Free To Need...
"Why? Why would you care if you know the decision was the right one?" That's what I'm thinking as my feeling husband expresses concern that he might have offended someone with a decision he's made. I'm technically a *thinker*, that's how my personality tests alllllways come out - low on the feeling and high on the thinking. The thinking trait in me lends itself to being able to see things logically without much emotion, to understand the "why" something needs to happen rather than how that something might make me or others feel. Honestly, I like being a thinker.
Being a *thinker* doesn't mean you don't have or express emotion it just means that the way you see and live life isn't based on how you feel. This works for me most of the time because I don't like to be "needy" and feelings can feel needy to a thinker sometimes...actually, a lot of the times. ;) But I am often overwhelmed when my feelings do rise to the surface and show their unfamiliar heads. This happens more and more the older I get and the more I realize that being vulnerable is empty if the need of that vulnerability isn't present. He's been inviting me to Trust for many years and the definition of trust is voluntary vulnerability.
Along the way of life I would be vulnerable as long as there was a good reason. Like it was easy for me to say that we needed financially as a young married couple with children and while my husband was at university and working full-time and after law school - because all of those were legitimate needs. So are keeping high boundaries with our schedule as we help care for people in our faith community, everyone knows that's legitimate too. And I need extra rest as a mother of toddlers - that is legitimate too. It's understandable to be tired if you have toddlers, but people get squirmy if you're just too tired to get together - for me that is vulnerability with need that requires faith on my part. Faith to be honest. To be Ami. There's a long list of legitimate areas of life that offer a sterile form of vulnerability - faithless authenticity.
True vulnerability doesn't have a good excuse - it just is, it just needs with no good reason. What I mean is that being vulnerable with regard to your heart requires faith to tell the story. I would learn over the years, as He would orchestrate great excuse-less "need" in my life, to let others see that I was needy. I am needy. How this happened for many years was financial difficulty or difficulty with my children or hard in extended family relationship. It felt like we lived on the mountains we kept going around and around.
We have precious friends and he is a public school teacher and a potter on the side as his beautiful wife stays at home and their kids go to public school. They own rental property and live very frugally and are HUGE givers. They don't make tons of money and when we met them we were fresh out of law school and they were newly engaged. (We want to be them when we grow up. ;) But us ever having financial need with the Lawman being that - a lawyer - felt very vulnerable juxtaposed to them and NEVER because they were prideful or lording...our need just was, with no seeming good reason.
And I have a friend with 10 children who has flourishing gardens - enough to sell the extra at market and I HAVE TRIED EVERYTHING and can barely keep the hearty/hard to kill herbs I have alive...and she is always encouraging and telling me how she has messed up her garden and for me to keep trying and I cry (for real) when she emails me "Go, AMI!!! You can do it!!!" and...my need just is, with no good reason.
Do you see where I'm going - do you see how He can orchestrate life to require vulnerability - which requires need - that MUST have faith to see how the story will offer the arch of character and present the Hero?
For a long time I thought God was just "teaching me" things through all of the hardship of excuse-less need. The unending law school loans, the "going around this mountain again"ness in marriage, the broken down cars (had to drive backwards down a main street one night because our car would only go in reverse - true story - and I couldn't be more than 5 min late to a discipleship mtg or the leader said they would all leave and I would have to call everyone and apologize and reschedule [unhealthy church life? yes - not there anymore, praise JESUS :] and I was married to a lawyer...yall.;) all the ways I felt so embarrassed - surely He was dealing with pride? But I don't think that way today. I'm sure there was pride killed along the way and a good healthy dose of "The sun will come up tomorrow" no matter what happens today. But as I began to see need differently my needs began to change too.
I began to see my need as part of my Story. The parts of the Story that required me to risk - to stretch my hand out and grab hold of Faith. Because the Bible says that without faith we can't please Jesus so I began to reach more, risk myself more. And not just in the "move this mountain" kind of faith ways, but the everyday kind of ways...those are what really changes us - the small things. Where before it seemed He often had to force me into involuntary vulnerability (the opposite of trust), I would now begin to offer my need to trust as an act of worship.
The ways that my needs show themselves today look more like the kind that shape Ami whether or not they do any good for anyone else. I know that might sound vague, but I don't know how else to say it. If Trust is an act of voluntary vulnerability i.e. worship (the willingness to give praise at the sake of looking foolish) ~ it sounded to me that trust could be authentic, original from me and that I could sometimes choose its medium. I began to let myself worship through my great weaknesses - of which there are many.
From navigating my need for mutual friendship where I'm not only pastored and loved, but pursued. To showing my need to be heard and understood by my husband as he adjusts to these unfamiliar *feelings* that pop up in his girl. To the need to dream my own dreams that might not make anyone else happy, but me and Him...these types of need continue to come as I relax into vulnerability...my need just because, with no good reason. I worship Him ~ that I may be become weaker that He become greater. He still brings along places that I can choose to trust Him. Those places that are out of my control; but more and more, like a child growing up and finding the beauty in submission, voluntary vulnerability has become a part of who I am and I never want that to change.
I'm leaving this blog incomplete because I want it to represent that I will never stop needing to find the Christ in Ami...the Hope of Glory...
Being a *thinker* doesn't mean you don't have or express emotion it just means that the way you see and live life isn't based on how you feel. This works for me most of the time because I don't like to be "needy" and feelings can feel needy to a thinker sometimes...actually, a lot of the times. ;) But I am often overwhelmed when my feelings do rise to the surface and show their unfamiliar heads. This happens more and more the older I get and the more I realize that being vulnerable is empty if the need of that vulnerability isn't present. He's been inviting me to Trust for many years and the definition of trust is voluntary vulnerability.
Along the way of life I would be vulnerable as long as there was a good reason. Like it was easy for me to say that we needed financially as a young married couple with children and while my husband was at university and working full-time and after law school - because all of those were legitimate needs. So are keeping high boundaries with our schedule as we help care for people in our faith community, everyone knows that's legitimate too. And I need extra rest as a mother of toddlers - that is legitimate too. It's understandable to be tired if you have toddlers, but people get squirmy if you're just too tired to get together - for me that is vulnerability with need that requires faith on my part. Faith to be honest. To be Ami. There's a long list of legitimate areas of life that offer a sterile form of vulnerability - faithless authenticity.
True vulnerability doesn't have a good excuse - it just is, it just needs with no good reason. What I mean is that being vulnerable with regard to your heart requires faith to tell the story. I would learn over the years, as He would orchestrate great excuse-less "need" in my life, to let others see that I was needy. I am needy. How this happened for many years was financial difficulty or difficulty with my children or hard in extended family relationship. It felt like we lived on the mountains we kept going around and around.
We have precious friends and he is a public school teacher and a potter on the side as his beautiful wife stays at home and their kids go to public school. They own rental property and live very frugally and are HUGE givers. They don't make tons of money and when we met them we were fresh out of law school and they were newly engaged. (We want to be them when we grow up. ;) But us ever having financial need with the Lawman being that - a lawyer - felt very vulnerable juxtaposed to them and NEVER because they were prideful or lording...our need just was, with no seeming good reason.
And I have a friend with 10 children who has flourishing gardens - enough to sell the extra at market and I HAVE TRIED EVERYTHING and can barely keep the hearty/hard to kill herbs I have alive...and she is always encouraging and telling me how she has messed up her garden and for me to keep trying and I cry (for real) when she emails me "Go, AMI!!! You can do it!!!" and...my need just is, with no good reason.
Do you see where I'm going - do you see how He can orchestrate life to require vulnerability - which requires need - that MUST have faith to see how the story will offer the arch of character and present the Hero?
For a long time I thought God was just "teaching me" things through all of the hardship of excuse-less need. The unending law school loans, the "going around this mountain again"ness in marriage, the broken down cars (had to drive backwards down a main street one night because our car would only go in reverse - true story - and I couldn't be more than 5 min late to a discipleship mtg or the leader said they would all leave and I would have to call everyone and apologize and reschedule [unhealthy church life? yes - not there anymore, praise JESUS :] and I was married to a lawyer...yall.;) all the ways I felt so embarrassed - surely He was dealing with pride? But I don't think that way today. I'm sure there was pride killed along the way and a good healthy dose of "The sun will come up tomorrow" no matter what happens today. But as I began to see need differently my needs began to change too.
I began to see my need as part of my Story. The parts of the Story that required me to risk - to stretch my hand out and grab hold of Faith. Because the Bible says that without faith we can't please Jesus so I began to reach more, risk myself more. And not just in the "move this mountain" kind of faith ways, but the everyday kind of ways...those are what really changes us - the small things. Where before it seemed He often had to force me into involuntary vulnerability (the opposite of trust), I would now begin to offer my need to trust as an act of worship.
From navigating my need for mutual friendship where I'm not only pastored and loved, but pursued. To showing my need to be heard and understood by my husband as he adjusts to these unfamiliar *feelings* that pop up in his girl. To the need to dream my own dreams that might not make anyone else happy, but me and Him...these types of need continue to come as I relax into vulnerability...my need just because, with no good reason. I worship Him ~ that I may be become weaker that He become greater. He still brings along places that I can choose to trust Him. Those places that are out of my control; but more and more, like a child growing up and finding the beauty in submission, voluntary vulnerability has become a part of who I am and I never want that to change.
I'm leaving this blog incomplete because I want it to represent that I will never stop needing to find the Christ in Ami...the Hope of Glory...
"...your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him." Matthew 6:8
Really needed to read this, Ami. :) I'm a feeler who stuffs it back in and acts like a thinker, rather than asking for what I need from Him and from those around me. What a MESS! Ha! Will try to learn to seek vulnerability over insecurity and fear. Love you.
ReplyDelete