Monday, April 11, 2011

scraps and pink envelopes

I remember walking into the classroom that morning eyeing the carefully placed pink envelopes on each child’s desk, that was every desk except mine.  My desk was empty no pink envelope adorned it, everyone was invited to the little girl’s birthday party but me.  Holding back the tears I raced down the hall to the bathroom my little girl heart was broken she did not want me at her birthday party, and if the empty desk wasn’t enough she had to announce it front of the whole class, you are not invited to my party because dummies can’t come to my party, I was the special ed kid and she did not want the special ed kid at her party.

Sometimes I still feel like that little girl rejected so long ago.  Like God looks at me like that little girl in my class, like the special ed kid that He is just merely putting up with but does not want at His party.  When He has time He may get around to listening to my prayers and if He feels like it He may answer one or two, but not the big ones, oh no… never the big ones.  Feeling like I should be grateful for the leftovers after everyone else has eaten, feeling like I should be perfectly content standing at the end of the line happy to be allowed to stand in line at all, convinced that He could never use me, in fact sometimes I feel like He is taking great delight in seeing how much suffering He can pile on top of me before my legs give out under the pressure, convinced He dumped me in this season just to watch me try to squirm and dig my own way out of it. Sometimes I feel a little like Moses in the desert, God if this is what my life is going to be then just take it from me now, because I don't want to live this anymore.

I held my tears as I drove to church yesterday morning, not really wanting to walk in with red puffy eyes and a tear stained face, I didn’t want anyone to notice I didn’t want anyone to ask I didn’t want to talk about it, I held my tears through worship until they sang that song, How He Loves by the Dave Crowder Band and the flood gates were opened, the dam had broken and a water well spilled down my face during that last song before the lights were turned up and everyone around me was going to see, my vulnerable raw places exposed, they were going to know something wasn’t right.

I have taken a break from writing lately, only throwing out a blog post here and there, taken a break from reading blogs taken a break from reading books, taken a break from it all, I was getting a little too…something. I don’t know what it is I was just getting a little too something, feeling like everything I wrote had to include a lesson I learned from this journey I am walking.  I don’t know when this season is going to end, I have no clue. This place feels like it is going to last forever I see no end in sight, and honestly I don’t even know what the end is going to look like, I really don’t.  I have no idea if He going to take my writing beyond this blog, I don’t know if He plans to use this story of my life that He has written to minister to other women, I don’t know if He plans to send me to mission field after all this is done or back to a secular job, I just don’t know, I have no plan no direction no vision. I don’t know what His plan is for me, that is the hardest and scariest thing of all, to want so badly to walk in His will and please Him and yet having no idea what that is, having no idea what direction to even step towards, I am tired and weary and I am beginning to think that is where He wants me, weary and worn out too tired to try and make life happen on my own and let Him unfold it for me. 

Because I am discovering that it is not the same for everyone, and He doesn’t work the same way in everyone’s life, some people He tells to wait while others He tells to move, some peoples journey has been a straight line of things falling neatly into place while others are taken on a cross country tour via the back roads. 

I used to think that I had to be miserable to please God, that if I were doing something I enjoyed I was in a warped sense in my own mind feeding my fleshly desires so I served in a lot of places I shouldn’t have convinced that the more miserable I was the more I was denying my flesh and the more like Jesus I became, warped I know. For the last few weeks I have been serving with the student ministry at church and I saw a little girl whose heart was broken, listening to things that her little girl self should not have to deal with at her age, after our break out session was over one of the other leaders came up to me, shocked, telling me she didn’t know what happened but it never gets that intense, but as I sat and listened to this beautiful girl speak I saw myself so many years ago in the face of this child, I know and I understand, knowing my words offer little to comfort her,  telling her that in ten years none of it is going to matter  because her reality is the here and now not ten years from now, and I hurt for people who are going through things I once did, I feel that pain because I felt it once myself.  I heard the enemy hissing in my ear as I walked out of church that night, telling me to not bother coming back, they don’t want you, it took me a few days, but I decided the only way I am not going back is if they ask me not to. 

I have been at odds with God lately, or perhaps it has been with myself, I have been carrying around a sack of guilt, a sack of guilt for what I have and for what others don’t my thoughts taking me back to the day that the pink envelope did not adorn my desk, back to the day that being last in line was ok with me, just being happy to be allowed to stand in line at all. Guilt over living in this time and this place and with all the privileges it affords me, guilt floods my thoughts these days, it envelopes me and has taken over my life, guilt for wanting to be happy and not allowing myself to be because what I think I deserve is the scraps from the table after everyone else has eaten and I should be grateful for those scraps. I feel guilt for thinking I deserve better when there are so many people who have so much less, that is really my biggest internal struggle.  If He wants me to be single that is fine not to say I am always ok with it but I accept it, I was the special ed kid and if that is what He chose for me then that is fine not that I am always ok with it but I accept it, if this is the time and place he chose for me to live then that is fine I accept it, but I also carry around a heap of guilt. Guilt for thinking that if this what He wanted for me then He could at least take better care of me, because the combination of the three always leaves me struggling, teetering on the edge of just barely making it and I am tired and I am weary. Sometimes I think I am reaping what I sowed so many years ago, in my B.C. (before Christ) days when I did so much wrong living, sometimes I think this God’s revenge on me.  Sometimes thinking He has already pointed me in right the direction and I am just not understanding it, like that little girl with the pink invitations, He is saying to me, dummy why can’t you get it.  Feeling guilty for wanting better, when there are so many people who have so much less.

So no lesson to be learned here, just my random and scattered thoughts, my struggles and my guilt.

3 comments:

  1. I don't even know what to say to such raw, painful honesty. I will tell you though, from my gut, that you just saved someone with your words.

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  2. Kandi, I agree with Debbie. Your honesty brought tears to my eyes. It brought back memories of all my insecurities and times when I didn't feel like I was accepted or belonged. I would highly recommend that Plan B book again. It touches on so much of what you are struggling with right now. Trusting God when we have no idea where He is leading us is SO HARD. You'll be in my prayers sweet friend!!

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  3. Hi Kandi! I found you through Eileen's blog where she shared your post. I can relate to so much of what you said. I want to read more, so I'm going to follow you.
    Many blessings!

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