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.
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