Heart is Engaged

[Pre-dated 5/26] Here's an attempt at articulating what's been going on in my heart that I wasn’t ready to blog about last week. These thoughts have been spurred by a combination of several events in the last couple of weeks, some this week which finally clarified things, I'm glad for the experiences. I posted what I hoped would help others and here's some of what I'm learning along the way as well. It's a long one :-)

I have hoped from the beginning of keeping a blog that going against my natural tendency to be quiet and keep to myself would somehow bless someone. I paused the first time I found out other people I didn’t know were reading my blog. I stopped to consider and felt the potential benefits far out weighed the risks. Maybe I'm over estimating my effect on people, maybe it's a grandiose ambition, maybe a tad arrogant. I could be overshooting what a blog is supposed to be all about. Should it be all about the happy stuff and I’m violating some social boundary by being too serious? Should it just stay in the acquaintance zone? Whether or not I should share thoughts, be serious or just ponder out loud for the entire internet to see should they so desire, I am. I don’t have a journalism, or English degree that would give this weight or educational credibility. Sometimes my words meander off, the grammar might be incorrect and as much as I try to run spell check, there are probably still errors. I’m not going for perfection. It comes from a heart that wants to help. I know I can not change anyone but myself. Maybe a renewed sense of purpose combined with struggles is how God finally got me to see what I should have been doing all along. Maybe it was never just about my comfort or having an easy life in North Dallas with all the job titles, higher degrees, monetary success, foreign cars, big homes, fancy vacations.

What can I help with? What am I qualified for? I'm a survivor of many things: divorce from many views, abuse of several kinds, multiple losses, physical inconveniences, and most recently infertility. In a society that values "this works for me and that works for you" the most valued characteristic is comfort. So why should my experiences benefit anyone else, because after all you're different, that's not the way you handle things. With one phrase I can justify what I think and feel is right and never have to change whether that really is what God wants or what is best for me. I know which people in my life to ask questions to validate my opinion and who will challenge me. Our tie that binds is vulnerability and shared faith. I would be missing out had I stayed with my public mask on with all the right pleasantries sticking only with my good friend who were like me. The rest of you are not needed, not invited, you will get no closer to me as I'm fine and this works for me. I may get encouragement from you from afar but am I with holding giving encouragement or not even thinking I could be encouraging by shutting you out. I've learned so much from you and am I vain hoping I affect you in some small way? Isn't that what we all want in the end, to mean something to people?

When I'm hurting yes, I want to talk to someone face to face privately with trust and love and compassion. So what do I do with the hurt, disappointment, frustrations, and missed opportunities, wrong swords said, benefits of the doubt not given; the every day stupid things that happen in my life after the emotions have passed? Shouldn’t they count for something for someone else in the end??? I certainly don't feel any compulsion to make every mistake out there and hope that someone else's mistakes can help me to avoid an additional hurt. When the valleys hit, yes for a bit we are all takers. On the mountain tops it’s easy for human kind to give. But when the people who have every right to feel sorry for themselves don't, it physically brings a reaction to my chest and my eyes sting with tears. So with the experience of the human life we need people. We all want love, respect, value, identity, purpose. We want to understand, because we all hurt.

Satan wants us to be isolated; our strength is when we are vulnerable. I’m not looking towards Hollywood. What about someone having a vocal, acting or dancing talent makes Americans believe they have the answers? Living on the surface just sharing only happy times, successes, gossip, planning as if I have control, with people I see multiple times a week, it’s all so superficial. That level of social interaction is what the term acquaintances was reserved for. Do I really want to spend my valuable finite time on earth sharing knowledge at arm's length or my heart? I can read my own bible for knowledge. Sunday worship isn’t really even about me as I’m not the audience. I don't need regurgitation week after week from a soul numbing distance. I need a fellow Christian sister to find me trust worthy and risk their heart for me. A friendship can only grow with equal amounts of disclosure from people, growing trust and vulnerability. We connect as people when we show your humanness. At some point you take the risk, hopefully sooner rather than later. There are no guarantees; my heart might not be accepted.

I don't know all the answers, I just have to stop being fake. Stop buying in to my own ability for perfection as well as everyone else around me. It's still a work in progress, probably always will be. I'm still very aware of potential rejection. It happened this week. Even in the face of that worst fear God will protect me, not me closing down, so I keep doing it anyway. So, yes, it's worth reaching out because the other choice is not living, it’s barely surviving. Regardless of the height of walls I might encounter. The other hearts willing to meet in the game far out weigh those who are guarded by her Highness' Finest and they shall not be moved. Most of my life I have had very few close friends and was quite content with my introverted state. I still am who God created, not who I've created in my own mind about myself. God loves us exactly where we are, and He loves us too much to let us stay there. You don't have to clean yourself up before you go to church, don't worry, God will do it in His time and it will stick. My church isn't just for my comfort sitting in the pew or even just about my personal relationship with God although that's the foundation for being there. There is hurt in here, we are as Prentice Meador says my old minister, a hospital. That hurting person is sitting next to me in the pew that needs me to look beyond my own difficulties in life and step out. Maybe it's as simple as just inviting, building trust over a couple months, not years…maybe we all need to remember Christians hurt too. We are real with hurts, struggles, faults. My interpretation of the prayer of Jabez, by putting my own oxygen mask on first I can then hopefully help others place theirs on. We can all risk, stretch, allow people in on a real level because they are just like us.