Not Mine to Own

"Not 'if' you get in, but when.  We're going to say when.  I have a good feeling about this."

Her words were well-meaning, and I was trying to smile graciously, and look like I was thankful for her attempt at encouragement, but inside I was cringing.

In my head, she wasn't encouraging, she was just adding another layer of pressure.  Another standard to meet.

She was referring to the question of whether or not I'll be admitted to the nursing program that I've applied for.  It's a question that remains very much up in the air, and one that rather haunts my days right now.  A lot rides on that question, and it's answer.  A lot of my life remains very much up in the air until an answer comes - likely towards the end of October, but maybe even longer.

I have this performance mentality that is deeply ingrained within me.  This need to meet expectations, and the well meaning words I quoted just didn't help things.

She was trying to offer hope, a positive outlook, encouragement.

What I heard was, "It'll be such a disappointment if you don't get accepted.  Acceptance is the standard by which your worth is measured."

I was thinking about those words last night as I sat on a bus on my way to house church.

About that mentality that wants to minimize expectations, and thus minimize the sense of failure, and of disappointing others.  The mentality that is almost afraid to hope, afraid of what happens if that hope is dashed.

And as I sat on the bus pondering this insane need to meet invisible standards, a whisper echoed through my thoughts.

"That isn't yours to own."

huh.

God is doing a lot of crazy things in my life right now.

Changing mindsets and thought patterns.

Showing me things that are unhealthy.

And showing me a perspective that's different.

It's not mine to own.  My well meaning relative didn't know she was adding a layer of pressure to my already smothered in performance expectations, needing to please self.  But even if she'd known, her perspective, her perceptions, her expectations are not mine to own.

I'm responsible for me, and for God.

I'm reminding myself that I put the best effort I had into the courses I took, and that right now I have a choice.

I can wait in fear, or I can wait in hope.

I can fear rejection, or I can hope for admittance.

And I can choose to acknowledge that if I am not accepted, I will be disappointed.  I will ache, and likely cry.  I will probably fight the long standing battle of feeling like a failure.  And then, then I will pick up the pieces and pray some more, and apply for the next session.  And I can remember that the only person whose expectations I'm responsible for are mine.  And that I'm ultimately accountable to Jesus.

And all that other stuff?

The thoughts and expectations of other people - real or perceived?

It's not mine to own.

I might have to be reminded of that over and over and over again.

But it's not mine to own.

Subject Lines and Fortune Cookie Wisdom

Have I ever mentioned that God has this tendency to send me email?  And talk to me with fortune cookies after Chinese takeout? I have a long history of awkward, funny, or convicting moments.

The following are some of the subject lines that popped up in my email over the weekend and the last day or two:

Tough Seasons Grow Us Up

A Wild Wilderness Ride

Have I found a way to take my struggles and pain to God?

Where do I abide?

You will be SAFE in the Eye of the Storm.

Then there were a few blog posts today that hit hard.

This quote from Walter Bruggemann at Marko's blog.  "Mature personhood does not come by pilgrimages of continuity, but by abrasion, disruption, and discontinuity which shatter our grasp of things and make us, at key points, not the initiators but the recipients of gifts and surprises that we often do not want to receive."

These thoughts on insecurity at Grit and Glory.

And there was the fortune cookie.  Keep in mind that I opened this fortune cookie, leftover from Chinese takeout the night before, after spending a good solid hour sobbing, talking with someone about some rampant insecurities, and self image/self confidence issues that are resurfacing in my life right now.

The fortune read: "Your qualities overshadow your weaknesses."

What made the fortune cookie even more hilarious is the fact that, as I paused to open it, I remembered several significant moments in the past where the fortune in a cookie like that has been a clear confirmation of direction.  I can't decide if I was hoping for encouragement this time, or just a dud.  Because I was definitely not really wanting to hear from God.  I was (maybe am still, depending on the moment) pretty mad at him, at his timing, at how my life is looking in the present moment.  And then my fortune confirmed what the person I'd been talking with had spent a good chunk of time trying to hear me.  And confirmed it in that, "this is not a coincidence" way, simply because I'd been reminded as I cracked open the cookie of just how often Jesus has decided to entertain himself by padding my fortune cookies with his messages to me. 

So, I guess that leaves me in a place of either trusting all these not-so-subtle messages, or of trying to ignore a point that is being clearly communicated.  My choice.  Probably not a hard one to make, though perhaps one that is harder to live, but again, an underscoring of the theme of choice that is making itself clear.

The Art of Choosing

I watched this video from TED yesterday and found it absolutely fascinating, and had to share.

A Grown-Up Taste

It all started when I wrote a post about being well, and choosing to love anyway, even in the really hard moments.  I scheduled it to go live, and forgot about it.

Until the day it went live, and I discovered my own words were being used by God to convict me. 

That was new.

Until it happened again this week.  I wrote a post on the weekend, just some quick thoughts, forgot what day it was scheduled for, and, on the day it went live, spent the day eating the words I'd written.

I even wrote a post about eating my own words, complaining about being a grown-up, and having to make choices.

And then, with my own post about eating my words ringing in my ears, I made the mistake of chatting with a dear friend, and whining a little about this newfound method of God's voice and conviction speaking to me.  I sent her the post I'd written and her response was telling.

"Why do your words have to taste bad?"

umm... excuse me?

"If you write good words, and you eat them, why do they have to taste bad?"

I hate it when God borrows her voice.

I've been thinking a lot lately about "grown-up" tastes.  I love to cook, and these days I'm far more brave about the recipes I'll try.  I don't reject a recipe out of hand because it has one ingredient in it that I'm not necessarily fond of.  I learned to broaden my tastes because of compromise, and I learned compromise sharing a grocery budget with my roommate.  I can honestly tell you that these days I eat dishes with mushrooms, onions, and even cook regularly with ground beef because of her.  They are foods (well, not ground beef, that was just over-exposure as a kid) that to me, are grown up tastes.

My friend's word's resonated.

Why do your words have to taste bad?

I was whining about conviction.  She was pointing out that I pray regularly to hear God speak clearly, and I was now hearing him in my own writing, and complaining about it.  "Not like that, God.  You can't speak like that."

I talked in an earlier post about wrestling with the choices before me right now.  Choose life, not death.  Choose joy, not despair.  Choose healing, not festering wounds.  Choose forgiveness.  Choose to love even when it costs something.  About how those feel like really "grown-up" choices to have to deal with, and about how my default response is a favorite Meredith quote from Grey's Anatomy, in which in a rather stunned and panicked tone she cries out, "I'm an adult!  When did that happen, and how do I make it stop?"

But even in those moments I heard the echoes of scripture reminding me of Paul's words in 1 Corinthians, "When I was a child, I spoke and thought as a child.  But when I grew up, I put childish things away."

And I am struck, too, by these words from the author of Hebrews, "You have been believers so long now that you ought to be teaching others.  Instead, you need someone to teach you again the basic things about God's word.  You are like babies who need milk and cannot eat solid food. For someone who lives on milk is still an infant and doesn't know how to do what is right.  Solid food is for those who are mature, who through training have the skill to recognize the difference between right and wrong."

Maybe it's time to develop a grown-up taste?  Maybe the words God offers don't have to taste bad when I need to eat them.  Maybe it's time to develop a taste for the word of God - his conviction, guidance and direction - in whatever form they come in.  Even if it means eating my own words.

Eating My Words

The experience of writing blog posts on the weekend and scheduling them to appear through the week is turning out to be an illuminating one.

Mostly because I have this tendency to forget what I've scheduled for the day, and, when I go back and check, I'm tending to find myself rather deeply convicted by own words.  That, or needing to just eat them because the conviction is huge.

Today is one of those days.

When I wrote earlier in the week about wrestling with pigs (and scheduled the post to go live this morning), it was a revelation for my heart.  Turns out it was one that's going to take a bit more work.

I spent most of the day wrestling with my own internal pigs.  And getting dirty.

I don't recommend it.

I'm probably still doing it.  And I'm working on that.

Anger and fear and exhaustion among other things easy pigs to engage.

I'm struck over and over again by choices.

By the reality that I get to choose.

And I struggle with that reality of choice.

Choosing to forgive.  Choosing to love.  Choosing to be joyful.

Because I can make those choices, but they seem intangible.  And sometimes I make the choice and it doesn't seem to matter.  Or I make the choice and have to make it again 2 minutes later, and again a minute after that.

And that reality makes me crazy.  Because deep down, even though I'm totally an "embrace the mystery" kind of gal, I really just like some things to black and white.  And these kind of choices and their affects are so grey it makes me crazy.

I don't love, either, the way that making a choice drops the responsibility in my lap. 

Because I know better than anyone how little I should really be responsible for.   How much I'd rather shirk responsibility.

This whole discussion brings to mind a favorite line from Gray's Anatomy.  "I'm an adult, when did that happen, and how do I make it stop?"

And while I pause to laugh at a line from a show that has spoken to deep parts of me over and over, I hear the echo of scripture, too, "...put aside childish things..."

And I wonder how to adapt to this new place of life.  To making choices instead of having someone make them for me.  And I find myself again clinging with that white-knuckled trust that seems to be defining the last few weeks to the reality that God is somehow in this, too.  And that He will be faithful to hold me.

Childhood choices... and my heart like a stable...

This post on Hope's blog caught at me the other day. Lots of "childhood choices" on that list that I'm going to need to think through in the coming days.

Annie closed a post with this quote the other day, that also struck me deeply, mostly because I understand the feeling of a soul very much like a stable these days:

“I myself am very glad that the divine child was born in a stable, because my soul is very much like a stable, filled with strange unsatisfied longings, with guilt and animal-like impulses, tormented by anxiety, inadequacy and pain. If the holy One could be born in such a place, the One can be born in me also. I am not excluded.”
-Morton Kelsey