Understanding

"You don't understand. No one understands what it's like inside my head"

Oh but honey I do know. I was there and in some ways still am. Hating what I see when I look in the mirror. Wondering how it is I can be cared for when I care so little for myself.
Wondering when I'll have the courage to sink the blade just a little bit deeper. Just a little deeper I would think, then the pain will all be gone away.

"I want to kill what's inside of me"

Me too. Only therapy lets me say these things louder than a whisper. I know what it's like to hate what's inside of you. To want to kill it. To want to stop the hissing voices telling you you're nothing. You don't matter. All of them are right.

I've been there. When I was there I hated the people that told me they'd been there too. I hated that they told me it would get better. I hated that they told me it wasn't just me. I wanted to feel special. I couldn't even be uniquely miserable.

But the thing is; all of the things I say to you I wish people had said to me over and over and over again when I was 15. To be honest it's what I wish people told me when I was 20, and 25 and even 30. Even now at 33 I long to hear someone tell me I'm valuable.

The only way people can know you don't feel valuable, really know it, is if you tell them.

Oh, I wouldn't have listened either. The times when my parents or friends would tell me these things. That I was beautiful and lovable and valuable I really mostly thought they had no clue. They thought the girl I showed them was beautiful. They thought the boisterous acts were lovable and endearing. They thought the way I allowed my body to be touched and my favors abused was valuable to them.
I simply didn't believe them.

I can see it there in your eyes too. That you don't believe me. That you think I'm just some old lady thinking herself hip to your jive.
But I see it and it's ok. You don't have to believe me tonight. Tonight is just one of the many times I will tell you that you are beautiful. That you have value that is not in how your body looks, that how you look is not even close to the most valuable thing about you.

So I know. But you don't have to believe me. I understand, and you don't have to believe that either. Some things are true even if you don't believe them.

I'm stuck in this dream it's changing me I am becoming
the me that you know he had some second thoughts
he's covered with scabs and he is broken and sore
the me that you know doesn't come around much
that part of me isn't here anymore
all pain disappears it's the nature of my circuitry
drowns out all I hear there's no escape from this my new consciousness
the me that you know used to have feelings
but the blood has stopped pumping and he's left to decay
the me that you know is now made up of wires
and even when I'm right with you I'm so far away
I can try to get away but I’ve strapped myself in
I can try to scratch away the sound in my ears
I can see it killing away all my bad parts
I don't want to listen but it's all too clear
- The Becoming NIN

Broken Places

When you throw your back out it is often because the muscles around your spine have moved out of place. Sort of.
Your spine has been tweaked out of place but you don't know it immediately because the muscles will move and compensate for the pain by moving to a place where the pain is tolerable.

Eventually, no amount of movement, no amount of compensation, will make the pain tolerable. Usually this is when my back officially goes out and I can't walk upright anymore. This is when I'm forced to go to the chiropractor and get my back adjusted into the correct places...again.

This morning, standing in the dark shower I said to God...sometimes it is easier to stay broken.

I don't know the moments when my back goes out. I only know the moments when the muscles around my spine give up the fight and say enough is enough this has to be fixed and we can't do that anymore.

Even then, bent over and hobbling around I think...this will get better soon. I just have to push through. My back will take care of it, it will be fine. I will be fine.

Fine is my F word.

I just want everything to be fine. If I don't look directly at being broken it's fine. It's ok. It's no big deal. I can manage. I'll just move some muscle around and compensate for the pain.

Don't look at how you spend money and why you place value on bank account balances. It's fine. Just leave it alone.
Don't look at what you eat, Jesus loves you anyway even if no one else does. It's fine. Just let it be.
Don't look at friendships. If you do you might be clingy and scare people away from being your friend. Just be cool. No one loves a needy girl.
Don't look at relationships. Don't ask why, the answer is probably something that requires change from you and that's not what we're going to do.
Don't look at touch. It has no easy answers and complicated is just too messy.

So I compensate. I mold myself around the pain instead of trying to clear it up. Because sometimes it's just easier to stay broken.

But now I can't walk. I'm hobbled over and unable to push through.
God is whispering that it's time to get adjusted. It's time to stop compensating and avoiding and look directly at some things.
I tell Him I hate it.
I tell Him I don't want to.
I tell Him that HE made me this way. (The blaming always seems to help)

Again he has to tell me, again he has to take my heart into his hands and remind me that he did make me. But not for this. Not for a sort of half life hiding and fearful of looking directly at the broken places.
He reminds me that he is already in those broken places waiting to meet me there. I just have to look directly at them and I'll see him there.

I don't know the moments these places were broken. I only know that in one of the places specifically, I'm giving up the fight. I still tell him I hate it. I still tell him I don't want to.

But now it's by looking over at him, beside me in the broken place.

Wake Up

When I was young I didn't know that divorce existed. I didn't know that marriages could end. I was young when an uncle went through a divorce and because it was news to me that marriages could end I asked my parents why my uncle wasn't married to my aunt anymore.
I was told that my uncle's wife just woke up one day and decided she didn't want to be married anymore.  Years later a 2nd uncle's marriage ended. I was a teenager and asked the same questions. I'd had a friend by that point whose parents divorced but I wasn't bold enough to ask her why. So I asked again why this 2nd uncle wasn't married anymore.
I was told again that this 2nd uncle's wife just woke up one day and decided she didn't want to be married anymore.

Now, I do understand that these were attempts at age appropriate answers to hard, complicated questions. Through my adult eyes I understand marriages end for a myriad of reasons that are rarely completely 1one persons fault. But to my kid eyes it seemed a reasonable enough cause, I guess.

It's no secret I have relationship issues, and abandonment issues exacerbated by long-term relationships (specifically those of the romantic nature). A couple of months ago I reconnected with a family member and we began swapping stories and information. I relayed the stories of my uncles divorces and the reasons I was given for the end of their marriage. But as I sat on the sofa messaging with my family member it hit me, that was probably not actually the reason my uncles were divorced.

I know, duh. Right?

Here I was, 33 years old, still believing the age appropriate reason for divorce. It struck me that combined with my sense of abandonment, that people always leave, and the entrenched belief that these two uncles who I loved deeply and I had put on the pedestal fun uncles are often put on were left by women that just decided one day they didn't want to be married anymore; it's no wonder I'm certain any marriage I might enter into would only end in being left.

If people can just wake up one morning and decide to leave then what's to stop it from happening to me? I mean; I get now that it's not true. But I still sort of believe it, in large and small ways.

It's definitely on my list of "things to talk about with my therapist", but this last month the impact of realizing how deeply I believed that people just wake up one day and decide not to be married has been churning inside of me.
I don't know where it goes from here, but the freedom of discovering another lie, another broken belief and knowing that once it's discovered it can be fought against and overcome has been overwhelming.

Hiding

When I was a little girl I learned I should hide
Hide from shaming eyes and sharp tongues
Hide from shadows and secrets I didn't understand

When I was a little girl I didn't know my voice could be strong when it needed to be
I only knew to bite and lash out when it was safest, when I knew no matter how ugly I was I would still be loved

When I was a little girl I learned to hide.
I learned to hide my heart because it it was bad
I learned to hide my thoughts because they were stupid
I learned to hide myself because I was scared of harsh words and pushing hands

I hid myself in bathrooms, behind davenports, on stairs to scary basements, under dining room tables.
Because there I could taste the derision and ambivalence in the air while pretending it had no affect on my small, breaking heart.

When I was an older girl I learned to hide behind anger and sarcasm, scoffing and ambivalence. I accidentally became the kind of girl the angry shaming voices were when I was small.

And God said stop.
Stop with the anger, stop with the scoffing and ambivalence. (He would have said stop with the sarcasm but he thinks I'm hilarious)
He's challenged me to heal, to soften, to stop being the scared hiding girl who refuses to be anything but angry.

It's hard. I cry more now. But I'm holding on to it being worth it in the end.

Used to Know

Driving down the road on an unseasonably warm winter day I hear snippets and melodies of what we used to be I feel chilled and pull on a coat of sadness and the scarf of shame thinking on how things have failed between us
I light a cigarette of anger and flick the violent ash of revenge and remorse out the window wondering what you are doing now

I feel I couldn't even begin to guess right
Because you're just someone I used to know

Telling light hearted stories I hear myself adjusting the tense of us from current to former
I play the tears of sorrow off as uncontrolled glee at the remembrance of our silliness, because it's been too long to still acceptably be so damn sorrowful over missing you

Churning like the snow that hasn't fallen this winter my heart flips back and forth between desperately wishing to have you back and feeling relief that the miles separating us match the miles apart our hearts have grown

I watch people passing me by in stores and find myself wondering what would happen should we meet again. I fear that you will simply treat me as a stranger. Measuring the kindness doled out to me against that you would give anyone else and pretending we were never more to each other than ships passing in the night

My heart still burns wishing I could return to that afternoon in the fading light. So scared and confused wondering how this person I loved so fiercely transformed into someone I used to know

Dried Up

Sometimes it feels like all of my words have dried up
As if over time they slowly evaporated leaving nothing but that scummy film behind

There are still good things, great things
There are still friends, laughter, sorrow and contentment

But I've lost my words
More and more through this season (gosh, I've come to hate the term season) I'm finding that my words have been removed

I didn't misplace them, I didn't leave them at a restaurant or some one's house. I find that my words have been almost surgically removed

The funny thing about God sometimes is that when he asks you to do something he really means it. He means to have you rest when he asks you to rest. He means to have you be quiet when he asks you to be quiet. He means you to be still when he asks you to be still.

I find myself sitting alone with God and opening my mouth to pray. But all the words are gone. People ask me how I am, how I'm doing, what's new, what my plans are and I open my mouth like a fish out of water. My mouth just opens and shuts and nothing comes out.

I find myself shut down. Not in the "I'm taking my ball and going home" sort of way but in the action, task oriented sort of way.

I don't know when it will end or what it will be like. But I'm almost starting to believe that I can be loved just because I breathe; that I can be liked even when I'm disagreeable and that even when I do nothing I still have value because I am a daughter of the King.

If losing my words for awhile results in finally truly believing that my value is in Christ alone; I'm ok with that.

Poisoned Fruit

I've been watching a lot of Law & Order lately. When they get to the courtroom scenes there is often a battle over what evidence should be admitted in the trial. If one big piece is omitted then it can have a domino effect on a lot of other smaller pieces of evidence.

Fruit of the poisonous tree is what they call that evidence.

That's how life feels lately.

Every broken relationship
Every cutting comment
Every knock down drag out fight
Every shaming scoff

Fruit of the poisonous tree.

The generational sin and brokenness that feels like poison seething through my veins so I want to rip the roots out of my familiy tree and plant it in less fallow ground.

I feel panicked wondering how I can change my own behaviors and attitudes to help change the tide of bitterness, anger and snark that rears its hideous head.

I feel afraid, wounded and damaged. Wishing I could strike back like a snake. Teaching lessons and hurting those that hurt me, shame me and others. Putting a stop to those who belittle and dimiss others. I wish I could shout loud enough to make their eyes open to the damage their indifference and cruelty is causing.

But I can't. I don't have a pretty bow to wrap this all up. All I know is that I am called to be gracious and loving to everyone; even when I feel like they don't deserve it anymore.

The tension for me is in setting boudaries and keeping them while at the same time being gracious and kind.
Loving the best I can the people in our family even when they behave so unloveable.

Want

I want you to be here.
But more than that I want you to want to be here.

And you're just not.
Just like that.

In an end that should have been an explosion there was only a whimper and a small puff of air.
I find myself looking around, wondering where you are.
I pick up my phone to call and text, but am resigned to not hearing back and not even really knowing what I want to say short of what's up.

So what's up?
What's new?
How are you?

Maybe in these these short fragments of conversations we can find a way.
Maybe these short fragments are all that's left and there is nothing more.

Either way, I want you to be here....I want you to want to be here.

Conform

Often, without even meaning to do it, I do it.
When meeting someone new, that I don't even know or think is cute or anything, I'll conform myself subconsciously into what I perceive they might want me to be at that particular time.

What do you think is funny?
I'll crack a joke that matches

What music do you like?
I likely have it on my ipod and will play it (and sing along) for you

Do you prefer hair up or down?
I'll wear it accordingly

I really dislike this about myself. I am struggling with identity and finding it in the appropriate and rightful place, with God.
Yet my position of default is to twist and turn and conform myself to the perception I have of what pleases others.

I'm working on it, day by day, minute by minute, second my second.

Possession

When someone touches me it feels like they're trying to take possession of me.
I don't like it. Even the most platonic and non-sexual touch makes me cringe. It takes months or even years of time spent for me to feel comfortable with touch.

I know it comes from a lot of things.
That damn back room and the way she would rest her age spotted hand on my shoulder when whispering how rotten I was, the pinching tightness of her only slightly younger age spotted hands gripping my upper arm hissing at me the things to say to never have to go home again.
The way the only touch I ever felt comforted under was hidden in secrecy of too young and too soon. The way even that touch would disintegrate with the stunning rapidity of shifting teen allegiances.
The way I knew I could use touch to change a topic or divert attention from a searching glance or reassure myself that you cared enough to spend the night.

So now these many years later touch has become bad. All touch. I have to really believe that you won't hurt me to allow touch, and I don't really believe that a lot of people won't hurt me.

Even with dear friends, the closer geographically they get, the less we touch. Long weekend are punctuated by obligatory hugs but I hate to linger. It feels like a trap. Like I won't be able to escape (these dear people that I otherwise have no desire to escape).

I had a friend once, and believe me when I say we were really just friends. We would go walking in benign places and hold hands just for the comfort of having another anchor in the world. There was poking and arms casually slung around shoulders, soft touches to the back or face just to say, "I'm still here. This is still solid ground."
I miss that friend. Because life shifted as it will and it's no longer appropriate for us to comfort each other, even platonically, that way. His wife would probably mind, which is completely appropriate and understandable.

But outside of the desperate and often manipulative context of teenage sexuality I cannot recall any other person or relationship that contained such an ease of touch. Nothing sexual, nothing inappropriate, just one person saying to another that they were there.
It's the last time I didn't feel that constricting need to flee at even the slightest touch.

Heart Burn

A vice gripped my heart
During quiet murmurings and plans for the next few days I cleared my throat
I could hardly force the words out
But I did
I asked

It is probably my fault
I didn't make it clear how important it was to me that you both came

I'm fighting the urge to not even bother asking because I'm sure I'll be disappointed
So I twist myself into feeling detached and unaffected as if your answer doesn't matter
I tell you it was just a thought I had

But it was important
I wanted to be picked
I wanted to be chosen
I wanted them to want to choose me

I didn't want to have to manipulate and plan the choice. I wanted them to choose me because they wanted to choose me, because I was chosen.

I don't want to be so upset about this
I want to be detached and indifferent
But I also want to make sure that I'm allowing myself to feel these things, regardless of if they matter to anyone else
I want to get to the point that my emotions are not dependent on others validations of them

But can I tell you I still want that validation
I don't understand why it's wrong to want it
I just do, and I don't know what to do about it

A good friend said there's nothing to do about it.
She said that's my specialty, doing
When that's stripped away from me I am afraid I am stripped of everything. All my value.

Which is a lie
One that I'm struggling to stop believing

I'm holding on to hope that one day this could be made right
Cause I've been ship wrecked and left for dead and I've seen the darkest sights
Everyone I've loved seems like a stranger in the night
But oh my heart still burns
Tells me to return
Search the fading light
- Ulysses, Josh Garrels

Letting it Down

"I'm sorry I let you down. But you let me down too."
-Baby (Dirty Dancing)

I got a text about needing to chat. Over the course of the next few days I began to wonder, what had I done? Because my immediate belief is that I've done something wrong and I will be chastised.

Deafening silence happens and I think, what did I do? What action or inaction did I take to cause this to happen.

It all feels very selfish to me. As if I'm focusing so inward I can't see outward anymore.
But at the same time I'm realizing that the outward focus was founded in desperation to hide from something, something in me that I saw as being without value. Something I believed everyone else saw too.

I didn't know I could be valued for simply being alive. I didn't know how to look for that value in Christ and not men or women around me. I still don't get it entirely.

I also didn't know how to share the blame. Even though I can articulate to you that it's not all my fault, that statistically speaking it's impossible for all the blame to lay at my feet I believe that had I been more; more perfect, more demure, more deferential, more humerous...more, that people wouldn't have left. I believe that were I more I would know the answer to the great mysteries of life and relationship.

I'm learning to believe that everyone feels this way to some degree. That no one has it as together as the expectations I place on them and myself. Yet I push forward, aiming for perfection and dying inside when I inevitably miss.

So I'm making peace with having to look inward for a little while; to figure out and uproot the sin and the doubt that I find and then move outward so the serving, the friendship, the love that I offer to others can be deeper, more genuine and less chaotic.

I know that I have let people down. It's the way life goes. But I'm just now realizing that when they let me down I can name it and not assume that I am somehow to blame. It's terrifying really, but freeing just the same.

Just Wondering

Sometimes when someone mentions something to me, casually...seemingly out of the blue...I get immediately suspicious.
I wonder if they really mean it, I wonder if they'll actually follow through without me whining and asking when and how and why.

Just wondering tonight if that will ever go away.

Identity

Through this end season of leading Washington Project I'm feeling excited for the unknown that is to come and also a little scared. Because I find a lot of my identity in doing things for other people. If I am useful people like me. It's the belief that I have.
More and more I'm seeing the pattern of transition that God has me in, the pattern of transitioning my definition of identity from one found in others and tasks to one that is found solely at His feet.

I clung to a friendship, regardless of how often we spoke or how awkward things were starting to get I knew,

I was her FRIEND

I told stories of their antics and the sweet things that they would say to me and I knew,

I was their AUNT

I spoke of stories from the growing up years, of the small town living under their roof years and I knew,

I was their Daughter

I planned serves and led meeting. I told people Jesus loved them and I blushed appropriately when people commended the things I did through Washington Project and Outreach. I knew,

I was a Leader

I sent silly cards through the mail, I took dinners to new moms, I attended showers and small groups and showed up when they needed help, I knew,

I was a Volunteer

I scheduled nights out with friends and weekends away. I coordinated schedules with friends that were moms, wives or otherwise engaged with their own separate life. I ensure family time was filled and on schedule.
Because regardless of anything else that was going on in life it would come down to the identity I found in those relationships and tasks and I knew,

I was a Planner

I smoothed things over, I contorted my heart into shattered little shapes, I ensure that even with other people were losing their cool that I was calm and collected and available to pick up the pieces. I knew,

I was a Peacekeeper 

I mean, I'm no Job or anything, but little by little the things I identified myself with and by have been removed from my life, or at the least altered deeply. But there was still leading Washington Project. As the others identities lessened and I became more autonomous or less involved I was still the leader of Washington Project. It was for JESUS. Obviously it wasn't an identity that was BAD right?

Then a few months ago I started hearing, leading doesn't define you either.
I started hearing, even if you quit this you would still be complete and who I created you to be as my daughter.

But I still pressed forward.

Until one day, I heard God whisper, "this too. I'll take this too."
He didn't take it through the destruction of the ministry or through some great moral collapse of mine or another leaders. He just gently reached into my heart and told me it was time to walk away. To take a break. To be still and know that regardless of anything else in or around my life that HE was GOD.

There are still moments. When I ask Him if He's sure. If He's SURE that I'll be ok without a defined role. If He's SURE that people will still like me when I'm not doing anything for them. That people would still have things to talk about with me, that I would still be valuable to people.

Because I'm afraid I'm not.
I'm afraid I'm not valuable without reason to others.


Tonight I thought, you know what. I might not be.
I might not have value to others without a reason.


The lesson I hear God trying to tell me over and over again lately is that even if that's true it's fine. It is fine.


Because I am valued by Him


I am precious to Him

And so are you.

Conditional Grace

I've recently been added to a group on Facebook. There's a new rash of "You know you're from (or attended) :insertcityorschoolnamehere: if..." groups and I was added to the one from my High School.

Its been filled with posts about the ins and outs of attending said school as well as a lot of people that aren't my FB friends and who I was happy to mostly not have to speak to again.
It seems a little cliche to not enjoy the high school you attended, and it's not exactly that I didn't enjoy the high school that I attended or even the town I grew up in, really. I didn't mind it. But I also didn't like a lot of the people or things that happened there. Very typical small town and it's been interesting to see where people ended up and how people have changed, or in a lot of cases stayed the same.

Enter a sermon on judgement Sunday at church and it had me thinking a lot today about grace.


Because I am realizing more and more how I offer conditional grace.
I have a hard time letting people exit the boxes I remember them living in, the way I remember them being. Even though I loathe when that happens to me, when people don't let me evolve, change and mature I can't give everyone the same courtesy.

I'm learning how to walk the fine line between judgement and grace. I'm learning that just like with almost every other aspect in my life I am an all or nothing kind of girl. I'm the kind of girl that either believes there is redemption for people even when I can't see the possibility, or they are un-redeemable. I'm also learning that sometimes there are appropriate and correct boundaries that must be set.
See, I have this idea that I should give my all to everyone. That I should try to make them happy and comfortable and help their lives be as wrinkle-free as possible.

The only problem with that is I end up feeling left out, forgotten or I ultimately (or immediately) end up sacrificing my values, beliefs or mental/emotional well-being in the process.
I'm learning that I can't do it anymore.

I just can't.

I'm learning that I shouldn't either. That just because there should be grace, and that should cover everyone it is not my job to make things ok for them. Sometimes, things need to not be ok for other people.

It's the root of a lot of tension in my life right now as I move forward trying to begin relationships with healthy boundaries and build healthier boundaries into the existing relationships in my life. It's taking a lot of energy to seek God's will for what he wants in and around my life and to say no and stick to it when there are people and things in my life that I just can't abide any longer.
Because I'm stuck in that tension of being a people pleaser, wanting people to like me and want me around. I'm seeing more often how destructive and detrimental that is when I choose keeping others happy and content over doing what is right for my heart.

Even typing it I feel incredibly selfish. I want to qualify it with all sorts of reasons and examples of why it's important. But I'm not.
It's important because it's what God's asking me to do right now, and I do in fact need to do it with grace; especially when it impacts others.
Ben was right on the spot Sunday when he said that for generations we've offered either the truth without grace or grace without the truth.

I'm learning how to balance them both in the only messy and broken way that I know how.

Red Flags

I don't trust myself.
My judgement, my decisions, I always think they're probably wrong.
Always.

So when a person comes into my life and I see all of these red flags going up I don't trust the boundaries that I want to set, because what if I'm wrong.
Others don't seem to have a problem with this person.
Others seem to think it's perfectly find to interact with them.

But the thought of hanging around this person makes my head scream

DON'T DO IT

I'm pretty sure I'm right. I don't know that I need to never be in the presence of this person, it would be pretty hard anyway because we're in the same circles, but I definitely think I need to be very VERY aware of the things I say to and around this person. I think that I need to speak the boundaries out loud to this person and hold the consequences in place when the boundaries are inevitably broken.

So I sought council, with my counselor even, and she agreed.

GIANT RED FLAGS

Lies and abuse of trust are very clear indicators that this person isn't trustworthy and isn't someone that I should be delving into a relationship with, especially right now. Because I'm re-assessing my relationships to pursue healthier ones and I'm working to do what's best for me emotionally and mentally I can't afford to deeply invest myself in someone that will be so draining and likely damaging to my forward motion.

But still I worry. What if I'm wrong? What if I'm not looking hard enough for the good in people? What if I'm not giving this person a chance to show me who they really are? What if I lose other people because they don't understand my resistance to being involved with this person?

On healthier days I think, so what?
At some point I need to realize that I am the one that is ultimately responsible for guarding my heart. I am the one that is ultimately responsible for saying no, it's too much, I can't help carry you.

I had a healthier day yesterday, and it felt nice.

The Loudest

I don't know if the silence is a direct result of mine, it could be.
I don't know if the withdrawal is a direct result of mine, it could be.

But I don't think it is.

I think it's been this way for a long time and this is the first time I'm hearing it, seeing it.

I'm torn between becoming hardened and bitter and continuing to hope to be chosen. It's a choice I have to make every day.

So I don't talk about it, because what else is there to say?
I don't cry and scream and throw things, because what is the point.
I wonder what the point is in continuing to hope to be chosen in the face of all evidence to the contrary. But still I wait.

My phone doesn't leave my side because I'm sure you won't let the day pass AGAIN without at least a text. I'm sure you won't forget again this year. I'm confident in the midst of your day full of oh so urgent and important things that you will find me important enough for notice and consideration.

But at the end of the day I walk to my room, I turn down the bed, I crawl under the covers, I lay my head on the pillow and find myself once again seemingly forgotten.

I am so thankful for the rest of it. The rest of the wishes and hoopla. I feel warm and fuzzy and loved. But there is still a massive hole where you used to live and the grief washes over me anew.
I can't help that your silence screams the loudest.
I can only miss you and try to do the best that I can and hope you're doing the same.

Messy Love

This isn't love, the mess he's left me in.

That's what Harry said about Dumbledore when Hermione was trying to convince him that Dumbledore loved him. (Yes, I'm re-reading the last book in preparation for the movie)
Each time I read/listen to the book this line just jumps out at me.
Because sometimes I have a hard time understanding love.
Is it love even when you don't feel loved?
To what extent should love be something that translates to you?

I mean, I can say I love someone...but if my actions and other words aren't loving then do I really? Vice versa there are people that have said they love me, but I feel like it's just words. Their actions shout at me that I am worthless and beneath them.

The there's the love language conversation.

Of the countless ways we can show love to one another, five key categories, or five love languages, proved to be universal and comprehensive—everyone has a love language, and we all identify primarily with one of the five love languages: Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service, and Physical Touch

Quality time is huge for me. You can do all sorts of things for me and tell me you love me but when I rank a spot in the way you spend your day I feel loved. So I try to make an effort to spend time with people that I want to know I love them. But what if their love language is something else? Then am I not helping them to see that I love them?
Conversely, I confuse the time people spend with me to be love. Just because they spend time with me doesn't mean they care for me or have my best interests at heart. I've made that mistake more times than I care to admit and it has really jacked up my definition of love.

This all sort of made sense in my head. But I just feel a sense of wonder about this whole love thing. In all aspects of relationships.
We've shown that I'm a black and white girl, and some days the gray fuzziness of love is just a little much for me to wrap my head (and heart) around.

Dirty and Smiling

I was talking to a new friend the other night about how much easier it would be to be *this* instead of *that*. 

To be filthy instead of just a little muddy

To be completely shattered instead of wounded and limping along

To be scared of the outside but still getting up and leaving your house every morning because what else could you do instead of pulling the covers over your head and drifting into oblivion.

This partial brokenness seems to be caught in a limbo of neither redeemed or cast out.
But I don't really understand why.
Because aren't most people caught in that limbo, just putting on a pretty face and dealing with it secretly?

It seems the more I open my mouth and tell people about my damage the more people I see glance around and whisper, "Me too."

I was mad at first. At this legion of people that just never said anything and left me feeling completely alone and adrift.
But then I realized, I hadn't been saying anything of substance either anyway.
I had said things, but they were sarcastic and couched in the, "Oh, well...everyone has something" language.

Now I'm saying, "I don't understand relationships. I would like to have healthier friendships where I don't always feel so less than. This abuse has affected me in a way that infects every relationship and I am incapable of just getting over it and simply not thinking about it every day."

And I hear the whispers of, "me too"

So, maybe we can stop comparing each others brokenness and just get down to the business of helping them pick up the pieces.

Maybe we can face our own demons and trauma and work through them so we can help others along the path to the person God is making them into.
Maybe we can sit with people that aren't rainbows and sunshine happy all the time and just be with them instead of plying them with platitudes and then urging them to just keep silent because the jagged edges scare you.

I'll go first.

I am not an angry girl
but it seems like I've got everyone fooled
every time I say something they find hard to hear
they chalk it up to my anger
and never to their own fear
and imagine you're a girl
just trying to finally come clean
knowing full well they'd prefer you
were dirty and smiling
Ani DiFranco - Pretty Girl

Shattered

Sometimes I'm afraid it will never be fixed
More often I wonder if there are some things that are just too broken. Too damaged. Too far gone.

My heart aches.
It aches with a desire to make a difference and hold other people's broken pieces and help them see they are special and important.
It aches to feel someone do that for me without me wondering what it is they want me to do for them, because why else would they be kind for me.

I make it through most days.
Most days I can see the big picture and hang in there.
But some days I get lost in the details.
In all the small shards of brokenness that no matter how far we all come will never be able to be glued back into place.

I'm clinging to the idea that the moments which shatter us the most are the ones which shape us the most; God pieces together who He wants us to become (thanks Bob Goff)