Yesterday, I woke up with really puffy eyes from crying the night prior. I was so weary. The weight was just too much to bear. It’s returned. The concern was either something I was only overthinking and have probably gotten wrong, or it was true and there’s really nothing much I can do about it. It feels so real. Maybe it is? And if it is, how do I go on about living with it?
And also, am I not way too old to still be feeling this way?
The concern is: I think I may be unloved. I am genuinely unlovable. And I am responsible for my situation.
26 years and I have been trying to please the people around me, but have never really been successful at it. And while the advice of the wisest and happiest people would be to “learn to love yourself and just do you!” I wouldn’t really trust myself with that. I know the real “me” would just bring about disappointment. I just don’t have that light. And I really wish I did.
But that’s already been 26 years of my life gone and wasted. Will I still be able to redeem myself? While writing this, I am ashamed for still thinking about what other people would think and how I could “win them over,” keep them in my life. I am still thinking about pleasing them. I guess, if we’re completely being honest, I am afraid knowing I have not even a single soul to love me. Because if that’s the case, then what’s the point?
Brings me back to my commitments this lent. Lord, will I ever have even just a ray of Your light?
I had to flip back some pages and go throuh one of my current reads, Outlaw Christian by Jacqueline Bussie, to find this message:
When we struggle to overcome addiction, await oncology test results, sign divorce papers, or bury the remains of our miscarried child, we sigh into our pillow, “God, I feel so forgotten by you.” At those times, we want and need to hear back from God and one another: You are loved. We cannot say it enough. I love you. God loves you. Loved. Are. You. It’s practically impossible to believe this on our own. Sorrow and shame can drown out God’s voice, if and when God is saying anything.
The problem is not that we are not loved. The real problem is that none of us believe it. Paul Tillich wonderfully defines faith as the courage to accept that you are accepted. My version is tha faith is the courage to love the fac that you are loved. The secret to faith is trusting that you are actually loved.
I know I will want to revisit this again many times in the future. So let me just keep it here!
