When Friendship Hurts

Friendship has always been at the forefront of my life.  My weekends revolved around where my friends were, my biggest anxiety about college was meeting people, my ‘career’ goal is really just to be in a position where I get to hang out with and know people deeply.  I've basically decided friendship is my vocation.

So what happens when it doesn’t go well?  What happens when you get hurt by a friend?  What happens when someone who has held a very big spot in your heart suddenly causes it to crack a little? (Or a lot?)

I’ve been spending a lot of time experiencing and pondering all of this and I have a few things to admit.  I have phrased them as “When someone hurts me” statements so as to not group you all in with me – but go ahead and personalize it if it resonates with you.  Maybe we can move away from these ugly habits together.

When someone hurts me, I tend to project that hurt onto everyone else. 

I realized that because someone who was close to me proved themselves capable of causing me pain, I all of a sudden believed that everyone in my life was capable of that.  And that they just might do it.  So what is my response?  Put up walls.  Hide away where no one can hurt me. (Yet, as I’m learning, this tends to hurt us more.)

I also think I might have started to project this onto God.  It is the same idea – if someone who loves me is capable of hurting me, God probably is too.  I mean, He allowed it, didn’t He?  How can I trust a God who is capable of hurting me?

When someone hurts me, I suddenly feel guilty.

I admitted this to my roommate and said, “How crazy and ridiculous is that?!”  To which she responded, “At least you realize its ridiculous.”  But who knows how long I have been functioning this way. 
I walk away from a situation where I am the victim, and somehow in my mind convince myself that I am the perpetrator.  Am I the only one being this ridiculous?!  Instead of understanding that I have been hurt and working through it, I find a way to tell myself that I am deserving of or did something to deserve that hurt. Now that my eyes are open to that hideous lie, I have to figure out how to shut that down. (I’ll keep you posted. J)

When someone hurts me, I lose my JOY.  I have been frustrated with myself for a season now because I feel like I’ve lost my JOY.  Sometimes I get out of the practice of looking for it and resting in it, but often it is because my hands are too full with something else for me to hold any JOY.  When we fill our hands with anger and bitterness, we don’t leave any room for contentment and JOY. 

The response to these ugly pits of deceit? 

When someone hurts me, I need to remember Who’s I am and what He did for me.

Jesus will speak over us every day that we are His Beloved; His beautiful child.  Just ask.  He will remind us that He would (did) literally die for us, and would never leave us or cause us pain.  Yes, He allows us to experience pain for our own growth and learning, but He never inflicts it on us maliciously.

I also remind myself of the beautiful friends who have stood by me for a decade, half a decade, or even just a year – but who have all proven themselves loyal and faithful to me time and time again.

When someone hurts me, I cannot let it speak lies about my identity and value. 

It seems like when someone does something hurtful, suddenly I question everything about me.  (Sounds like a crazy girl thing to do, but its true.)  Just because someone caused me pain does not mean I have no worth or purpose.  Just because a friendship is struggling doesn’t mean I misheard God’s calling on my life.  I have to be so confident in who God created me to be that my worth is not defined by how someone treats me but by how He sees me.  Which leads us to…

When someone hurts me, I have to release my bitterness and learn to forgive.  Sometimes I dislike the idea of forgiveness because it looks like excusing what the other person did.  But really it does not justify the hurt, it allows me to let go of it.  If we hold onto hurt, it takes us over and makes us bitter and resentful.  To forgive is as much for our own health as for the other person.  I’m still learning what this looks like, so all I can say for now is that if we really want to experience God’s JOY we have to live with open hands.  We have to release it all into His control and let Him work in our hearts and the hearts of others in order to bring restoration and peace.  I haven’t accomplished this, not even close.  But my search for JOY is more important than my grip on bitterness, so I’m going to try to let go. 

God is always in the business of redemption…In our lives and the lives of others.  He wants us to be a part of it, to experience it.  Because once we learn His love for us - once we experience His redemption in our identity and hearts and souls – maybe the hurt of others won’t sting quite as much.

The Masquerade

I’ve always wanted to attend a masquerade.  It seems fun – getting dressed up, wearing a mask…hiding behind something.  You can be whoever you want to be when you’re behind a mask.

But when we wear masks in life, it’s not a fun event or a healthy game of dress up.  I knew a lot of people growing up that both encouraged and participated in mask wearing.  And I have been bitter and held resentment towards ‘them’ for being fake and lacking authenticity and passive aggressively dealing with issues instead of dealing with them head on.

But recently I have realized that as much as mask-wearing bothers me, I am just as guilty of it as they are.  I may just be so accustomed to my mask that it has taken me this long to realize I was wearing it.

My world is being rocked by a book my sweet Mama gave me called “The Cure.”  The main question the book asks is, “What if God isn’t who you think He is and neither are you?” 

It addresses the way we approach our relationship with God – at some time we approach a fork in the road where we can choose one of two paths; either Pleasing God or Trusting God.  Both sound good – but pleasing God leads to a room of masked people trying to keep themselves together, while trusting God leads to grace, laughter, and worthiness.

I find myself now, almost fully on the path of Pleasing God.  It is well intentioned, but it leads nowhere.  We strive and strive and never get where we want to be, or where God wants us to be, for that matter.  We wear masks because we want it to look like things are okay, that we are managing. 

The thing about masks is this though: “No one told me that when I wear a mask, only my mask receives love.” (The Cure)
I remember the first time a youth leader spoke to me and my friends with no mask on. It blew my mind.  She had just become our small group leader and the first time we met she shared her testimony.  She told us all the good and bad, regrets and mistakes, and how God uses all of that for His glory; and the fact that she could be so honest and so real absolutely shattered any mask she could have been wearing.  I'll never forget it.  By being authentic, she gave us permission to do the same, and that saved me and my friends in so many ways. (Forever thankful for you.)

I want to peel off the mask.  I want to be on the path of Trusting God.  I want to be real and not hidden.  I think this blog may be a step in that direction, and maybe someone will resonate.

I need to stop being angry at others for wearing masks, and even for telling me that I should wear one too. 

I need to start believing that God loves me without my mask – for who I am underneath all the ‘togetherness’. 

He loves my brokenness, my vulnerability, my mess. 

“What if God isn’t who you think He is and neither are you?” 

What masks are you wearing?  Do you believe that God and even other people can and will love you even if they see you without it?

He loves you past your mask; He created you without a mask.  “Once we weary enough of mask-wearing, we can begin discovering the true face of Jesus…Our true faces are beautiful, too.  God made them exactly the way He wanted, and He longs to see His reflection.  The trouble with papier-mâché is it doesn’t reflect.” (The Cure)

I want to soak this in: “SEE what kind of LOVE the Father has given to us, that we should be called CHILDREN OF GOD” (1 John 3:1).  We aren’t meant to attend a lifelong masquerade.  Real love and real life require living mask-less.

We are His, and He is ours.  Lean into that, friends. 

Lynch, J., McNicol, B., & Thrall, B. (2011). The Cure.  San Clemente, CA: CrossSection.

Life's too Fast to Run, My Friend

I always respond, “Tired”.  Every time someone asks me how I am, it is my go-to response.  Either that or, “Good…busy…” 

I’m tired of responding that way (yes, irony.).  I want to say – and actually feel – free, happy, content…

I think a step towards that is changing my posture.  Both literally and figuratively.

I am sick of living with my shoulders by my ears and my hands clenched tight.  Sick of keeping my head down and my eyes on the ground. 

I want to live with my shoulders back, my head thrown back laughing with my eyes open to the world.  I want my hands to be open, palms to the sky, ready to receive. 

So how do we do that?  How do we live with abandon, with freedom to just be?  Even in the craziness and sadness and hard times of life…

We have got to know and be known.  We’ve got to be open and vulnerable and to stop hiding.  Because hiding is exhausting.  That is what I’m learning.

Its funny – the very thing I do to protect and preserve myself – hiding, closing off, building walls – is the very thing that consumes my energy and wearies my soul. 

One of my favorite verses is in Psalm 103.  Verse four says that “He redeems our lives from the pit”.  Verse five says, “He satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.”  I love The Message version of verse five… “He renews your youth – you’re always young in his presence.”

Kids are carefree.  They don’t have a hard time throwing their head back laughing and running barefoot everywhere they go.  They keep their hearts on their sleeves and don’t hide a thing.

So by renewing our youth, making us young always…means we can be like that.  With God, we are free.  Free to dance, free to run, free to cry, free to laugh.

Free to live life with an open posture, relaxed, trusting, and vulnerable.

I caught a line in a song today that made me pause: “Life’s too fast to run my friend.”  

We can’t and shouldn’t live rushing through life, heads down and charging ahead.  Its too fast and too short for that.  I am realizing I want to live life slowly and full of rest, drinking in all that God has for me.  Isn’t that the way we all should live?

For November

“How do you feel?”

“Tired.”

“Tired is not a feeling, it’s a state of being.”

“I think it’s a feeling. I feel tired.”

“Pick a better word. Google ‘feeling words’.”
“Ok, fine...” (and after literally googling ‘feeling words’), “…somewhere in the ‘dissatisfied, disillusioned, frustrated’ section.”

I am thankful for (and sometimes annoyed by) friends who push – who lean in – when I pull away and collapse inside myself.

I took a study break to read my favorite blog (aholyexperience.com) and she spoke to my soul: “What grabs a hold of a woman and makes her fear a day and herself and letting anyone get close?  What makes joy elusive and cynicism easy and stress normal?” 

And there it was.  What I struggled to describe, my feelings, she stated simply.  I am stressed and that has become my normal.  I am dissatisfied with where my life is and frustrated that it isn’t what I thought it would be by this point.

I’m impatient with God and wondering when His plan for me will finally be set in motion…and I realize I am missing, not engaging, with this part of His plan – because His plan for us begins before we are even on this earth – it does not start when we graduate or get married or find our dream job – our purpose and plan is from the first breath and we cannot live our lives waiting for it to start.  We may wait for a lot of things, but not for a purpose. 

And I get even more frustrated because I am spending my life being frustrated. (Irony.)

What a waste to spend our lives living in these emotions.  How do we find our way out?  Am I the only one feeling this way? 

Sometimes, I see other people living happy lives and I wonder when its my turn.

I try to live a life of JOY but sometimes it’s just.so.darn.hard.

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 says, “Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

Joy – always.  Prayer – always. Thanks – always.  That is God’s will for us.

“Thanks therapy is God’s prescription for JOY.” – Ann Voskamp (I mean really, just go read her blog please.)

I don’t believe in a formulaic God.

I don’t think that obedience + submission = blessing.

I don’t believe tithing + being happy about it = surprise checks in your mailbox. 

God is not a formula, He does not work in formulas. 
But this life formula is simple, and true.  Look for the JOY around you and you will find it.  And you will become JOYful.  Its all I really want in life is to embody JOY.  I don’t want to embody frustration, disillusionment, or dissatisfaction.  I want to live out JOY and hope.  I want to be a light in a dark world not a dark person in a light filled place.

I need to return to a place of gift-counting.  Of seeking out the JOY in all areas of life.  Even when I have 3 papers to write and a job that seems thankless and a life that seems less than. 

Because when I look for it, I will find it, and I will become JOY.

Challenge to all of us for this November month: 5 gifts each day. 5 things you are thankful for – let’s make it a JOY filled month (: