"The spirit that comes in is not that of doing anything for Jesus, but of being a delight to Him" -- Oswald.
Someone sent me a note recently: "Just wanted you to know how much I appreciate your person. What you do is icing on the cake." I love the idea, but my sense of myself is so tied up with what I do that I'm not sure I get it. What does someone mean when he says he appreciates my person, and how can I be a delight to God apart from obedience, i.e. performance? keeping the law?
I have been struggling with a whirlwind of emotions over the last few days. When I finally sought out counsel, I ended up spewing a confused mixture of tears and anger and disappointed idealism and jealousy and fear and legitimate points in a hundred different directions. My wise counsel suggested that I attempt to narrow the onslaught into one overarching emotion. Here's what I came up with: "less than." I feel less than.
I continually compare myself not only to the young, beautiful and talented around me but to my own sense of what I should be, and I fall short. This process is so ingrained in me that I do it without conscious thought. I walk into a room, and boom! I intuitively know that I do not measure up. Sometimes it happens before I even enter the room, and I dread going because I know I will not be enough or I will be too much. I will just be wrong. My flight defense kicks in before I've even faced the danger, and all I want to do is go home where it's safe.
I end up being jealous of other people's successes because their successes are my failures. I should have lost the weight. I should have run the half-marathon. I should have written that or suggested that or had that brilliantly creative idea.
I can see the sickness in this, how it is the opposite of what God wants. I think I could even spell out the right way to think, the right way to judge my worth. Only I cannot seem to get there. A friend described her own journey recently as trying to ride a stationary bike cross country. I think that comes close to what I'm experiencing -- lots of work, goal in sight, no progress.
When the frenzy of the day, you know the stuff that makes one pull their hair out kinda stuff,when I find that moment of the day, for it is a moment cause all the busyness usually frazzles me way too often. I look upward! I have no where to go but to God. I feel the pain of thinking I am slighted, possibly not included, not measuring up to a standard, not keeping up or in pace, that the thoughts that are tucked away in the secret places of my heart are words, expressionless to others yet mean everything to me are cast to side like yesterdays news. I look upward because in my own brokenness the refuge I seek isn't in a person who may offer me words of comfort at times, or even walk with me, a long side of me for however it takes, but in Jesus Christ my Lord. He alone knows my uprising and my down settings, the number of the hairs on my head, the thoughts and intents of my heart. Does not the bird flee to the trees when it seeks refuge from the tyranny of the day? and what of the deer, does it not run into the thicket when it senses the pressing encroachment of man in its place? Yet man, me you, have no place to run for we are His creation, fearfully and wonderfully made. and to Him I am beautiful in His sight. He redeemed me, purchased me with His blood, and nothing can separate me from His love. If I have found worth in that moment of the day amidst the frenzy, it is because God cares for me and that has been enough. You are special for no other reason than being you, and that is enough for me. Bill Iannuzzi
ReplyDeleteOh Barb.....I wish, and my heart breaks after reading todays blog entry. I wish that I could crawl into your head and reveal to you the Barb that your family and friends see. The Barb that God created! I wish I could erase the pain of never feeling good enough, but only God can do that. Right now it seems so very tright to even say that.
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