Coming Out Of Hiding
I really don’t see myself as someone who keeps score or measures my life against rules and accomplishments… buuuuut, the more time I spend thinking through the way I respond to my inadequacies and what I deem as failures, I realize I definitely keep score. Definitely for myself.
There are a lot of things in my head counted as failure, a lot of events and decisions and brokenness throughout my adult life I don’t love or even like. Some things I haven’t been able to reconcile with myself, forgive myself. When I talk about some of these things, there is still a tone of shame and embarrassment, instead of acceptance and grace.
Like everyone, right?
We all are living imperfect journeys infused with mistakes and mishaps and hurt.
In the last few weeks since putting my words to the screen again, I had dozens of email responses letting me know of your pain points. Of what you feel are failures in your own lives, as you watch your personal world unravel in ways you never wanted/dreamed of/expected.
Who expects life to fall apart…and seemingly unendingly?
Maybe this is part of the problem — we are constantly trying to hold an idea of life together that will never come to fruition…and some of us get more tired than others of living that lie. Others just keep striving because the fear to shed light on our disappointment or false-self is heavy.
I wouldn’t say I expected my life to be perfect or even easy, because I didn’t. Leaving high school and heading into adulthood I felt I had a firm grasp on the truth and reality that life is hard, people hurt each other, and we get to do our best to make amends and love better.
But I would definitely say I didn’t expect my current circumstances to ever be my reality. I never expected to live through this much brokenness and pain or to grieve so many different losses (seemingly unendingly).
As one example… Accepting my truth that I have a failed marriage under my belt is hard. It is hard because my desire to be perfect and good silently transcended my desire to be close to Jesus, to be like Jesus, to know Jesus. I couldn’t see this then, and I can barely seem to see it now because I genuinely love Jesus and want to be like Him— but I’m going to try to break it down for us.
I have spent years thinking if I am living good enough and beautiful enough — if I am patient and kind, sacrificial and generous, don’t yell at my kids, don’t get easily irritated, forgive easily, have compassion, don’t disappoint people, stand up for what is right and against what is wrong, unpack my own racial biases + white privilege — that I am exemplifying Jesus and I am going to save lives that way. This is actually quite twisted and I don’t believe this, but I’ve been taught it and I am now trying to undo it.
I struggle to accept myself, forgive myself, reconcile within myself and with Jesus that my life up to this point is…forgiven? Sincerely covered in grace? Nothing to be ashamed of?
Since infancy I have dismissed self-compassion, self-love, self-acceptance as inappropriate. Not for others, just for myself. Seems like a humble noble place to stand at first glance, but really it is the falsest kind of humility — this stance is prideful, arrogant, so not-like-Jesus.
When I withhold from myself compassion, love, forgiveness, and acceptance, I am saying that my brokenness and failures are too big for The Cross. It is subconscious to the extreme, but I am saying Jesus is not enough. His grace and Truth are not enough to cover my faults and mistakes — I do not get to accept His abundant love and life.
I am living a situation right now. It’s a situation that involves a real big mess, layers, grief, and has caused ongoing HURT to a lot of people — little tiny people, big adult people, ya know: humans. It is hard for me to not hold this over my own head, but I’m getting there.
I’m getting there because I know it does no one any good — it isn’t bringing healing or restoration to anyone, especially me, dragging myself through the shame tunnel every few hours over something I cannot change.
“Quit keeping score altogether and surrender ourselves with all our sinfulness to God who sees neither the score nor the scorekeeper, but only His child redeemed.” —Thomas Merton
Was reading Ephesians 5:12-12 and Paul said, “The things which are done in secret are things that people are ashamed even to speak of; but anything exposed by the light will be illuminated and anything illuminated turns into light.”
Soooo… God doesn’t just forgive and forget all my shameful deeds, our brokenness, our missteps, our lying, our hurting others, etcetera etcetera… he even turns their darkness into light. When we get out of the way, humble ourselves, surrender ourselves to Him.
There is so much power in our woundedness, in our brokenness, in our weaknesses.
I mean, the Bible says it a few times and we love quoting those scriptures, but do we believe them?
I’m not so sure many of us do, because we continue to hide the “ugly” pieces of ourselves and attempt to fabricate something else for the world (and ourselves) to see and accept as us. I do it. You do it.
But over and over again as I share my broken bits to social media + this blog space, as I open up my wounds and pour out their rawness, I see that there is power in our wounds. That the very remorse, grief, poor decisions leading to these things, the brokenness — it is what makes my words tremble into the hearts of others. What moves souls towards healing.
Our wounds move us towards healing.
In an email I received this last week, a reader stated, ‘Wow, I am so happy to see you writing again, and so honestly. I think most people are living a life they are kind of ashamed of or not content with, but because we can’t say it out loud, we will keep living miserably and in shame. Thank you for helping me be able to speak that out loud. Gives me hope that maybe I can uncover my own stuff to start working through it.”
I am broken on the wheels of living and I am trying to be honest about it, up front and out there, because I believe if I can illuminate my brokenness, He will turn it into glory. He will continue to show up and show out, because that is what He does.
He shows up.
In the Bible, Jesus was often found sitting among the poor people who were also covered in wounds. What if grace and healing are communicated and tapped into solely through the vulnerability of each of us who have been shattered and broke by life? That is how I’m finding grace, where I’m healing.
I was reading about Alcoholics Anonymous. James Knight said, “In this encounter they cannot and will not permit themselves to forget their brokenness and vulnerability. Their wounds are acknowledged, accepted, and kept visible. Their wounds are used to illuminate and stabilize their own lives while they work to bring healing… this illustrates the power of wounds, lightening the burden of pain and suffering.”
My wounds are inflicted by self and by others. Can I choose to not just acknowledge them…but to accept and keep them visible? Can I use my wounds — the trauma and hurt done to me through my own choices and the choices of others — to illuminate and stabilize my life, bringing healing to myself and to others?
We have been taught to keep a steel trapdoor over our emotions, denying us access to them. This makes us an imposter to even ourselves, and this imposter is typically seemingly nonchalant and carefree.
But underneath that trapdoor is a whole heart being numbed, silently dying, unable to feel not only the bad but also the good.
We learn to not feel any of our life.
Adam and Eve — they hid. They covered up their raw nakedness out of shame. We do it too, because we don’t like what we see as our true selves. It is too uncomfortable — we are impatient, angry, hurting, hurtful humans. We eff a lot of stuff up and not only for ourselves but for others. We hurt people we genuinely love. We fail to make amends and sincerely apologize. We kind of suck a lot of the times and we like to hide that away.
But God keeps calling out to me, whispering to my soul this beautiful truth that when I decide to stop hiding, stop manufacturing a false self, He is still right here with me.
He is patient, even as we break His heart while we hide. He is tender, even while we start to believe for ourselves that we are as nearly-perfect as this manufactured self.
…
And then there is Jesus as the ultimate example of this.
When Jesus hung on the cross, He became the ultimate brokenness, bearing the weight of the world’s wounds on His shoulders, in His soul. True separation from the Father is the heaviest hell to walk thru.
Jesus’s wounds became our path to healing.
Jesus didn’t deny His wound, He didn’t hide it.
God went so far as to leaving marks and scars on Jesus’s risen + perfect body, revealing that wounds aren’t to be wiped away and hidden...but are our access to healing, wholeness, and abundant life.
When I choose to give in to other’s expectations or demands, in a way that dismisses my boundaries or represses my mental/emotional/spiritual needs, I am choosing to live a victim of my disease — the disease of wanting so badly not to disappoint people, even at the expense of my own mental and emotional health or dignity. The disease of codependency: being someones ride or die, even if riding with them is going to kill me.
Instead, I want every single day to choose to live in God’s undeniable, unending, unfailing love.
But in order to do that, I have to sincerely accept my brokenness. Not just acknowledge it and say it with my words, but sit in silence and accept it, rejecting seeds of corrosive self-hatred to take root.
Our falling and failing does not hinder Him in loving us.
It is our skepticism and timidity that keeps us from believing and living a life where His grace is sufficient.
I am over here in Portland, Oregon wanting to choose the acceptance of my wounded self. Because that is the only way to heal. Accept my woundedness, my brokenness, and keep encountering God with naked trust.
Even still, with all my poor decisions and failures, He loves me. He is present in me. He lives in me, dwells in me, calls me. He gives me understanding and compassion like nothing I’ve ever heard from a pulpit, and He also weeps over me when I let shame and self-loathing immobilize me. So it is true for you.
So let’s come out of hiding.
First from ourselves, and then the world. (cuz we all know there is no actual hiding from God, lol).
