Questioning.
“Caela you know you don’t have to be positive all the time right? It’s okay to not be okay.”
Picture a deer in headlights. Now picture me, caught off guard and shaken, as that deer in headlights.
Questioning.
“Do you act positive to not rock the boat?”
These questions force my body into a nervous sweat, squirming as if I am under the beaming interrogation lights of a tensious police office. Feeling like I was facing charges for something I was completely unaware aided by the scary uncertainty of whether or not I was guilty, I was tossed into a sea of confusion.
Stopping me in my tracks and causing a dangerously rapid spiral of questioning one aspect of myself after another, these questions tormented my thoughts, striping any sense of self awareness I had. Similar to when a kid finds out Santa Claus isn’t real, I was led to question, has my whole life been a lie?
I questioned if I had been faking it the whole time. Have I been lying to myself, have I been lying to others? If this isn’t who I am, then who am I?
Dramatic, I know. But to give insight, I have always held comfort in being a naturally positive person. In fact, it’s what I am normally affirmed and complimented on in my personality and character. So feeling questioned on whether or not my positivity was genuine made me feel like the very ground I was standing on was shaking, no longer a solid foundation.
Further, to be honest, being positive is what I have grown to like about myself. I have become confident in who I am in this aspect, liking that I could be someone who chooses joy, someone who sees the glass half full, someone who encourages others and doesn’t let situations get the best of her.
Ever since joining the World Race, these very aspects of myself I have grown to be most comfortable and confident in have been questioned for the first time in my life. And like some sort of addict, I slipped into the first phase devastating stage of denial.
Next, I felt distrust and even dislike in my heart from being questioned. Disliking towards why someone would dare to question me, and distrust in feeling that these people tragically don’t understand me and that could be the only sensible explanation of how they could question my character.
After processing what was really going on and taking it to the Lord, I can assure you I have learned these are not healthy ways to respond to fair questioning and assessments by my peers, coming from a place of love.
I have learned loving someone well does include sometimes questioning the actual heart and intentions behind actions and words.
I have learned that reacting to situations with emotions is dangerous and unwise. I can’t choose what happens to me, but I surely can choose my emotions. Though emotions can be valid, it doesn’t mean that they are true.
I have learned that just because something is comfortable, normal, and routine for me doesn’t mean it’s right, true, and Christ like.
I must admit, this lesson did not come quick and easy. Many days were spent in insecurity of my actions, words, and heart, aspects I had never seriously questioned before. Suddenly I felt unsafe to speak and share the perspective I had always loved to give. And boy, did I dislike that feeling. And boy, could I not wait to feel like myself again and enjoy the pleasure of being comfortable in who I am.
The lesson learned here is not that it is wrong to be positive. In fact, many of my favorite scriptures are based around choosing joy, kind words, encouragement, and persevering in times of trials and tribulations. Those still remain true like they always will, something I treasure deeply about the sweet character of the Father that He models for us.
Instead, these questions led me in the direction of assessing where it is that my joy comes from. Does it come correctly from the Lord, a true source of joy and hope, acting as a light for others and the darkness, or was it stemming from my comfortability of relying on positivity to feel safe and alright? Was my desire of positivity sourced by my discomfort in conflict or voicing opinions rather than an outpour of the joy the Lord has so graciously given me?
Though I felt uncomfortable, confused, misunderstood and even sick to my stomach in insecurity at first, these questions now leave me with true confidence of knowing who I am in the Lord, a blessing that I had firstly mistaken for a curse. Exploring my actions and words that had simply become routine allowed me to reflect on both my own character as well as the character of the Lord.
It has been hard to learn that choosing joy sometimes comes off as incentive to others. It was hard to learn that though it is good to be positive, sometimes it can make others feel as though I am dismaying their emotions and reactions to situations, which is not loving people well. It has been hard to learn that sometimes my actions and words sound and look different than my pure intentions behind them, and that in those moments I still have to own up to the words and actions I used, understanding how they made another feel. It has been hard to learn that I may have to change the way I’m comfortable in behaving in order to ensure I am loving and serving others well and am genuinely modeling Christ through my actions.
I have been blessed to realize just how much power my words and attitude can have on others, though it may have seemed a burden at first. Because loving others well means loving them the way they need to be loved instead of the way I want to love them, I have learned that I need to choose to share my positivity in a way that is genuinely encouraging. I have learned it is important to ensure my source of joy is from the Lord and not out of a desire for comfort.
Overall, I am blessed to be brought on the World Race to be taken out of the countless levels of comfort I have known and clung to my entire life. It has been terrifying, emotional, and incredibly, enormously, and unmeasurably uncomfortable. Through his heavenly perspective, the Lord has shown me that being questioned and challenged allows me to know myself and the Lord better with greater confidence.
Just in the last few days, one of my leaders has let me look at his copy My Utmost for His Highest, a devotion by Oswald Chambers with 365 pages of deep, raw, truth. I highly recommend it, with a fair warning to be prepared to be shook and even wrecked in every page and paragraph. Today, my leader and friend told me that he had read the devotion for March 2nd this morning so I checked it out and was taken aback in awe and wonder.
The devotion referred to the passage in John 21 where Jesus asks Peter of his love for him. Through being asked, Peter realizes just how much his love for Jesus is, but he did not know it until the Lord asked these probing, hurting questions. Chambers then says that he himself experiences that the “Lord’s questions always reveal the true me to myself.”
Preach, Oswald. I can relate.
He continues to say that God never asks questions until the perfect time, while I had been thinking the questioning I was receiving was random and disrupting to my life, unwanted and unintentional. Boy was I wrong.
I end this long reflection with a thank you for reading, a hope that the Lord spoke to you, and with the words that ended the devotion for March 2nd.
He will back us into a corner where He will hurt us with His piercing questions. Then we will realize that we do love Him far more deeply than our words can ever say.
Written with thankfulness,
Caela Rose
