The chaos makers have doubled in our house. Two sweet little boys have been added to our girls, who are growing up far to fast. We've moved to Iowa, and are preparing to move again. A close move, to our dream farm in Illinois, but another moved none the less. The thought of getting my house clean enough to sell overwhelms me. Oh, and we're a homeschooling family now. Going on our third year. Weird. When did that happen.
Honestly, trying to sum up over two years of life since the last post has been the biggest motivation to continue my pattern of procrastination in actually writing. Do I even try to sum things up? Do I just ignore the gaping expanse of time and the breadth of life that has filled that time and take up writing like I never stopped? Or should I just create a new blog. New site, new name, pretend this one never existed. That I never failed to maintain it. Ah, there it is. The underlying, ever-present, truest reason that I haven't written. Failure. And all the shame, and embarrassment, and fear that goes along with it. Looking at how long it's been since I've written honestly just makes me feel like a failure. I mean I didn't even document the remainder of our adoption! Or the fact that I just gave birth again 15 weeks ago. We've doubled our children and lived through some crazy wonderful life and not a line was written.
Then, when I think that I've finally gained the confidence to start writing, I read through what I had written in the past, and the sense of failure rips through me again. Reading through my past posts I feel a sense of recognition. Oh, yes, I remember that girl. She had so much faith and hope and joy. I miss her.
Life is funny that way. In my head I still see myself as I was back in college, but that was 10 years ago, and in so many ways I'm not that person anymore. I'm not the same person I was 2 years ago. The things I went through then have changed me into who I am now, for better and worse. And I'm starting to see that the sense of failure that continues to plague me often arises from trying to live up to whatever idealized version of myself I used to imagine I would be at the life stage I'm in now. Don't get me wrong, I still blow it and sin on a very regular basis. My failures are not completely of the imaginary ideals I've not lived up to. But the thing that Jesus has really been speaking to my heart most over the past few months is that he doesn't condemn me. I've been clinging to Romans 8:1, "Therefore there is now NO condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." And this theme continues ot fill my mind and heart as I read through The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning. That Jesus expects me to fail even more than I expect it of myself, and yet loves me without reservation or condemnation reassures my soul and restores my joy. And as for feeling shame over imaginary failure to meet self-imposed ideals, I'm letting that go. And I'm sure I'll pick it up again, but right now, and again, and as many times as it takes, I'm choosing to lay that down. I am who I am right now, and that is someone desperately loved by God, exactly as I am. So who cares if I haven't written in over two years. What a silly thing to feel self-concious about! So I'm writing now, in the midst of my chaos, as an active way of choosing to live in joy instead of defeat.
No comments:
Post a Comment