Monday March 25, 2024
Eli’s birthday was Saturday. I cannot believe our sweet boy is 9! This means that this is last year that any of our kids will have a single digit age. While I try not to be the smothering type of Mom that wants her kids to stay the same (young) ages, I just cannot believe that it has been just a little shy of 9 years since we met him.
I went for a walk today. In a last minute decision, I decided to keep the earbuds and headphones at home. I pressed my ‘Outdoor Walk’ option on my watch, clicked the leash on Sansa (our GSP) and was on my way. While it was somewhatr freeing to not have to try and connect all the things to listen to a podcast or book… I did miss the voice in my ear that provided direction of my thoughts. Now, it was just me, alone with the sounds of squirrels scampering in the fallen leaves, and birds chirping to remind us (despite the temps in the low 30’s) that it is Springtime. For some reason I found myself reflecting on how Tom and I met and how this history relates to some of the thoughts and feelings I am going through in the present moment.
Our history is unique in that I was the pursuer in this story. Tom and I met at the gym and for a short while I was his personal trainer. After we started hanging out more, we became lifting buddies and we liked to shoot the ball around in the basketball court at our local YMCA while I waited for my next clients. Before we knew it we were hiking with our dogs and hanging out more. It was a relationship that was started on shared interest and at this point we were truly just friends. For some reason I have always been able to jive better with boys than girls… and this was no exception. We clicked. However, I was just recovering from a somewhat turmultous relationship and he was still in the thick of trying to sort through his next chapter too. Needless to say, dating was not the first thing on our minds when we met… but after a while it became obvious – even if it was just to me – that we would one day marry. I had never really felt so many feelings towards someone and this scared me at first, but not soon after this realization, which was about 8 months into meeting him, I was on the offense and defense depending on what Tom felt was best for him and his heart at the time. It was emotionally draining but every once and a while he would show me his ‘true self’ the one that wasn’t hurt and still healing, and that was all I needed to continue fighting for my one-day husband. About 3 years later, he put a ring on it and then a year later we got married. Little did I know, this (self-described) pursuit of acceptance & affection and way of seemingly inferior feelings from our interactions would stick with us for the 22 years we have known each other. Every so often these feelings related to my own lack of self-worth rear their ugly heads and define my wilderness moments. These heavy feelings envelope me in all the wrong kind of feelings – shame, despair, resentment, sadness, hopelessness, just to name a few – and they dim all my lights while painting a past, present and future that is darker and bleaker than I could imagine. And, all of the sudden, I am stuck in the muck and mire with no way out but prayer. God sized problems, demand God sized help… and the persistance of my pain is a God sized problem. How I relate everything back to this hopelessness and despair is a God sized problem. The resentment and hopelessness make it hard to turn to Him because in my sadness I find it easy to wonder… “Why here? Why now? Why me?” and I hate myself for going there again because I know when I am playing the victim, I am unable to change things. I hate the role of the victim and when I find myself asking these questions I know that I need to change the vocabulary in which I am speaking lies to myself that are ultimately going to keep me small.
So my next steps will be to Google Bible verses to help with these feelings (literally Bible verses to help with frustration… resentment… etc.). I will then write these down (I’ll type them later but write them down first) and then compare these Truths to the lies I am believing. It’s important to note here that sometimes you don’t even know the lies you are telling to yourself through self talk. Self talk does not always happen consciously. So in this case, write down all the junk in your head and compare it with the Truths we find in the Bible. If you don’t have a Bible there are so many good resources online (and the YouVersion Bible app is the bomb.com). Anywho search, write (then type if you want), then compare and pray over the bridge that you just built to turn feelings of victimhood and despair into ones of triumph and power. We are made in the image of Him and we were not created to just live with it. We are to experience abundant joy but we must not conform to what society has in mind to keep us small. Our ceiling is the sky and beyond… and this exercise calls out the dark thoughts, brings them to the light, and allows God’s Word to be the litmus test in which we base our joy from – not the shifty, inaccurate and inconsistent views that we have here on earth. We are worthy. We are loved. Not because we deserve it… but because He loved us first. This means that we can do nothing to let God down because we are doing nothing to hold him up.
Off to google, hand letter, pray and think about all.
Until next time…