Warning… this is a long one. You might want to go get a cup of coffee or make a sandwich, and come back. Go ahead… We'll still be here when you get back.
Back? Ok good.
I was reading through my blogs a few days ago (I know there aren't that many yet but I really am trying to be more consistent!) and I realized that although I have mentioned that this past year has been hard, I am not sure that I have done it justice. Something that I am practicing right now is being completely honest about where I am at. I struggle with pride, and I tend to believe the lie that if I let people know how I am really doing, they will look down on me. What actually happens, I have learned, is that when I am vulnerable, it gives others a green light to be open and honest as well. And then we can work through our mess together. And then the world is lovely and happy. Ok maybe that is a little dreamer-like of me. But it is true that vulnerability begets vulnerability.
*Disclaimer. I do realize that I am writing about my life on a public forum that everyone in the world could see. I get that. there are parts of my life that I don't want to share with the entire world. But I do want to be as honest as possible here because I have seen the good that can come from reading about and jumping into others' struggles.
So this past year. It has been the hardest year of my life. I thought that eighth grade, with the whole losing all my friends and being teased every day, was hard. This last year has been so much harder, in a way I have never experienced before. Without telling you all the details (because that would literally take a week to write, and some of them are a little too private), I felt that God asked me to give up multiple things that I held very very tightly to. These were things that became my identity. Everything that I was, was because of how I viewed myself in relation to these things. And let me set the record straight. These were good things. Things I thought that the Lord given to me. And one by one, God asked me to give them up.
This put me into a downward spiral. I handled it ok the first time, and the second. But as it kept happening, as I watched everything I had clung to slip through my fingers, I found myself doubting the very essence of the God I love. I found myself questioning if God is actually good. And that is something I have never allowed myself to ask before. But I entered into a season that at different times found me sobbing on the floor in my room, turning to vices to forget the pain, and at other times pretending like everything was fine while I secretly just wanted to skip class and curl up in bed, which I did often. I was a mess. My safe and secure world was falling apart one piece after another, and I couldn't deal. So I questioned the essential goodness of my God.
I had to stop writing for a moment, because the tears were threatening to come and embarrass me at the coffee shop I am sitting in right now. The pain of that season is still so real to me. I am not completely out of it, and sometimes it hits me in fresh waves of grief. Just a week ago I found myself sobbing on the phone to my mom as one of those things showed up to haunt me again. One thing I have learned best from this season is how to grieve. I have had to grieve so many things in my life that have not gone the way that I planned, or that I have had to give up completely. I have learned to sit in my grief for as long as I need, and not try to rush it away. I don't wallow, but I don't pretend either.
I never doubted that God was real in this season. I always knew He was. But I doubted His love for me, which is just as bad. I doubted that He is a good Father. I would sit in worship services, because I knew that was what I needed, and weep, because I couldn't understand how the people around me could sing about a loving God.
God stripped me down to nothing. He essentially took away everything that made me me, except for my daughtership (is that a word? I just made it one). I had nothing left to make my identity other than being a child of God… which I wasn't sure I believed. So you can imagine that it was incredibly difficult.
Ok this has been crazy long. I promise that there is a good ending. But we'll save that for the next blog, because I don't want to be one of those people who glosses over the pain in order to pretend that everything is hunky dory. So here's the sad part. Trusting God to use it how He wants.
I'll leave you with a quote about Aslan, from the Chronicles of Narnia, that I think captures the view of God that I am starting to adopt.
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you."
Back? Ok good.
I was reading through my blogs a few days ago (I know there aren't that many yet but I really am trying to be more consistent!) and I realized that although I have mentioned that this past year has been hard, I am not sure that I have done it justice. Something that I am practicing right now is being completely honest about where I am at. I struggle with pride, and I tend to believe the lie that if I let people know how I am really doing, they will look down on me. What actually happens, I have learned, is that when I am vulnerable, it gives others a green light to be open and honest as well. And then we can work through our mess together. And then the world is lovely and happy. Ok maybe that is a little dreamer-like of me. But it is true that vulnerability begets vulnerability.
*Disclaimer. I do realize that I am writing about my life on a public forum that everyone in the world could see. I get that. there are parts of my life that I don't want to share with the entire world. But I do want to be as honest as possible here because I have seen the good that can come from reading about and jumping into others' struggles.
So this past year. It has been the hardest year of my life. I thought that eighth grade, with the whole losing all my friends and being teased every day, was hard. This last year has been so much harder, in a way I have never experienced before. Without telling you all the details (because that would literally take a week to write, and some of them are a little too private), I felt that God asked me to give up multiple things that I held very very tightly to. These were things that became my identity. Everything that I was, was because of how I viewed myself in relation to these things. And let me set the record straight. These were good things. Things I thought that the Lord given to me. And one by one, God asked me to give them up.
This put me into a downward spiral. I handled it ok the first time, and the second. But as it kept happening, as I watched everything I had clung to slip through my fingers, I found myself doubting the very essence of the God I love. I found myself questioning if God is actually good. And that is something I have never allowed myself to ask before. But I entered into a season that at different times found me sobbing on the floor in my room, turning to vices to forget the pain, and at other times pretending like everything was fine while I secretly just wanted to skip class and curl up in bed, which I did often. I was a mess. My safe and secure world was falling apart one piece after another, and I couldn't deal. So I questioned the essential goodness of my God.
I had to stop writing for a moment, because the tears were threatening to come and embarrass me at the coffee shop I am sitting in right now. The pain of that season is still so real to me. I am not completely out of it, and sometimes it hits me in fresh waves of grief. Just a week ago I found myself sobbing on the phone to my mom as one of those things showed up to haunt me again. One thing I have learned best from this season is how to grieve. I have had to grieve so many things in my life that have not gone the way that I planned, or that I have had to give up completely. I have learned to sit in my grief for as long as I need, and not try to rush it away. I don't wallow, but I don't pretend either.
I never doubted that God was real in this season. I always knew He was. But I doubted His love for me, which is just as bad. I doubted that He is a good Father. I would sit in worship services, because I knew that was what I needed, and weep, because I couldn't understand how the people around me could sing about a loving God.
God stripped me down to nothing. He essentially took away everything that made me me, except for my daughtership (is that a word? I just made it one). I had nothing left to make my identity other than being a child of God… which I wasn't sure I believed. So you can imagine that it was incredibly difficult.
Ok this has been crazy long. I promise that there is a good ending. But we'll save that for the next blog, because I don't want to be one of those people who glosses over the pain in order to pretend that everything is hunky dory. So here's the sad part. Trusting God to use it how He wants.
I'll leave you with a quote about Aslan, from the Chronicles of Narnia, that I think captures the view of God that I am starting to adopt.
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you."
Photo from theblaze.com
