The secret's out...I'm a mess.

Those people who have it all together...I have a hard time relating to them.  Those people who always know the right answer...I don't know how to talk to them. You see, I’m a frickin’ mess. (But not a cute mess like my adorable nephew below.) 

PORTRAIT OF A MESS

Let me paint the picture for you... 

This summer I cried on the phone with the plumber. No joke. It’s been a ROUGH year, and getting the run-around from the plumber just happened to be the straw that broke the camel’s back, so I literally started bawling. That wasn’t my proudest moment of 2013 (though it did speed up the repair of my garbage disposal).

I’ll continue. I'm 35 years old and I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up. Sure, there have been times when I THOUGHT I knew…but I can never figure out how to get there, and the whole thing just seems so difficult…so instead I join another volleyball league and try not to think about it.

Here’s another one:  I’m still not over my ex-boyfriend. I'm such a middle-school girl. It’s been months, but at any given moment, I’m just one rogue thumb-swipe away from sending a misguided text. There are still entire genres of music I have to skip on my iPod because they hurt too much. I’m supposed to just move on because "he’s not worth my time," but that argument doesn’t seem to be working – nor have my giant medicinal chocolate chip pancakes.

I fail a lot. I botched 3 big endeavors this year, and I try not to think about them because then I feel like I’M a failure. I’m embarrassed about how delusional I was to ever think I could have succeeded. And I’m reluctant to ever risk again.

I get really lonely. Being single, I’m supposed to focus on how great it is to be independent and free (and there IS that, yes). But a lot of the time I feel like I’m lost in space, and no matter how loudly I yell, no one ever hears me or cares.

I get really scared. Sometimes it’s stupid…What if I choose the wrong thing to do tonight and waste hours that I can never get back?! Sometimes it’s serious…What if I get cancer and there’s no one willing to take care of me?

I'm an introvert in a world of extroverts. I have never been cool. In order to be socially acceptable, I do the opposite of my natural instinct at all times. Yet despite my efforts, I'm still told that I make a bad first impression, that I come off like a snob, and that I need to be more fun. I rarely feel understood. I am inevitably more invested in relationships than the other person is, so I end up getting hurt...often.

I’m a mess as a Christian, too. I cuss when I pray. I know it’s not very spiritual, but sometimes all I can say is, “WTF, God?!?!” Sometimes I just stand in the shower and yell, “Jesus, HELP!” (My neighbors never come running, which tells me I should probably devise a "Plan B" in the event of a fire.)

And I don’t know all the answers. I rarely understand how God works. I often don’t trust him. I regularly have no clue what he's saying…and sometimes I don’t WANT to hear him. I don’t always know the right thing to do. Sometimes I don’t even believe God exists. Sometimes, like Peter, the only thing keeping me around is that I have nowhere else to turn!

There's much more messiness in my life, but you get the picture.

WHY I'M ADMITTING THIS

So it’s clear that I’m a mess, but the question is: Why am I starting a blog dedicated to revealing my messiness when I live in a culture where we all wear masks to avoid exposing the shame of who we really are?

Well, here’s the deal.  For quite a while, I’ve been feeling like God wanted me to start writing again. But I’ve given him a whole bunch of reasons why that’s a bad idea:

1. I'm a mess and I need to get my life figured out before I have any platform from which to write.
2. Writing is too stressful because I have to think everything through...and understand all the background...and line up all the factors in the correct format so that everything makes sense. My brain can’t handle it.
   
   
   
3. It's a waste of time because no one cares about anything I have to say.
4. Every time I obey, I encounter opposition. I’d rather stay safe.

But recently, he’s given me a new perspective.

A NEW PERSPECTIVE

Here it is:

1. BEING A MESS IS PREFERABLE. When I read the Gospels, it’s clear that the people who actually connected with Jesus were NOT the ones who had their lives together or who knew all the answers. (In fact, those people were known as the Pharisees, and they notoriously MISSED connecting with Jesus every single time!) On the contrary, the people who actually connected with Jesus were the messy ones who KNEW they were messy…the woman at the well, the blind man, the lepers, etc. The ones who connected with Jesus were the ones who were willing to admit they DIDN'T know the answers. So if I want to write about connecting with Jesus, then my messiness actually gives me MORE of a platform from which to write.
   
   
   
2. WRITING DOESN'T HAVE TO BE NEAT AND PRETTY. I’m kind of like Jacob - the place where I meet God is always in the wrestling. It’s in the struggle to understand, to trust, and to align my life with what he says. I often encounter God in the wrestling...but I rarely meet him when a truth is handed to me perfectly presented on a silver platter. So why should I try to deliver a silver platter product when the real connection is in the wrestling? Maybe I DON’T need to have everything wrapped up in a bow. Maybe the wrestling is the point.
   
   
   
3. WRITING IS FOR ME; NOT FOR YOU. This one was a lesson in humility. God said, "Hello, Jill, the reason you're supposed to write is for YOU to learn and grow; not in order to teach someone else." You see, writing has always been a therapeutic way for me to process things, and since I can’t afford a counselor right now, this is the outlet available to me. In that case, it doesn’t matter if no one else cares about what I have to say! (So then why am I publishing this in a blog? I have no idea. I just know I need to obey...because I’ve tried not obeying and that’s not going so well for me.)
4. STANDING STILL IS ACTUALLY GOING BACKWARDS. It's no surprise that I encounter opposition when I obey…I have an enemy who will do anything to keep me from connecting with my Father!  But it’s silly to think that I’m protecting myself by refusing to obey. I read a book called “The Torch and the Sword” that said this: “You cannot retreat any farther. There is nowhere else to go, but if you resist the enemy he will eventually flee. If you do not resist, you are doomed.” Well, I’d rather not be doomed. So I’m giving obedience a shot.

So that's where I am.  I'm a mess.  I know I'm a mess.  But I'm hanging on to Psalm 73:21-23:

 When my heart was grieved
    and my spirit embittered,
 I was senseless and ignorant;
    I was a brute beast before you.

 Yet I am always with you;
    you hold me by my right hand.

I believe this verse.  I know from experience that even when I'm a brute beast, God's still with me, holding my hand, helping me to wrestle toward connection with him. So starting now, I’m going to use this blog to record that wrestling. We’ll see how it goes.