When I don't feel loved

This thing has been on my mind a lot lately...what keeps us feeling loved and happy. In the middle of a season that is so fruitful, I still find myself frequently thinking about what's next. What's after Australia, if I can't get the proper visa? And this worry has caused me to seek as much preparation as possible, to make sure I am taken care of, and this seeking has caused me to temporarily lose sight of a lot of little pleasures I have in being here. Mostly what's happened, though, is I've spent a lot of time wondering if everything will be okay. But what's hiding underneath all of this thinking is a girl who's not sure if her flaws make her better or worse.

Sometimes, I don't feel loved. I think that it happens for everyone. When life is busy and things get hectic and we're worried about being perfect in every detail, our fears become greater than our faith. But when your fear is greater than your faith, you have to remember what's true.

When I don't feel loved, my fear is based on a lie. When I don't feel loved, I'm believing a lie that I'm not worthy of love. That something in me has failed to live up to an invisible standard of loveliness, and since I've fallen short, I won't be loved. I won't be good enough or smart enough or successful enough.

When I don't feel loved, I wonder if I'm too much. Too bossy, too easily annoyed, too stressed, too tired, too talkative, too honest. And all those worries feed into that fear of falling short of the standard I think was meant for me and I'm left wondering how in the world anyone could love me.

But today, my faith is greater than my fear. There are a hundred reasons why people mightn't love me, but there are a thousand for why they might, if I can let them.

Even when I don't feel loved, I know that I am loved.

I am never too much. And I am always enough. And while I don't know if my flaws make me better or worse, I know that they make me. They make me into someone who is loved and someone who is capable of love. That is more than enough, so the rest is sort of arbitrary.

I hope that you feel loved today. But if for some reason, you don't, I hope that you'll remember in spite of how you feel, you are loved.

We are always more than what we feel.

Being loved doesn't always look like this, but I'm so grateful that some of mine does.

Just a reflection this week, on the things that I'm coming to realize are perfectly normal but rarely spoken about. I'm happy, I'm whole, I'm learning.

The myth of fresh-starts

At the beginning of this year, it became clear that I needed a fresh start. It brought me into a season of singleness, into a new job, into a new country. It brought me countless new friendships and adventures and the sort of self-discoveries and awareness about which people dream. This fresh start for which I fought so valiantly and steadfastly brought me more than I ever imagined, but beyond those things, it brought me a nugget of truth that I wasn't sure I wanted. There's no such thing as a fresh start.

Sure, we can move to a new country and take a new job and completely rebuild our community, but the fact remains that all those things we want a fresh start from will still be with us. Those things shape us, they change us radically, and we can't escape them. Our pasts are part of us, even as we move beyond them, and in carrying the weight of all the places we've been and people we've met, it's almost laughable to believe we'll somehow be able to throw them off and have a fresh start.

I came here needing a change, needing something more. But I also came trying to outrun something that had become part of me. Not just something that had happened, but something that had built a new part of me. Something that had become part of my story and my journey and any destination I find. So why did I think I'd be able to get rid of it?

This weekend, I went to see Romeo and Juliet at the Sydney Opera House with a friend of mine. The show was spellbinding and the company quite nice, and we spent the afternoon talking about life - where we've been and where we're going. Somewhere in the middle of all of it, he said something to me, and the gist of it was that this past part of me that I try to avoid has had an impact on how some people see me. And it wrecked my heart in the best kind of way. The I-really-need-to-deal-with-this kind of way, mixed with who-cares-what-anyone-else-says kind of way and I saw in myself a strength I didn't know I had. A strength to say my fresh start isn't just around the corner. It just isn't, and the sooner I stop chasing it, the sooner I'll be able to revel in the glory of where I am and how I got here. The sooner I stop chasing it, the sooner I'll be able to claim every nitty gritty part of my baggage and stop wondering if it will change things. Of course it will change things. But that's absolutely okay.

So here's to admitting that fresh starts are usually nowhere to be found, and maybe it's better that way. Maybe instead of trying to release the hurts and struggles of our who-we-weres, we should cling to them a little more tightly, allowing them to create in us glorious, tender hearts that are strong enough to come out of the storm better than we were before.

Who we were doesn't have to define who we are or who we will be. But that doesn't mean it's a bad thing for who we were to have a little say in the matter.

When one change isn't enough

It's been a little while since I've come to Australia, and while in some ways it feels as if I've been here for ages, I am frequently reminded that I'm still new. This is all still new. I'm wholeheartedly enjoying getting to know my surroundings and family and friends, and I'm constantly excited by what's happening and about to happen.

Being an au pair is a challenge. But it is one worth the effort and time and energy. I seriously love my job. It's easily the best job I've had, and I consider myself incredibly lucky to have been given this opportunity. In some conversations over the past week or so with a few of my friends here, we've come to the conclusion that the only thing left to do here is make the most of it.

It sounds so simple. Be grateful each day for the wonder it holds for us, for the things we'll learn from how we're being challenged, and the freedom we've been given to adventure and explore and gallivant. But sometimes, it's tricky. In the midst of missing family and friends back in the States and the craziness of our schedules and the everything else we'd like to try, the thought of just sitting back and drinking it all in seems a little daunting. Which makes us sound so spoiled. Which we probably are.

But today, I am grateful. I am beyond blessed by this experience, by the church I've become a part of, but the people I've met, by the family that has let me be part of their life, by the scenery and the freshness, by the challenge. And I am not taking it for granted. I think people in my relative age group have this general idea, whether we realize it or not, that we're entitled to a lot of things. We're not. So maybe the issue isn't that we don't have enough or what we have isn't good enough. Maybe the issue is that we don't realize we could have nothing at all, but instead, we have everything. The possibilities are endless.

On getting out of the boat

One of the best lessons I've learned since coming to Australia is that if you're called to something, you can't expect it to be easy or comfortable or a walk in the park. It'll be the hardest thing you'll ever attempt, and you probably won't always get it right. There will be days when you feel absolutely inadequate and terrified by the thought that this is it. You won't want to get out of the boat. But you will.

You will step over the edge of safety, onto the waves of your uncertainties and shortcomings, and you will walk towards promises far greater than anything you could have ever dreamed. And when you lose focus and look down (and you will), the water will seem too rough and you'll lose your footing. But you'll be steadied, by grace and Truth and freedom, and you'll press on. You'll endure. You'll succeed. You'll be excellent. Because you're called to be.

But first, you have to get out of the boat.

 

On being reminded

I spend a lot of my time with the same four kids. I've only been with them for two glorious months, and already, I can see their personalities clearly. They're obviously family, and they're obviously different. They are distinct. They are themselves. They each have their strengths and weaknesses, their preferences and dislikes. It's sort of incredible to see how people who are all related (and all under the age of 15) can be so unbelievably different. But there is one thing in particular at which that they are all excellent.

Competing. These kids, young as they are, understand hierarchy. They live by rules of first and last, best and worst, favorite and least. I remember learning about this is college and wondering if it was a taught or innate mindset. If I ever doubted it before, I can say certainly now, it's innate. We are born competitors. We want to be the best and have the best, and most of the time, we don't care about the cost. We don't care about the means, as long as the end is to our liking. It's dangerous.

How do I teach these kids that it's not a competition? That when I don't play along for the millionth time, it isn't because I'm disinterested or upset, but because I know that sometimes it's healthier to let it go. More importantly, how do I remind myself of the same truth? Because I can't teach anything that I don't live out myself, and as much as I wish it weren't true, I struggle a lot with competing.

I came to Australia wondering what this season would hold for me. So far, so grand. I am learning so much, am being shaped so well. I'm coming to terms with not only who I was created to be, but also what the desires of my heart are. It astounds me. But what astounds me more was that as many of my friends back home assured me that I'd find an "Australian husband" basically the minute the plane landed, an equal number of people here have told me that I shouldn't get my hopes up because there's too much competition. There are too many other eligible women here for me to compete with, so I won't meet a man.

How sad, that the culture and generation I'm part of, even in the church, are so wrapped up in this mindset of hierarchy and competition and winning that I've been told I simply will not be able to find a man. I won't be able to compete. Let's be real here. It's not a competition. Just as I'm striving to show these beautiful four children that they don't always have to win something, they don't always have to have more, the twenty-somethings of the world need to be reminded that when it comes to love, it will never be a competition.

Ladies, if you feel like you're competing for the attention of a man, he's not the right man for you. Even if he's good, even if he's Godly, even if he meets all your "criteria" (which is a whole other can of worms), if he makes you compete or if he makes you feel like you should have to, walk away. And men, if you have women competing for your attention, don't make them. Walk away. When we stop competing, we find ourselves standing next to the people with whom we are truly equally yoked. When it comes to the person with whom you'll spend your life, there will never be competition. You're his or her standard. And that will be reciprocated. Even in those early, terrifying stages where nobody is sure what's going on, the right people end up together regardless of challenges and circumstances and other people.

Gently, He reminded me this week that it's not a competition. That I will never have to compete. Where it truly matters, I have already won and as long as I continue walking faithfully and steadfastly, the competition will not be my concern. The people who are drowning in competition will not be my concern. The people who are telling me that I can't compete are not my concern. That mindset is not my concern. My concern is things above.

So let's stop competing. Let's stop acting as if we need everything in order to have anything.

On being well-rested

I don't have nightmares anymore. Which, you know, doesn't seem like that grand of an accomplishment because I'm 23 and have slept alone and without a night-light for years. Believe me, it's a big deal.

Nightmares are as common for me as ice cream cones are to hot summer days. I crept into my parents' bed for safety until I was at least 8, and it wasn't until my mom told me I'd have to sleep on the floor next to the bed that I stopped (monsters would have had much easier access to me from the floor, obviously). When that fateful day came that Mom and Dad gently insisted I learn to stay in my own bed, I gradually got used to the nightmares. I learned how to recognize when I was dreaming and how to wake myself when my subconscious got too intense. I stopped trying to sleep through the night and got used to waking up three or four times, at least. I stopped thinking people were actually in the room with me when I woke, realizing they were just figments of my imagination, appearing almost like holograms when I was awake enough to realize I had had a nightmare but still sleepy enough to have the images persist. I stopped thinking it was unusual to sleep so restlessly.

Suffice it to say, nightmares and I know each other quite well. I can tell you all about the ones I've had multiple times, from the age of 4 up to my twenties. People are shocked when I tell them I've never slept through the night, I can't sleep without my back to the wall or against a pillow, I have to have a stuffed animal with me to get to sleep. It's just become a part of who I am. So when I got to Australia, I didn't expect it to change.

I sleep through the night now. And I haven't had a nightmare in two months.

At first I attributed it to simply being more tired. Dealing with children can be exhausting, and having such a busy and hectic schedule makes for early bedtimes. But the longer I go, I begin to see that it's more than just weariness.

My heart and mind are at peace, in a way they never have been before. It's not to say I was chronically unhappy before now. Because I wasn't. But something inside me is different, cleaner, newer. I never thought my body would stop battling itself, never thought my mind would be reconciled to the night. But it has, and it has. I am so grateful.

I finally know how to rest.