My eyes are burning
and threatening tears
Are You there?
Do You care?
I sigh as I hear nothing
Knowing I have probably
pushed Him so far out
to the limits
of my self-built
“safety zone”
“He isn’t safe,
but He’s good.”
I fear the silence
Not wanting to be honest with myself
why I do
I fear I won’t hear You
I fear I’m alone
So I fill every orifice
with clutter
and noise
to drone out my fears
Til I’m deaf
The last thing I want to be
Deaf to You
And my heart breaks.
~Me
Sometimes I wish I could go back to all the guys who have hurt me and tell them about how much they contributed to me being so fearful, confused, and paralyzed when it comes to relationships… scared to trust now when I’m naturally so trusting, hesitant to believe someone that they are who they say they are because none of them were, struggling to believe what they say is true and sincere and that they won’t just give up when things get tough, feeling like I should change myself sometimes because so many guys are afraid of a woman who is confident in Christ, and really… just so scared that I’d rather just be alone.
This is so not like me to write something like this… but right here, right now, I realized I needed to because thats exactly it… I’d rather take the blame than confront someone on what they did. I’m as honest and open as can be, but I hate to hurt, even if its the truth.
Hmmm… so many people and so many things flashing through my mind…
Sometimes I wonder… if only they knew.
What happened?
Where did you go?
I don’t recognize you now
Did I ever really know you?
You were so quick to criticize the people in my past
But you did everything they did
Hypocrite
You hurt me
But do you even care?
Wow… I feel like I can finally breathe again… This whole summer I have been struggling to breathe, gasping for breath even, but not in a physical way (even though I do have asthma). I have felt so suffocated, confused, paralyzed, deeply hurt, and responsible.
The last word may sound like a good thing: responsible. But in the way I mean it, its both deeply hurtful, dangerous, and suffocating. I will not be able to post this on my facebook because too many people know my parents and I am not writing this to give them a bad name. I love my parents DEARLY! So much that it almost kills me at times because they are impossible to please. I hate talking about this kind of stuff, but I must.
I have been living with my parents since the end of May because I moved out of my apartment in Grand Prairie and have been trying to find the right new place for me in Denton. Well thankfully I have finally found it, because this has been a really hard time for me. My parents are the type where they drive themselves crazy “performing” and “doing” and they are what many call “Type A” people. They are amazingly hard workers and I admire them greatly because of how hard they work, but I hate seeing how miserable they seem a lot of the time because the motive of their hard work is not largely love and service for God, but instead, largely fear and anxiety.
For example, my dad comes home from work everyday around 6-7pm. He is self-employed and does very well. He has earned every cent of it and never was given anything in that regard. My parents have a incredibly nice house and take care of it incredibly well. They have never spoiled us. But despite how gorgeous my parent’s house and ranch is, my dad comes home every single night and is displeased with something. Lately it has been that we have a few trees that are dying right behind our house. He has gotten so upset about those trees dying several nights that he even said that he’s selling this place and moving if any more die because he cannot stand seeing the big beautiful trees dying. Now granted, the trees are beautiful and if we lose them all it will detract from the place a lot, but if you could see the place you would know what I mean… its not that big of a deal in the context of life.
But every single day he still comes up upset about something whether its the trees, some weird mark on the driveway, the way the grass was cut or not cut, how low or high the pond is, whether its rained in awhile or not, some slight mark on some wall, or one of the other million things I have heard him say over the years. My mom is a lot like this too. I do not say all this to make fun of my parents. Not at all. I love them so much that it kills me that they find their worth in what they do. This is a completely futile thing because we, as human beings, are all so imperfect its ridiculous, and there is just no possible way that we will do even the majority of things perfectly, much less all of them perfectly. But, even though most Christians (and most non-Christians too) know this at least partially… we still live our lives with these incredibly high expectations that we will never meet.
Why is that? Well, that question in itself would take forever to answer, and honestly I definitely don’t have it all figured out either. haha But, I do know that we get that way from taking on other people’s impossible, unhealthy expectations and demands of us, consciously or subconsciously listening to what our society tells us we should be or what satan lies in our ear that we should be, and our own selfishness in wanting to be like God: in control and capable of anything.
So back to why I feel like I can actually breathe right now. I was just texting a girl back that had message me to pray for her. I love this girl dearly and she is going through a lot right now. She asked me to pray for her family, because of several reasons, and to pray for her because she wants to meet their needs so bad, but wanted me to pray that God would meet them. I know her very well and know she struggles with trying to be perfect all the time, so I prayed for her and her family and then just let God speak through me, and I actually felt Him speaking through me.
Then as I was writing one part of the text, it hit me like a loving message from God about the reality of what I was saying and the reality that I totally and completely needed to hear those same words myself! haha I just froze staring at the screen as I was lying on my bed with my fingers still on the keys…. “Wow…” is all I could think. Then I reread the message and couldn’t believe how much I needed to hear the same words! I was both so blessed, so amazing, and so humbled in that moment! God can speak in such incredible ways! Even through us and to us at the same time! haha :) This is what that part of the message said:
“…I will certainly be praying for you and your family often. I cannot imagine how helpless you must feel, but you are totally right, God is the only One that can meet all their and your needs. Please do not feel like you have to be perfect or meet their needs because that is a responsibility that you should not take on, and were not created to take on that responsibility…”
Wow… I cannot express to you or explain to you adequately enough how helpless, confused, and totally inadequate I have felt my entire life around my parents. Now don’t get me wrong, I know they love me. And like I said, I love them very much. But there is a funny thing about being a perfectionist and “never happy with anything” and “type A” and “performance oriented”… it bleeds out all over everyone, especially those you love, and makes a complete mess of things. I have learned in my life and through the lives of my family, that there is no way you can be all those things and not project them onto others. In other words, there is no way you can have impossibly high standards for yourself, be driven by fear that you will mess up at any moment or miss something, be never pleased with anything, or be always having to do “one more thing”… there is no way you can do all those things and NOT do those same things to others. You will automatically expect way too much of others, be way too hard on them, expect them to perform and please you (even if its subconsciously and just a little bit), and be driven by fear in your own life. That is one scary, dangerous way to live.
And I realized when I wrote that to my friend, that my parents started out the same way I have been feeling this summer and struggling against all my life. Thank God that I know Him and He helps me to struggle against it and even wakes me up to the knowledge that its happening so it can be changed! But I had forgotten about all this during this summer because I have been just struggling to survive around my parents amidst all their impossible expectations and demands and the fact that I am constantly disappointing them because their is no way I can ever fulfill those expectations. I was reminded that only God can fulfill things perfectly. We humans were literally not created to be able to, because we were meant to rely on a God who could, and lovingly wants to fulfill every need for us and others.
I have felt suffocated, deeply hurt, confused, and so many other things around them my whole life, and living with them again this summer just brought it all out even more so. But that doesn’t matter, after I realized all this and got over the beautiful shock of it all, I just prayed and prayed that God would not allow me to let all that junk ferment in me and become like my parents. When we take on responsibility that we were not meant to take on, like pleasing others, doing everything right, being perfect, fulfilling every want and need… it becomes a gigantic, messy disaster that is not totally exclusive to our life because it totally affects every single person around us, especially the ones we love.
I cannot express to you HOW MUCH I do not want to do that! I never, ever want to make someone feel like they are here on this earth to please me and if they don’t they are worthless! But unfortunately if we do not deal with this junk I have described above (and all of us have it in us at least somewhat and in someway), it will ferment and decay in us until it has consumed us and we are blind to it.
Basically, I’m just reminded even more how much that we all need Jesus. How much I need Jesus. And how incredibly awesome that is. We are not alone, we do not have to be perfect, nor does He want us to try to be perfect, we do not have to please others because that is impossible because of innate human selfishness and because God fulfills every person’s needs, and so many other awesome truths like that! :)
I can finally breathe again because I just let Jesus take all the impossible responsibilities and expected perfections that I had loaded myself with. Mmmmhmmmm… *deep breath* :)
And I’m reminded again that knowing Jesus is a beautiful thing. :)
I love you guys,
Mandy
“Jesus Christ, that’s a pretty face
The kind you’d find on someone that could save
If they don’t put me away
Well, it’ll be a miracle
Do you believe you’re missing out
That everything good is happening somewhere else?
But with nobody in your bed
The night’s hard to get through
And I will die all alone
And when I arrive I won’t know anyone
Well, Jesus Christ, I’m alone again
So what did you do those three days you were dead?
’cause this problem’s gonna last more than the weekend.
Well, Jesus Christ, I’m not scared to die,
I’m a little bit scared of what comes after
Do I get the gold chariot?
Do I float through the ceiling?
Do I divide and fall apart?
’cause my bright is too slight to hold back all my dark
And the ship went down in sight of land
And at the gates does Thomas ask to see my hands
I know you’re coming in the night like a thief
But I’ve had some time, O Lord, to hone my lying technique
I know you think that I’m someone you can trust
But I’m scared I’ll get scared and I swear I’ll try to nail you back up
So do you think that we could work out a sign
So I’ll know it’s you and that it’s over so I won’t even try
I know you’re coming for the people like me
But we all got wood and nails
And we turn out hate in factories
We all got wood and nails
And we turn out hate in factories
We all got wood and nails
And we sleep inside of this machine”
~Brand New “Jesus”
I love that song. I love the honesty and vulnerability in it. I also both love and hate how I (and honestly all humans everywhere) can relate to this song. I hate how completely awful I am to my loving Jesus.
I do get scared often and try to nail Him back up.
…I almost couldn’t breathe when I wrote that last sentence.
I hate that His love scares me sometimes and my reaction is to run.
Oh Jesus, how I need You.
