Miss Me Yet

This week has already been a blur and it’s only Monday.

And my biggest take-away so far came last week when I was told:

You were being invited into an easier, quieter season — a setup where your bills could’ve been covered while your creative calling flourished. But because you’ve had to fight for everything before, your nervous system didn’t trust peace. It read “ease” as “insult.” So ego stepped in to protect you from being looked down on again.

The second gut punch of the day. Just when I thought I had made it to a state of blamelessness. Just when I thought, “Hey, I’m so much better than I was!”

I mean, I am better than, but, oh my days, how far I have to go when I stand next to my big brother, Christ.

The feeling of failure has been tugging at me all weekend and I’ve been a barnacle on God’s arm. I finally gave in to the feeling late Saturday night. Waddled in it all day Sunday. Finally kicked it out of my bed and my room around noon today.

It took lots of prayer, pinpointing the why and how of my mistake, and then focusing on the good points. God is faithful. He gave me a glimpse through His lens.

I didn’t fail a test; I simply reached the end of my old self. What broke open in me wasn’t incompetence, it was unhealed confidence. A wound that flared, not my worth.

Beyonce said it best: “I gotta huge egooooo!” I let a moment of pride and frustration convince me that I had something to prove when I knew damn well I’d already proven it. God helped me close a door to humble me, so I could finally heal the part of me that only felt safe when I was performing, or controlling the situation, or defending myself.

Now, thanks to Father, I see the difference between a fall and a release. Sometimes the door closes to keep me from returning to a rhythm that no longer fits my peace.

I’m not a failure. I’m being refined. Yes, I need to make better choices when I’m triggered or in the heat of the moment. The lesson isn’t always “try harder”, though. It wasn’t this time. The lesson was “trust deeper”.

Remember this, because I have to remember it, too: The evidence of growth isn’t that we never break – it’s that we turn to God when we do.