Confession: This is one of those posts I would have read before The Race, and thought, "I would never write something like this. Way too vulnerable." But, I read this from my journal to Ashlee, and she said, "Shelli – you need to put this on your blog. There's someone out there who needs to read this." And then it really hit me – this blog is about you guys, yes – my readers – but really, it's about testifying to what God is doing inside of me and then through me as a result of that refining work. So, I am doing that – whether it is messy or clean-cut, I am testifying to the ways I am being changed.
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I am sitting on an airplane headed from South Africa to Qatar. We had a night's stay, and I pulled out my sleeping pad on the airport floor. I actually slept well! I am about to enter Romania, and I feel kind of like I'm starting over – in some strangely new, resurrected way. I am recognizing my 'shortcomings' – if you want to call them that – I will not be a Team Leader, nor a Squad Leader. But what I also see is the light of possibility in what God has designed for me to be. I may never be that woman (not that I am limiting God's potential), but I see that God has given me relational and artistic, creative abilities and musical abilities that I think would be not trusting Him not to use. I am so afraid to use them in a 'real-world' setting, but what am I so afraid of? What if not embracing the possibility of what could be the potential for my life is really like denying that I am not worth God investing those skills into me? I often feel so small. I know God has gifted me with multiple diverse skills, but am I good enough, smart enough, talented enough to do any single one of them really well? But what if this is God's simple way of saying I don't have to? What if there really is a way to have all that? To live that life that I love without asking why so much? If I'm honest with myself, I have to admit that I'm scared of what that looks like – what that's supposed to look like. Who am I, to pursue the arts, beauty, music, photography… but…who is anyone else to? We all have to start somewhere…
I can't keep wishing – can't keep wishing that I were someone else, living some other life. I am me. This is my life. I am beautiful, when I believe it. But when I place my view of self through how I 'think' other people perceive me,
IT WILL NEVER BE GOOD ENOUGH.
It is a game that is impossible to win. I am trying to please and impossible audience, because it's not real.
The only truth I create is the one I believe. I have believed in this false reality for so long. Who defines my reality, anyways? Only I can. Only I have that permission within my own life, and I can see very clearly the way we are all affected by our pasts, our choices, our beliefs, and the 'realities' we have created for ourselves, I just don't want to wake up someday wondering why I spent my whole life just waiting for something that never came because it never existed in the first place.
My reality is the present. I am not the version of myself that last felt what it was like to be held. I am not the version of myself who couldn't settle to stay at home and had to stretch out my wings. Yes, that was me – those experiences were mine, and only mine – but that was a season – and each of those seasons toppled on top of one another are what create a life. And I guess that's the story of life – that all these things define us, yet we're not supposed to let the things that hurt us keep us from daring to risk. The problem with that mentality is that the impact of providential moments embed themselves within our hearts like a scar. But, what I am setting out to prove is that that's okay. I can live with the past – to know that at the time it all happened exactly the way it was supposed to, but then, I can let it rest, because after all, it was just a season. And as seasons change, so do we. What a beautiful and chaotic thing.
I always have that picture – you know, the one where you're sitting in that busy coffee shop just minding your own business, and you look up to the door, and this person – who defined so much of everything you were for a season of your life – walks in – and BOOM – the reality hits as clear as day: you are both different people. Like, really, different people. And somehow, you have to settle in this deep place inside you that that's just life – it's a part of the deal, that you love and let go. Why do people come into our lives for only seasons and then leave again? Maybe it's just to make room for the new ones. But I am convicted tonight on this airplane that the process of movement in order to make room for the new ones cannot work if am stuck in a longing, a daydream, or a wish to be in the past – or in any other place than that very moment, with those very people I find myself surrounded by. Living well, living full, living peacefully with myself means I have to let go of the hope to be anywhere else, with anyone else. That desire single-handedly destroys more moments than any other pattern of thinking in my life right now.
And the truth is, I have belittled myself for so long into believing that I can't be satisfied with being a fixture of someone else's thoughts, that I haven't even allowed myself to feel what it's like to let the Lord love me. I am dependent on everyone but Him, yet the truth is that I am helplessly desperate for Him more than I even know how to want or ask for. It is the same way with Him – that I can't depend on past experiences in His Presence to fuel the love. It has to be in the here and now, the choice to seek, to find, in the Present. I assume that must be like the marriage covenant – the need to make a choice – that the romance doesn't just stay alive on it's own. That it doesn't get refueled and rekindled by thinking about moments in the distant past when love was exchanged. No. That doesn't make any sense and frankly, that would be a miserable, unfulfilling marriage. But what I want to know now is how loneliness can be converted into something that actually makes sense, and doesn't depend on moments to put together broken pieces like a jigsaw puzzle. Asking that of this life is as unrealistic as believing that you will never find satisfaction.
There is that mentality that the grass is always greener on the other side, and to a degree, I think that way of living can really get you places. By always desiring more, you will keep getting more – keep fighting for more – but maybe the 'more' is actually what destroys you. Do I believe the right idea is to never want more or dream for bigger things? Of course not. But what I'm really saying to myself is that NOW is the time to find satisfaction in every situation I find myself in. I have the freedom to choose – thanks to the Cross, I also have the freedom to choose what I believe – about a moment, a person, a place, a conversation, and…myself. If I spend all my time living in the questions, I will never be able to live in the answers. I don't want to depend on anyone anymore to tell me who I am. I am everything that I believe I am. If I believe I am beautiful, I am beautiful. If I believe I am capable, then I am capable. If I believe I am fully alive more in this moment, than any other moment, then that's the truth. I don't need some other person to come in and prove that to me or 'define' that fullness for me. I simply need to trust all that it is and let it move me.
I have spent way too many moments trying to fix something, release something, or selfishly attain something, but the truth is, I want to be moved more. I want to feel more. I want to cry more about stuff that moves me. I want to feel heartbreak more often for things that actually matter in this broken world, and less for myself. I want to stop pretending that life should be made up of all these magic movie-moments and start finding ways to make the awkward, frustrating, slow-moving, difficult moments into little miracles – into little fragments of truth and compassion and belief. I want to believe that I fit into the miracle plan God has in someone else's life – I want to stop second-guessing what I hear from God and just start living instantly in the movement that it compels within me. I want to fight harder against the thief of non-belief, of apathy, of distrusting the miracle of a moment. I want to have a compulsion to find the eternal glimpses within every person. I want to find the deeper face of the Incarnate Savior in every smile, and in every frown for that matter. I live on such a straight path, but why? Always quickly moving to the next thing like I am a puppet on a string, but why? How many serendipitous moments have I missed along the way? What if the miracle is in the inconvenient choice – the difficult conversation to initiate – or the pesky street beggar? I have often minimized the very moments that God Himself wanted me to see the most potential in.
It is time for me to let go. It is like this picture I see of myself, falling, in slow-motion, scared and completely helplessly flailng – into a net of perfect tied squares. A place where suddenly falling feels like flying, and I am not alone anymore. Am I safe – with only One hand holding mine? With only One voice affirming the truth? Well, yes. The answer is yes, but letting go of a fixture of the girl I have always strived to 'get back' to, or to be, means letting go of the safety net of any form of definition based on who I have been in my life. Is it true that this is the first day of the rest of my life? Is it true that I can start over, today, like a little baby being born into an uncharted reality?
I don't want to 'conjure up' feelings of devotion anymore. Laying down in humility, falling at Your feet, I am ready to die – to all this twisted stuff. I long to be Your lover, Lord. I long to know the honest truth. Lay it on me, hard and clear. I long to know what You really see, what You want from me, what I can do for You. I want to feel the touch of companionship, the shaking of the leaves, the movement, the breath. Let's do this! I'm ready to dive into deeper waters.
