Enough 3
We Don’t Need Whitewashed Warriors. for SheLoves Magazine .
We like our warriors a little wounded, flawed. It makes for a more interesting story when the hero has to overcome their demons to win the day. Wonder Woman goes on despite her broken heart and disillusionment. Odysseus had to deal with his hubris to complete his journey. Paul continued his ministry, never rid of the thorn in his side.
For a writer, this is Storytelling 101. Your protagonist should have a blemish that makes him relatable. As our own stories unfold, though, we want to glide through the battle unscathed. We think that our wounds disqualify us. We can’t let anyone see our flaws or they wouldn’t believe we are competent.
I was fresh out of my first big battle with anxiety when I interviewed for a role that eventually took me to live overseas. I talked about my coping mechanisms and downplayed my pain. I didn’t understand anxiety’s grip on me then, the way the dark worry would wrap it’s tendrils around my heart over and over again like a monster lurking in the depths for its unsuspecting victim. But still I knew that I needed to gloss over these issues if I wanted to appear capable.
A decade later we have come a long way in our collective conversations of mental illness but still I feel apprehensive every time I tell a piece of my story. I have learned the art of smiling and saying “I’m okay” when my insides feel as if the sea beast is squeezing them until they turn to dust. I know all the typical responses that will be offered, down to the Scripture verses people will quote. I know those who will insist I pray harder or those who will suggest medicine at the first anxious thought.
In some recent quiet moments amidst the ongoing war, I had retreated to tend my wounds. I was listening to the prayers of others when I couldn’t find any words of my own. These words from an examen offered on the Pray As You Go app became a salve I daily applied to the hurt:
“You love me as I am. You touch my life with healing. You call me to bear fruit. I give my wounded self to you to be a channel of healing to others, to be a wounded healer with Christ who died, and rose, and comes again.”
I started to realize that my wounds don’t disqualify me and that my scars make me like the Wounded Healer I follow every day of my life.
When Jesus arrived in Israel, even those closest to him wanted him to be something he was not. His followers were expecting the Son of David to come in fury, to throw off the yoke of the Roman Empire. They wanted a warrior King; they got a suffering Savior. They put their hands in his wounds and then watched him ascend, victorious over death.
I started to realize that not only do my wounds not disqualify me, but also my scars make me distinctly able to be a healer to others who struggle as I do. When I started talking about my anxiety and depression there were whispers, however they were not the kind I expected. I was met with the quiet admissions of “me too.” Others trusted their stories to me and we realized our wounds looked the same...
I'm at SheLoves Magazine today with a call to no longer be whitewashed warriors who appear to breeze through life without a hair out of place but to be sisters and brothers who link arms and carry each other through the fray. Join me?
Praying Open Handed. {Deeply Rooted and Transformed Series}.
I am honored to have my voice included in the release of Everbloom {Available TODAY from Paraclete Press}. Together we are journeying through the book's sections: Roots, Trunk, Branches, Blossoms. The beautiful thing about this book is that it is not meant to just be read. Become part of the story. Journey with me. Read along as I share a piece from each section, respond, and ask you to respond with me....
{Read} A FINE DAY for you to be God BY RONNE ROCK (click the title to read the excerpt)
{My response} praying open handed
Nothing turned out like I expected it would but everything turned out exactly as it should have. I went into our first international move with dreams and plans, a heart full of hopes for a life planted deep into the ancient soil of that bustling city. I thought we would stay there for years but we left after six months. I dreamed of speaking fluent Arabic and six years later when my Palestinian bus driver learned I had lived in the Middle East and started trying to converse with me I just shrugged and said "shawaya arabi," meaning "I speak only a little Arabic."
Now in the throws of our second international move, two children in tow this time, I keep reminding them and myself to hold onto our dreams loosely. We write our prayers and wants on a big piece of paper taped to the living room wall because we know God cares about our hopes and dreams. He wants to hear what is in our hearts and it is a beautiful practice to lay them out honestly and see how He answers our prayers. It's also a beautiful practice in surrender when we see how He answers them by saying "no" or in a way that is not what we expected. I want to expect the unexpected this time, to see God show me how His plans are better than what I could ask for in my limited view.
I pray with open hands these days, surrendering all I want to God, asking Him to give me His will instead. Palms up. Trying to let go. Asking Him to make me ready to receive. When my daughter asks why I tell her a story about our move ten years ago.
I had pictures in my head of what our flat would look like when we moved to Egypt. I had heard not to expect to find a place quickly, to be open to looking at lots of flats. I didn't have high hopes but had two things that were non-negotiable. I wanted an elevator and a balcony. The elevator was for the days when the temperatures reached 120 degrFahrenheitheit and climbing flights of stairs seemed an impossible task. The balcony I dreamed of was a window into the beautiful city and it's people. I had these images in my mind of hanging the clothes to dry amidst children playing next door, of sitting out on the balcony, the noise of the city rising all around me while I wrote and studied.
The first place we looked at had both of those things but something just didn't feel right. I stood on that big balcony and just didn't believe this was the one. We kept it in mind but looked at other flats. We braced ourselves for weeks of searching. The next day we climbed four flights inside the sweltering concrete stairwell. No elevator. The heavy wooden door opened into the cool flat, the air conditioner straining against the heat. The landlady introduced herself as Samiha and accompanied us around the little flat, proudly showing us how it had everything we would need. It was fully furnished and she promised a second air conditioner in the bedroom, a new washing machine in the kitchen. Internet could easily be installed (though as we soon learned easily means something a little different in Egyptian terms). The close line was stretched outside the kitchen window where you had to precariously hang out to reach the clothes. The wide bedroom windows looked out over a busy street but there was no balcony.
It didn't have the things I had hoped for but we just knew this was the one. The next few hours were a blur or finding an ATM to get the deposit and signing a lease in a language we didn't yet understand. A friend's realtor negotiated for us and Samiha smiled widely as she handed us the keys. We had a new home in just a few days and after the whirlwind was over and we trudged up those stairs we wondered if we'd done the right thing.
It wasn't until months later we could look back and see how that flat was handpicked for us, how it was exactly where we were supposed to be. Samiha became a dear friend, which our local friends said was quite odd. "You don't get to know your landlady, that's a business relationship," they said. But she became family to us in a foreign land. Countless hours were spent at her little basement apartment nearby, practicing our Arabic poorly and watching Egyptian soap operas as she told us stories about her acting days. We broke the fast during Ramadan at that dining room table, learned to cook bechemel sauce in that kitchen. We were close enough to her to talk about faith and pray for each other, to ask the deep questions and bare our souls.
And as we climbed that hot stairwell back home, dodging the stray cats and bags of trash left to be picked up by the doorman, we met the neighbors that invited us into their homes, too. Some days we smiled and kept going but most often if their doors were open, we were going to be stopping in for tea, at least. We would finally make it home after hours spent in conversation with new friends, our minds tired from trying to navigate two languages. The click of the air conditioner was a welcome sound as we collapsed onto the couches and finally rested.
I didn't get the flat I hoped for; my dreams of a balcony to overlook the city weren't fulfilled. We got something so much more important. We had asked God to let us find a home, not just a flat. We wanted to become a real part of the community, to find a family there. As we walked up the stairs, we got to know the people. As we spent time with Samiha, we were known. God didn't want me sitting there on a balcony looking out over the beautiful city. He wanted me out there living in it. And that's what I really wanted all along, too.
I still wear the brightly colored bangles Samiha gave me as a gift when she found out we were returning to America. They are a reminder of my friend but also of the way God's will is so much better than our own plans, how eternity broke into our world in the community we built in Egypt that will remain a part of us all our lives.
So, I keep my hands open these days. I ask God to help me see past this fleeting, temporary world and all the things I think I have figured out. I ask Him to let eternity break into my little world, break open my heart, and exceed my expectations.
{Now share your story} How could you commune with and serve the desperate in your community? Describe where you have seen Eternity break into your world.
[button url=http://www.nicoletwalters.com/2017/praying-open-handed//#disqus_thread]{Respond}[/button]
Join me for the rest of the Deeply Rooted and Transformed Series and enter to win your own copy of Everbloom! Enter until May 8th.
He Is Enough. {Deeply Rooted and Transformed Series}.
I am honored to have my voice included in the release of Everbloom {Available TODAY from Paraclete Press}. Together we are journeying through the book's sections: Roots, Trunk, Branches, Blossoms. The beautiful thing about this book is that it is not meant to just be read. Become part of the story. Journey with me. Read along as I share a piece from each section, respond, and ask you to respond with me....
{Read} Encasing My Fear by Johanna reardon (click the title to read the excerpt)
{My response} he is enough
Though it has been fourteen years since I graduated college I still have the same frightening dream on occasion. I'm back in college and a few weeks into the semester, I look again at my class schedule to find there was a class I missed. It is too late to drop the class but I have missed weeks of lectures. I enter the class to find everyone else chatting and laughing and I feel naked, exposed. I know there is no way to catch up. I have let something drop and it's too late to fix it.
The feeling in that dream creeps into my everyday life all too often. The tightness in my chest, the air feeling like it is being wrung from my lungs, reminds me that I fear losing control. Dropping something. Letting someone down. Not being enough. The feeling became all too real last fall when the responsibilities were piling up like a stack of bricks on my chest. Two jobs, two kids, and getting ready for an international move crowded my schedule and overwhelmed my spirit.
I remember the moment I knew I couldn't run from it anymore. Between work and church, kids scrambling for my attention, the to-do list a mile long—there wasn't a moment to stop. But I physically couldn't keep going anymore. I laid on the bed staring at the rocking back and forth of the ceiling fan above me, willing my breath to find that same regular rhythm. I placed my hand on my racing heart, begging it to slow down. Each inhale felt like a knife turning inside my chest, my lungs like a leaky balloon that spurted the air out as soon as it entered them. I had spent years saying I could handle my own anxiety and it felt like a defeat when I admitted I couldn't anymore.
***
"I find myself doing things out of character these days," I told her as I took another sip of overly sweet tea, feeling the sugary film build up on my teeth. The conversation at those monthly dinners with my oldest friend who has been a counselor and Myers-Briggs practitioner always find their way to personality or anxiety. Knowing her has made me think about who I am and how I relate to others and I tell her how I feel different than I used to. Orderly, structured, a planner to a fault. That has always been me. So afraid to drop something, I make sure to have a plan and follow it to ensure everything gets done.
Last year when I had two international trips only weeks apart, those traveling with me couldn't believe I had two sets of bags packed weeks in advance and a detailed list of all I had to wash and repack in the two-week window between trips. A year later, after my realization that fear had overtaken me and I needed to do something about it, my husband looked at me with disbelief.
"Your flight leaves tomorrow," he said in a questioning tone. "And you're not packed?"
"No, I have time in the morning, " I shrugged and laughed when he said, "Never in twelve years have I ever known you to do that."
I told this kind of thing to my friend, explained to her how I've changed and I didn't understand how I could go against my nature like that. She looked at me and said something that changed the way I saw who I am: "A lot of what you think is your nature, is actually your nurture. Did you do those things you always used to because they were who you really were or because you learned them, felt like you had to do them? Could it be that you are finally becoming who you should be?"
***
I have always known fear is a problem for me, that my anxiety had deep roots in feelings of control and perfectionism. But I never really dealt with it, felt more comfortable running from it and pushing it deeper. If I could just keep everything calm, could just act like it wasn't there, then everything would be okay. As I read JoHanna Reardon's No More Fear each day I saw myself in the pages and God showed me just how deeply rooted this sin of fear was in my heart.
I saw the way I have taught myself over the years to be in constant motion, bought the lie that there is no time to rest. My fear of not being good enough had made me try hard to do it all and, like a juggler, keep every ball in the air all the time. When one drops, as it is going to do sometimes, my perfect world shatters. Not that planning is bad. I will always be a schedule maker. But the obsessing over the plans is the sin of not trusting the God who tells me to come to Him and rest. Jesus rested and modeled the holiness of just doing the next thing the Father asked of Him but I have to do all the things, all the time. And it was tearing me apart.
I have been intentional about resting and practicing sabbath over the last few months, of letting go and trusting Him for just the next step. I have felt like these things are so out of character. But I am seeing that they are who I was meant to be all along. My fear was defining who I was, making me twisted into something God never intended. As I am slowly finding freedom from the fear, I am finding ways to bring my burdens to Him and trust that what I have to offer is enough. For Him. For my family. For myself. The strong arms of God are holding me up when I choose to take a break and let myself rest on them. I can let go every now and then. They will be there to sustain me. It isn't about me being enough after all. It is about Him being enough for me.
{Now share your story} what do you fear most? where do you see the strong arms of god?
[button url=http://www.nicoletwalters.com/2017/he-is-enough//#disqus_thread]{Respond}[/button]
Join me for the rest of the Deeply Rooted and Transformed Series and enter to win your own copy of Everbloom! Enter until May 8th.
Featured On:
Recent Comments