing something better, something more, but at our starting point, we are better than perfect in God's eyes. I think if I saw the success I am in God's eyes every day, that before I've done anything, before I've taken a step out my front door, before I've even opened my eye lids in the morning, I'm already perfect, I think I'd have so much more confidence to follow His callings.
To re-enter this blogging, I'm going to write a series of blogs on "speaking life" over situations to combat the lies we hear. I'm going to attempt to examine a healthy balance of criticism and appreciation. Like Lin-Manuel Miranda writing daily encouragements he needed to hear, I want to examine a critical mindset in the light of God's grace to examine the balance of critique and gratitude, because I desperately need to find it in order to hear and see truth. I hope this means something to you on the other side of this screen too.
I may not be the most structured in posting -- practicing Grace. I can't guarantee when I'll post, it certainly won't be an "on-the-dot" routine, but I'll share as soon as the thought is complete :)
Looking forward to speaking with y'all again. It's good to be back.
With love,
Sarah
