Adaptation out of Need

There's a song on the radio that fascinates me and I looked up the music video to it. It's "Older I Get" by Skillet. Part of it reads:

"The time between those cutting words built up our defenses. Never made no sense, it just made me hurt. Do you believe that time heals all wounds? It started getting better, but it's easy not to fight when I'm not with you. The older I get, will I get over it? It's been way too long for the times we missed, I didn't know then it would hurt like this. But I think the older I get maybe I'll get over it. It's been way too long for the times we missed; I can't believe it still hurts like this."

Now before you start thinking that I'm a silly 24-year-old who thinks she's getting old or who thinks she has too much pain to work through, hear me out as to why this is interesting to me. It was not so much the words in and of themselves, but the video they put to it. Almost the entire video showed the band having a good time with one another. They were in relationships with one another that obviously meant a great deal to them and were encouraging and fun. So this made me think about how life works. There are so many things that cause such a great deal of pain, and some of them we never move beyond. We adapt and we live with whatever scar was given, but people and events become a permanent part of our lives. And yet, with all of that pain, we continue to love. We continue to seek people out. We continue to laugh and sigh and be content and, yes, even happy. I find that amazing.

This is my prayer, that your love may overflow

Tonight I was at a sort of derivative of a worship service. It was a service to send off everyone going to Mexico next week for a mission trip. And a man was talking about how wonderful it is that we're giving so much to the people of Juarez. How we're giving a week of our lives to build homes and rework plumbing and electrical wiring and such. Yes, we are saints indeed. God must certainly be pleased with each and every one of us.

Isn't it our call as Christians to do this? Maybe not in Mexico, but anywhere? And maybe not to build houses, but to serve in whatever capacity that might be, whether that is psychological, physical, etc.? We should not be praised for this; we should be doing this as an automatic reaction to the faith that has been given us by God. We are to serve not for the sake of our glorification, and not for the sake of converting people, but because God is working through us for the sake of the world.

This brought me to thinking about this another way, though. If it is our duty, which is what I have been taught since birth, then it seems that there is automatically a weight that comes with it. I HAVE to do this. It becomes a burden, and not a joyful reaction. And that is how I'm feeling about this trip right now. I have absolutely no desire to leave for Juarez on Saturday. It's hard for me to care about the people we're going there to serve, or to care about the youth that I will be serving as a leader. It's hard for me to care about others in general right now. And I hate that, but don't know what to do about it. I have been pushed into a trip that I never wanted to participate in in the first place, and so everything that has gone into it has been full of resentment for me. I am spiteful towards those who love me instead of figuring out how to serve them best. What is that? Why is that? These things, again, should be something that I do because God has called me to it - not because I am an ungrateful child who has been forced or because my heart is so spectacular. How does one go from resentment of the burden to reveling in the joy of giving? Where is the line between human nature and the reality of sin...and that of the work of God in and through us?

Trust

So the topic of the day is trust. I think there are certain types of trust that I'm not very good at. Or rather, I KNOW that there are kinds of trust that I don't exhibit, and that I sometimes wish I did. Believing people when they tell me about themselves or about situations isn't difficult and, (most of the time) if someone tells me they'll do something, I'll rely on them to do it.

The problem is that I don’t trust humanity, or human nature. I don’t trust people to really love. I somehow think that there is the capacity to love - I just don’t believe that people actually do love. So when it comes to relationships, and trusting that the other person is not trying to hurt me, I have problems. I a) think that at the first sign of a problem, they will run, and b) that these “problems” are my fault. When hurtful comments are made, when someone retracts their previous words or actions, when someone appears to be avoiding me, etc., I unfairly put the fault of the cause upon myself, but the fault of the ensuing fight upon them. I get upset with them for not understanding me and what I’m trying to say, but the reality is that there’s just as much misunderstanding on my part as on theirs.

Afterwards, of course, I feel badly about my own words and actions, and then come to the conclusion that the other person is so upset with me that they simply won’t want to deal with me anymore. I don't trust their desire to be my friend. I don't trust them to want to work on a relationship. I don't trust them to be able to handle conflict. I don't trust their willingness to accept me as an imperfect human. And not only is that unfair to them, but it is unfair to me.

I'm trying to understand the underlying cause of this. Is it narcissism? Am I so caught up with myself that I can't see any life situation outside of myself that could possibly be affecting someone else? Is it a derivative of narcissism: an extremely low opinion of myself that drives me to assume that I am always the problem? Or is it simply that enough of my past relationships have failed that I come to the conclusion that I am doing something wrong? I don't know.

So now I’m stuck. My beliefs about humanity are necessary for my theology and for the rest of my life. And yet it hurts any and all relationships that I’m in. It seems that no matter if I put my trust in peoples’ good will, or if I put it in their inability to truly love, I end up hurt. And I realize that it’s not necessarily one or the other. But it seems that the former is preferable. How does one learn to trust in that way?

Rain

I love rain. It's just cleansing. It cries with you, it washes out hurt, it's peaceful. I need rain; there are few things that are as calming to me. And when things are going well, it just adds to the contentedness. But it never lasts long enough. Maybe I should move to Seattle.

Universal Malfunction

I am someone who needs to learn better organizational skills and learn to prepare ahead and just generally be a less chaotic person. I think. So when days like today happen, it frustrates me, because it throws all of that out the window. I think it was one of those times when there must be something in the universe causing all children to be completely unfocused. And I don't mean simply paying attention to whatever. I mean that there are very real, physical wanderings of the body. Arms kind of float around, feet trip over themselves in ways you have never seen before, and foreheads somehow find their ways into paint. They can't help it; it's not a choice. They simply malfunction on an entirely new level.

Now, I love my jr. high students. They are fun; they are chaotic; they are the personification of energy; they are fabulous. But today wasn't even high-energy for all of them. It was simply chaos. I was completely exhausted after 10 minutes. I don't know how to describe it. We made it through tie-dying shirts and painting a collage (kind of) - but even that was a feat. Hopefully they heard something about John the Baptist and baptism in there somewhere, but God only knows.

So when I was much more prepared today than yesterday, and yesterday went 14x better than today, it tells me that I should never work on anything. I should just run with whatever and not even try to prepare anything, because it won't matter. They will never know the difference. They have no clue whether I worked 40 hours on something or 40 minutes; it all comes out the same.

I don't know. I don't feel completely defeated yet; just exhausted. But if tomorrow is like today, making it through the week could be quite the challenge. Praise God for hope and strength. And praise God that I still love these malfunctioning creatures, draining though they are.

Demanding Imperfection

"A person doesn’t have to be perfect to be exactly what you need." – J.D. on Scrubs

I’ve been thinking about this lately. I have a friend who continues to point out to me that I am human. And this is a good thing. Because being human means that I will mess up, demand what cannot be demanded, and be incredibly hurtful to others. But it also means that I have the capacity to love, serve, and give to others.

The thing is that when I think about other people and their relationship to me, I don’t expect or want them to be perfect. If they were, that would just make me feel like I could never live up to them and it would do more damage than if they just screwed up once in a while. But yet I feel the need to be exactly what the other person “needs” all the time. I try so hard to figure out what role I need to play, that not only do I guess the wrong “role”, I also am inept at playing said role, and the whole thing ends up in a mess. I forget that the reason the person is talking to me or spending time with me in the first place is because they wanted to be with me, and not some character that I’ve chosen to play. And really, it’s through the arguments and the conflicts and the hurt that we know each other, as much as through the fun and laughter, yes? Learning boundaries and why what words mean what to the other, and why what actions have the effect they do is a fascinating process.

I know none of this is a new thought, and that thinking through this isn’t going to make me stop trying to compensate or stop being a demanding friend. It’s not going to make any of my relationships less frustrating. But it is nice to know that there are people who don’t expect me to be perfect around them and will still love me when I not only fall flat on my own face, but also bring them down with me.