"Look into the mirror, what do I see? All the imperfections that define me." — Unspoken

I used to think once I was a grown up I would have answers to things. That being adult would magically grant me the wisdom to understand people and circumstances, and give me the ability to know exactly what to do. I thought I would know exactly who I was, and exactly how to live. It was a fantasy. So far I’ve found becoming an adult is a lesson in unlearning childish expectations and unravelling lies I subconsciously picked up along the way. In short, discovering (and becoming) who I truly am. 

Let’s face it, who can really know themselves? Both Job and Jeremiah confessed their inability. “I do not know myself,” Job 9:21 admits, while Jeremiah 17:9 ominously states, “the heart is deceitful above all things, who can know it?” Scripture aside, a poll on Facebook asking people how they would answer the question: “who are you when you aren’t doing anything and/or when no one needs you?” quickly showed me that either a) we’d rather joke about the concept to cover up the fact we don’t know or b) give answers that lack a deep level of confidence and certainty. And whilst I would never mean to say our actions are completely divorced from our identities, I cannot assume that our sole value is derived from our deeds. Which begs the question: who are we without them? Or, if we are doing them, why? In what ways do our identities motivate our actions?

Much of what I do has come from accumulated patterns over the years. Though my identity may be more than merely my habits, I am coming to recognise some things that have become part of my modus operandi simply because of the experiences I’ve processed through an acquired perspective. I believe—in a way—we are all born with a particular set of blinders which keeps us from seeing ourselves clearly. It’s why we can empathise with a bad character in a movie if we understand his backstory, and how we hate him if we only see him painted as a villain. Likewise, we know our own backstories so well that we over-empathise to the point we are blind to our true motives. Yet God’s truth in Proverbs says “the spirit of a man is the lamp of the Lord, searching all the inner depths of the heart”, and lately I have been clumsily allowing the Holy Spirit within me to illuminate those dark areas of my soul that humanly I cannot understand. 

It is so easy for me to feel useless, even worthless when I am not meeting people’s needs. It is so innate for me to run towards loving people, giving them everything they desire that is within my power to give. My goal in life is to love others just as Christ loves me, Yet even within that seemingly selfless desire, I can find selfishness. In being needed, I feel loved. Therefore if I'm not careful, loving others can be scratching an itch, and subconsciously drawing a sense of identity from my deeds of loving you. The realisation is sickening to me; that I could somehow be using God’s beautiful command to shore up my own ego. Just as Westley’s statement of “as you wish” from The Princess Bride was his confession of love, so I can sell myself for a proverbial bowl of soup—pleasing your every whim in the desperate hope I am loved in return. Or as in the tale of the Giving Tree, where every sacrifice it made on behalf of the boy made it “happy”, so my love can take on a martyr-like quality that is neither asked for, nor honestly extended. Love given in the hopes of love in return is not real love.

"I know the golden rule, treat another like you want to be treated too, but lately I've been hating on myself, it's true: beat up my heart 'til it's black and blue."

Even in the times I do extend my love selflessly, experiences of over-investing in a person to the point where the loss of that investment feels like losing a limb will leave me disillusioned. I am meant to love like Christ. To give of myself. To pour myself out for another. How can I tell the difference between my selfish motives to be seen, accepted and loved in return, and the pure, Christlike love I’m meant to be giving? There have been so many times I have poured out my time and my heart for the sake of another, only to wind up used, empty, and alone. The last such experience gave me a firmer resolve: I will never do this again. 

Which leads to the breakdown of who I am: is this who I am? Am I doomed to be a sucker for the rest of my life, where people use me and abuse me by taking advantage of me, where I ceaselessly and tirelessly overextend myself only to be abandoned, left to pick up the pieces of my heart, and then repeat the pattern over again? No. I have a choice. One of the most empowering things in this life is our ability to choose. Two happenstances may occur to two different people yet it will refine one, and destroy the other, the only difference being the choices they made. So, I resolve to make better choices, against what my natural inclination might be. 

The only trouble is, the pendulum can never seem to land in the middle. When that hurt pierced my soul and ripped a gaping hole in the most vulnerable part of my heart, steel entered my veins. Like frost slowly creeping up the window panes, I could feel walls (that had both risen and fallen in times past) slowly being built up around my heart. It would not happen again. I would not be so foolish. I would be wise, and be discerning. I would not just toss my heart to anyone who looked like they needed loving. I would wait to be asked. Wait to be invited in. Wait to be needed, and then be careful before I said “yes” to anything. I was pounding out firm boundaries that had never really existed before, and the chill seeping through the cracks of my broken heart probably disturbed or disgruntled some people who were used to my benevolence. I became emotionally distant, standing behind the walls I thought could keep me safe. Not endeavouring to reach out to people in my normal, friendly, welcoming way. I justified it: “I’m being wise, being discerning; not throwing my pearl before swine. I’m learning from my mistakes.” Which I was, but perhaps not the lessons God intended.

"Normal conversation seems to get harder; I try to hold my tongue 'cause it's been getting sharper. I'd open up the gate but I can't find the key, maybe I'm afraid, afraid of what You'll see."

I’ve been hyper aware of guarding my heart since I was 16, and—in recent years—being careful with whom I shared my vulnerability. The trouble is, I freely gave away my vulnerability without even knowing it. How did I do that? What is it that truly makes us feel vulnerable? What is vulnerability? What is that deepest, core part of our heart? I’d always thought it was a universal definition: our most personal stories, our dreams, hopes, secrets, past experiences, regrets or pains. But in an epiphany during a conversation with a friend, it dawned on me what my vulnerability is: meeting needs. How painfully obvious that must be to the people who know me, yet it's something I was completely blind to. When I am meeting someone’s need, being a listener, counsellor, comforter, teacher, encourager, challenger, or friend, I am giving of the most vulnerable part of myself. I LOVE to be needed! It is my most personal trait. When I am meeting a need, I am giving you the most valuable and cherished part of me. It’s not just a chore, or a duty. It’s my lifeblood, my greatest virtue, my most highly-prized gift. Serving you is the best part of me. It’s probably why the concept of not doing and simply being is daunting to me: how will God love me if I’m not useful to Him? 

"How can I love, can I love, can I love You if I can't even love myself? I try to hide that I don't feel worthy, but the truth it will always tell."

Isn’t it ironic that the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross trumps all of my “doings”, yet I still feel like I must add to it? I was recently made aware of Hebrews 10:18 which states that where there is forgiveness of sins, there is no longer need for sacrifice. Yet here I am: still throwing my heart to the wolves and thinking I appease God. Sacrificing myself on the altar of loving people was never God's requirement of me. Even in the Old Testament God said that to obey is better than sacrifice. “To love the Lord my God with all my heart, all my soul, all my mind, and all my strength and to love my neighbour as myself.” I disobey half of the greatest commandment when I fail to love myself, and it certainly isn’t loving to become a slave of meeting needs I was never able to satisfy in the first place.

Because I can’t. I am literally incapable of meeting the needs I recognise in others. Maybe it’s my ego again, but there’s always this faint hope that I can do it. That I can save a life. Rescue a heart. Redeem a soul. While I know we all have a part to play in reaching the lost, there is a difference between humbly presenting a truth when it’s asked for, and a saviour complex. Though my love may come from the purest motives at times, the fact remains that my love alone is not enough. The desire to meet needs only Jesus can meet must itself, too, be surrendered. My heart—AND it’s desires—must bow before its Maker. I may recognise a genuine need in a person, but it’s not in my power to meet it. And when that desire tries to pull my heart into the fray, I must learn to lead that desire—and whatever its motives are for being found worthy of love in return—to the feet of Jesus. It’s not about me. It’s about Christ. 

And I guess that’s where I so often lose focus on this journey of becoming who I’m meant to be. Everything I need is found in Him. Everything you need is found in Him. When I take my eyes off Him, His love ceases to be an overflow in my life, and instead I become a beggar baiting my hook with my human love in order to catch yours to feed my starving identity. What a poor way to live—enslaved to the pursuit of my own transformation without Christ's empowerment. Sometimes I can become my own idol without realising it, and I don’t want to be that person. I cannot find my satisfaction in loving you without first being loved myself, and I cannot love myself on my own. Though it may mean I need to withdraw from time to time to re-calibrate myself and focus on Who He is to be filled again, it’s better that I use my boundaries to protect my connection to Christ rather than to defend my heart against you. I’ve seen glimpses of what it means to overflow with the love only God can give. It’s a love that has empowered me to stay true in the face of many lies, great deceit, betrayal, abusiveness and pain. Recognising however when I’m nearing empty has not been something I have consciously paid attention to. Another lesson to learn. 

"What you carry always shows, what you bury it still grows. How can I love, can I love, can I love You if I can't even love myself?"

For someone who can know seemingly telepathically the needs of others, I've discovered I'm woefully out of touch with my own. I can swallow a gut full before I even notice I'm drowning under a wave of repressed needs that I convinced myself I didn't have. Part of my becoming is unbecoming the strong one. It's inexplicable the relief that is often chased down by shame when I dare to utter to another soul, "I can't do this," or "I need help." So I've started trying to say it. The words feel unfamiliar on my tongue, but if no one can do this life alone, that includes me. Allowing myself to be weak in God's hands and the eyes of my people is a new practise, but if it's all about Him and not about me, what have I to be afraid of? If I cannot bring my needs to the One who is more than enough, how can I tell you He will meet yours? He loves me for who I am, not for what I do for Him. Can I live like I believe that? It's one thing to preach, entirely another to practise what one preaches. I'm so thankful that as I stumble through this process, grace covers my tracks. 

I’ve realised that there is often a quiet, hidden third option I ignore. As I’m growing, I want to pay attention to it more. I don’t have to be an ingratiating, needy, people-pleasing, sucker. I also don’t have to be a cold, distant, cynical cow. I can be a tenderhearted, humble, submitted, obedient daughter. While at a conference in Yass this year we had an exercise of listening to what the Holy Spirit was saying to us. We wrote down the lies or hindrances we believed were holding us back, and on the flip side, wrote down what we believed God's answer to us was. I wrote: “I am critical and cynical” (I didn’t add: cold, distant, hurt, distrusting, defensive, and heartless, but I was thinking it). As I reached this point on the answers, I felt God whisper: “you have eyes of compassion, and a heart for My truth. I will teach you how to use both.” It all starts with Him. He comes first. He is the answer to every question. I can’t use compassion, nor truth if I don’t first know Him. I don’t think I would end up in half the messes I make for myself if my first thought was always, “what does the Lord require of me?” And then obeyed. It’s really way simpler than lying awake every night torturing myself with over-analysing everything, wondering “what if” and “if only”, hashing out every possible hypothetical outcome to difficult situations, and regretting my every past decision because of the pain I can’t see through.

"I need you to pray for me, need you to stay here with me; though I've pushed you away from me, don't turn away from me."

So, by grace alone, I am becoming. I've lost count of how many people I have ever been, but praise God that He has loved every one of them. I’m not becoming who I was destined to be due to my own efforts (contrary to my own opinion), and I'm learning to be okay with the time it takes; not to berate myself for not arriving yet. In the profound words of a new friend, “thinking I know the state of my own soul’s affairs better than He… now THAT is pride.” It doesn’t start with me, because it’s not about me. 

It’s not about how well I love, but how well He loves me. 

It’s not about my meeting other people’s needs, but about Christ meeting mine AND their needs. 

It’s about me pointing to Christ as the source, not pridefully believing I am the source, so that I can gain some kind of credit or appreciation for loving you. 

It’s about finding my identity in Him, not in the love you give me. 

It’s about being obedient when He calls me to vulnerability, and being obedient when He doesn’t. 

It’s all about Him.

And I am becoming more like Him. 

~

Further listening: 
"Order, Disorder, Reorder", Jason Gray
"Becoming", Jason Gray
"Can't Even Love Myself", Unspoken