I freeze. I hesitate. I hold back.
From the minute I walked into her office, I had a plan of how I would share things. After all, I am a classic case "internal processor". I think, edit, rethink, and then share. As all good therapists do, Mirna asked me what brought me in to see her. I began sharing bits and pieces of our son's life journey up to that point to help paint a picture for her to understand where I was coming from. For her to help me process grief.
My plan, my agenda was to better understand grief to ensure I was able to do it "rightly". Because Heaven forbid this perfectionist does anything wrong. Yet she surfaced deeper things in me than I would have ever imagined in those 45 minutes. I left with a literal headache and no real answers (or at least answers I anticipated) to my motive for seeing her. My head was spinning because she was so right. She saw deeper. The root of my question in the first place.
You see, it's not that I don't understand grief. She saw a girl trapped in the fear of what people may think depending on how I grieved.
If I am happy - will people be concerned I haven't grieved well, will people think I'm being fake.
If I make jokes - will people think I have stuffed everything.
If I have sad days - will people assume I am getting carried away.
If I go on with everyday life - will people speculate that I don't care.
If I...
If...
It's never ending. A constant barrage of fears of what people think. Me wondering what they perceive based on what they see. It's exhausting. Yet I remain. This will very likely be a constant act of surrender to the Lord. An active fight to believe my identity remains in Him and not what others think of me. You see, friend, I left Mirna's office that day feeling such a deep disgust for my sin. I innocently thought I just needed to better understand grief to freely walk in my own grief journey. However, she did far greater by helping the Spirit reveal my sin-stained efforts to myself.
It was never about better understanding grief. See saw right through me. She saw a girl trying to mind her Ps and Qs in order to dance around judgements as though I could dodge bullets of misconceptions of me. But I can't.
She made one of the most profound statements of truth that day; deep truth that my flesh needed spoken into it, like a piercing sword of truth right into the heart of the lie that I so deeply believe. I recall this statement all.the.time when I become aware that I am "doing it again". She told me Jesus was misunderstood. To be misunderstood for the cause of Christ is to be like Christ. Here is God the Son, perfect in every way yet completely misunderstood and even by His closest friends and family. Why should I expect anything different? Why would a humble servant be treated any better by the world around her than her own King?
This was nearly 2 years ago when I walked into Marna's office for the first time. And to this day - I continue to struggle with what people think of me. If they understand my words or motives to my actions. It is a constant dying to self. Dying to my attempts to please man and impress to some phantom standard I will never even know myself.
While I still I freeze, hesitate, and hold back out of fear of being misunderstood I am much more aware. I ask the Lord to open my eyes to seeing when I am living in fear of what people perceive and reply on Him to surrender it, redeem it, and repent from it. It's not always easy because for some reason my flesh seems to crave the enslaving feeling. But I fight for freedom. Not the false freedom to be understood, but to be misunderstood and rest in assurance of who I am in Christ.
It is with this that I give you all of me - unedited and uncensored. I experience deeper joy in any given day than I know how to explain. A great awareness of how this world around me reflects and points me to Christ all throughout my days. And while I often feel trapped out of the fear of being misunderstood (my words not making sense, my thoughts being criticized, my actions misinterpreted) I desire to continue to take steps of faith to share these things with you no matter what misconceptions may come my way. Here I am. All of me.
From the minute I walked into her office, I had a plan of how I would share things. After all, I am a classic case "internal processor". I think, edit, rethink, and then share. As all good therapists do, Mirna asked me what brought me in to see her. I began sharing bits and pieces of our son's life journey up to that point to help paint a picture for her to understand where I was coming from. For her to help me process grief.
My plan, my agenda was to better understand grief to ensure I was able to do it "rightly". Because Heaven forbid this perfectionist does anything wrong. Yet she surfaced deeper things in me than I would have ever imagined in those 45 minutes. I left with a literal headache and no real answers (or at least answers I anticipated) to my motive for seeing her. My head was spinning because she was so right. She saw deeper. The root of my question in the first place.
You see, it's not that I don't understand grief. She saw a girl trapped in the fear of what people may think depending on how I grieved.
If I am happy - will people be concerned I haven't grieved well, will people think I'm being fake.
If I make jokes - will people think I have stuffed everything.
If I have sad days - will people assume I am getting carried away.
If I go on with everyday life - will people speculate that I don't care.
If I...
If...
It's never ending. A constant barrage of fears of what people think. Me wondering what they perceive based on what they see. It's exhausting. Yet I remain. This will very likely be a constant act of surrender to the Lord. An active fight to believe my identity remains in Him and not what others think of me. You see, friend, I left Mirna's office that day feeling such a deep disgust for my sin. I innocently thought I just needed to better understand grief to freely walk in my own grief journey. However, she did far greater by helping the Spirit reveal my sin-stained efforts to myself.
It was never about better understanding grief. See saw right through me. She saw a girl trying to mind her Ps and Qs in order to dance around judgements as though I could dodge bullets of misconceptions of me. But I can't.
She made one of the most profound statements of truth that day; deep truth that my flesh needed spoken into it, like a piercing sword of truth right into the heart of the lie that I so deeply believe. I recall this statement all.the.time when I become aware that I am "doing it again". She told me Jesus was misunderstood. To be misunderstood for the cause of Christ is to be like Christ. Here is God the Son, perfect in every way yet completely misunderstood and even by His closest friends and family. Why should I expect anything different? Why would a humble servant be treated any better by the world around her than her own King?
This was nearly 2 years ago when I walked into Marna's office for the first time. And to this day - I continue to struggle with what people think of me. If they understand my words or motives to my actions. It is a constant dying to self. Dying to my attempts to please man and impress to some phantom standard I will never even know myself.
While I still I freeze, hesitate, and hold back out of fear of being misunderstood I am much more aware. I ask the Lord to open my eyes to seeing when I am living in fear of what people perceive and reply on Him to surrender it, redeem it, and repent from it. It's not always easy because for some reason my flesh seems to crave the enslaving feeling. But I fight for freedom. Not the false freedom to be understood, but to be misunderstood and rest in assurance of who I am in Christ.
It is with this that I give you all of me - unedited and uncensored. I experience deeper joy in any given day than I know how to explain. A great awareness of how this world around me reflects and points me to Christ all throughout my days. And while I often feel trapped out of the fear of being misunderstood (my words not making sense, my thoughts being criticized, my actions misinterpreted) I desire to continue to take steps of faith to share these things with you no matter what misconceptions may come my way. Here I am. All of me.
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