Leaving Pretend

This picture is kind of how life has felt for a while now - like crumbled up, washed and dried paper. But not just any paper, business cards for the nonprofit God put on my heart to start last year.

As I stand here holding what remains, I can almost feel the enemy laughing at me,

"This is your destiny". He taunts. "You have always been and always will be forgotten, used, beat up and recycled paper".

These thoughts hit deep, because they are truly how I feel. And sometimes those feelings get so big they start to take a form of more than a vapor, and it gets hard to fight back.

Beat up, used, abandoned, forgotten. This is where I live. The shadows of the past have taken on new forms and from the corner I've been shoved into I fear I may never find the courage, much less energy, to fight my way back to the front lines.

Faith? What is faith? Faith in a better day? Better times? Everything being okay? Everything working out in my favor?

I don't think that kind of faith exists anymore.

Hope? Hope for brighter seasons, easier days? Hope in restoration and renewal?

Hope is a foreign country I have lost my passport to.

Joy, peace, belief? Distant memories of a Utopia I once knew.

What do you do when life, your dreams, your relationships, your expectations, have all seemed to have ended up like crumbled, washed paper in your hand? Just smile and wave and pretend it's fine? Fake it till you make it? Force hope until you "feel it"?

I am not sure how much longer I can fake the smile. Pretend I am so put together. Pretend I am fine. I'm so tired of fine. I'm so tired of the expectation and the demand to present confidence and never waiver. Oh but if you do happen to stumble make sure it's in the fashionable Jesus way and make it part of the dance. Don't let anyone REALLY see you vulnerable or shaken.

Do you know how many times I've walked into a church building choking back tears when all I wanted to do was fall into a ball on the floor and cry in agony for all the unanswered heartbreak in my life? But that's not allowed. Come broken, but don't ever break. Be messy but only in a controlled way, don't actually make a mess. Don't bump into others' lives and cause a ripple that might bring an unwanted inconvenience.

So I keep smiling. Clenched fist. Held back tears. I've gotten really good at pretending. My whole existence has always been pretend so everyone else around me can be comfortable and feel okay. But I am tired, weary, angry at pretending. I don't want fake Jesus anymore. And if I am going to stay and fight for my faith then I want the real thing.

No more sprinkling Jesus on life's melted ice cream.

I toss the destroyed papers in the trash and wipe my tears. Maybe it's time for something altogether different. How my soul craves for something more than this. Then the lies and the ache deep inside. Then my identity wrapped in a card with my name on it and a demand to prove I am the definition of it that those around me want. What if there was another way?

What if I could break free from this cage of legalism and hypocritical tyrannical reign? What might the air feel like? To breathe deep in the freedom God meant for me, for all of us. What might the sun feel like on my face in a place where wrestling like Jacob is welcomed? Where I can doubt and question like David and Job without judgment or shame? Where I can feel fear like Esther without being told I am a weak Christian whose faith will never win a war for her people? Where I can break cultural church norms like Rahab, Ruth, and Mary Magdalene? Where I could sit among the hurting and lost and be crucified for it like Jesus but find that mess, my mess, is worth it and it's exactly where He would be.

Maybe there is another way? A way that leads to where I was always meant to be. A way that leads home.

And maybe this has always been the point. The destruction of this temple I've built to isolate my life from pain. The tearing down of idols I worshiped for safety, acceptance and protection. And if I look back and crave what was, if I desire more the past because of the fear of this new thing that hurts me from head to toe, I may stay stuck and miss it - I may miss HIM. 

Perhaps the city was burning down around me and I never noticed. And as the Angel of the Lord has led me out to safety, how I have dragged my feet! How I have fought and screamed. How my heart has ached! But oh if I would just stop and listen. If I would focus on His face for long enough I might see every moment of this breaking away was not to harm me, but to protect me. And I know if I fully turn my face towards Him I will see tears staining His - oh how He loves me.

He loved me too much to leave me there to burn so He pulled me out. He loves me too much than to leave me stuck in a mold that I never fit. So He must mold and shape and break down what was to make what He always meant me to be.

Yes, I feel like soggy and dried, damaged and destroyed paper. But I have to wonder, what beautiful recycled thing might come out of this crucible? Perhaps a heart that feels what He feels for His people and unashamedly runs back into the fire to grab more out too. Maybe an ability to cast off the cares of those judges around me telling me who and how I should be so that I will no longer hesitate getting in the mess with others. It probably won't be pretty, and I probably won't ever really fit anywhere.

But maybe the "business card" was never who I was meant to be - folded into a mold of what everyone else wants to make me. And instead, be who HE made me wherever I am. 

And so I stop pulling away and fighting His hand and I wonder, and I begin to dream of a different place, a place with only Him as my King. I turn and I look in His eyes for the first time in a long time and say,

"God, I'm sorry I fought you for so long. I'm sorry I didn't stop to see your good plan for me. I know I won't get it right all the time. And I know I will still doubt. Thank you for wrestling with me. Thank you that you never leave. Daddy, I am yours. And I am ready now. Please show me, what will you make of me?"