I need to tell you the truth.
And the truth is this: my first day of the Fellowship starts tomorrow, and I am terrified.
The truth finally began to unravel me like a knit sweater Thursday afternoon when I went into the driveway to pack my car, the most non-threatening of backseat fabric stains proving to be the one, teensy straw that broke the camel’s back. I left various objects scattered around our front lawn, sprinting back inside and slamming the door.
“Did you know that you left your floormats in the lawn?” my mom gently inquired, blissfully unaware of the geyser of emotion she was about to crack open.
“YES. LEAVE THEM. THEY BEST REPRESENT MY CURRENT EMOTIONAL STATE.”
Later on that evening, we curled up on our couch, and I burst into tears – hateful, hot tears that ran into my ears and dripped off my chin, damp reminders that I was, once again, letting myself down.
What is WRONG with me? Why can’t I get excited about this?! Shouldn’t walking in obedience to God’s will feel GOOD?
Last week, I found out there had been a miscommunication about my internship pay, and that my salary was cut.
I immediately started looking online for part-time jobs in Gainesville, now fully aware that the only way I’d be able to do the Fellowship was if I supplemented my income with an additional income.
This would have been a totally different patch of quicksand, had it been a standalone.
Two weeks ago, my old car showed back up in my driveway. Before I left on the Race, someone I trusted had agreed to take over the lease and make it their own, but I didn’t bother to legally change the payments into their name. So when they found themselves in a bad place financially, the car was what they chose to rid themselves of…transferring the burden back to me. I threw the mud-stained floormats into my lawn Thursday morning and just let them lay there, ugly, used, and allowed myself one very dramatic moment of human-floormat empathy.
GOD. WHAT THE FRICK-FRACK PADDYWACK IS GOING ON HERE. THIS HURTS.
A job to pay for my other job. Leaving my family in it’s current state. This car. THIS MAKES NO SENSE.
ARE YOU SURE THIS IS WHAT YOU REALLY WANT ME TO DO???
On the Race, I learned how to be bold, assertive, committed. I was a woman who made up her mind to do something and would stop at absolutely nothing to see that thing through. Lately, I’ve felt very far away from her, and that shame has kept me bent like a sack of bricks on my back.
Following God is not always easy or fun. It will not always make you feel good. Sometimes, it will make you feel very, very bad.
It will confuse your non-Christian friends who do not understand why on earth you would do something you are so uncertain or afraid of. They will gently say things like, “Babe, you don’t have to do this! Why are you doing something that is making you unhappy?” And you will be tempted within an inch of your self-control to release the word of direction you’ve received, and agree with them.
Yes, this is ridiculous. No, I shouldn’t need to jump through hoops. Yes, I should assert myself and make a decision that makes me the happiest. I deserve to be happy.
Reader, I still need you – but I need you to know that I’m afraid.
I need you to know that this internship is the most uncomfortable act of obedience I’ve ever said “OK” to, and I am walking forward in complete blind faith that my God will clear the path for me, making sense of the wall of doubt not ten feet from my face.
I also need you to know that I am done saying what I think you’d want to hear. You deserve better.
I’ve been thinking hard about this one line: “If you can live your life without an audience, you should do it.”
Some of you (ya’ll, now) are my Facebook friends. And I want to say that you have been best audience, and many of you, participatory ones. I absolutely do not feel like I need to get rid of my page on Facebook because anyone there makes me feel snooped on, compared to, or generally less of a human being.
But in the pursuit of living a life wholly integrated, this is what will make me happy.
Yesterday, you carried to my first financial deadline of $3,000. I went to sleep last night with a heart so light I’m surprised I didn’t wake up on the ceiling. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
You know who you are.
The choice to remove my Facebook doesn’t make a lot of sense, but less so now because I’m relying on an audience to hear and engage with a financial need in this season of my life.
To be absent from your newsfeed could mean to be absent from your mind. It could mean that this support-raising gig gets a whole lot harder.
But I’m believing that acting in accordance to a value I have – striving to be fully present in every second of this life – is worth this risk of under-exposure.
I also believe that you love me, think of me, and pray for me more frequently than the number of times I post.
And I can’t polarize myself anymore. This my first step toward shedding the mask.
Toward dropping this weird, misplaced shame, toward letting the tears flow and the smiles break like rainbows in a thunderstorm.
Toward letting you, and people who are actually living life alongside me, be enough of an audience.
(I hope it’s enough for you.)
