And I most certainly don't feel free.
By the end of Sunday, I can't wait for Monday morning to roll around. I'm more exhausted than I was on Friday, more drained and disheartened due to a weekend of trying to make myself "safe" in the middle of abnormal. For me, that means planned. busy. moving. controlling. manipulating. being in charge. but there's no life, no freedom, when every moment is filled with a to-do list, dictated by my made-up need for more doing, and less being. None of this is new to me. It's a pattern of safety that, somewhere earlier on my journey, I chose to cling to when I felt unsafe. The problem is: it's like a drug. A small amount worked for awhile, and when it stopped, I tightened my grasp more...and more...and more. Which has been leading me to a place of suffocating control of time.
Yesterday was no different, my day stretched longer and longer and longer. And the longer it becomes, the more void of relationship, life-giving, restful, being moments it becomes.
So I went into work, annoyed and frustrated at myself, that despite my frustration and lack of enjoyment of this system of control, I kept doing it.
Because it was safe.
I know how to do "safe". How to do predictable. How to do things this way. Even if it's suffocation, lifeless, frustrating, draining, discouraging, and downright awful, I stay here. Why? Because known is safe.
Because I'm addicted to safety.
And when I can't control an unsafe circumstance, I make it safe by control what I can (my time, my body, my food, my work, etc).
Yet, this is EXACTLY what God's been breaking in me. And we are SO. CLOSE. so close. This week has been SO GOOD. I've been seeing the fruition of faithfulness, and have been seeing the outcome of strides taken in trust days, weeks, months, even years ago.
So yesterday, I was talking to God, and asking Him about my hatred of weekends. (Cuz let's just be honest, this is getting old). And He said:
Embrace being unsafe. Be in the unknown and uncomfortable, and just BE.
Don't go back to your control system. Don't manipulate circumstances. Embrace feeling unsafe. And embrace the moment.
I know that for me, that means slowing down. And I mean, really slowing down. Like, taking a nap over going on a walk. Like, watching a movie with my family simply to be with them instead of conquering the ever-growing pile of laundry. Like, enjoying a meal, and not being afraid of my made-up consequences to not calculating. It means being. And trusting that it's gonna be okay. It means living in the moment of the unknown, and simply not knowing. It means embracing everything that I've deemed "unsafe", and learning that life is found in those places.
"You're stronger than you think, braver than you believe. Don't buy the lies, don't compromise."
