I got to thinking yesterday, " What am I afraid of?" It's a long story on how I came to that question. Suffice it to say that the combination of my sister mentioning a life theory of fear vs. love, combined with a bus ride yesterday with a bunch of rather mean 8th graders got me first to wondering what they fear, which led me to wondering what I fear. I took some time out to think about that question. I think there are specific fears for various situations, but one overriding fear that seems to dominate over all the rest is the fear of failure. What if I mess up? What if I screw up so bad that someone else has to deal with it? I thought of death or of being in a situation like Joanne, where she had a debilitating stroke several months ago and is taking slow steps down the long road of recovery. But neither of those things scared me. What scared me was that if I died, someone else would have to come in and go through the piles of stuff I haven't gotten through in my office. (It also makes me very sad to think of what my family would go through. But that's because of my love for them, not for any fear of what they'll experience. I know they'll find a way to carry on without me, even if they miss me a great deal.) I fear messing up when I'm talking to someone - of saying the wrong thing or not saying what I want to say in a way that the other person will comprehend in the way I want it to be comprehended. I guess when I boil it all down, I fear that I'll get it wrong. I fear that I'll do or say something that impacts someone else negatively, in a way that they'll be left cleaning up my mess whether it's physical or emotional or maybe even spiritual.
My fear might seem very silly to you, but it's very poignant to me. It's pretty central to how I think about myself. I am a person who orders things. You might not think that from looking at my house or my back yard. But when I write a newsletter, I'm not only organizing words into a coherent and hopefully interesting portrayal of information, but I'm also organizing the blocks of text and images on the page. When I do the book keeping for the church or for CFHL, I'm ordering numbers - moving them in and out and keeping them all lined up in a row as I do so. I organize my kids schedules. I order the morning routine so that the kids can sleep as late as possible and still get to the bus stop on time. I take in and organize information for the kids school and send it out to the PTO and other parents. I take in, I rearrange and organize and then I send out. I wish I had a more ordered house and yard, but that one gets away from me, which I'm sure is why it comes at me in my fears.
So yesterday, while I was lying on my bed thinking this stuff through, I managed to ironically do what I feared. I messed up. Nathan had a 3:30 doctor's appointment and I entirely forgot about it. I had remembered it yesterday morning. But by afternoon I was exhausted and the appointment wasn't on my radar. When the office called to see what the deal was, I lost it. I broke down. That was it. I'd messed up. My greatest fear came rushing over me to overwhelm me.
It hasn't left me there. I've tried to walk myself through some of the things that I have been encouraging Nathan to do when he hits something that throws him for a loop. I've tried to look at the bigger picture. Sure, this happened and I screwed up, but what will that matter a year from now? Five years from now? It won't. It really wasn't that big of a deal. But it felt like a big deal. I'm still holding on to that feeling of it being a big deal, even if it wasn't.
I'm at Everyday Joe's right now sipping on my new favorite tea, Margaret's Hope Darjeeling, and reading Resident Aliens (Hauerwas and Willimon) and I hit this bit, "True freedom arises, not in our loud assertion of our individual independence, but in our being linked to a true story, which enables us to say yes and no. Our worst sins arise as our response to our innate human fear that we are a nobody." That, combined with several other bits that I'll probably share in another post, helped me to see that looking at the long term regarding my mess up wasn't really looking at the entire big picture. There's more that, if I really want to heal from this, I need to do. I need to allow for grace.
When I missed Nathan's appointment yesterday I was frustrated with Rob because he just didn't seem to get it. He didn't get that this was a major mess up. He wasn't as upset as I thought he should have been about it. He didn't jump in to be my superman, fixing the screw up that I had made. But looking back on it, I see it a different way now. Rob saw the situation with more grace than I did. He knows it's not the end of the world and he treated the situation as it deserves. He didn't get bent out of shape. He shrugged it off and moved on. Granted, it wasn't his mess up. But even though it was mine, that doesn't mean I need to hold on to it.
Jackie, Nathan's doctor, also dealt with me with grace. She talked to me on the phone about how Nathan's doing and she got us set up with an appointment on Wednesday next week. Though I'm sure it was frustrating for her to wait for us and we didn't show, she didn't express any anger with me. She didn't even show her frustration. She dealt with the situation and moved on, according it only what it required and not pouring extra meaning into the event that it didn't have.
And God forgives my screw up. When I stand before him at the end times, he's not going to pull out his notebook and say, "Dang, Meg. What's this about you forgetting that doctor's appointment?" There are much deeper heart issues that he's concerned with, and me messing up isn't a central issue. He knows I'm human. He knows I'm fallen. A central issue is that I let my fear of messing up define me. I let my belief that I can hold it all together, and that if I don't I'm worthless, be a driving force in my life. That's the heart issue. That's what's important. And I can't let go of that belief until I start to see the grace that is being offered to me by those around me and accept that grace from them, most especially God's grace.
God hasn't set me on the planet with some directions and then nudged me out to do it or fail. He has set me on this planet and then he's put himself beside me. We walk together. Even when I forget to let him lead (He's the one that knows the way after all. He should be the one leading.) and I try to take over with my own map and my own agenda, he's still there beside me. He's committed himself to get me through this. Some would say he's covenanted himself. This is one of those footprints in the sand times and I can choose to let it reinforce my fears. Or I can acknowledge that now is when there's only that one set of footprints in the sand and they sure aren't mine. I can't do this on my own, but then again, I don't have to. Thank God.
AMEN SISTER! Love it. That is my life. God is trying to teach me the same things. O how freeing it is/can be to walk in love and grace instead of fear. Thanks for putting it down in print. Love you.
ReplyDelete:-) Thanks, Bear.
ReplyDeleteoh, and to be honest, i wish yesterday afternoon didn't happen. it was rough. but it's good to know that even the crappy stuff can lead to good stuff somehow. and it really wasn't just yesterday. fears build up and we focus on the explosions, but i need that grace all day every day, not just through the explosions. we all do.
ReplyDeleteyou're an instrument of grace to me. thanks, bear.
Fear is a big issue, as issues go. Hearing that "you should be kind to yourself" may be true but is not particularly helpful. I have experienced a lot of fear in my life, fear that I will be rejected mostly. Two things seemed to help. When I married Julie I lost my fear that I was somehow inadequate or would ever be unloved. I gained a lot of knowledge about the specific things that triggered Julie's fears from past abuses and I avoided triggering them. Julie and I gave each other emotional security. Later, I became convinced that God loved me exactly the way I was, with every fault. I also realized how subject all humans are to inconsistency and failure. Imperfection is in our very nature. I learned in business that failing was important. Failing taught you what did not work. The important thing was to take responsibility for your mess, clean it up, and go at the problem again. After enough experience doing scary things, they became more comfortable. "If you are not falling down, you are not skiing aggressively enough to learn to be better."
ReplyDeleteThe first skill I learned to handle fear was conquering my fear of heights. As a young teen I had the opportunity and challenge to climb up a beacon tower at an airport. I climbed as far as I could and then just hung on until I stopped shaking. Then I climbed up a little higher until once again my fear stopped me. I looked around, up at the tower, around at the scenery, down at the ground, until I could appreciate the height as a vantage point. My fear settled down. I have climbed many towers since then. At 150 feet it looks more like the view from an airplane. Sailing is a little scary at times, but the more skill and experience you acquire, the less scary a given situation is and the more you learn to function in spite of the thought of fear. If you don't let go of the handrails or other stable points, things can get really crazy, but you will not fall in the water. You learn to trust the boat. When you climb a ladder, the ladder never shakes. You do the shaking, which looks like the ladder is shaking. Stop until the shaking goes away and then climb higher.
Meg, you are a wonderful, caring person. No one is actually counting your mistakes except you. Perhaps you should practice putting yourself in situations you fear just a little and then stay there until you get used to it. Then take the next step. Fear can be conquered. There is a shy, insecure little boy inside me, but I have taught him that he is really very safe given the many scary experiences we have been through. If you can slowly ease into handling your fears, you might be a much happier person. I know you to be competent. If you burn the soup or miss an appointment once in a while, my sense of you will not change. I will be delighted when I see you make a mistake and just laugh it off. We love you, really, really really. We love you with all of your imperfections. We love you for the generous, caring person you are, among other things. You are not your screw-ups, past, present or future.
Mistakes you live through are always in the past. The past does not really exist except as stories in our heads. Let it go, live more in the present. Stop paying so much attention to the old stories that bring up fear. They are just thoughts about the past. Do your imperfect best and continue moving forward in the present.
well done for recognising this! yes, that's the key to so much of human fear, that we tell ourselves that our value depends on something-or-other, in your case holding it all together and not messing up, rather than accepting our value from God.
ReplyDeleteand in God's eyes you are super precious - whether or not you keep your kids' schedules organised, whether or not you keep on top of your paperwork. This reminds me of something really special a friend said to me years and years ago, decades ago in fact but it stayed with me because it meant so much: my boyfriend at the time had this idea that we must invite my best friend for dinner, and I was getting stressed about cooking a proper meal - I was about 21 and not exactly the world's most experienced cook... I shared my anxiety with my friend and she said: you know, I won't stop being your friend if you burn the rice.
i think this is an important piece of what it means to be a friend. well said.
ReplyDeletei think as a Christian, it even goes a step beyond that. the rice you burned does not define you. God defines you. the hymn, "Be Thou my vision" has a line that says, "Be Thou my dignity." if i'm trying to be my own dignity, i'm gonna screw it all up. but when God is my dignity, he is the one who gives me definition. i bear his name, not the other way around.
there are times, as friends, when we do let the burnt rice (or the words they said or the way they said it) get between us and our friend. those are the times when we need to remind ourselves that it's not the rice (or even the crappy words) that define the person. we need to see them with God's eyes. if they're a christian, then God has looked upon them with grace. we need to as well.
we need to look upon each other with grace. and we need to recognize that God has looked upon us with grace. i find the former easier to do than the latter.
as i was coming home from the cafe i reminded myself that God has enough grace to cover me. He has enough grace to cover even me.
yes, there are times when we humans allow the burnt rice to get in the way - the thing with God is, he doesn't. it's us humans that keep bringing these things up, keep looking at our own inadequacies as though they're a problem - God looks at us with love, and he is totally unfazed by our imperfections. somehow this seems to be a lesson we find very difficult to internalise. he loves us so much - just as we are. it's a lot easier to tell someone else that - much easier than to grasp it and own it for ourselves.
ReplyDeletevery true.
ReplyDelete