Monday, August 26, 2013

on mattering

A part of me resents that so much of today looks on the surface like it did a year ago. The themes of my personal battles share a commonality and habitual self-shaming has finger-pointed me into a corner of fear.

It's true that the threads of my soul-searching might be similar in the blazing and scorching heat of this season, but they are different colors. Like leaves of amber and rust, scarlet and burnt orange, the tendrils of my heart are changing. I am uncovering more about who I am these days, like: What about Me matters? and Why for Me, specifically Me?

I don't want to be left out so I compare to ensure my sense of place is secure, while bracing myself with a firm and solid rigidness as I anticipate being blown over by the more deserving and well-behaving, consistent and good folk. I lose my uniqueness when I do this. It's deliberate in ways and at the same time, exactly what I most resent: the losing of Me.

My quest to blend-in is motivated by humbleness that is truthfully, driven by fear. Shouldn't I be humble in nature? And doesn't standing out run counter to that?

What I want isn't something I've allowed myself to consider. Like a cookie jar on the counter full of my favorite kind of yum, I have denied and ignored and labeled my desires and wants and longings as wrong. So I've said no to things like swimming, or sewing, or sundaes for reasons of risk -- I could flail, or fail, or fatten. I've boxed up my heart and quieted this very space, first saying I should take a summer-time sabbatical and then finally admitting it was shame that silenced this Me right here.

I've tried to quiet and snuff out excitement -- Hope -- for the potential new person this world and our family could possibly have among us in this next year, telling myself I shouldn't want or even anticipate. I've been fearful of planning with certainty when I know deeply that I have no control over this, so I work to control my very own emotions and wildly swipe the gift of dreaming straight off the shelf like a three-year-old pitching a crazy, silly royal fit.

Accepting myself as human hasn't been something I've been willing to do. I'd choose me last in a line-up or really, deeply, I am not sure I'd choose me at all. So I shirk and slink and shame. I tuck and cover into a corner pocket while I let others' bravery tower tall over me, hoping to warm myself in their long casted shadows and ultimately feeling coldness from the lonely and the dark.

He sifts me. Refines me. Says I matter, even in my humanness. He tells me that He chose me -- before I cheated and lied, and before the fear and the pride. He says that I wasn't chosen for nothing, but for something -- purposed and planned for His story, a part of His glory.

These messes I leave, the wallops of mistakes I've made and keep making -- He says they don't matter and that I do so much more than they.

So I bravely breathe. And I boldly Be.


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1 comment:

  1. Amy, this is so good! I relate to snuffing out my longings, desires and emotions, feeling unworthy to feel and receive good gifts. But really our Father longs to give us good gifts & He gives us the desires of our hearts. And I love how He "says I matter even in my humanness. He tells me that He chose me..." Thank you for laying out your heart here.

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