I am an external processor. This means I learn what I am thinking/feeling when I can turn the myriad in my mind into words. This can take a spoken or written form. Lately, writing has been the only way for me to process what is going in my head and heart. My blog has been an avenue of many of these external processes in the past. Those posts are personal and real, but their conclusions are always encouraging or positive. By the infrequency of posts here, you may be able to gather that I often do not reach a positive conclusion — if I ever reach a conclusion at all. The place where the messy, raw, confused thoughts get pulled out and dissected are in my journal. It doesn’t seem fair that I only post the “happy” posts here. I understand discretion and privacy. I could even argue that I understand it too much. I conceal my true feelings and thoughts from even those closest to me. A quick sarcastic comment or shrug can easily brush off the nicest of inquires as to how I am really doing. The truth is, often times I can’t even express how I am really doing because I have covered up how I feel. For a long time I wasn’t even journaling. I coudn’t even bare to write the thoughts in my mind. I didn’t want to process how I was feeling because it was too painful. I didn’t want to share how I felt because I couldn’t bare for those closest to me to be as disappointed in me as I am.
More than anything I want someone to care enough to peal back all these layers that I’ve created and find me. But that isn’t fair. I don’t even know what is inside the bulwark I’ve created. I cannot expect someone else to know just the words to say, just the questions to ask, just the answers I need to hear in order to untangle the jumble of knots that choke me up whenever someone asks how I am. If I am not even willing to do the hard work of understanding exacting what is going on in my mind, how can I expect someone else to.
I am also hypocritical. I know several people who would be eager to hear all the mess in my mind. But the thought of having to face those people again, the thought of seeing their concerned faces every time they saw me, the thought of hearing their cookie cutter solutions and suggestions, their whitewashed, poster board bible versus and inspirational quotes is too overwhelming.
I know the “correct answers” to all my problems. I know what I should be doing or praying. But those things seem obsolete in the light of what has been happening.
I am further hypocritical because to me there is no greater honor than to have someone share their innermost self with me. I know most people don’t feel this way, but even so, I have deprived my closest friends and family that honor. So I am deciding to open up, as frightening as that is.
As I’ve stated, most of my blog posts end with driven convictions and hopeful resolutions. This is not the case for the following series of posts. They will be hard. Disappointing. Uncomfortable. Miserable. Uncensored. And confused.
Welcome.
I love the photos, very clever images. No matter what you reveal, remember you are loved and my arms are wide open. Only that which is brought into the light can be healed by the Light. Mom
Sammi, I honor your desire to be authentic and vulnerable. Your post reminded me of a quote by John Lynch from “The Cure: What if God isn’t who you think He is and neither are you?” He wrote, “What if it was less important that anything ever gets fixed than that nothing has to be hidden?” This quote both excites and frightens me. My desire for you, to paraphrase another Lynch quote, is to find a place so safe that the worst of you could be known, and you would loved more, not less, for being authentic and vulnerable.
I am so proud to have you as a dearly loved granddaughter. I will be praying as you walk through this journey.
Uncovering the messes inside of us is a part of spiritual growth. Unpleasant as it can be sometimes, without it there is spiritual stagnation and death. In the book “Blessed Are the Born Again” R. Kent Hughes writes “Poverty of spirit is foundational because ongoing poverty of spirit is the basis for ongoing spiritual blessing. An ongoing awareness of our spiritual insufficiency places us in the position of continually receiving spiritual riches. Poverty of spirit is something that we never outgrow. In fact, the more spiritually mature we become, the more profound will be our sense of poverty.” I would be more worried about you if you said that you weren’t struggling with anything. I hear you say that you are in pain and afraid to open up and I feel sad that you are suffering. Just know that we love you and all have discovered messes within ourselves that have caused us to despair, but Jesus is bigger than our messes and can’t be boxed in to a feel good Bible verse or two. We are in this with you and so is He.