Why I'm a turd

I've been trying to figure out why I've been a turd lately.

It's like...there's the Real Jill who's open and lets you in; who's vulnerable, lets you get to know her and wants to know you; who laughs, talks, shows her emotions and tells you what she really wants and feels. And then there's the Turd Jill who won't reveal anything that really matters to her; who's defensive and tries to keep as much hidden from you as possible; who will let you see only one emotion - sarcasm.

For 29 years, Turd Jill was the one most people knew...and that's probably why no one really liked me. (Turd Jill isn't a very inviting person.) Then I had a mid-life crisis, discovered that Jesus was head-over-heels in love with me, and suddenly Real Jill took over. But lately I've seen a lot more of Turd Jill than I'm sure ANYONE wants to see, so I've been pondering what triggers her. I think I've figured it out.

I think the thing that sends Real Jill packing (and activates Turd Jill) is a feeling that I'm under the microscope...that I'm constantly being evaluated and never measuring up.

TURN OFF THE DAMN MICROSCOPE!!!

Often it seems like everything I do is subject to someone's judgment...and I'm always found lacking. So...I'm an inferior person because I haven't seen most movies that others have seen. I'm not as strong/mature of a person because my parents paid my college tuition. I'm not a loving Christian because I don't like meeting new people at parties. I'm selfish because I don't go crazy over gift-giving. I'm a stick-in-the-mud because I'm not in love with Disney. I'm not worthy of dating because I don't particularly enjoy talking on the phone. I'm immature because I like white wine better than red. It seems people have an opinion about EVERYTHING.

Even when I'M not the one directly under the microscope, I hear endless negative evaluations of categories into which I fall or may someday fall (leaving me to assume I deserve the same judgment)...like girls who wear leggings as pants, people who post too many pictures on Facebook, people living on the West Side, bad athletes who play anyway and annoy their team, people who are too skinny, people who aren't funny, and people who drive cautiously in the rain. (If YOU had spun and hit a wall 3 times on a rainy day, you might become a little more cautious too. Just sayin'.)

Since the more I reveal about myself, the more likely we are to discover that I fall into one of these negative categories, it usually seems safest for Real Jill to fly under the radar as much as possible. Just keep quiet and maybe no one will notice all your inferior qualities!

Another thing that attracts Turd Jill is when my flaw is pointed out...but even after I've fixed it, I can never live it down. I'm just permanently labeled with the original judgment - a stain on my character that can never be erased. What's worse is when those evaluations were never true in the first place! Like the friend who thinks I'm always scrupulously counting how much money she owes me when we split a bill at a restaurant. Although I've told her time and again that I'm NOT, she insists that I'm some sort of ungenerous miser. I can never live that false judgment down.

Turd Jill ALWAYS comes out when I'm with people who air the dirty laundry of people who aren't there. I doubt that these absentees would want me to know/discuss their deepest struggles, mistakes, and worries...so it makes me wonder what laundry of my own is being aired when I'M not around...and definitely makes me want to hide everything I wouldn't want displayed for the world to see!

But the worst is when Christians talk about whether others are actually hearing/obeying God or just delusional. This one gets me REALLY defensive because I can only imagine that behind my back, I must be called the most delusional Christian of all. (And I know a lot of times I AM delusional...but it sure would be nice to have the grace to just BE delusional once in a while instead of feeling the pressure to perform for the judges' panel.)

Ahhhhhh!!! Real Jill just wants to run away to a deserted island where no one's around to evaluate me - someplace where I have the freedom to hold different opinions, make mistakes, and have weaknesses without them being pointed out and sneered at! When Real Jill escapes, that's when Turd Jill takes over.

THE REAL PROBLEM

But beyond all of that, here's the thing that really brings out Turd Jill: it's this realization that if people can find this much to say about stupid things like Disney, leggings, and wine...imagine how negatively I'd be evaluated if I revealed the things I'm REALLY ashamed of. (And there are some doozies, let me tell you.)

THAT'S the thing that makes me want to hide as much of the real me as possible and that makes me defensively shut down my deepest thoughts and feelings. Deep down, I'm afraid the Real Jill deserves all of these labels:

NOT WORTHY OF RESPECT
INCOMPETENT TO RUN HER LIFE
IMMATURE AND INFERIOR
DELUSIONAL
DOESN'T MEASURE UP

And ultimately, I guess at the core, what I'm really worried about is this: if flawed humans can find this much wrong with me just on the surface...well, then just what kind of verdict is a perfect, holy, all-seeing God going to pass on me? That's a scary thought, and that's why, when I'm feeling evaluated, Turd Jill steps in to protect Real Jill from the scrutiny.


ABRAHAM UNDER THE MICROSCOPE

So while obsessing about my turdiness, I found it extremely surprising when I came across Romans 4, which describes how great of a person Abraham was. Basically it evaluates him as faithful and righteous; it says he never weakened in his faith...that he never wavered in believing God's promises.

Well, that's a pretty stellar evaluation. But the thing that struck me is that IT'S SIMPLY NOT TRUE. I just finished studying Abraham's life in Genesis, and from what I read, Abraham was actually a lot like me...he had A LOT to be ashamed of. He messed up quite often. He was NOT faithful...he fell into fear and lied about the same things over and over again, even though he saw that his lies didn't work. He was NOT righteous...he disbelieved God and took control of his own life, producing an illegitimate son that led to familial discord and ultimately an ethnic conflict that continues to this day! He DID weaken in his faith...he repeatedly asked God to prove that he'd keep his promises. And when you look for good accomplishments to overshadow the failures, you find that Abraham really didn't do much of any consequence at all - basically he wandered around the desert a lot and had a son when he was old. That's it.

All in all, it seems Abraham's verdict should be NOT WORTHY OF RESPECT. He's one of those people over whom we should sit around rolling our eyes and thinking, "If only I were running his life, he'd be way better off."

THAT'S why Romans 4 shocked me...because it's like God completely overlooked all the juicy opportunities to judge him negatively.

Not only that, but every single time Abraham is mentioned in the New Testament, he's evaluated positively. WTF?!?! Here's my question: If it's possible for Abraham to get his mistakes overlooked, is it possible for me too???

Pondering this, I ended up skimming the entire New Testament to see how it talks about guys from the Old Testament. And what I found is that their dirty laundry is NEVER AIRED. In fact, it's like all the stupid things they did are erased, and the only things mentioned are good things! David was an adulterer and a murderer...but Acts 13 summarizes his life by saying he served God's purposes. Jacob was a con man and a manipulator...but Hebrews 11 says he worshiped God. Over and over, God NEVER takes the bait; he always presents these turds in a good light.


GOD'S MICROSCOPE

This whole idea blew me away, so I returned to Romans 4, and was struck by this:

Blessed is the one 
   whose sin the Lord will never count against them. 

It occurred to me that this whole chapter describes how very much God is unlike the evaluative people I know. Contrary to them, he wants to COVER people's mistakes instead of counting them against them. IN FACT, GOD IS COMPLETELY THE OPPOSITE OF ALL THE EVALUATIVE PEOPLE WHO ARE LOOKING FOR REASONS TO DISREGARD ME. God, though he has every reason to label me negatively, is doing everything he can to overlook those labels and call me righteous instead. I guess that's what grace is.

This is really, really good news for someone who doesn't measure up.

But how is it possible? After all, God's not stupid and he's not forgetful. He KNOWS all the ways I fall short. What I concluded is this: It's the Gospel. Jesus switched records with me.

God can look at me (and all my shortcomings) and call me righteous because on the cross he looked at his own Son (and all his accomplishments) and said he didn't measure up. (2 Cor 5:21...God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.)

Incredible, incredible, incredible. It's incredible to think that as much as I HATEHATEHATE being evaluated...there's someone who cares about me so much that he's willing to endure all the microscope scrutiny I deserve so that I don't have to!!!

That's life-changing...in fact, that's what chased away Turd Jill 6 years ago and allowed Real Jill to emerge. After all, who needs a turd when Jesus thinks Real Jill is worth so much???

WHERE TO GO FROM HERE

So I guess my problem right now is...for some reason I'm letting other people's judgments of me ring louder in my ears than God's. The Gospel isn't real enough to me. But how can I change that so Real Jill feels safe enough to come back? I'm not sure. But here are some things I want to try:

1. I need to spend more time with my savior, just listening to him tell me who I am.

2. I need to recognize when I'm feeling condemned and instead of agreeing...I need to tell that frickin' Accuser to SHUT UP!!! (because ultimately I don't think it's really the people's opinions I'm listening to...they're just speakers through which I'm hearing the accusations of my Enemy).

3. It is true...others should NOT be so evaluative of me. But I have no control over that. What I do have control over is my own choice...I can be like the rest of the world and look for opportunities to reveal people's flaws. OR I can be like my Father and look for opportunities to COVER those flaws so that others can feel the incredible relief of grace that I've felt. Maybe in ceasing the judgments and acting more like my Father, I'll feel more connected to him and therefore hear him more clearly.

So...that's where I am. 

I say all this knowing that Turd Jill has a REALLY STRONG grip on Real Jill right now, and it may take a while for her to emerge. I also know that I don't have the strength to pull her out on my own...it's the work of the Spirit. But I think if the two of us are in agreement that we'd LIKE to see this happen, there's probably not much that can get in the way.

So watch out. Real Jill may be coming soon to a venue near you.

Shocker...I'm not super-human. (But neither is God...)

WHAT'S BOTHERING ME

I try hard not to let things bother me. I don't get worked up in traffic - being late won't kill me, right? I don't get mad at people when they're rude to me - I just figure I deserved it. I don't even get excited about things - it seems like a waste of time since nothing ever goes as I expect it to. In fact, I so avoid reacting emotionally that when my emotions shift either direction out of neutral, I literally draw a flow chart to talk myself out of it. No joke. (I may be Sheldon Cooper.)

But sometimes the flow charts don't help, and if you've been reading this blog of ridiculousness, you know that over the past year, I've experienced a lot of crap...and I definitely haven't been riding it out in neutral. But when I really analyze it, I think one of the hardest things for me to deal with is not necessarily the crap itself, but the fact that I'm upset about it. I feel guilty for letting it affect me. I feel guilty for having feelings.


MY PICTURE OF MATURITY

Maybe it's my unemotional German heritage, but I have this idea that the really admirable people - and particularly the really good Christians - are the ones who never get too attached to anything and therefore never get too upset about anything.

When people talk about a mature Christian, they always describe someone who doesn't get bothered when bad things happen...like they could watch their home go up in flames or get hit by a bus and instead of crying, they'd praise God and say, "I have such a peace right now." (Christians always put the modifier a in front of peace. It kind of grosses me out.)

I think we're all trying to be the Zombie Jesus portrayed in the movies (A clip...).

Even when you remove the Christian thing from the equation, people get really uncomfortable when you're anything other than bubbly. They want to either fix you, explain why you actually should be feeling happy right now, or just get away from you.

So all of these factors have led me to believe that it's bad to feel sad/mad/hurt/disappointed/etc.; basically, if you feel those things, it's a sign of your failure to make life go right and/or your immaturity in handling it.


WHAT I DO

Well, I don't want to be an immature failure! So that's why I try really hard to avoid sadness/anger/hurt/disappointment/etc. And the best way to avoid those feelings is to avoid the situations that might cause those feelings. In fact, I'd say I make most decisions with the express intent of avoiding situations that might evoke those emotions.

So, for example, I avoid involvement with anyone who may disappoint me - even if that means disobeying God when he tells me to put myself out there. If I have to get involved, I keep it at a surface level. In established relationships, I rarely ask or expect anything of my friends because then they can't let me down. And when it comes to dreams or goals, when I don't get what I want, I avoid disappointment by deciding I never actually wanted it in the first place.

Basically, I refuse to put all my eggs in one basket, I maintain very low expectations, and I try to stay just detached enough from everyone and everything that I can maintain a peace when something goes wrong.

(Of course, happiness is a good thing and I'd like to have that, but I've found that in order to avoid sadness, you pretty much have to stop the pendulum from swinging too far in either direction.)

So I live my life in the safety zone...avoiding risks. And since I can't let the feelings pendulum swing too far either way, my general attitude is not really happy OR sad...it's just kind of sarcastic.

That is...I lived in the safety zone until this past year when I asked God for an adventure. Well, let me tell you something: God's adventures DO NOT LEAVE YOU IN THE SAFETY ZONE. He's put me in some pretty risky situations emotionally. And I guess I expected myself to stay detached enough to handle it with Christian maturity...you know, a peace.

But apparently I didn't succeed in staying detached, because right now I AM having feelings, and therefore I feel like I've failed the maturity test. And I'm afraid God's rolling his eyes thinking, "That's what she gets." (After all, that's the way people have responded to my pain.)

In guilt and embarrassment, I've tried to shut down the feelings and become more mature by:
1. Staying so incredibly busy that I don't have time to feel anything,
2. Rolling my eyes and telling myself to stop being such a girl and get over it, and
3. Resolving to stay more detached next time.



I'M NOT SUPER-HUMAN

But a friend sent me an email that I can't stop thinking about.  It described a conversation she'd had with her counselor about the fact that she was still not over her ex-boyfriend.  Here's an excerpt:

I said "I just feel like I should be over it by now" and my counselor very sarcastically said "of course because you are super human and never have hurt feelings."  So I took that to mean it's okay that we are hurting.  It would be nice if we weren't.  But nothing is wrong with us because it's hard to move past.  And we don't have to feel guilty about it.  So don't feel guilty, okay? 

That one little comment..."of course because you are super human and never have hurt feelings"...that spoke to something deep within my heart and opened up a flood of...I don't know...something that I've kept dammed up for a long time.

What?!?! It's okay for me to feel stuff? Feeling stuff is a sign of HUMAN-ness...not failure or immaturity??? I don't have to use flow charts to explain my emotions away? It's okay to just FEEL them?

This is a total paradigm shift to me, because I really do assume that God expects me to be super-human; that there's something wrong with me if I can't sail stoically through the storms of life.

But what if it's okay to be human?

What if it's okay to feel stuff...even negative stuff?

What if it's okay to be real?

What if avoiding feelings actually makes me LESS human?


GOD'S NOT SUPER-HUMAN

As I started to ask those questions, I started to realize something else:

Of course I'm not super-human, but GOD'S NOT SUPER-HUMAN EITHER. (I mean, yes, he's supernatural and omnipresent/omnipotent/omni-whatever else.) But in terms of emotions, God himself doesn't live up to the stoic, detached ideal I have in my mind. I started to realize this:

• God gets really hurt and upset over his lover betraying him...and obsesses more than I do.  Pretty much the entire prophetic section of the Old Testament is God mourning over being betrayed by his beloved. Read it from the perspective of a rejected lover, and suddenly his "mood swings" make perfect sense. Just like me, he goes back and forth between being mad and sad, wanting to punch them and wanting to hug them, wanting to forget them and wanting to relive all the good memories. Apparently it's okay if I can't move on right away...because God can't either.

• God doesn't avoid situations just because he may get hurt. I try so hard not to get attached to people who may hurt me, and when they DO hurt me, I berate myself for being stupid. But if God was trying to stay safely detached from people, then he never would have walked in the Garden with people who might love a piece of fruit more than they loved him. To him, involvement with us was worth the risk of getting hurt. So maybe being vulnerable isn't necessarily a sign of stupidity...because God did it too. 

• Jesus got scared about things that were going to happen to him. Has a doctor ever told you, "You WILL get breast cancer"? Well, one told me that. And it scared me. I feel guilty for being scared because I'm not supposed to let it faze me; I'm supposed to have a peace. But Jesus got scared, too. When he was getting ready to die on the cross, he was so scared that he was sweating blood. So apparently if my first reaction to scary situations isn't rejoicing, that's okay...because Jesus got worked up too.

• Jesus got hurt when his friends let him down. When my friends let me down, I always assume that I don't have the right to feel disappointed because I should have been looking to God for support; not to them. So I feel guilty for being hurt. But Jesus expected his friends to be there for him in the Garden of Gethsemane, and when they weren't, he got hurt and he told them. So I guess if Jesus didn't make flow charts to explain away his hurt, then maybe I'm also allowed to expect things of people and to feel hurt when they let me down.

• Jesus got sad and cried when he lost things he loved. To me, sadness and crying are an embarrassment. So whenever I feel sad or start to cry, I immediately replace it with sarcasm and roll my eyes at myself for being a baby. But when Jesus lost his friend Lazarus, he felt sad and he cried...even though he knew he was about to raise him from the dead! So if Jesus is allowed to feel sad and to cry without telling himself he's being ridiculous, maybe it's okay for me to do too.

MY DISCOVERY

I could go on and on, but basically I've concluded that God experiences the full range of the pendulum swing. He isn't Zombie Jesus after all, so he probably doesn't expect me to be that. (In fact, Zombie Jill may freak him out as much as Zombie Jesus freaks me out.) And what I'm discovering is this: 

• Having feelings is a sign of BEING HUMAN. Humans have feelings. Cars, fish and rocks don't. Which one am I?

• Having feelings is a sign that I'm MADE IN THE IMAGE OF GOD. I have feelings because God does and I look like him.

• Having feelings is a sign of LIVING. Avoiding feelings may be safe, but is someone lying in a coma really living? Having feelings means I'm going out there doing something - taking risks, exploring, searching for adventures, living life to the full.

And here are the best ones:

• If God has felt sad/mad/hurt/etc., then he must be empathizing with me right now; not rolling his eyes...because the best empathizers are the ones who have gone through the same thing as you.

• Yes, Christians ARE blessed with a peace. But maturity doesn't mean feeling a peace instead of feeling sad/mad/hurt/etc. No, maturity means feeling a peace while also feeling sad/mad/hurt/etc. It's being sad and admitting it...and also at the same time having the peace that God's got my back. I think IMMATURITY is avoiding all emotions; whereas MATURITY is being so sure that God's got me that I'm ABLE to put myself in risky situations, get attached, actually feel something...yet still have a peace that I'm okay.

I don't know...I don't think I have the full picture on this yet. All I know is this: I've tried living life with the goal of avoiding emotions. And that goal has hindered me from obeying God, because a lot of times he wants me to do things that risk evoking emotions. In those times, it seems like he's placing me in a Catch-22...because maturity means obedience, but maturity also means having a peace...so how can I possibly do both??????  Aaaaaaaaaah! But if I can remove "avoiding emotions" as one of my must-haves, then that makes obedience a whole lot simpler.

And this idea of giving up my super-human status and just being regular-human Jill is quite a relief because I WANT to be who I was made to be. I WANT to live my life to the full like my Father does, rather than keeping myself safe (but comatose) in my prison cell. I WANT to have the freedom to just be HUMAN instead of wearing my stoic super-human mask. I WANT to be alive and able to experience the full swing of the pendulum.

DISCLAIMERS:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is a one-sided rant, and people coming from the opposite end of the feeling spectrum will have problems with a lot of what I'm saying here. But keep in mind I'm wrestling through this FOR ME, and I'm coming from a place of avoiding all emotions. So for me, freedom is to embrace my feelings just as they are...whereas someone from the opposite end of the spectrum would find freedom in NOT giving so much importance to their feelings.

Anyway, here is a non-exhaustive list of disclaimers:

• OF COURSE you shouldn't just succumb to whatever destructive emotion you want.
• OF COURSE it's stupid to blindly get overly attached to dangerous people.
• OF COURSE living out of your identity as God's child will steady your out-of-control emotions.
• OF COURSE you should use logic and reasoning rather than reacting solely out of emotion.
• OF COURSE God doesn't want you to STAY in your negative emotions and wallow there.
• OF COURSE you should ultimately look to God for comfort; not people.
• OF COURSE if you have evidence that I really AM some sort of superhero, I hope you'll share it with me so I can get my cool costume and develop my alternate identity ASAP. Thanks.  

If your heart is broken, you’ll find God right there;
if you’re kicked in the gut, he’ll help you catch your breath. - Psalm 34:18 

BAM!!! Hit by a bus.

Can I just be honest?  Sometimes it feels like God breaks his promises.

Like when he says that he'll protect me from all harm. (Ps 121:7, Ps 91:10, Isa 54:17, 2 Tim 4:18, etc.) Really??? I sure don't feel protected right now.

WAIKIKI...OR PEARL HARBOR???
I guess it's my own fault, but last November I asked God for an adventure. Geez Louise. I don't recommend this request, as God and I have VERY different definitions of the word. I defined "adventure" similar to an exciting Hawaiian vacation...but if this is Hawaii, then I got dropped here on Dec. 7, 1941.

In a nutshell, this was my past year:

• Drama: I entered a doomed-from-the-start dating relationship with my dance partner who has a different spiritual background. Judge me all you want (most days I'd agree)...all I can say is that I truly believed God told me to open up my heart and be vulnerable - and he'd have my back. So I VERY hesitantly did...only to have it raked through the coals each of the FIVE times we broke up.  In one fell swoop, I lost my boyfriend, friend, Bible study partner, dance partner, and willingness to trust - and BONUS...I still "get" to see him weekly with another girlfriend!!!

• Failures: In a group that I lead, I had 2 awesome-sounding ideas that I thought came from God. I excitedly tried them...and they both failed. Miserably. In the midst of this failure, a friend threatened repeatedly that if I didn't improve, she'd leave the group. I failed at that, too.

• Work: My company announced that we're merging with another firm and moving to an office 30 minutes farther from home. This seems like a natural time to transition out...since this is not my dream career and the extra driving time will force me to give up things I love. But I have NO IDEA what/how to do that and God's been pretty silent regarding direction.

• Mad Frog: My favorite weekly salsa event ended. This may seem trivial, but it was truly the place I felt most "at home" and the thing I most looked forward to each week.

• Predators: Men are seriously NEVER interested in me...but this year I've navigated (successfully and not) through warding off no less than 9 men who were really only interested in the wrong thing.

• BRCA1: I discovered that I have Angelina Jolie's gene mutation that leads to an 87% chance of female cancers (as opposed to 1% for the general population). This, of course, leads to a host of other problems (including the death of any dreams for a family). I'll process all of this some other time.

• No support: I've dealt with this all alone. I've tried to talk to people about it, but found that everyone was either unwilling to listen ("Sorry, as you were pouring your heart out, I was trying to hear the conversation at the next table") or ill-equipped to listen ("I can't deal with the heaviness of what you're saying...I'll just joke about it!") or just made things worse ("If you get breast & ovarian cancer, you'll no longer be a woman"). So after repeated attempts, it seemed safer to just keep it to myself, smile, and talk about the weather.

• Money: Then I started losing money right and left. My garbage disposal broke. My car needed $2800 of repairs. I took the ill-fated genetic test. I had to make doctor's appointments and get prescriptions, none of which insurance pays for, since my deductible is sky-high. My computer bit the dust. Suddenly it feels fiscally irresponsible to even buy groceries.

• Accusation: But worse is the constant voice of accusation in my head that won't shut up..."This is all your fault...that's what you get...you're a failure and a disappointment...you aren't worth anyone's time or interest...your life isn't worth reproducing...etc." I feel like Precious, cowering at the bottom of the stairs, being bombarded by all the verbal abuse of her mother. Like her, I'd start off denying the accusations, but eventually you start to think (and act as if) they must be true.

• Exposed: Still worse is the realization that, while there are people who enjoy being with me when it's fun, convenient, and corresponds with what they already wanted to do, there are very few who want to be with me when it requires sacrificing fun, convenience, or their desires. They don't love ME; just what I can give them. Suddenly I realized I'm unloved, alone and exposed - no one's got my back. And that makes me PANIC.

THE REAL PROBLEM
So...I know things could be way, way worse (and at the rate I'm going, probably WILL) but my honest response to all of this is: "Protection?!  Bull@#$%!!!  This feels more like feeding me to the wolves."

And I guess the REAL thing I'm struggling with isn't necessarily the circumstances themselves or that people don't have my back...but that it really feels like God doesn't have my back...that he broke his promise and abandoned me. And that's a really scary place to be.

Now, I know all the theological explanations for suffering (dude, I'm a seminary dropout)...blah, blah, blah. But I also know that despite these explanations, at the end of the day, the deepest part of my heart feels unprotected and unsafe - and therefore it has closed off access - holding God at arm's length saying, "He can't be trusted." And none of the reasoning or arguments can convince it otherwise. (And the worst part is that I really wish he COULD be trusted...because without him, I really am completely alone and defenseless in the world. That's a terrifying thought.) But HOW can I trust him when it seems he promises protection but doesn't deliver?

ANALYSIS FROM MY OVERLY-ORGANIZED BRAIN
After MUCH thought, I guess here's the way I see it:
I have 2 conflicting claims. So the way I interpret the situation is dependent on which of those claims is the given.

Claim 1 (God's Word): God said he would protect me from all harm.
Claim 2 (Circumstances): But circumstances show that I'm NOT being protected!

So here are my options:

Option 1: My circumstances are the given.
If my circumstances are the given, then when they tell me I'm NOT being protected, I have to assume that God's Word must be false. He can't be trusted. I'm alone...defenseless...screwed.

Option 2: God's Word is the given.
But if God's Word is the given, then when he says he WILL protect me, I have to assume that he IS PROTECTING ME, even though it doesn't feel like it. In that case, trust means to say, "What I'm experiencing right now MUST BE PROTECTION...and I guess I've just been defining protection incorrectly." (Protection...adventure...I'm noticing a theme regarding definitions here...)

RECONCILING THE INCONCEIVABLE
I really want to go with option 2. But the big question is:  How could what I'm experiencing possibly be protection???  I don't really know.

But what I do know is this: If I were standing around obliviously happy, and suddenly my earthly dad came barreling toward me at top speed, lunged, and shoved me roughly into a pile of glass, I would not assume that he was trying to kill me.  (Killing me would be pretty out-of-character for him.) Rather, I'd assume that he must have seen some horrible impending peril - like a bus speeding toward me - and even though he knew the pile of glass would hurt, shoving me into it WAS protection from the bigger danger.

And I guess I'm trying to give my heavenly Father the same benefit of the doubt. Even though this year has HURT, maybe shoving me into it is somehow protecting me from a greater danger.

And I think choosing option 2 defines what REAL trust actually is...NOT knowing all the theological reasons/arguments and using them to prove he's still good...but trust is just choosing to bank on the goodness of God even when I CAN'T explain or prove it...even when it's inconceivable.

I don't know. I'm not completely there yet. And I don't know how to get myself to the point of trusting and believing that God IS keeping his promise, even when it doesn't feel like it. But I do know I WANT to trust him and I'm asking him to help me with that. And I guess that's a good place to start.



Every word of God proves true.
        He is a shield to all who come to him for protection. (Proverbs 30:5)