There are so many facets of my own heart that I have, seemingly, zero understanding of. All these little secrets I have learned to keep pushed down and locked up; so many confrontations avoided because at some point I decided I could not deal with the pain of them or they were too selfishly insignificant to deserve any legitimate attention. Now, near the age of 25, I find myself locked within prison upon prison, and I have hidden all the keys in such deep, dark places that I cannot remember where they are located, and no one can find them. There seems to be no hope for freedom; no hope for escape of the spiritual and emotional death I prepared for myself.
In finding my spirit in such despair, and my husband desperately wanting to know how to help me conquer these deep-seeded fears, I have so many questions that need answers if I am ever to move on, make progress, or achieve any kind of accomplishment outside of being capable of cleaning a home well or paying bills on time. The trouble is… I’m the only one who can interrogate me and have any chance of coercing an honest, useful answer that will bring about change.
For years now I’ve kept myself from making any progress as a musician and writer. While I maintain enough natural talent that makes me completely capable of doing something worthwhile, there remains a great deal of fear, a lack of confidence, and a sense of incompetence that nails me so hard to the floor that I don’t move, and I deeply despise the very idea of movement. The voices in my head shout, “What would you do even if you did change? What difference would it make? What would the purpose be of any action? Who would care if you never wrote again?,” and I have no response that is powerful or truthful enough to override them, save my husband whose desire for me to grow keeps my mind pacing in a stagnant cave.
Most of the time, when asked why I don’t try harder or don’t do anything at all, I’m too ashamed to give an answer because, either, I have no answer or I have the poorest reason. Truthfully, there is no reason for me to not pursue my life as a musician and writer, for so many have told me how they love my early work or how I am remembered as “the girl with the lovely voice.” Yet among all these people’s sweet encouragements, I am so overwhelmed by fear and doubt of my gifts. Why is this? Have my short moments of failure really had that much of an impact on my spirit? Did the final result of my senior recital really do me in for life, dooming me to an unending sense of failure and incompetence? It can’t be just that. All those things have been and can be easily, easily, outweighed by the delightful responses of friends and family to my work. So what is it? What is it that ties the stone around my neck and drags me into the abyss of self-pity, sadness, and spiritual decay?...
Perhaps it goes farther back, and far deeper, than I thought.
When I was in my last year and a half of college, I remember having a dream where an angel spoke to me. It didn’t look at all like an angel from all the famous paintings or usual pictures. This angel appeared more as a child’s drawing (quite literally) made of oil paint and crayon. There were many things in this dream that still don’t make sense to me today, but at the end, just before I woke up, the angel said to me, “You still have great things to do.” I immediately knew the Lord was speaking to me, but I think there was a problem long before that.
I remember back in high school how so many things I was involved were what I hoped would be the thing that made my life better. When I was successful in choir for all four years, when the school started a girls’ soccer team in my sophomore year, or when I realized I was my art teacher’s favorite in my freshman year… all these times I remember thinking, “This will do it. This will make me happy, notable, well-liked. Wanted.”
Is this why I have always done things? To feel wanted? Is this why I will go to any length to help people? Why I gave my best to people who - looking back - just didn’t deserve it? Did I throw my pearls to swine too often because I desired to be wanted?
There is no doubt that growing up I was held to a high standard. There was always much expected of me because I was “the good child,” the responsible one, and I had the intelligence to accomplish much. Don’t get me wrong now; I understand the importance of holding a child to some type of standard. But honestly, I grew up telling myself that I had to go to college and get a degree. I didn’t know what to do after that or why it was important, just to do it. When I finally accomplished that, I had no idea what to do next, I didn’t know what my purpose was, and so I, perhaps, assumed that I failed when I had no next step planned. And when all my other endeavors failed – when I dropped out of my favorite choir event the year they finally won first place in the competition only to sit the bench on a soccer team that I may as well have never been on; when I never returned to art class; when my college senior recital was given a grade C after months of sacrifice – when it all failed, and I saw no return for the things I invested all my hope and love into, all I saw myself as was unaccomplished, inadequate, and unwanted. There were no more reasons to try, no more reasons for holding a passion about anything, and no more of me left to give.
Now, near the age of 25, when I say, “I live a simple life,” what I am really saying is that, “I have pursued a fantastic life; perhaps even pursued it valiantly. But I found nothing fantastic worth investing in, so I stick to the simple and the easy because it is safe, and it will not let me down. I will never be unwanted, and I will never fail, when I am good at the easy and the simple.”
The only problem with this philosophy is that God has made me for great things, and He has quite literally spoken that to my face. And every time I reject the idea of movement, I reject the will of God in my life, and I hammer down one more nail into my coffin of mediocrity. Granted, I’ve remained faithful to God in that I have continued to serve and grow in His church and in leading a small group with my husband and our two friends, but even in the middle of that service I still feel the need to make myself wanted and to prove myself as good enough. And even further, then, how does this affect my marriage? I feel the need to prove to my husband that I am good enough, and yet I cannot force myself to practice guitar when he wants me to because I am too afraid of failing in music again. “He may not want me if I don’t get a move on soon.” I probably tell myself that, and then immediately push it down and ignore it so that I don’t have to tell him I’m thinking such things.
I know the answer to these things, the proper answer, and that is that I am a child of God; that He wants me and He desires fellowship with me and to see me reach my full potential. The problem there is that I have let my private spiritual life decay, probably because I don’t see why God would want me when I can’t do these small things. And so I keep myself in this fearful spiritual cycle that I’ll never be good enough, and so I will always fail, and so I will never be wanted. My fears now assume my failures then, before I have even met a single obstacle.
These are my chains. This is what binds me.
Now I must find a way to remind myself, constantly, who I am in the eyes of Jesus.
But now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.”
—Isaiah 43:1
