The month started with me crying in front of my team.
They were good tears that needed to come and they represented a breaking of pride in my heart. I wanted to be perfect in front of my team because I feared that if they could actually see who I am that they would be done with me and leave. My team had said many times that they want me to truly be myself but for the first time I was believing them. And so I cried. Over a silly conflict that had stressed me out. I did not plan on crying, the tears just came out. This began a month of finding some unexpected freedoms within my team and my own heart.
They were good tears that needed to come and they represented a breaking of pride in my heart. I wanted to be perfect in front of my team because I feared that if they could actually see who I am that they would be done with me and leave. My team had said many times that they want me to truly be myself but for the first time I was believing them. And so I cried. Over a silly conflict that had stressed me out. I did not plan on crying, the tears just came out. This began a month of finding some unexpected freedoms within my team and my own heart.
“Who am I?”
This phrase is written several times in my journal entries since the first of March. I think I have wandered around for most of my life being somebody…
-But who?-
Maybe I am just what everyone has expected me to be?
If someone thought I was good at being deep then I would ask all sorts of hard questions to make them think.
If somebody thought I was put together and strong, then I made sure never to cry in front of that person.
If someone thought I was sweet and innocent, then I had a hard time appearing anything but naive to them.
So you see, I have been standing on a foundation of other people’s opinion of me. And man is it exhausting. That foundation is always shifting and it makes me feel like I always had to keep up and perform.
-But who?-
Maybe I am just what everyone has expected me to be?
If someone thought I was good at being deep then I would ask all sorts of hard questions to make them think.
If somebody thought I was put together and strong, then I made sure never to cry in front of that person.
If someone thought I was sweet and innocent, then I had a hard time appearing anything but naive to them.
So you see, I have been standing on a foundation of other people’s opinion of me. And man is it exhausting. That foundation is always shifting and it makes me feel like I always had to keep up and perform.
One night my teammate called me out in feedback saying that sometimes when I talk it’s like hearing a textbook because I’m quite wise but there is no heart behind it.
She wanted to hear my heart.
I felt loved but I also felt stuck in wondering how I could possibly be myself. I wanted to fix it and figure it out. But this was different from every other time I have been called out because I knew that He wanted more than my logical answers to this dilemma. With my teammates calling me out, I could feel God asking for more of my heart and self. He then chose not to make the solutions very clear.
He was taking away my control and replacing it with His character.
In wondering who I was and how I could be me while still appearing perfect in front of others, I was getting oddly lost and overwhelmed.
He was taking away my control and replacing it with His character.
In wondering who I was and how I could be me while still appearing perfect in front of others, I was getting oddly lost and overwhelmed.
Thank goodness that He let me be there for a little bit to really enter into the truth that was to come next…
Instead, I have calmed and quieted myself, like a weaned child who no longer cries for its mother’s mild. Yes, like a weaned child is my would within me. Oh Israel, put your hope in the Lord- now and always
Psalm 131:2-3
