I keep picturing files of papers tucked away in a cabinet or on a shelf somewhere. All the i's dotted and t's crossed. Finished, signed on the line, put away for safe keeping and proof something has been accomplished. Then they sit and collect dust, and eventually there is no telling which one is which or what it was for in the first place.
Or puzzle pieces, once they are discovered get put into place and that's it. They don't get to change shape or break boundaries. Once they're in, they're in to stay, and when the whole picture is complete it is often set aside for a new one and those individual pieces are forgotten.
Is it just me or do we do this with people and experiences? Try to file them away somewhere in a box in our mind that makes sense to us, so there are no free agents we can't figure out. Fit them in to a picture we are making neglecting the fact that they are not meant to be bound to our wills.
And what about ourselves? Somewhere along the way we decide what our ideal is, and we try with all of our might to shove ourselves into that mold, maybe even pretend we fit. The reality being that we can't quite get it all in there. Despite our best wishes parts of us spill out gasping for air, for something different. Our expectations fall so far from reality and we are left feeling like we failed, carrying around shame and guilt. We shackle ourselves to our lost ideals, write ourselves off as "never going to be".
I cannot fit into the picture I created in my mind of myself. At some point in life, adolescence probably, I decided how I wanted to present, and ever since then I have been failing to meet up to my own expectations. Empty motions to make me better, void of feeling and soul. Great attempts to be who I thought I should be instead of who I am.
The last several years of my life have felt like God is peeling back the layers I have put on in my attempts to accomplish myself. He's reminding me of who I have been since the beginning, and who He designed me to be. Who I am does not always make sense to me, because I'm thinking about myself from my own warped perspective. If I take the time to consider myself in light of possibilities and the endless kingdom God has adopted me into, then the phrase "makes sense" doesn't really apply. What God is doing and what I think I should be doing are on totally different playing fields most of the time. It has taken me a lot of time and grief to step back and take on a different view of who I am. It's been freeing. There is this feeling pulsing through my veins that deepens my breathing and makes my heart beat out of my chest, like a fire swelling up. It's as if my soul is gasping for air and is about to break through the surface of everything I've tried to drown it out with in attempts to be some kind of perfect I thought I was supposed to be. When you are stripped back to bare bones staring life in the face with only what God has made you to be, it is more than enough. I've stopped asking questions like "How can I be that? What do I need to do to become that?", and I've started living as I am.
I don't have to move mountains. I don't have to find the answers. I don't have to keep climbing some imaginary ladder of person hood. Striving left me wanting. Standing firm in God and being still in who I am has enabled me to truly live. Imperfectly, myself.
If you have shoved yourself into a box on the shelf to fit in I give you permission to dust yourself off, open up, and let the pages of your story breathe. Don't limit yourself to your own understanding of life. Don't try to limit what God is doing with you. You can't thwart God's plans, but you can miss out on enjoying Him while it all plays out. Show up to your life the way it is, because as messy as it can be it is even more beautiful.
