"I can't handle anymore things that are not quite right in my life, because I feel like that's all I've got. I feel like every single part of my life has bumps and bruises and broken pieces. I want to be all shiny and new, all put together, and I just can't get there . The things I try to forget don't go away, and the mistakes I've made don't go away, and I'm a lot like my old house, cracked and mismatched and patched over."
I am realizing lately I have had a lot of extremely emotional days. Little things make me cry, kind words make me insecure, and laughter seems to have escaped me.
I think about my dear friends moving to Haiti and I am so overwhelmed with pride for them, joy, encouragement, and hope for Haiti. And then my heart hurts thinking of them so far away, and having to go on a trip to Haiti without them [though more likely than not I would see them there!] The Savini's have become such a comfort to me, and that shocks me. I am not one to open up, especially not one to let someone be significant to me. But Jen and Chris are very significant to me. I look up to them, and I love them, and I know they care about me, too. I am incredibly blessed to know them, and be on this journey with them and have them be a part of mine.
It has been interesting for me as the date for them leaving was made official, and has quickly been coming towards us. I am not sure right now what my road looks like, what my path is going to be. I don't know if I am going to move to Haiti or never return. I don't know what God's plan is, and frankly I don't even know what I would like it to be. One minute I feel so moved to start saving and planning and sell all of my belongings and just go. The next moment I am so paralyzed with fear. Fear of what people will think, fear of not getting enough financial support, fear that I am making the wrong decision, and fear of what a hard, difficult choice that would truly be.
Relationships are such a major part of life for me. They hold so much weight in who I am. I let my past regrets and mistakes define my relationships now. Sometimes it is a good thing - I know when to have boundaries and when to let my walls down, what bad habits I have formed and when to watch out for them. But they affect me a lot more mentally than I should let them. It's like Shauna Niequist says in her book Cold Tangerines, which is the quote above. I want to be all shiny and new, all put together, and I just can't get there.
I expect to be able to get it right. I have figured out my problem, I know what needs to change, now it should be perfect. Now my relationships shouldn't have conflicts. Now I shouldn't get hurt, now I shouldn't get angry. Now I shouldn't get jealous, or mad, or insecure. Yet somehow, all of these things keep happening. I have friends that let me down. I disappoint people who mean the world to me. We fight, we get frustrated, we get annoyed.
What Shauna continues with in her book is what really catches me.
"On my worst days, I start to believe that what God wants is perfection. That God is a new-house God. That everything has to work just right, with no cracks in the plaster and no loose tiles. That I need to be completely fixed up. I always think that God's kind of people are squeeky-clean people whose garages don't leak, but really a lot of the people God uses to do amazing things are people who don't necessarily have it all together."
I know I'm getting there. And I need to remember that. I'll never have it perfect or get it completely right. But as long as I keep trying, as long as I am striving to be who God wants me to be, to fix what I can and learn from what I can't - as long as I am taking steps and believing God is here with me and loving me all the way - I will be just fine.
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