Carnival Mirrors

Last night I realized that I struggle with inferiority. At least, last night my struggle with inferiority was named. It's something I've lived under for as long as I can remember. Even though I could feel it, it's name was something that I couldn't figure out on my own. And I didn't even figure it out on my own last night. The Lord made it clear to me.

We were sitting in our small, intimate Walking with God group last night talking about spiritual attack. We realized just how little we all knew about it, how little we'd been taught, how skewed our vision of it has been. It doesn't even occur to us that something spiritual is involved. We rationalize, hypothesize, fantasize, ostracize. But we don't exorcise--until now. We're being challenged to see our lives with new eyes, view what happens to us through the lens of the Lord, not our own.

After sitting and discussing for awhile, we went around the room to share one particular struggle we've been having lately, one particular "weak spot," a place where we've come to realize we're being picked off by the one who has the most to lose. I didn't want to share. I couldn't think of anything. Even though I knew there's been a cloud over me, one that covers pretty much every area of my life, I couldn't name it. I had such a hard time coming up with what exactly it was. So I asked the Lord to help me. I asked him to tell me what it was I was dealing with. It wasn't immediate, but soon I knew exactly what it was. Inferiority.

I feel inferior in who and what I am. I feel inferior to the people around me, who always seem to have it more together than I do. The ones who seem to be preferred, chosen over and above me. I feel like I'm not good enough, smart enough, savvy enough or creative enough to follow through with the things that my heart is bursting to do, the things that I know the Lord has called me to. I feel like he's made a mistake, that if he only knew, he'd realize that I was not up to the task, that I'm inferior to his high calling.

But the truth is that's just a lie. Who would have a vested interest in keeping me away from my calling? The one who fears me most. The one who knows he has something to lose if I rise to the challenge and fulfill my God-given destiny.

So back to last night. At the end of it all, we were going to contend for each other. We were going to pray about all the issues that were raised, deal with them right then and there. When it was my turn, I was so open to what the Lord had for me. Scared, maybe, but only because I knew that hearing truth requires action. And I was scared that I wasn't up to the task. But I persevered anyways because I was hungry enough for the truth. I'm tired of living like this, and I was ready for revelation and release.

There were many things spoken over me, but the things that I remember the most clearly are carnival mirrors. My perception of myself is so skewed, so misshapen, so wrong. It's not true to the way the Lord sees me. Not by a long shot. I've always seen myself differently than he sees me. I may have glimpses, but that's all they are. glimpses. I see a distorted version of myself.


The lord said to me, Oh, if only you saw yourself the way I see you. So pray to see yourself through my eyes so that you can see yourself the way I see you.

Inferiority was broken off of me that night. The truth is that I'm who I am because this is the way the Lord chose to make me. I'm not inferior. I'm beautiful to Him.

I've been looking at myself through Carnival Mirrors; I've been looking at a distorted version of myself, it's kept me from feeling like I can do what I know deep in my bones that I need to do. I don't know how to do it, but I do know that the Lord is not going to let me fall. I know that he'll provide for me. I won't pretend to know how. But what I do know is this: If I stop looking in the mirror and start looking through the Lord's eyes, I might get a clue.

Letting go of all things trivial

Perhaps my dreams are too lofty. But didn't I just read somewhere that God may see our dreams as not being lofty enough? Where did I read that . . . . I think it might have been in a june 18th entry of my A Year with C.S. Lewis book.

When I think about my life, my choices, where I've been and where I'm going, I realize there isn't much of a common theme stringing things together. At least, there hasn't been much of a theme up to this point, anyway. Unless you count complete and utter indecisiveness. I make one choice--laboriously, I might add--only to discover that I'm unsatisfied with it. Something goes wrong and it feels like a bad decision. Something goes right, but the feeling is fleeting, and soon I'm left wondering what the next step is.  I think I've been plagued by indecisiveness. 

In the past few years, though, I've started to make bigger decisions, more sweeping ones that change the course of my future. And I've found myself in some situations that I never dreamed I'd be in. But is this really it? Is this really all there is for me? Maybe my "big" decisions that helped make my dreams become a reality were really selfish. Maybe God knew that they were things I really wanted, so He allowed me to make my choices. And now that I've done things on my terms, where has it left me? Am I any happier than I was when I wondered what it might be like to actually live the life I thought I wanted? 

But this isn't what I always wanted. It is a life borne out of "could-have's" and "hasn't happened yet." It's a life filled with, well, filler, things that keep me moving in the direction of my future, but things that I never really wanted to do in the first place. It's not that I'm lazy, but I've never really wanted to work. Not in the traditional Corporate American sense, at least. To be a high-powered career type was not something that sounded remotely like me, and to be honest, it never appealed to me much. When it became painfully apparent that I would be taking care of myself indefinitely, a career was unavoidable. And today as I write this, my heart hurts a little at the notion that I felt that it was career or nothing. There's all sorts of in-between stuff that's good stuff. Things that I wish I could spend my time on instead of going to the soul-killing office every day. 

And that's what its' doing. It really is. My soul, the deepest,  most real part of me is dying a slow death. Suffocation. Drowning. Exhaustion. Starvation. Atrophy. You name it, it's killing me. 

And yet.

There are so many beautiful moments in my life, like the sound Brennan trying desperately to talk to us. Like the look on my mom's face when I surprise her with something. The smell of a dark, rich coffee brewing in the dark of the morning. Birds chirping as they fly past my window. How can life be so bad when there's so much good going on around me every moment of every day?

The problem is that I want to be part of it, the beauty, I mean. To let myself in and poke around for awhile, admiring what I see and inhaling the sweetness while the scent still lingers. How quickly it dissipates. I don't want to miss it.

I don't want to miss it. I think that's what's plaguing me most. The fear that my time is limited, and if I don't get started, I might miss my chance. My chance at happiness, at love, at joy, at doing something meaningful with my life. This is the only shot I've got. I don't want to miss it because my own selfish ambitions are in the way. God, I don't want to miss it. I don't want to miss it. I want to be here, be present, be attuned to what He's saying to me in every moment of every day, in every interaction, reaction, frustration and celebration. I want to know more, to know more often, to be sure of the things that I don't see. Certain of what I don't know yet. I want to have Faith. Real, true, knock-down drag out faith. The kind that can move mountains, the ones that get in the way of living out my destiny. 

God, how do I do that? How do I get past the mountains in my life? What do I do? Where do I go? How do I change my circumstances? And if I can't change my circumstances, how can I change my attitude? How easy it sounds, how difficult it actually is.

Lord, break my heart for the things that break your heart. Lord let me let go of all things trivial. (Thanks to Andy Smith of World Vision for these simple prayers.)

On waiting (and expecting)

The hum of the space heater. The leaves rustling in the wind. The tap tap tap of the keyboard as i type. All of theses sounds keep time for me these days. And time goes by so slowly when I'm anticipating something, waiting for something to happen. I'm on the cusp of something new. I can feel it. I know it deep down inside, in the most hidden part of me that even I have never seen. What is it exactly? I don't know. I'm really unsure. What I do know is that I'm waiting, sometimes patiently, other times quite impatiently, to be honest. And sometimes I feel like I can take it, like I'm not so desperate for change after all. And then there are days like today. My work ethic is stunted, I feel absolutely uninspired to do much of anything except sit and write (and write and write and write some more).

Perhaps the Lord is calling me to give up the drudgery of this job. Perhaps I'm being challenged to do it (and do it well) despite my feelings. But this is more than a feeling. It's a deep longing, a sort of sorrow that with each tick of the clock reminds me that my time is limited. There's only so much time we're all given, and there's really not much we can do to prolong what little of it we have left. There are so many things my heart yearns for, so much so that the time I do spend rarely feels like time well-spent.

There are moments, though, in which things seem just as they should be. It is in those moments that I gain my strength because I know that there is more than this. So much more. The problem is that I don't want to deplete my balance of hours left by spending too many on things I don't care about. I want to stock them away for another day, another project, another time. And yet here I am, stuck providing a service so that I can afford to keep coming to the office to provide a service. What a truly flawed system we've gotten ourselves into. How can this be life to the full? How can this even be life?

Life is full of tears and frustrations, yes, but it's also full of the beauty of redemption, of forgiveness, of the joy that comes when song birds rouse me from my slumber and welcome me to a new day. The simple pleasure of a good cup of coffee sipped over an engaging book. The warm sunlight flickering through the window panes as the BART train passes overhead. In those moments, somehow I know it will all be ok. That it will all work out. That a life lived out of the depths of my heart is the only way to really live.

Today, I choose to live, despite the fact that it's a struggle to survive.

Lately I've been feeling very useless, like all my dreams have been forsaken in favor of what's immediate. Dreams are not instant. Well, that's maybe not true. Seeing dreams  become a reality is not instant. In fact, it's about as opposite of instant as it could possibly be. That's probably why so many dreams get forgotten, left behind, buried beneath years of impatience and disappointment.

Today my dreams are on my mind. Don't give up the dream. Don't let it go. That's how I've been feeling. But what about acting on it? "Should I act on my dreams?" I ask. I don't get an answer. Maybe it's not the right question. "Should I give it a try?" Why not, I hear. 

This morning I woke up to a hot sun and a sunny disposition, something that hasn't been the norm in recent months (well, years if I'm being honest). I felt curious, interested to see how the day would pan out, not skeptical of it before it even had time to unfold. I remembered an old notebook I used to jot ideas down in when I worked at my old job, the one that a lot of down time (and threatened to suck the passion right out of me). What I found in this notebook surprised me. There were a lot of interesting ideas, mostly not formulated much farther than a sentence or two. But one entry had a fairly well-developed thought written. It inspired me to find that girl again, the one who voraciously wrote down every thought simply because she knew that's how inspiration emerges. The more one writes, the more gold there is to mine out of coal.

HEre's what it said...

"I never knew. I spent my whole life in California, grew up here, went to school here, drove down I-5 more times than I could count, and I never knew.

"I'd heard of the dust bowl, but pretty soon it got lost in the shuffle of all the other bowls around--the Rose Bowl, the Orange Bowl . . . I'd be curious how many kids today think it's a football game. But it wasn't. 

"When I was a senior at San Jose State University, I took a Steinbeck course and read The Grapes of Wrath for the first time. That's where I learned about the horrific events that happened in my own backyard just a few decades before I was born. Migrant workers, shantytowns, starvation and rotting fruit all coexisting in the trenches of over-traveled roads spanning the length of the California Central Valley.

The Power of the novel was not so great because it won the Nobel prize, but because of the author's ability to tap into the human heart. 

Listen to the sound of the old jalopy. Listen to it as it creaks and moans, feel the shifting of the gears. . . . tune into what it's saying.

When the cars finally gave out, was anyone listening? The plight of man--did anyone care? What was so "other" about these hard-working souls? Though they had little, they were generous with what they did have. In the face of poverty, they found plenty.

Here I am sitting in my tiny apartment, thinking about how I don't have space in my closet to fit my shoes, and how I don't have enough shoes, so where will I put my new ones if I can't even fit what I do have in the closet? My plight pales in comparison. Only when I have nothing do I have everything.

Listen to the sound of the old jalopy. The poor. The helpless. The broken. The needy. What do they need? If you listen, they'll tell you. But the first thing they need is our attention. How many times have I refused to give away even a quarter to someone who asked for it simply because I wasn't sure they'd use it for something other than drugs or alcohol? So many adults used to tell me to be careful who I gave to--but a couple of weeks ago, while sitting in North Beach eating gelato, a needy man asked for change. Joel reached into his wallet and gave him every penny he had--without hesitation.

I was thirsty and you gave me a drink. 

How do we offer drink to those who don't tell us they're thirsty? Listen. Listen to the hum of the engine.

We may never know what our act of kindness does, the repercussions they have in the recipients' lives, days, weeks, months, or years in the future. We don't have to know. That's not the purpose. Showing kindness, showing love, treating fellow man with loving kindness is al our concern should entail. Not glory for us, but glory for God through us.

We can add water to the radiator when it gets dry. We can tighten a screw when it gets loose. We can take a warm rag and wipe down the windshield, cleaning the bugs and dirt off so that the driver may see clearly again. Sometimes we can see what needs to be done, but other times we simply need to listen. Listen to the heart of the driver."

I concede that this does not represent my best work, but even this small entry holds the potential for developing a great and powerfully meaningful and moving piece of art. Don't give up the dream. Take hold of it. 

Dare to Desire

Yesterday I read an excerpt from The Journey of Desire, another fabulous book by John Elderidge. I was feeling really, well, blue is the only word I can think of, and I reached for The Ransomed Heart, a collection of short vignettes from the majority of Elderidge's books. My bookmark was on page 194, "Life Without My Closest Friend." I began to read, thinking that I'd flip through the book to find a vignette that actually spoke to the place I was right now, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I've been living the past couple months without my closest friend Christy. Sure, we share an address, but other than that, we seemed miles apart. The night before, we'd finally laid the cards on the table and agreed that there was a wedge that needed to be removed. So we removed it. But there's still a wedge between me and the rest of my life, and I think that it's disappointment. Disappointment with the way my life is going. Disappointment in people. Disappointment that the desires of my heart are going unmet. Disappointed that I'm not where I'd like to be. And I think that the Lord was trying to tell me something with this little excerpt. Here's what it said:

"'Despair,' wrote James Houston, 'is the fare of the desiring soul.' Or as Scripture says, 'Hope deferred makes the heart sick' (Prov. 13:12 NLT). How agonizing it can be to awaken desire! Over the past year I have wrestled deeply with what it means to go on. God has come to me again and again, insisting that I not give up the dream. I have ranted and railed, fought him and dismissed him. It feels crazy to desire anymore. What does it mean to live the rest of my life without my closest friend? I think of Lewis and Clark, those inseparable wilderness explorers, how we cannot think of one without the other. Lewis said of his companion, 'I could neither hope, wish, nor expect from a union with any man on earth, more perfect support or further aid in the discharge of my mission, than that, which I am confident I shall derive from being associated with yourself.' I know I shall never find another like him.

"But I am not alone in this. Most of you will by the this time have lost a parent, a spouse, even a child. Your hopes for your career have not panned out. Your health has given way. Relationships have turned sour. We all know the dilemma of desire, how awful it feels to open our hearts to joy, only to have grief come in. They go together. We know that. What we don't know is what to do with it, how to live in this world with desire so deep in us and disappointment lurking behind every corner. After we've taken a few Arrows, dare we even desire? Something in me knows that to kill desire is to kill my heart altogether." (The Journey of Desire, 22-23)

So what was the Lord telling me? Don't kill the desires. Don't kill your heart. Your heart matters. Your desires matter. Dare to desire.

Erratic Emotions

"You don't have to face this on your own. . . ."

Well then why do I feel so alone? And if my feelings aren't necessarily truth, then why are they so hard to disregard?

Living beneath a cold wet blanket of melancholy is not so fun. People who say melancholy people are sophisticated and poetic must never have lived this life. It is suffocating. I so want to get out of it, but I can't seem to. Sometimes I feel fine. Other times I feel like I'm losing it. Literally one minute I'll really feel as though my life is so great that I never want it to change, and the next I feel like it's all about to come crashing in on me. I can't regain my footing. It's like I've lost the path.

When we set off on life's journey, we think there's a destination. We all know that it's not so much about the destination as it is the journey (how many times have you heard that?) But for me, the journey seems to be really, well, laborious. Toiling in the hot sun, laborious. Trying to build a shelter in the pouring down rain, laborious. Straining to give birth to something--anything--laborious.

I know that God's marked me out for something. What, I'm not sure exactly yet. I feel like I'm really pursuing this, trying to get in tune with him and hear him, really really hear him, but I keep hearing nothing. Or is it that I'm not hearing what I think I should be hearing?

Last night I think I might have heard, You feel like you are unloveable. Is that the root of all my problems?

I'm unsatisfied. Sitting at my computer answering emails or looking up ISBNs isn't satisfying. Not talking to people all day isn't satisfying. Feeling like I have to stifle what's really going on in my heart is exhausting. I don't want to feel alone anymore. Is that what it is? Do I just feel alone? Well, yes. Even though my brain knows the truth, I'm in constant conflict. Like I said, one moment I'm sure of what I'm sure of, and the next I feel like I'm insane for questioning anything at all.

Lord, what is it that's attacking me? What is this that I'm dealing with? What is it?

God, why won't you speak? You said you would, so why can't I hear you? You said that if I asked, you would tell me great and mysterious things, things I could never figure out on my own (Jeremiah 33:3). So I'm asking, Lord. Tell me those great unknowable things. Tell me the things that my heart needs to hear. I'm ready. I'm here. I'm desperate. Please, Lord. Please. I'm your little girl all grown up needing to hear from her Daddy. Please, God. I know you're good and that you aren't holding out on me, so I'm asking you to come through for me. Come and get me, rescue me from this burden of belonging. Remind me that I belong to YOU, and everything else is peripheral to that.