When "She" is "Me" : The Girl With The Jerry-Rigged Heart
When winter was turning to spring, there was sad news carried by the breeze of common knowledge. Women I knew were walking away from the lives they had built whose external construction closely resembled mine. I was not part of their every day, or a member their inner circle, but I was in close enough proximity to witness that even those who were, were shell-shocked with a turn of events they never saw coming. A quiet desperation was invisibly on the prowl and left in it's wake checked-out wives and mamas, women who I thought I knew, women whose sudden disappearance from the scene left me grieving their living death from my world and wondering who would be next.
And then spring turned to summer and halfway through it, I began to understand no one was safe. Not even me...and even perhaps, especially me.
Before I write any more, I must address depression. It is a beast I do not struggle with, but I have close friends who have and who do. It throws it's blinding darkness onto every aspect of life. Because I do not have to stare down that ugly beast in my daily living, I cannot write on it with any intimate knowledge. I am going to ask one of these brave women who do, to write the complexity it adds to the general threat addressed in this post.
What has been laying heavy on my mind for months now is how, even without the widespread effects of depression, or deep tragedy, or obvious stress factors in one's life all of which can be easily pointed to as the starting cause of a downward spiral, the heart of any woman is vulnerable...and I have wondered if the woman who thinks she has no good reason to respond to despair isn't especially susceptible in some way. Some of us are especially good at putting on a show, even when we aren't trying and as a result, when it comes to a dramatic exit from stage left, the audience can be left completely blindsided.
This sneaky, devastating brand of despair seems slow to build, and the woman who considers her emptiness inexcusable perhaps can go the longest stuffing it so deeply that no one knows there is a threat ready to burst just under the surface. Left unspoken and unchecked, it builds and boils, whispering the lie that the only form of escape from it is either death or to walk away from the trap they are living in, with the husband as the chief wrong-doer and the children left to pick up the scalding fragments of the broken home. I have come to this conclusion because I found myself at the very, tip top beginning of it.
When spring turned to summer and summer brought me into the depths of it's hot folds with several "spirited" children who are very close in age (I call them a "posse" because they are and this summer their shared passion seemed to be seeing what mommy looks like in a white jumpsuit) and a husband whose job is demanding, requiring weekly travel, IT WAS THEN, IN THE HOT BOWELS OF SUMMER that I understood I had the tiny seed of this desperation ripe and ready to be firmly planted, poised to silently overtake my vulnerable heart. I remember the moment at the end of a particularly grueling two-week stretch when I honestly wondered why carrying out my roles of wife and mother were feeling so overwhelming to me. I hated my job description and though I still loved the children, I resented them for interrupting every train of thought before it even had a chance to leave the station. Curt would compliment or thank me and I brush it off with a look that said "you're just saying that". I envied women with outside jobs and who were able to do something, anything, they were good at. I chided and condemned myself, tasking my pride to pull it together and be content and joyful like a good Christian woman should, dammit. After all, aren't I known within my family for being strong, generally able to pick myself up, dust myself off and start all over again in the scheme of daily living? I am married to a good man who is kind to me. We are both terribly flawed, yet committed. We own our home, have gainful employment, are able to put food on the table and are not battling major health issues. I list all this to point out: I was (am) living in what MOST would consider very good odds for a contented existence. And so to sense that a damaging despair was lurking did not sit well with me. My circumstances were GOOD and yet deep inside I was feeling...
invisible (even though people complimented my mothering)...
undesirable (even though my husband showed desire)...
void of purpose (other than being a big-boned German workhorse)...
In trudging through a summer thick with discontent, a very important truth became crystal clear. I knew that "she" could very, very easily be "me". Even in a season fertile with blessings, a woman's heart can grow bitterly dry. Even though she is not being neglected or abused, the heart of a woman can consistently suppress her ability feel desirable as she undertakes the countless thankless duties of day after day. Even when she has a sunny exterior and says all the right things, there can be the lethal mix of self-sacrifice and self-pity brewing unchecked, under the surface until one day it explodes, leaving her broken inside, feeling beyond repair and those on the outside in shock because everything seemed so...normal.
And here's the bottom line: The biggest "Even though" of all (courtesy of a powerful message by Tim Keller I listened to while driving and almost had to pull over so strong was the epiphany): Even though I, a woman who has avoided any life-shattering, circumstance-rippling sin, appear to have a pure heart, it's actually every bit as messy and poor-choice prone as the worst of offenders. It's the very same, yet over the course of my easy existence, I've become really talented at jerry-rigging my heart, striking a balance that circumstance has allowed to stay erect, fooling me into thinking "she" couldn't be "me".
Oh but she could. And she is. She is me.
***
My summer long low was a wake-up call to see my heart for what it is and consider what can be done to guard the good GOD has put in there. In this, a very long summer for me full of, it was able to see how, if I had let Despair have it's way with me, my cover would have eventual been blown. Blown up, big time. And it won't ever stop being susceptible. This means I cannot relax and assume the best. For weeks I've been mulling over (by myself and with close friends) tangible ways to best ward off this particular despair that seeks to destroy marriages and fracture familes and friendships:
***
1. REST in WHAT IS TRUE.
Rest (and invest) in the Truth that will keep you intact. In my view, it is the message of Jesus Christ. In her new book, Good News For The Weary Woman, Elyse Fitzpatrick writes these life-giving words:
There is good news for you. You don’t need to learn
secret steps, try harder and harder, wear yourself out in
an attempt to be beautiful, snag Mr. Perfect, or raise
perfect children. You are already welcomed, loved,
forgiven, and completely okay. You can laugh and rest
and resist all the ways the world lies to you and tells
you you’re not good enough. And you can love God
because He has already loved you. You can be free to
fail, to rest, to love, to be weak, to grow, and to know
that everything is already given to you in Him."
In order to rest in someone, one must trust them. In order to trust, space must be carved out to shut up, to be still and to know that He is YOUR God. His goodness, His everything is YOURS. He lovingly laughs at your plans to live a flawless life.
2. STAY TRUE TO YOU.
Yes, life is busy and busy isn't always bad. A full life, filled with loving others, selfless commitment and daily kindnesses is a beautiful-albeit demanding- existence. For those of us women who are mothers, I think there is a certain danger in puffing up expectations of our role, or even glorifying it above anything else--even our marriage. Yes, motherhood is important. Yes, loving your children well is a noble and worthy pursuit. But let us be careful not to make WHAT WE DO more important that WHO WE ARE. The whole breathlessly-busy-because-my-children-deserve-to-do/be/play/pursuit-whatever-their-heart-desires schtick is not impressive to God nor is it healthy for anyone involved. We women are prone to putting ourselves under tremendous weight in the center of the family orbit because we feel we are the most competent at multi-tasking (which we usually are), pushing our husbands out into the spinning circles WITH the children instead of being allowed at the center (but that is for another post). Three things happen when we become so busy doing "doing it all":
1. It's easy to hide what's in our heart (even from ourselves!)
2. It's eclipses our identity.
3. It inflates our sense of self-importance
You are smart and do not need me to spell out why either/both of these two elements create ideal conditions for disastrous erosion over time.
3.WHEN YOU FIND A GOOD LIFE PRESERVER, KEEP IT CLOSE!
Even though every human is guaranteed to fail us at one time or another, the gift of a trusted sister or girlfriend is a gift beyond price. Simply put, women "get" women more than every the most insightful man can.
This is difficult because a friendship that goes deep is not something one can just run to Redbox for. It takes the right person and time and space to both have and BE that friend you desire. You've got to be open beyond the circles you're "assigned to", for just because you might run the same ones as another woman (women) does not guarantee mutual admiration or a foundation on which to build. And because we are living in a society that cannot stuff enough programs and events in a week, time and space are not laying around waiting to be picked up. That is why if you are fortunate enough to have even one good girlfriend, treasure her...make time for her and she for you. She should not be there to replace or nurture unhealthy grudges, but if she offers wise and honest counsel, consider her a divinely-cast life preserver you need help keep you afloat.
4. SAY IT, LAY IT OUT THERE (AND THEN THROW IT AWAY).
So I mentioned those two especially long stretches of summer misery earlier. During that time, I decided there was no more room inside of me to stuff my discouragement. I had already told God and my husband about, and quite frankly, I felt that they both just kinda looked at me. Yes, they loved me, but in the moment, they really weren't all that much help at all. Well, I take that back. God was helpful. He kindly has given me friends of the real variety and has helped me be that to them. And so, I called upon a very few of them, my human floatation devices. These friends received a colorful diatrabe in the middle of a muggy Monday describing my stuck-in-mediocrity-and-mindless-servitude-to-pint-sized-people despair. I wrote my basest of thoughts, the kind you want to delete soon after. (It happened before and it will happen again, so they weren't too alarmed).
They immediately shot back words of empathic cheer---with no admonishments or Bible verses or links to worship songs. Not right away. They gave me time and space to vent. I choose to SAY IT ("HELP!!!" ) and in response, they hurled themselves in perfect life preserving form into my stormy sea, allowing me to catch my breath and feel understood as I floated on their words of empathy.They did not panic, nor did they pepper-spray me with encouragement of the Christian bookstore variety. They were/are kind enough to know that sometimes just SAYING it goes along way for the sake of sanity. Writing out the words can be a sharp-edged sword that moves to slay despair. Most often we who need to let it out, already know the truth. But by laying it out on the table, we are able to throw it out, instead of stuff it back in. You know? We walk away lighter.
In the times when I've been floating for a while, and they sense I'm on troubled waters, they reel me in with truth and wisdom. It's my job to accept it. If anyone is reading this besides me, and is lacking a stalwart friend who can be a safe place for you to be honest, and you for her, how I earnestly pray you find her and that you both commit to CHOOSE honesty with each other!
This post, as most all of mine are, are memos to ME. If you have read to the end, well, you're really kind. I have got a long stretch of learning ahead and what I write here is you catching me still smack dab in the center of sorting through the mess that is me and the goodness that is God's and how to live more heavily in the latter than the former. I also want to make it clear that for many women, there are solid and well-founded reasons to walk away. This is not a piece that judges reasons. There are always reasons, and most of us never know all of them for another. This is about addressing a sort of devestating despair that can lead to choices made under duress.
I am Jeane` and I've got a jerry-rigged heart. Accepting that is starting from the very beginning (again), a very good place to start, for knowing the real landscape of the battleground is half the battle and knowing the Loving Commander whose ahead of me is even better.
.
And then spring turned to summer and halfway through it, I began to understand no one was safe. Not even me...and even perhaps, especially me.
Before I write any more, I must address depression. It is a beast I do not struggle with, but I have close friends who have and who do. It throws it's blinding darkness onto every aspect of life. Because I do not have to stare down that ugly beast in my daily living, I cannot write on it with any intimate knowledge. I am going to ask one of these brave women who do, to write the complexity it adds to the general threat addressed in this post.
What has been laying heavy on my mind for months now is how, even without the widespread effects of depression, or deep tragedy, or obvious stress factors in one's life all of which can be easily pointed to as the starting cause of a downward spiral, the heart of any woman is vulnerable...and I have wondered if the woman who thinks she has no good reason to respond to despair isn't especially susceptible in some way. Some of us are especially good at putting on a show, even when we aren't trying and as a result, when it comes to a dramatic exit from stage left, the audience can be left completely blindsided.
This sneaky, devastating brand of despair seems slow to build, and the woman who considers her emptiness inexcusable perhaps can go the longest stuffing it so deeply that no one knows there is a threat ready to burst just under the surface. Left unspoken and unchecked, it builds and boils, whispering the lie that the only form of escape from it is either death or to walk away from the trap they are living in, with the husband as the chief wrong-doer and the children left to pick up the scalding fragments of the broken home. I have come to this conclusion because I found myself at the very, tip top beginning of it.
When spring turned to summer and summer brought me into the depths of it's hot folds with several "spirited" children who are very close in age (I call them a "posse" because they are and this summer their shared passion seemed to be seeing what mommy looks like in a white jumpsuit) and a husband whose job is demanding, requiring weekly travel, IT WAS THEN, IN THE HOT BOWELS OF SUMMER that I understood I had the tiny seed of this desperation ripe and ready to be firmly planted, poised to silently overtake my vulnerable heart. I remember the moment at the end of a particularly grueling two-week stretch when I honestly wondered why carrying out my roles of wife and mother were feeling so overwhelming to me. I hated my job description and though I still loved the children, I resented them for interrupting every train of thought before it even had a chance to leave the station. Curt would compliment or thank me and I brush it off with a look that said "you're just saying that". I envied women with outside jobs and who were able to do something, anything, they were good at. I chided and condemned myself, tasking my pride to pull it together and be content and joyful like a good Christian woman should, dammit. After all, aren't I known within my family for being strong, generally able to pick myself up, dust myself off and start all over again in the scheme of daily living? I am married to a good man who is kind to me. We are both terribly flawed, yet committed. We own our home, have gainful employment, are able to put food on the table and are not battling major health issues. I list all this to point out: I was (am) living in what MOST would consider very good odds for a contented existence. And so to sense that a damaging despair was lurking did not sit well with me. My circumstances were GOOD and yet deep inside I was feeling...
invisible (even though people complimented my mothering)...
undesirable (even though my husband showed desire)...
void of purpose (other than being a big-boned German workhorse)...
In trudging through a summer thick with discontent, a very important truth became crystal clear. I knew that "she" could very, very easily be "me". Even in a season fertile with blessings, a woman's heart can grow bitterly dry. Even though she is not being neglected or abused, the heart of a woman can consistently suppress her ability feel desirable as she undertakes the countless thankless duties of day after day. Even when she has a sunny exterior and says all the right things, there can be the lethal mix of self-sacrifice and self-pity brewing unchecked, under the surface until one day it explodes, leaving her broken inside, feeling beyond repair and those on the outside in shock because everything seemed so...normal.
And here's the bottom line: The biggest "Even though" of all (courtesy of a powerful message by Tim Keller I listened to while driving and almost had to pull over so strong was the epiphany): Even though I, a woman who has avoided any life-shattering, circumstance-rippling sin, appear to have a pure heart, it's actually every bit as messy and poor-choice prone as the worst of offenders. It's the very same, yet over the course of my easy existence, I've become really talented at jerry-rigging my heart, striking a balance that circumstance has allowed to stay erect, fooling me into thinking "she" couldn't be "me".
Oh but she could. And she is. She is me.
***
My summer long low was a wake-up call to see my heart for what it is and consider what can be done to guard the good GOD has put in there. In this, a very long summer for me full of, it was able to see how, if I had let Despair have it's way with me, my cover would have eventual been blown. Blown up, big time. And it won't ever stop being susceptible. This means I cannot relax and assume the best. For weeks I've been mulling over (by myself and with close friends) tangible ways to best ward off this particular despair that seeks to destroy marriages and fracture familes and friendships:
***
1. REST in WHAT IS TRUE.
Rest (and invest) in the Truth that will keep you intact. In my view, it is the message of Jesus Christ. In her new book, Good News For The Weary Woman, Elyse Fitzpatrick writes these life-giving words:
There is good news for you. You don’t need to learn
secret steps, try harder and harder, wear yourself out in
an attempt to be beautiful, snag Mr. Perfect, or raise
perfect children. You are already welcomed, loved,
forgiven, and completely okay. You can laugh and rest
and resist all the ways the world lies to you and tells
you you’re not good enough. And you can love God
because He has already loved you. You can be free to
fail, to rest, to love, to be weak, to grow, and to know
that everything is already given to you in Him."
In order to rest in someone, one must trust them. In order to trust, space must be carved out to shut up, to be still and to know that He is YOUR God. His goodness, His everything is YOURS. He lovingly laughs at your plans to live a flawless life.
2. STAY TRUE TO YOU.
Yes, life is busy and busy isn't always bad. A full life, filled with loving others, selfless commitment and daily kindnesses is a beautiful-albeit demanding- existence. For those of us women who are mothers, I think there is a certain danger in puffing up expectations of our role, or even glorifying it above anything else--even our marriage. Yes, motherhood is important. Yes, loving your children well is a noble and worthy pursuit. But let us be careful not to make WHAT WE DO more important that WHO WE ARE. The whole breathlessly-busy-because-my-children-deserve-to-do/be/play/pursuit-whatever-their-heart-desires schtick is not impressive to God nor is it healthy for anyone involved. We women are prone to putting ourselves under tremendous weight in the center of the family orbit because we feel we are the most competent at multi-tasking (which we usually are), pushing our husbands out into the spinning circles WITH the children instead of being allowed at the center (but that is for another post). Three things happen when we become so busy doing "doing it all":
1. It's easy to hide what's in our heart (even from ourselves!)
2. It's eclipses our identity.
3. It inflates our sense of self-importance
You are smart and do not need me to spell out why either/both of these two elements create ideal conditions for disastrous erosion over time.
3.WHEN YOU FIND A GOOD LIFE PRESERVER, KEEP IT CLOSE!
Even though every human is guaranteed to fail us at one time or another, the gift of a trusted sister or girlfriend is a gift beyond price. Simply put, women "get" women more than every the most insightful man can.
This is difficult because a friendship that goes deep is not something one can just run to Redbox for. It takes the right person and time and space to both have and BE that friend you desire. You've got to be open beyond the circles you're "assigned to", for just because you might run the same ones as another woman (women) does not guarantee mutual admiration or a foundation on which to build. And because we are living in a society that cannot stuff enough programs and events in a week, time and space are not laying around waiting to be picked up. That is why if you are fortunate enough to have even one good girlfriend, treasure her...make time for her and she for you. She should not be there to replace or nurture unhealthy grudges, but if she offers wise and honest counsel, consider her a divinely-cast life preserver you need help keep you afloat.
4. SAY IT, LAY IT OUT THERE (AND THEN THROW IT AWAY).
So I mentioned those two especially long stretches of summer misery earlier. During that time, I decided there was no more room inside of me to stuff my discouragement. I had already told God and my husband about, and quite frankly, I felt that they both just kinda looked at me. Yes, they loved me, but in the moment, they really weren't all that much help at all. Well, I take that back. God was helpful. He kindly has given me friends of the real variety and has helped me be that to them. And so, I called upon a very few of them, my human floatation devices. These friends received a colorful diatrabe in the middle of a muggy Monday describing my stuck-in-mediocrity-and-mindless-servitude-to-pint-sized-people despair. I wrote my basest of thoughts, the kind you want to delete soon after. (It happened before and it will happen again, so they weren't too alarmed).
They immediately shot back words of empathic cheer---with no admonishments or Bible verses or links to worship songs. Not right away. They gave me time and space to vent. I choose to SAY IT ("HELP!!!" ) and in response, they hurled themselves in perfect life preserving form into my stormy sea, allowing me to catch my breath and feel understood as I floated on their words of empathy.They did not panic, nor did they pepper-spray me with encouragement of the Christian bookstore variety. They were/are kind enough to know that sometimes just SAYING it goes along way for the sake of sanity. Writing out the words can be a sharp-edged sword that moves to slay despair. Most often we who need to let it out, already know the truth. But by laying it out on the table, we are able to throw it out, instead of stuff it back in. You know? We walk away lighter.
In the times when I've been floating for a while, and they sense I'm on troubled waters, they reel me in with truth and wisdom. It's my job to accept it. If anyone is reading this besides me, and is lacking a stalwart friend who can be a safe place for you to be honest, and you for her, how I earnestly pray you find her and that you both commit to CHOOSE honesty with each other!
This post, as most all of mine are, are memos to ME. If you have read to the end, well, you're really kind. I have got a long stretch of learning ahead and what I write here is you catching me still smack dab in the center of sorting through the mess that is me and the goodness that is God's and how to live more heavily in the latter than the former. I also want to make it clear that for many women, there are solid and well-founded reasons to walk away. This is not a piece that judges reasons. There are always reasons, and most of us never know all of them for another. This is about addressing a sort of devestating despair that can lead to choices made under duress.
I am Jeane` and I've got a jerry-rigged heart. Accepting that is starting from the very beginning (again), a very good place to start, for knowing the real landscape of the battleground is half the battle and knowing the Loving Commander whose ahead of me is even better.
.
Comments
Let the sunshine in, put on my happy music and ask my praying friends to pray for me.
Great post as always....many need to read it and will be touched because of it.
Hugs!
Love you!
Mom