I’ll rise-up. I’ll rise like the day. I’ll rise-up. I’ll rise unafraid. I’ll rise-up, and I’ll do it a thousand times again. I’ll rise-up. Rise like the waves. I rise-up, in spite of the ache. I’ll rise-up, and I’ll do it a thousand times again.
-Rise Up by Andra Day
This song has been my comfort lately. I feel like I’ve been knocked down again, but I know that eventually I will rise-up again. If I’m being completely honest with you, I have been really struggling. The weight of all the things just kept piling up until I finally broke. I am broken and I’m not sure how to fix me. So, here I sit in a bed that isn’t mine but I’m allowed to use for the moment, writing a blog that I’m not sure will ever be posted. It’s too raw. It’s too vulnerable.
I’ve been doing this Race thing for almost 4 months now. I should have figured it out somewhat, but here I sit. Wondering how I could have messed it up so badly for so long and not even noticed. Let me let you into the mess. Maybe you can lend me some insight, because I’m lost in a fog right now.
I have some deep-rooted anger issues. They’ve been there for as long as I can remember. Growing up as a teenager, I didn’t care about anything. It was a great defense mechanism. If you don’t care, then you never get disappointed. Right? The only problem with that is you notice when other people stop caring too. So, by me trying to not be hurt, I was hurting myself. This became a pattern that carried over into my adult life.
I have felt some deep hurts in my life. Hurts that no one should ever feel. So, guarding my heart seemed logical. If I stay on guard, then I can protect me. I guard myself with anger. I put on a mask of anger and frustration and “Don’t talk to me” to hide the fact that I am feeling vulnerable.
I’m part of a ministry at home called Kairos Torch. Torch is a ministry where I go into the local juvenile detention center to share the love of God and mentor teens there. Part of the program we do talks about the masks we wear. How they keep us safe. How we use them to keep people at a distance. We use them to manipulate situations. I had no clue I had my own mask. I definitely didn’t know I brought it all the way to Africa with me, but here I sit. Staring at this mask I didn’t know I had. Wondering how I didn’t see it.
I know exactly what this mask was covering up. It was covering up a deep-seeded fear of rejection. I have always felt like I wasn’t enough. My biggest fear is having people confirm that that is true. What finally broke me was allowing myself to feel the rejection that I was so afraid of. My anger mask had brought about the thing it was supposed to save me from. The funny thing is I thought I had dealt with my anger, but I guess it’s an onion. That probably sounds weird to you, but let me explain.
When I was at training camp, one of the staff that was helping our squad was Kylie. Kylie is absolutely incredible. I got an opportunity to have a one-on-one conversation with her and she told me something that has stuck with me. She told me that we should look at our life like it’s an onion. We have to walk around each layer to be able to get to the next one. However, sometimes there are things in life that hurt us and cut into our onion. Now as we walk around each layer, there is suddenly this giant cavern that we have to traverse before we can continue walking our layer. Once we cross, we think the hard part is over and we get to move on with our life. We continue walking, when suddenly there the cavern is again! We think we’ve dealt with an issue, but, apparently, the cut was deeper than we thought. It sliced through multiple layers of our onion. It cut us far deeper than we realized, and we have to keep encountering this hurt over and over as we walk our onion. That’s why there are times when we think we’ve dealt with something but we end up facing it all over again.
That is where I am. I was happily walking my onion, and I fell, face first, into this giant cavern I forgot was even there. I not only hurt me, but I hurt my teammates too. One of them said she didn’t know what to do with my anger, and the truth is I don’t either. I had been walking around wearing my anger for so long that it finally took its toll on them. I hurt people I care deeply for and that hurt me more than I can say. It felt like they had reached the point where they stopped caring, and that rejection I so feared settled in. (Note that I said it felt like. That doesn’t mean it’s true but that is how it felt.)
I was feeling rejected by the community I’m living in, and it was no one’s fault but my own. Couple that with the inability to talk to friends or family back home and you can start to guess where my heart has been the past few days. All I’ve wanted to do is lay in bed and cry, but there’s no time for that. I have ministry to do. We are working with kids this month and I will not let whatever I am going through affect these kids. So, I put on a smile and make it through the day, only allowing myself to fall apart at night once I can finally be alone. On top of that, we’ve taken on another project of fundraising Bibles for the kids. I was spending a lot of my free time researching, filling out the application, photo editing, and number crunching to get it sent off in time. So, I didn’t have time for a breakdown, but it looks like I found some anyway.
I wish I could wrap this up in a pretty little bow and tell you I’ve figured out everything and it’s all fine now, but I can’t. I’m still sitting in it right now. Like I said at the beginning, I’m broken and I don’t know how to fix me. I know I will get through this. I know it will eventually work itself out, but I just can’t see that right now. Right now, I get to sit and deal with this cavern in front of me. I will cross it. I will be able to walk my onion once again, but right now I get to try and figure out my way across this great divide. Wish me good luck!
