I shouldn't be typing this blog right now. I should be working on my school work. I should be working on my organization assessment. I should be doing a lot of things. But truthfully, I want to bitch a little instead. That's not even true. I don't want to bitch. I want to spill my heart on canvas. I want to spill my heart and what I just realized about myself, even though it exposes so much in me that I long to keep disclosed, from being revealed. Because I want to be perfect. I want to appear perfect. I want to do and say the right things. I want to keep everyone happy always. But that is not a reality in life. That is unhealthy. That is a by-product of being raised in a co-dependent environment, where the lie was implanted deep within me that as long as everyone was happy and everything was smooth I would be ok. But you know what? That has a price-tag on it too. And that price tag is me. And I am done paying the price for others happiness with rejection of myself: my wants, my needs, my feelings, my emotions, my reality, my experience.
I think what's hard is it's a fine line right? Like, I don't want to become this hard hearted mega bitch who disregards others. No. That's not the point at all.
The point is, I want to learn how to really love and embrace me and accept the deep pits of who I am and how I feel while still fully loving others.
My weakness and one reason I call myself a shitty prophet is that I care SO MUCH about the opinions and perspectives of others, because I genuinely love people and want them to be happy. But the second someone else's wants take precedence over my needs, a dangerous line has been crossed.
I'm not sure why I just went on that ramble, but I'm going to leave it there. Raw and exposed. Shitty prophet style. Because maybe by exposing my mess and chaos and wrestle you can find peace and confidence in yours.
Do you want to know why being a prophet is so hard for me? At least today's reason? Because I love wrapping things up with neat bows. I love order. No no, that's not the right word. I love compartmentalizing. I love it. I love everything to have its place and to not be messy. But you know what? LIFE IS MESSY
And do you want to know why I like it that way? BECAUSE THERE IS FALSE SAFETY IN THAT. I get a sense of safety from everything having its place. But it's false safety because I was born and created to take risks. Big risks. And to get messy and play and explore. And yet this need for safety hinders me at times because I have to choose: safety that breeds contentment that births parts of my soul falling asleep or Risk, that causes me to confront and address every lingering fear inside of me, that causes me to cut parts of my soul (that yes produce growth and health, but the cut fucking hurts more than anything in that moment), that causes me to stretch myself and go beyond myself and risk every safety and security measure I have known to protect myself with.
Self protection man. Ugh that's a weakness I possess. And I think sometimes in the Christian world we like to call self protection "wisdom" or " guarding our hearts" or "self control". And while wisdom, heart guarding and self control are good, they are NOT self protection. We are called to be vulnerable. Self protection is not vulnerable. We are called to love. Self protection does not love... it seeks self. It seeks me. We are called to love ourselves, but there is a difference between loving myself and protecting myself. I'm tired you guys. I'm tired of constantly being on guard. I'm so tired. And yet I'm so afraid. I'm so afraid to really love with complete abandon. I'm so afraid to press into my dreams because it means risking EVERYTHING.
By why hold on to what I cannot keep?
Oh, and I am so tired of the Christianese of it all. "Just have faith" "Just trust God". Yeah. I get it. But as Peter Steinke writes in his book "How Your Church Family Works" " Those who insist on a 'pure' faith unstained by human emotionality make the denial of reality a condition of faith."
Here's the deal. I can trust God and be scared shitless and want to run away all at the same time. I can have faith in Jesus and yet holistically and authentically acknowledge every part of me that resists him that moment. I can want to run full steam into every dream I have and yet be aware of how afraid I am of everything going wrong and falling flat on my face. I can choose to jump off the cliff in faith and yet hold tight that if I somehow don't manage to fly in that moment, there is a good chance that I'm going to die. I can follow Jesus and yet realistically acknowledge that while I am willing to pay the cost, I'm aware it may completely destroy me.
I don't like addressing hard truths with people. Especially when I know they just don't understand them. Because let's get real. The human condition when we don't understand is to either reject what's presented or turn on the one presenting it.
The call of a prophet is this: To hold out vulnerably exposed the precious heart God has given you, repeatedly hoping someone picks it up and celebrating when they do with great joy. Yet experiencing more often than not the deep rejection of the things found in the heart, and in turn then the rejection of the messenger.
And yet for me, to not fully expose my heart with what God has put there is to kill myself before you get a chance to. That's a dangerous line. Because in that I destroy myself, I hinder what God wants to do in my life, and I make a poor assumption about you--that you are going to reject my heart/message, reject God, and/or reject me. What a horrible thing right? Isn't that the very thing I fear? So in protecting myself, I do the very thing to you that I don't want you to do to me. That's horrible. And yet let's get real. Isn't that the by-product of fear in all of us?
You want to know why I don't like being a prophet? Because more than anything it makes me get real with the condition of my own heart. And my heart, while full of beauty, has a bunch of ugly shit that needs to get worked out. But you know what I love about shit? It's the best fertilizer for growth. But when dealing with it... it's still shit. It still smells. It's still disgusting. It still has the potential to spread disease and health issues. And yet I enter my shit and expose it with the hopes that it really will turn out to be fertilizer and will grow a crop of beauty.
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