Do I Care Too Much?

I was messaging a friend about something that has happened recently. Asking me if I knew about some information that was released publicly and I confirmed it. Later on through the conversation he made a comment that stuck with me. "But just more concerned about you taking on other emotions like guilt for not being able to do anything and such." Today another friend made a comment to me, "We all appreciate you being a good friend but don't wear yourself out." These two comments are not bad, they are being good friends and making sure I'm in a good place. But I'm not in a good place.

A huge part of who I am is that I care for other people. Because I live under what Christ called us to do. "Jesus replied: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself." (Matthew 23:37-39). The reason I care is because I want people to care for me in a similar way. There are people who I view in life and I see them loving back in their own way. I appreciate and receive it with a grateful heart. That is a major reason why I care.

But I'm hurting and what hurts is that fact that my family is hurting. Family isn't a term only being directly related by blood, but a relationship build over time of investment. People who pour their hearts, who open their arms in welcome, and receive me with my good and bad. They are able to talk to me and be able to challenge me, correct me if and when I'm wrong. I'm hurting because I can't be there for them. Because when I'm hurting, I would want people to be there for me. To just hold me and just support me. That what I want to do. I don't want them to make their situation better. I'm not their to fix their problem or make them happier. I want them to know that God loves them. I love them. It hurts that I can't.

But God has been comforting me in my pain. Working on my heart and calming to a place to trust him. A dear friend challenged me with this. "I know it's difficult some times, but strive for contentment for each day, for 'this is the day that the Lord hath made'. It always helps me to review Romans 8:35-39. Hang in there." Of all people, he is more at loss than I am. He is closer to the situation than I am. I don't feel I should be feeling this close or this hurt, but here I am. Mentally and emotionally moved to the point that I'm physically affected. Yet, God is comforting me and helping me sort through my frustrations. I had a couple other friend encourage me as the night went forward. Before I went to bed, I read Psalm 130.

Psalm 130 A song of ascents.

1 Out of the depths I cry to you, Lord;
2     Lord, hear my voice.
Let your ears be attentive
    to my cry for mercy.

3 If you, Lord, kept a record of sins,
    Lord, who could stand?
4 But with you there is forgiveness,
    so that we can, with reverence, serve you.

5 I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits,
    and in his word I put my hope.
6 I wait for the Lord
    more than watchmen wait for the morning,
    more than watchmen wait for the morning.

7 Israel, put your hope in the Lord,
    for with the Lord is unfailing love
    and with him is full redemption.
8 

He himself will redeem Israel    from all their sins.

I am putting my hope in the Lord. I am waiting for the Lord. Waiting more than watchmen wait for the morning. I'm  yearning to allow God to speak to me and he is. I mourn for the loss, I grieve over the pain of others, and I hurt because they mean so much to me. God has placed people in my life that have been there with me through rough patches in life. I want to be able to give back to those that gave to me. It's not me giving or earning anything. But being able to offer what God has given abundantly. I want to love his people because he loved me first. I genuinely want to love God first. So I want to love others. So I do care... maybe too much, but God cares more. So I trust him when he calls me to love. God gave me Jesus, what more could I ask for? He came down to earth. Suffered the way we do. Died for my sins, our sins. He seemed to care too much. I'm not God or Jesus, but I want to care as best as I can.

Hillsong United - Oceans (Where My Feet May Fail)
"Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders

Let me walk upon the waters

Wherever You would call me

Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander

And my faith will be made stronger

In the presence of my Savior"

Silence, my bout of silence and where do I go after this?

There is a reason there hasn't been a post... It was because I have been wrestling with myself through my thoughts. I didn't want to make it public because it wasn't resolved and it pretty much preoccupied my mind for the last 4 months. It was deeply personal and was over spilling into other areas of my life. Lack of sleep and just a lot of frustration didn't help. Also in the end, I was just arguing with myself and wasn't able to hear the advice my friends were telling me while I was dealing with the issue.

This post isn't about the issue I had with someone. This post is to address my own problems that I wasn't able to understand up until now. I have and will always be afraid of being rejected. I will try my best to please and appease people to not be rejected. But what I come to realize is that I will be and have been rejected.

I have reflected that part of it stems from being the youngest in my family, but it isn't that simple (probably a ton of other experiences even later in life). Being the youngest, I always looked up to my older siblings. I want to be like them, I wanted to be liked by them, and ultimately be loved and accepted by them. But being the youngest in an individualistic family doesn't foster that kind of relationship. This isn't criticism, but just factual. We function quite independently and are capable of doing things the way we want to. We don't rely on each other and we don't necessarily need each other's approval. We do our own thing in our own way and we live life independent of each other. I think a lot of people struggle with these issues with their own form. This is how I grew up with it.

For me, I don't really function that way. Part of me can, because that is the environment I grew up in, but I don't like being left behind. I don't like being left out. I don't like feeling like I'm not wanted. My fear is that I have no purpose in life. My fear is that I have nothing to offer in life. My fear is that I'm wasting life and that someone else should have my life because I'm not using it well enough. There was a time in middle school to high school were I suffered with depression. Then again, I've struggled with depression in college in well (for different reason). My depression stemmed from just feeling like I'm a waste of life. I prayed that God would give me purpose or take me away (IE kill me). In my youth I interpreted certain actions as rejections. I wasn't willing and able to voice my fear. I was stuck and left in my own mind to suffer in silence (you can see this is kind of a recurring thing). I still struggle with these thoughts. I strive to make people happy around me because it will validate my existence. I try to give gifts as much as I can in hopes that people accept me for who I am. I help carry and lift things for others, because I feel like I'm contributing for something. All these things that are good for other people are with the intent that it will be good for me. But it is still out of fear.

As much as I understand how I operate and am trying to deconstruct my fear, I'm also embracing who I have become. I like helping people, I like being dependable, and I like being someone who they can trust. Because I want all these things done back to me. The main reason I do youth ministry was because don't want youth to suffer the way I did: how I suffered in silence, how I was unable to express the pain I was putting on myself through, and how I had no idea where to go from it. The only constant that has maintained me was God. Using people who put in my life, the encouragement of strangers at camps who made an effort to touch my life (even if only for a week) was enough to keep me going forward. Life isn't going to be easy, life won't give me everything I want, but I'm still. I love my family and they love me. I have friends who want me be my friends and don't expect anything from me except to just be me. I don't want to live in fear, I don't want to be in darkness, and I want to be free. For me in faith, I need to reveal my own faults because it makes me process and understand myself. This verse seems to speak volumes to what I have been going through.

Ephesians(NIV)5 

8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light9 (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) 10 and find out what pleases the Lord. 11 Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness,but rather expose them. 12 It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. 13 But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light. 14 This is why it is said:

“Wake up, sleeper,    rise from the dead,
    and Christ will shine on you.”

15 Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. 17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. 18 Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, 19 speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord,20 always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Part of me wanted to going back to the US was to get closer. But also to move on and away from this sin. I give because I'm blessed by God. I love because God loves me. I care because others have cared for me. I live because Christ died for me. I have hope because the Spirit lives in me. I'm not perfect, I'm broken, but I'm trying. That is all I have left.