All Up In Here

In my head I'm a very loving person.  I have so many kind thoughts about what should be done for others or what should be said to someone.  I very rarely act on those thoughts.  I thought that I didn't follow through with my ideas because I'm introverted and just didn't want to interact with people that much, but now I'm not convinced that introversion is my real reason for holding back.

I've been thinking a lot about being who God really created me to be.  I love this idea that God gave me unique talents, gifts, personality, and thoughts that are specific to me.  Who am I that the creator of the universe would put so much thought into weaving together these intricate details that make me me?  I'm his daughter, that's who.  And with those intricate details that are only mine comes a responsibility, a freeing and empowering responsibility to just be me.  To be the best version of me that I can be.

I see a lady struggling with her kids at a restaurant and I think "someone should make her day and pay for her meal."  I see an elderly man trying to unload his groceries and I think "someone should help him."  I see a girl crying while pumping her gas and I think "someone should go talk to her."  I see a pastor pouring his heart and soul into ministry and I think "someone should encourage him."  Most of the time, I act on none of it.  Although I'm teaching my kids to spot it and do it.  Cade has no problem inserting himself into someone else's life like that, so I send him.  And on one hand that's good because hopefully he's learning to look out for others, and serve others, but on the other hand, that doesn't let me off the hook at all.

So in thinking about these things that happen in my head and never in real life, I was trying to think about what holds me back from doing them.  I came up with three fears that stop me in my tracks every time.

1. It will take up too much of my own time.  What if giving and serving others takes more than I want to offer?  What if a quick task turns into something bigger?  I'm not good with boundaries or confrontation or difficult conversations, and I'm afraid I'll have to either tell someone no or else be sucked into something much bigger than what I wanted to give.  
2. I'm afraid my loving words or deeds will be misconstrued to be seen as romantic or inappropriate feelings.  This is one hundred percent my own baggage.  This fear comes from a couple different places, one being "did this happen because I was asking for it?  Is this somehow my fault?"  So I put up this great big wall, a huge brick wall with barbed wire around the top, and shards of glass sticking out from the brick.  I give off this "I don't like you" vibe to nearly everyone, just in case.  Just to be clear, I error on the side of "I have no interest in you."  Wow, did not realize how big of a deal this one was until I started writing this.  This is where there is healing that still needs to happen.  Healing and restoration. 
3. I'm also afraid that I will put all this love out there into the world, and none will come back to me.  I'm afraid that I will invest in other people, I will bless other people, I will encourage them and love them, and then when I'm down they won't do the same.  If I haven't invested in anyone else, then it's okay when nobody comes alongside me when I'm struggling.  I'm afraid that I need to keep love for myself; that I need to love myself because nobody else will.  I've invested pretty heavily into some friendships over the last year or so, and yet still wonder if the other person would text if I stopped texting them.  And it shouldn't matter, I know that.  I have this loving God who has the whole world in his hands, but last I checked he didn't have a cell phone in his hand.  When it's me that needs the encouragement and needs to feel loved and cared for, will He hold up his end of the deal and provide comfort?  I don't know. I think of this like the tithing thing, where it's all his anyway, and if I just give him a little, he will return it back to me so many more times over.  Logically, I can buy into that.  Emotionally, I'm not there yet.  I'm not able to trust that if I give of myself, if I invest my love in others, then he will fill me back up.  

So, what if the good that God created in me really is in my ability to see brokenness all around and see tangible ways to make it a little better?  What if my head isn't a mess, but actually hardwired to love and be loved?  What if the God who is faithful and just really does have a plan for this broken world, a plan that involves me holding a door, smiling at a stranger, buying lunch for a tired mother, or grabbing a coffee for a coworker?  What if up in my head is where he is doing some of his best work yet?  If I were to buy into that, and trust God for the rest, who knows where it could lead.

Tis the Season

There is something about this time of year that has always excited me.  Not just the fact that it's the end of the school year.  Something bigger than that.  For me, this graduation season has always held a spark of promise, the possibility that RIGHT NOW you can be anything you want to be. As someone who knew without a doubt that I'd be going to college right after high school, thinking about the summer after graduation was a hobby of mine.  I dreamed about the shopping trips I'd take with a parent, the bedding I'd pick out for my dorm room, the road trip I'd take to meet my new roommate before school began, the memories I'd talk about with my mom while she helped me pack, and the final hang outs I'd plan with my friends before leaving. 

None of that happend for me.  None of that went as planned.

Yes, my life has turned out better than I could have possibly hoped.  Yes, yes, YES.  But there's still a part of me that grieves that experience I longed for and never got.  This is the time of year that I think about what could have been, and even all these years later, it still makes me sad.  Because I'm a planner, June represented the possibilities of the future, because by the time August came, everything would be set.  That's why it's now and not fall that triggers this for me. 

I was going to go to GVSU to become a physician's assistant.  Nobody talked to me about my interests, my career goals, my future possibilities.  I looked over the list of majors and picked something that I thought sounded impressive.  (Here's how little I knew about it -- I didn't realize it was a 6 year program until weeks into my first semester.)  I didn't have adults talking to me about my future, and I definitely made my own conclusions as to why.  Nobody took me shopping to buy fun stuff for my college dorm.  Nobody helped me pack for college.  Nobody talked about childhood memories and how much they were going to miss me.  I talked to my future roommate on the phone once, but she lived in Chicago and I had no money, so a roadtrip was out of the question.  I became depressed and withdrawn; I worked a ton trying to save money for college, and by the end of the summer I didn't have any plans with friends before leaving.  Nothing went as I had hoped it would. 

The ironic thing is that as this is all unfolding, I'm recognizing that it's not going as planned, and I almost tried to give myself a second chance at making it happen.  That summer I worked with a girl who was a few years older than me.  She had started working fulltime right after high school to save money to pay for college.  So even though she wasn't fresh out of high school, she was getting ready for her first "going away to colllege" experience.  By about July of that summer, when I'm seeing how much my parents are failing to do anything on my dream list, I started thinking that I 'd just delay college.  I would just do what she did, work for a few years, and try again later.  Not because I needed the money, but because I wanted to give my parents a second chance to not suck.  Even with my limited wisdom, I knew that delaying the process was not going to help anything, so I didn't go that route.

The whole situation had me set up to fail from the very beginning, so it's no wonder I only stayed at GVSU one semester.  My dad and sister dropped me off at college.  I wasn't close to either of them so it really wasn't anything special.  There weren't any encouraging words or happy memories exchanged.  At the time there wasn't any sort of system for incoming freshman to make sure they didn't't get lost in the shuffle, so that I did.  I cried most of the day for the first week or two.  Not because I was homesick.  It was more for the fact that I felt like I didn't have a home anymore.  I didn't have either of my parents talking excitedly about me coming home for Thanksgiving.  I didn't know if either of them would even come get me for the holiday.  And I sure didn't feel like I fit in there.  It was a mess.  I was a mess.  It certainly wasn't anything like what I had hoped and dreamed it would be.

Sixteen years later, this is still the season that represents so much possibility.  In this healing phase that I'm in, I'm looking for ways to use that excitement and possibilities within the context of where I am now.  For me, that doesn't come without first grieving the loss of a dream.

What If

I know that you're not supposed to play the "what if" game.  I know.  I think you're not supposed to because who goes down the "what if" road looking for things to be worse?  Usually it's done in the context of "wow, this sucks, I wonder how much better it would have been if..."  And of course the grass is always greener, you want what you can't have, there's always the one that got away... those cliches come to mind when I think about "what if."  And sometimes your own grass is looking just fine until you go down that what if road.  I know all this.  But I'm going there anyway, just for minute.

My latest "what if" comes in the form of wondering what else my life could have become had I had visionary parents who helped me to discover my gifts, my purpose, my vision, and helped me to reach to achieve my goals.  I'm not unhappy with my life, I don't wish it were bigger and better, but I just wonder where I might have been led if I had parents doing the leading.  What if they had talked to me about my strengths and interests and how I could use those in my career?  What if they had helped me to think about a college major?  What if they had taken me to visit colleges?  What if they had made phone calls to their friends to arrange day on the job visits in fields I might be interested in?  What if they had traveled with me and I'd fallen in love with Seattle, or Maine, or Tennessee?  The possibilities are endless.

But, I can't hang out here, I know that.  This isn't about me wishing my life were something different.  This is me knowing that parents who love their children do these things for them, and my parents didn't.  This is me grieving the connection I missed out on by not doing these things with my parents.  This is me wishing I had parents who loved me and cared enough to help me to become the best version of myself.

This is just one more of those areas where I have to acknowledge that my parents blew it, but God had his hand on me anyway.  I can look back at choices I made and know without a doubt that it was only by God's direction that I was able to make the choice I did.  On paper, someone with my life experiences should not have chosen what I chose.  God has blessed my life in so many ways and I certainly don't want to discount that by giving the impression that I'm not just fine right now.  Because I am JUST FINE right now, by the grace of God.  Even still, every once in a while I think about what loving parents do and I'm overcome with sadness for having missed out on that.  Regardless how I got here, even if it was by my own struggle and discovery and not guidance from my parents, I'm right where God intended me to be.  He can, will, and does use my story, in spite of it all.