Original date – February 2013.
I started this post a dozen times and couldn’t figure out how to structure it. I couldn’t make it say what I want it to say.
I tried approaching it from “I hate it when I think I’ve learned a lesson/been healed/etc. and then it resurfaces and I have to deal with it again.” But that approach felt too heavy handed. Like I was giving this particular thing too much credit. Yes – there are those things I thought I had “mastered”, where I thought all the nooks and crannies had been healed and made whole, where it seemed the foundations were firm and unshakeable. And then I realize they are back. But only sort of, kind of, not as strong, not as distracting, not as painful. I still know where they come from. I recognize the triggers and I know why they impact me the way they do. But it doesn’t feel as if I’m fighting giants any more.
Or maybe something starts the “old tapes” playing again and I’m back in that place of feeling hurt, fearful, unworthy, afraid of so many things, afraid that once again I will not be “good enough”. Those are my old tapes. Your old tapes may tell you something else. But then I realize there’s something different this time. The other voice – the one that says I am beautiful, worthy and capable – chimes in without my having to work hard at getting it there. And perspective begins to return pretty quickly.
Years ago a friend of mine described a season of spiritual warfare as being like a swarm of gnats. Not a serious threat. Just annoying little pests that keep you swatting. If a few of them bite, it’s a nuisance. But you don’t end up out of commission.
That’s the closest I can come to describing those times where my identity issues have been triggered once again, with a greater frequency than they have been in a while. When I originally wrote this, I’d been in a season like this for about six weeks. It had been a pretty steady stream of feeling like I was swatting gnats.
I know where I’m vulnerable. I know where my tender places are. But I have also learned how to swat the gnats that attack my identity.
I learned that someone from my past was saying untrue things about me and it hurt. I got scared that I would lose valued friendships over it. But I contacted the people whose friendships feel most at risk and that matter most to me – and they respond in beautiful ways that cause tears of gratitude to overflow.
Early in my years at Adventures in Missions, I found myself in a steep learning curve with new job responsibilities and I worried that I wouldn’t be good enough. And I realized how much my identity was tied to doing my job well. That’s a good thing to strive for but it is not the sum total of my identity. A sermon reminds me of that and a blog by a friend points out that stretching your capacity is like exercising a muscle – it’s a good thing and increases your ability. Suddenly I’m more excited and less scared. And I like that I’m willing to try things these days without having a guarantee of success. It’s a sign of growth.
I’m encouraged to try to do something (a simple thing that most people probably do without thinking) – and the affirmation from those teaching me that they are sure I can do it brings to mind a list of times I was told that I couldn’t do things “right”. I grieve a bit over “the list” and the feelings it brings back, and then I realize I am enjoying a new sense of freedom to try things, unafraid that I’ll be criticized for the effort. My worth is not determined by whether I succeed at everything or even whether I do things the way someone else does.
I regularly feel like I don’t fit. I’m an introvert in an organization of extroverts. I’m a detail person in an organization of visionaries. I love that I work with people like that – because I love being at a table where people bring things to the mix that I can’t bring. But I wonder if they feel the same about me. The desire to be different than I am – in order to fit in better – resurfaces. And then the Lord asks me to make a list of all the things I can remember Him saying about who I am – and it helps me trust the way He made me.
I want my identity and my sense of worth to be firmly established in the Lord. And that is far more true than it used to be. In the meantime, when there is a season of swatting at gnats, then I can do that, knowing that while it may be an occasional nuisance it is no longer a battle against giants. And for that I am grateful.
Betty's Thoughts 