Bitterness

My favorite, self-deprecating joke is that one of the meanings of my name is “bitter”. You might say that I am a little bitter about this fact. See? Funny, sort of.

It’s a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, because the thing I struggle most with, from which stems nearly every other negative, sin-ridden thing is that my natural state is just that – bitter. Toward circumstance, toward people, toward myself, toward anything and everything has the potential to be a target.

My impression of anger is that it is explosive. For some, it certainly is. But for years now, I have lived with this view of myself: “I don’t get angry”, because no one in their right mind would interact with me and ever use the term “explosive” to describe any of my characteristics. I think that I hold my cards closely when it comes to negative feelings. But hidden anger and frustration toward what feels like injustice has a different name. By now I am certain you have figured this out – bitterness.

But, I am angry. Often. I am resentful of this in-between season of life where I don’t fit because I’m no longer a “young adult” in the sense that I’m a fairly recent college graduate just starting my career, but I’m at an age and in a circle where the unspoken expectation is that my next step is diapers and babies and quitting my job so I can stay home with those very same babies. I am angry that I don’t want to rush ahead into that season of life and angry that I didn’t hold onto the last one long enough. I am constantly upset that I feel like I don’t fit in and frustrated that I feel alone.

I don’t have big dreams, a clear calling, deep desires placed on my heart from God. I am just here, trying to be responsible, trying to go day-by-day while the “Prodigal’s Older Brother” in me is resentful that I’m not being rewarded. I am frustrated by this long, long season of feeling dispassionate and apathetic – it’s a recurring, cyclical theme for my life.

Bitterness comes from unforgiveness. Unforgiveness stems from not having a right view of God’s forgiveness and grace. I want to understand, and once I understand, to accept His grace and mercy more fully so that I can extend it. Because, contrary to what it may sound like here, I don’t want to feel bitter. I am exhausted by keeping up with my resentfulness and I know it is a sin that is rotting my heart from the inside out. I can feel my icy heart thawing and freezing, over and over. Most of the time, I don’t notice it happening until it’s too late and I am frozen again.

So today, I don’t have little bow to tie up this writing. There is no verse coming to mind, no three-step path to fixing it, to receiving grace and extending it, to choosing joy. Although this is the first time this confession has left the pages of my journal, I will probably keep admitting to bitterness, praying that I wouldn’t have to feel that way anymore, and finding myself back in a place of resentment a few months later, only for the cycle to repeat. Most likely, this isn’t the last time I feel like this – it certainly isn’t the first.

But there is the tiniest part of me, buried in the rotten, icy bitterness of my heart that does believe that maybe, just maybe, it doesn’t have to be this way. That’s all I’ve got.

A Seat At the Table

There has always been a nagging thought in the back of my mind that says I don’t fit into any of the camps.

As I have slowly gotten to know myself over the last few years and the definitions I was holding on to slow fell away, it has been a challenge to begin to pick up the pieces without stepping into other worldly identities. asking an ages old question of myself:

Who am I?

Well, I am a wife, but I have never thought it should be my most important title.

I work for a non-profit organization.

I’m a communicator. I write things, sometimes.

I’m not politically opinionated.

I don’t demonize technology, just try to have boundaries with it.

I’m not quite a trend follower.

But I don’t swear off all trends either.

I have the job I do because it feels like it matters to have a ministry that is in the world, not because I desire a title.

I accept and give gifts because of the intention it takes, not because they are always necessary. I buy things with forethought and research, most of the time, but sometimes…I just buy something from Bullseye’s Playground at Target because I thought it was “cute”.

I’m not quite a minimalist. Of course, I don’t have an abundance of things, but I also keep gifts that people give me and decorate for the holidays and put out throw pillows on the couch even if they aren’t really “necessary”. I keep meaningful notes that people have sent me, and every birthday card or holiday card I receive, and sometimes write in a journal that takes a place next to the stack of books on my bookshelf, in my bedroom where I keep more clothes than I really need.

Most of my clothes was thrifted. But some of it came from the Walmart just down the road.

I’ve never been called “crunchy”. Sure, I buy organic groceries sometimes and go to the Farmer’s Market in the summer…but in order to fit into that group, it’s usually implied that I have to churn my own butter and have a giant garden, which my apartment makes pretty difficult.

I should desire to be a mom, my supposed highest calling as a woman.

If I don’t want the latter, then I probably should have career aspirations – get my Master’s degree in something, hunt for my dream job and then work my way up the ladder.

I might be a mom someday, I might not. I might work my full time job and seek out child care, I might stay home.

The truth is, at times I want to define myself using something, anything, of this world.

It would be so much easier than having to come to the conclusion that all the opinions we try to find identity in – approach to parenthood, marriage and relationships, political opinions, how we shop and eat, our degrees and resumes, and the trends we choose to follow are just that: opinions.

And until we choose to use them explicitly in our particular circles as a means to glorify God, rather than distract those who watch our lives and see us dying on hills for our causes that are not Him, opinions are what they will remain.

In Luke 14:15-23, Jesus tells a parable of The Great Supper. In it, He tells the story of a man who prepared a great banquet to which he invited many guests. When the time came for the banquet to start, all those who had been invited made excuses for why they could not come. So the man sends out his servant to find others to invite to his table, including “the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame”, then on another even broader search until every seat was filled. This story caught my attention when thinking about this concept, a Common Table, maybe even a table of those who have found that they don’t quite fit anywhere else.

Maybe, we need to be reminded that we should be compelled to get up from the table of politically left or right or independent individuals, the iPhone or Android users, the maximalists or minimalists or, well, any other table we might have been seated at as we grapple to define ourselves.

Maybe, we should push in our chair and invite those seated still to come with us, before we walk away boldly to the table we are all invited to, in spite of our worldly opinions – the table that is the Kingdom of God.

I know this as truth: it is the only place where there will always be a seat at the table.

One Year

I sat with a blank page, cursor blinking for awhile, on this post.

Over the last year, many people have asked me how marriage was. I never really had a good answer. I can’t entirely point to why I struggled with this question – maybe I didn’t want to dive deep in those moments, or perhaps I just truly wasn’t appreciating or reflecting.

But, it has now been a year. A marker, I suppose, that I should reflect on and tell you that, overall, I love marriage.

I love the way we can be spontaneous in this season of life, without many responsibilities to carry. We could just go out to eat if we wanted, go for walks in interesting places, hang out at coffee shops all day, or go to the beach or on a spontaneous drive. We balanced cooking healthy meals, and occasionally going to McDonald’s simply because we were craving McChicken’s. Some sort of slightly irresponsible balance that I am grateful for and know won’t last forever. We were able to hang out with friends as late as we wanted, house and cat sit for friends for a week with no consequences or inconvenience, and – I hope – love people as well as we can, even though we were a little gun-shy toward friendships.

I also love that it’s a picture of two imperfect humans coming together to give a glimpse of God’s love for His people. I think this is very much true. But, I walked into marriage thinking this would be every moment of our lives together, and I have to acknowledge that marriage is many more simple moments than moments of deep purpose and love. The purposeful moments are more meaningful now that I know they aren’t constant.

The hardest things haven’t been so much within our relationship, but external to our relationship. Over the last year, I have definitely spiraled into some mental and emotional health struggles, and struggled more than I think I have before with my worth. We walked into the first few days of marriage having just experienced a breaking of some friendships, and it deeply affected me and the way I approached this first year of marriage, gun-shy, like I mentioned before, to all relationships.

I am still getting used to it all: the giving up of a little of my independence for this union, the struggle to maintain an identity both as a daughter of Christ on my own as well as acknowledge our oneness, teetering on the edge of finding my identity in “wife” as it is so easy to do.

Beautiful things aren’t perfect things. I am so grateful to be a part of such a beautiful thing.

Be All There

“Wherever you are, be all there” is the quote I have hanging from my nameplate on my cubicle at work.

Admittedly, this is not a current practice, but a desired one, which is why I chose it to hang there. I think this will make sense in a few moments:

Recently, I admitted to someone that I was struggling to recognize what my sin issues were. My vision of sin was so clouded by the “bad ones” – sexual sin, etc – that I knew my sin was present but have found it difficult to see in this season.

The following few weeks had me thinking about this. Was I just being prideful about my sin? Maybe, but it seemed like it came from a lack of attunement to the Holy Spirit more than a prideful nature.

So I have been thinking and praying that they might be revealed to me, and I think my current sin struggles are discontentment, unforgiveness & comparison. I think these are very connected to one another, and I also believe these are things we don’t always see as bad as a culture, even sometimes as a Christian culture.

I struggle with unforgiveness. Friendships are hard, they always have been, and quite frankly, evidence shows that I must not be very good at them. I’ve read books on forgiveness, shed tears during sermons about forgiveness and continue to feel bitterness and even hatred, at times toward the friendships in my life that have ended and the divides that now exist. This spans to relationships within the last year, and all the way back to middle school. I recognize that, in part, I put them there. Every day I need to choose surrender and forgiveness, and truthfully I haven’t made much of an effort. Bitterness is unhealthy, but is also comfortable, so I keep picking up what I have been putting down at the feet of Jesus.

This unforgiveness is the strongest root of my experience with comparison. If someone has hurt me, then I do not want to believe that they deserve better than I do, or even that they deserve half as much. “It’s not fair” is what I cry to God, and instead of leaving that at His feet too, I take it into my control – trying to get and achieve more. It’s running ahead to the next season of life I think we are supposed to be in, it’s pursuing people not out of love but out of competition, it’s being psuedo-helpful so that I look nicer than the next person, and its tears and tears and tears when I come up short because I CAN NOT do enough to justify myself. I know it’s not my job to, but I forget. Too often.

I think you might already see the connection between comparison and discontentment… But simply put, comparison causes me to desire a season that isn’t the present, discontentment. This leads to aggressive house searching on Zillow and constant dreaming of the future instead of remaining in the present.

Wherever you are, be all there.

I want to BE in this season, acknowledging my sins and confessing them to the Lord instead of missing them. I want to stop missing what’s here and what is beautiful, too.

Thanks be to God for hating our sin, for wanting us to run the other way and into His arms, and for His Holy Spirit’s revelation in our brokenness.

And, thanks be to God that He forgives. That Jesus died so that I don’t have to carry these things if I don’t cling to them anymore. The strength to forgive comes only through Him, identity that overrides comparison comes from Him, and the joy in the present is a result of relationship with Him.

I want to be here. Now. In each moment, walking with Jesus.

Anxious

I think it’s really important during this time of continued pandemic to acknowledge what was good in peak quarantine as the world continues to try to heal from the last few years.

For me, I passed my last semester of college with all A’s (mostly because professors gave up on teaching), and I believe it was a much needed pause from the busyness of life for, well, pretty much everyone. My family had pancake breakfasts every Sunday together, I wrote lots of snail mail, I spent a lot of time with the Lord and ultimately, I find myself grateful for that time.

But when that part of the pandemic ended and life started transitioning back to some semblance of normal, I realized something I had never noticed or acknowledged before – an overwhelming amount of social anxiety. Suddenly I had to sit in the car whenever I would go somewhere, teary eyed and coaching myself to get out. I had to leave group settings early. College me was known for intentionality, for coffee dates and reaching out often…this new me, she was anxious, almost constantly.

While the car coaching and the cancelling plans has lessened, I still struggle to make eye contact with people, I shut down in social gatherings and get anxious during conversation, and struggle to go to new places especially alone.

It was really hard to be honest with others about this, and most people didn’t know what I was going through…honestly, am still trying to muddle through. I got even more afraid that people thought I didn’t care about them anymore, or would stop inviting me to do things, even decide that I wasn’t being a good enough friend and cut ties.

I know what you’re thinking: no one would do that, right?

Wrong.

The result has been an even more anxious me. I crave friendships, yet teeter on the edge of this fear that another person will tell me that I’m not good enough, that I am not doing enough. It’s hard to rationalize that this might not be completely true, and that they are missing part of the story, when someone has told you you’re not trying hard enough.

I’m trying to more intentionally count the wins – the coffee date I showed up to, the new person I interacted with, the place I went to alone and was only a little scared of. I’m trying to remember the people who have spoken value and appreciation into me and who have been patient with me, and that when I do the same for others, it matters a lot.

I’m trying to trust in the Lord in a much different way, remembering that He doesn’t give up on us, that He is protector, yes, even in social situations that feel irrationally scary.

I’m realizing that simply trying is enough to keep healing.

2021

I debated doing a year in review post for awhile. This enneagram 4 struggles with cliches…

But 2021 was a good year. Maybe even my favorite, and it deserves a moment of reflection and recognition.

The year had barely gotten started when, in March, we got engaged. Engagement was a hard season… Suddenly, boundaries in intimacy got tougher, and of course, we were planning a wedding!

In July, after over a year and hundreds of job applications, I finally got a job in my field! I couldn’t feel more blessed to work someplace that stretches me in my skills, empowers me to have new opportunities and challenges me in how I view the world around me. This has been such an exciting new role for me.

My favorite part though, was our wedding in October. Almost everything went off without a hitch, and things fell together in an unexpected but absolutely God-ordained way. This has been my favorite of my new roles this year: wife.

I could go on about the smaller, simple joys, but I’d say the highlights are especially cool.

I learned this year that God is faithful and His timing is perfect. There’s another cliche statement, I know. But it’s never been more true to me than this year.

I learned that it’s okay to go at things afraid. A new job, healing the social anxiety that the pandemic somehow caused, even getting married…those were not easy things to step into! But they have been beautiful things.

I learned from our supportive families that the family we end up with when God knits us together in the womb is no accident at all. Our wedding day and all that led up to it proved this most of all.

I learned that it’s okay to let go. That sometimes, people hurt us. It’s okay to forgive and move on, instead of clinging to what once was. Each season is intentional, and God is in control of them – even the relationships in them.

And it’s okay to experience every stage of the grief process of this kind of change, even the anger. People demonize anger, I think. I also think anger is okay when it takes you to the feet of Jesus for comfort.

I learned that gratitude and joy are cultivated. Human nature is to see what is lacking. Human nature is to be discontent. Gratitude and joy require discipline, and the decision to wake up each morning and choose them.

And, finally, after 6 years of college textbooks damaging my desire, I finally have seen a rekindled love for reading again.

I pray that 2022 will bring a desire for God’s Word like I have never experienced before. I want to be in the Word every day, be memorizing verses…all the things I always say I will do but hardly ever follow through on.

That gratitude is something I will choose every day, and that very gratitude will cultivate joy. I will be grateful for the relationships I have here and now, and learn contentment.

And I want to be in prayer – prayer for me, prayer for my marriage, and prayer for others when I say I’m praying for them and then don’t always follow through.

And more books, that will be cool too.

Everyone starts off a new year with high hopes, and clearly I might be one of them.

But God has proven Himself faithful. He will be in 2022, also, whatever it brings, because if I know anything at all, it will bring growth. Each year seems to, when we just keep going.

Just keep growing.

Here’s to 2022.

What a Friend…

I have been thinking a lot about friendship lately sparked by life’s current events.

Understanding friendship has been something that I have forever struggled with. For as long as I can remember, the innermost desire I experienced was to be fully known and understood, and for a long time I equated that to finding a best friend.

That term is tossed around a lot. But I wanted a true “BFF” who reciprocated that sentiment. I desired this so desperately, that I remember making my friend in fourth grade sign a contract that I made in Microsoft Word and covered with clip art certifying that she was my best friend.

Eventually we simply moved apart, but I sometimes wonder if this obsessive action scared her away. Yikes.

So rooted was this desire, that following that experience, when I was in middle school, I had a notebook simply to record pairs of best friends and list the friend groups in my grade – recognizing also that my name wasn’t on either of those lists. Ten-year-old me trying to understand my faith and feeling lonely used to pray EVERY NIGHT that God would give me a best friend. Whenever a new student transferred into our school, I became obsessed with them, wondering if they were the friend God was going to provide for me. Spoiler, they never were, but this thought process has been a constant pattern in my 23 years.

Writing this now, I recognize that this sounds probably a little ridiculous. Or perhaps, it is relatable.

I truly believe you and I are wired to desire relationships. We are wired to want to be fully known (while at the same time being afraid to be fully known and rejected).

In our wedding vows, my husband reminded me that I am his best friend. Finally! The best friend here on earth that I prayed and prayed for throughout middle and high school was standing in front of me, promising me the rest of his life! He is the perfect friend for me, seeing me more fully and vulnerably than anyone else ever will, and yet in the last few weeks I have realized that even he does not fulfill the deep desire I have held my entire life.

I still want more, but I want to share that with my husband. What about the female friend I also desired?

Now, I want “couple friends”. I compare us to other young married couples we know who have their go-to other married couple to do things with. I take inventory of everyone in our lives and partner us with them trying to decide if they will fill that hole.

What I am starting to recognize…but honestly, what I still don’t quite feel…is that the One who sees my deepest desires and cares for them more deeply than even I could, has already provided a friendship – yes, friendship – with Jesus where I am more deeply known than I can comprehend.

“No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you” (John 15:15)

“Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13)

“What a friend we have in Jesus
All our sins and griefs to bear
And what a privilege to carry
Everything to God in prayer.”

He is a friend who will not leave us. Ever. He will not hurt our feelings, miscommunicate or neglect us. He already fully knows and loves each of us in an overwhelming, incomprehensible way and amidst that knowledge, will not reject.

He is slowly teaching me that the desire I have had my whole life for friendship isn’t wrong. It is simply that the prayers of young, lonely me were already answered. They were answered on the cross.

And all the other people He has blessed my life with are just that, a blessing not intended to fill a hole meant for the friendship of Jesus, but to remind me of how truly deep and wide His love for me already is.

More than a Fancy Party

As someone who just executed the wedding plans I worked on for 7 months, I have found that I have become rather opinionated when it comes to weddings.

These opinions were realized when I felt offended by the expenses adding up as we stepped closer to our day. Weddings should not be so gosh darn expensive. There, I said it. I’m sure it has been said before, by those saving the “We only spent $3,000 on my wedding, here’s how we did it” pins on Pinterest, but it stands to reason. This felt tangible and real to me, and led to a frustration with weddings I had never thought to experience before.

This frustration led me to an article on Desiring God called “Weddings: Don’t Break the Bank”. The quote I found most convicting was this: “…build a culture of simplicity in the church that makes the focus of marriage celebrations the Lord Jesus, the Christ-exalting meaning of marriage, the awesome importance of the vows, the preciousness of the people, the lovers — and not the clothing, the flowers, the location, the music, the whole production that can make the actual act of God in marriage seem like an incidental prelude to the big, fancy party afterwards.”

Oooooooof.

I should clarify that I love weddings. I love the traditions, the beautiful dresses, the flowers, the moment of the bride walking down the aisle. I think it’s beautiful. But what I find more beautiful is when you can clearly see the heart of the bride and groom in the wedding day. Quite frankly, that heart isn’t always in the traditions or the “normal” wedding things. The heart should be in honoring God. Marriage, after all, was His idea.

The other things, the distracting party favors and quality of the food served and whether or not there is an open bar, if your bridesmaids are in trendy velvet dresses or if you have expensive lanterns that feel needed to put at every table… well, those are just “things”. Often, costly things encouraged by the competition of having your wedding just be a little bit better than your friend’s or having photos that are a little bit prettier than the ones that girl from high school posted on Facebook. You know what I am saying.

These words don’t find themselves on this page because I think I know better, nor am above the comparison and spending on the wedding’s behalf. The culture we live in, that does not encourage simplicity, does not give us space to step away from the distractions when it comes to relationships – especially the “end all be all” of the wedding day.

I have so many regrets when it comes to decisions made in the months I have had to plan my wedding – so much people pleasing, wedding party choices and changes, the break ups I have had to have with social media to quiet the comparison whisper-screaming in my head. We, too, failed in some ways at making the day truly about our covenant with the Lord as much as it was our desire to do so.

But, we desired to do so and tried our best to make intentional decisions about not distracting from the purpose. And so now, as it is all said and done, I feel empowered to say that I wish I would have been EVEN MORE focused. I wish I wouldn’t have cared so much about what people thought or gotten wrapped up in the details.

So today, in a conversation with a friend about her own upcoming wedding, when she expressed that she wanted it to be simple, after church on a Sunday, with just her closest family members there to hear the gospel and for her and her future husband to make a sacred vow. My friend was not distracted by the Pinterest weddings, the details and decorations, how others had done it, at all.

And, because it’s been on my heart, I felt empowered to affirm that beautiful heart and reverence for what marriage really is for. I can’t help but be excited to celebrate her marriage, and that of others who grapple through decisions that go against the grain of what a wedding is “supposed” to look like so that the focus is where it truly should be.

Therefore, I am giving you permission, if you’re reading this, to do whatever it is you want it on your wedding day – upcoming or in the distant future. If you love the traditions, do them, but don’t feel pressured into them. And if you want people to wear costumes or have your wedding on a Tuesday night or play yard games instead of a dance party…or omit the party altogether, then DO IT.

The Building of Walls

People change.

Relationships change.

It feels like, in some ways, it has been the longest season ever. New relationships, old relationships, relationships that were left unsettled amidst a pandemic beginning, a college graduation that never truly was and a transition that was never prepared for; an upcoming wedding, moving to a new city, a new job (finally!), parents who suddenly seem to be aging more than I have realized before, and joining another family soon that will also require obligation and effort.

I am overwhelmed, sometimes, by all of these things.

I am confused by the seemingly unfixable relationships left awkward, different and broken by circumstance. I don’t understand what pursuing friendships in adulthood looks like – when they aren’t ready made by involvement in clubs or classes. No longer being pursued by some has led to my own walls being built up for future relationships.

I feel as though I constantly am making small mistakes that lead to bigger mistakes in this world where suddenly, mistakes seem no longer forgiven. That’s a good reason, in my mind, for the building up of walls, too.

With each fear that…

“I’m not enough” when I can’t quite find a new place to fit in

“I am not worth pursuing” when relationships look so different

“I don’t have time” when obligations overwhelm

…comes another reason to lay another brick. It’s to protect myself from these thoughts, to protect myself when more things change, and an attempt to be in control when most things feel like they are beyond my control.

Each one is laid in an attempt to be okay. The thing is, none of them really fix anything, and as much as I know this in my mind, it’s my heart and its walls that say otherwise. I am not in control. At the root of that statement, I know I shouldn’t be and can find rest in that truth.

We are told: “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” (Isaiah 41:10)

God promises to be “…our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”” (Psalm 46:1–3).

God’s faithfulness is unchanging.

And maybe not today, but someday soon, as I continue with timid step to surrender to Him, with His hand guiding mine, I can start to take down the walls that don’t need to be there. With Him guiding my words, I can mend the things left broken.

With His nod of encouragement, I can step into each change that will come knowing that He is stronger than any wall I might construct.

Patching Up Loneliness

Before graduating college, I found myself surrounded by what seemed like the most perfect community.

But I would find myself, as I lay in bed before sleep, knowing I had friends there but also knowing that I often sat in a room full of people feeling lonely. I wondered if my presence their was even noticed, valued.

And I brought myself to tears. The silent kind, but the type where you cry so hard it becomes difficult to breathe. And a question was demanded to the Universe, and to the Creator of it all: “Why do I feel so alone?”

The community I am a part of has changed drastically, but this feeling of loneliness has remained consistent through this season, too. I still sit in a room of people, silently wondering if anyone would notice if I left.

And on that slipperiest slope, I slide into comparison or into questioning my identity in Jesus, opting to avoid my friends or family – choosing to self-inflict solitary moments. At least when I’m physically alone, feeling lonely might seem justified.

I’m trying to figure out what I have to do to patch up the holes left behind by years of feeling lonely and excluded, and to close off the veins from it that lead to other struggles (comparing, avoiding, etc).

Maybe that’s studying the Bible and understanding Jesus better, so that I can understand how He sees me. Or perhaps the plan is to just persistently pray over it. More likely, it’s both of the above.

All I know is that I want the cry of my heart to be “You are here and it is well”, with full confidence that the heart where Jesus Christ dwells is never really lonely.