It's been a long time since I've posted on here, and I'm not about to make any promises that I'll increase the frequency of doing so. I doubt my readership even exists at this point. Regardless, I was reading through some of my old entries and felt compelled to update this old thing.
If you ever want to experience the closest thing to seeing yourself from a third party perspective I recommend two things. One, write out your story. This includes everything, your failures and successes, your pain and your joy. Then take an honest look at the growth and grace you've experienced through the entire process. Two, ask close friends to tell you where they think you need a tune-up.
You'll come out more humble.
I've been doing both. It's difficult to look at some parts of my life as I'd rather leave them in the past. However doing so negates the beauty that can come from certain scars. I am amazed at how God's grace has been present in my life before I even knew it was. I am amazed by how much grace He extended even when I knew of it and abused it.
I've been looking at my life from the grand perspective of its entirety trying to make some sense of it. I have also spent some time reflecting over the past three years. Both have had benefits but I've seen more change in my life in the past three years than the past twenty seven.
I was walking with a good friend today and he talked about how he's seen me change since he's known me. We met when I first moved to Orlando. He has experienced many aspects of my personality and I have given him permission to speak into my life many times. He noted that I am no longer crude and that I'm not such a hard person anymore.
It's not that I was entirely insensitive, but almost. In the past I certainly would sit and "listen" to peoples problems, however I would be incessantly trying to fix them. It wasn't about them at all, it was about me. I couldn't be present in people's pain because I couldn't be present in my own. For years my solution to my pain was to tell myself to "suck it up" and I expected the same courtesy from everyone else. The reality was I never figured out how to deal with pain and so I decided that suppressing it was the most viable option. This lead me to resentment. I resented others when they were expressing their pain. I could not fathom how someone would have the audacity to do so. I would scream "suck it up" so loudly within myself that sometimes I would almost let it slip out. But instead I would "patiently" try to work through it with them and offer suggestions. My pithy suggestions were merely shoddy patch jobs to save face from ever having to look back at myself.
Eventually I made the decision to wade through my junk. It has been one of the most rewarding thing I've ever done. Looking through it is not quite the same if you do it by yourself. I have learned to invite people I trust into the process and most importantly Jesus. I look back at who I was just three years ago and I can't believe I considered myself a Christian then. If you asked me three years ago if I was willing to die for Jesus I would of said "yes" and believed it. I don't doubt my sincerity. I don't doubt the validity. I don't doubt that I was indeed walking in the footsteps of Messiah. I wasn't walking as closely as I am now.
Now I am covered in the dust of my rabbi's feet. Yet I have a deep sense that even a few years from now I will be shocked at how far I think I have come and how far there is still yet to go.
In it all, I am grateful that I've become a softer and more sincere person. I am grateful that I've truly learned to listen and be present with people without having to fix their pain or my own. I am grateful that Jesus offers continual on-going change for the rest of my life.
Many years ago I was driving in my car with an ex-girlfriend who had moved to Montreal but was home visiting for the summer. As we drove we were listening to the song "change" by Deftones. She asked me if I thought she had changed over the past year, I said yes. I asked her if she thought I had changed. Her response didn't matter. I vividly remember as the words came out of my mouth that deep within my being I knew that I had in fact changed. But it wasn't not for the better, I had digressed into a shadow of the person I once was instead of moving towards the person I could be.
May we continue to move towards the image of God.
I'm glad you updated this. It has been too long. I guess I don't have anything eloquent to say except that I agree with you on how hard it can be to take an honest look at yourself. I, too, have been trying to track all my feelings, failures, and feats and to be honest, there were a few times I just threw my journals and musings and notes away because they overwhelmed me. But I began again and even within the last month or so I know that God is working, albeit however slow on account of my own regression, irrational fears or anything and everything in between. This is good stuff. And this comment is getting long so I'll just stop abruptl
Posted by: Christi | 22 May 2009 at 17:42