When You Don't Get What You Want (But You Get What You Need)

[Disclaimer: Blog post written from the app on my phone. Please excuse any odd formatting that currently is out of my control. Laptop is out of commission at the moment.]

This post will be a more 'train of thought exercise,' so expect choppy waters ahead.

Thank you, Rolling Stones, for writing that classic song "You Can't Always Get What You Want" because the chorus is so friggin' true it hurts.

You can't always get what you want
You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometime, you find
You get what you need

Yup. Sometime in September of last year I decided to ask myself what dreams or goals I would pursue if I had no limitations of any kind standing in my way. In other words, what would I give myself permission to pursure if I knew I had full capabilities and could not fail? I had -- and still have -- a running list of possibilities, and within the last few months, I seriously and prayerfully considered one of my items: to go to Seminary.

I looked at brochures, received mail from one of the seminaries in town, saw the class prices (which nearly melted my face off in a kind of Spielberg/Indiana Jones type of way), and asked if the only career option that caught my attention would be a good fit for me.

When I saw a degree for Biblical Counseling, I was intrigued and I thought, This might be something to consider. And why not? I love creating and maintaining a kind of friendship that allows those I care about to come, be who they are, share their burdens, and in general just drop the façade of perfection. I'm not claiming I'm good at this all the time, but when those real moments happen, I treasure them. Maybe it's self-centered to be glad that someone feels comfortable enough with me to admit when life has turned to shit, but I still love that authenticity nonetheless.

While I mulled over all the joys, stressors, and questions that come with going back to school while working full time, I had to ask myself if an emotionally challenging career move would be something I could handle. Sure I love those unplanned moments when a friend and I bond over hardships -- that's just a few moments out of my day -- but can I take that strain session after session, day after week after month, and so on? Considering my immensely sensitive emotional state (been that way ever since I can remember . . . and that's okay), I think I realized it's a career that would chew me up and spit me out. I would drown under the burden in an attempt to buoy another soul.

Mostly I was at peace when I stopped trying to force myself to take leaps of faith forward that probably weren't meant to be taken; but just outside of that peace leaked in a lot of self-loathing and discouragement when I realized my answer to this particular desire was "No." Why can't you be strong enough like most people are? You absolute fucking failure. Are you even of use to anybody? Harsh words toward myself, I know. (I'm working on that, but clearly I have relapses.)

The more I looked at the situation and the more I prayed that God would ease my pain so that I wouldn't feel like someone who isn't smart enough or strong enough to carry out this dream I had, the more I saw His grace in not giving me what I thought I wanted. What I wanted would have crushed me; what He wants will not only add life and joy to my existence, but to that of others, as well. And that is my overarching dream: to be a breath of life, encouragement, hope, and strength for others, all while asking God to let that lead wherever he wants to take me. (Lord, that is a terrifying prayer.)

So maybe carrying out this dream I have means God is asking me to courageously stay where I am at the moment. (When many have suggested that I do something else with my life other than my current job, yes, staying still requires strength.) Maybe I'll be called elsewhere soon or farther down the road. I don't know, and this drives me absolutely bonkers because I need to see the road map. But I'm trying to learn to trust that when God says 'No,' It's not just a flat denial; sometimes He's telling me to wait,  or that dreaded, heart-sinking 'no' actually means, "I have something better in mind."

When I lay all of my dreams on that alter, sometimes the sacrifice will be carried out in full and the knife plunges, and the "no" hurts like hell. Sometimes the knife will be raised, only for the hand to be stayed, and the dream survives. (This is all Abraham & Isaac/Old Testament parallels here.) But when the dream dies, the plans change, and I don't get what I thought I would, I hope I can still say to God, Thank you for knowing what I need to carry out Your will, and mean it.

Commit your way to the LORD;
trust in him and he will do this:
He will make your righteousness
shine like the dawn,
the justice of your cause like the noonday sun. (Psalm 37:5-6, NIV)

But the plans of the LORD stand firm forever,
the purposes of his heart through all generations. (Psalm 33:11, NIV)

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28, NIV)

The Oasis

I work in grocery retail, and as often as some have implied that it's not a very glamorous job (Oh, you work at Kroger? And what do you want to do after that? is a question strangers have asked me at social gatherings.), I enjoy it. There are so many moments I've shared with customers that have stayed with me because of the sweetness of a conversation, the tears of grief that inevitably and stubbornly slip out, or because a kind soul let me partake in a witty joke. I love asking where a shopper is from if I hear traces of an accent. (Bonus points are collected if I've visited that same section of the globe.)

As much as I enjoy these moments, they don't happen as often as I would like. I admit I often get caught up in making sure the produce shelves are full of fresh product instead of truly trying to meet the needs and answer the questions of shoppers who are responsible for supplying my paycheck. I don't know how many strangers I serve on average in a day, but it's a lot; I admit I start to see those customers as part of a mass of consumers I am to serve instead of seeing them as living, breathing souls who have stories to tell. They're just people who come to me when they need to know where to find ginger root or avocados; what vegetables are good for juicing; or if I could possibly bring out more broccoli from the back because what's on the shelf looks terrible.

That is my routine day in and day out, and within in that routine of customers coming to me with their needs, I begin to feel . . . invisible? I'm the one who answers the questions about product location, suggests different apple varieties, endures complaints about product prices when I have nothing to do with such decisions, and more. Basically, I am among the fruits and vegetables to be your produce and customer service "Go To Girl," but sometimes working to please as many people in a day as I can begins to feel lonely.

I'm sorry if that comes off as whiny -- that's not my intention -- but my point is that loneliness doesn't discriminate. We all feel it and we all wonder if anyone sees all our serving and caring and trying and pleasing. Maybe you are a stay-at-home mom who wonders if her husband sees and appreciates all the sacrifices she makes for the family on a daily basis; or a nurse who, quite literally, gets shit on all day, only to be yelled at later in your shift by the same grumpy-ass patient; or a businessman who is handed project after project when you're already struggling to keep up with your regular work load. Regardless of your place in life, eventually that question slaps you in the face: Does anyone appreciate me? Am I only important to others but only if I have something to offer? That question pierced me a few days ago and I ended up wallowing in that loneliness most of the day.

It took me a few hours to snap my head back up from the Eeyore-esque mentality I had donned, so when I felt like I no longer wanted to be a victim of my circumstances, I started to pray. (I hope this doesn't come off as a look-at-me-I'm-so-holy humble brag.) God, I feel invisible, unappreciated, and like I don't matter. Could you please meet me in my loneliness and remind me that you see me, love me, and fill me with purpose?

There wasn't an immediate relief from this burden, but feeling the sweet freedom from my pangs after a time was encouraging. As much as I know God created us to have friends and find joy in knowing others well -- He did give Adam a companion in Eve (Genesis 2:7, 18-23) and Jesus commands us to love each other selflessly (John 15:12-15) -- I also know that as wonderful and fulfilling as friendship and community can be, they aren't meant to fill every dusty nook and cranny of our hearts. I think it was author Donald Miller who wrote in the book Blue Like Jazz, "There are some places only God can go." Consider what Jesus says in John 6:55-58:

For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever. 

All the food, friendships, delights we could possibly enjoy eventually will leave us hungry again and craving something more; the love God gives us in and through Jesus Christ is the kind that was made to satisfy us eternally. We were made specifically to know God and delight in his love for us. Find your purpose, significance, and love in Him; in my own search for various things to fill that void, I've discovered that nothing else will do.

Truly my soul finds rest in God;

my salvation comes from him.

He is my rock and my salvation;

he is my fortress, I will never be shaken. (Psalm 62:1-2, NIV)

O Glorious Breakthrough

It has been more difficult than I realized to write my thoughts when they're peppier and less gloomy, and that has made this entry particularly trying. Mostly I think I'm afraid of coming off as too syrupy sweet and full of fluff, when substance and depth is what I hope for; alas, I'll try to remove myself from Cloud 9 so that my good news will be worth the read.

I wasn't expecting a breakthrough to happen so soon. In fact, I was bracing myself for a period of an unknown number of years full of all the crap I've already written about before. Maybe this season of struggle isn't really a season at all, but is my new reality. I just didn't want to get my hopes up. After all, I would read my Bible on occasion, but most of the time I felt numb when I did. Maybe there was a verse or two here and there that stuck with me or made me feel at peace, but mostly I just saw a bunch of lifeless words on a page.

Admittedly, I sucked at opening that thick book on a regular basis. It spent more time gathering dust while sitting on my bedside table than it did with the pages supine. Trying to motivate myself to read even a few verses felt like it required the effort it would take to push a giant boulder uphill while I'd be wearing roller skates. I just. didn't. want. to. do. it. Being in that rut sucked and I wasn't sure I had the energy or desire to fight my way through it,

But one day a few weeks ago, I started to challenge myself. (I have no idea where this newfound motivation came from, but I was thankful for that drop of life-giving water.) You know, if you keep sitting here like this, nothing is going to change. So why not do the very thing you don't want to do and choose to fight your way through these doldrums? So that evening I picked up my Bible, opened it, and [gasp] READ IT. The next evening I followed suit.

I believe that second night was the catalyst for my 180-degree turn. Begrudgingly I had opened that professional dust-collector to Isaiah 54 and the first three verses did absolutely nothing for me. Why is this so difficult? I asked myself. You used to feel so joyful when you read these verses; so why is this so difficult now? Then I read verses 4-5 and that's when that dusty light bulb turned on:

Do not fear, for you will not be ashamed;

Neither be disgraced, for you will

not be put to shame;

For you will forget the shame of your youth,

And will not remember the reproach of 

your widowhood anymore.

For your Maker is your husband,

The LORD of hosts is his name;

And your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel;

He is called the God of the whole earth. (Bold print mine)

Back in my first blog entry, I hypothesized that maybe in my arid season I just needed to "let God love the hell out of me," but I wasn't doing that. Some of my wounds felt too tender to touch; I still didn't quite trust God to take care of my pain and turn it into something beautiful. But these verses reminded me of his mercy and love, and all of my walls crumbled. I felt joy and peace and relief again; any anger or resentment I had for more than a year concerning church and faith disappeared. And the depression with which I co-existed for the past few years and which only grew worse these three recent months? Gone. 

I don't think I ever imagined myself having the kind of testimony that feels as dramatic as the one I just recounted here. This good little church girl turned into a rebel, wandered into a desert full of doubt and anger, and finally made her exodus having rediscovered grace and peace and the unconditional love of Jesus Christ. For all my struggles, I am glad I endured them because he has made me stronger. When in doubt, look for the Author of hope. He is always there.

Therefore I am now going to allure her;

I will lead her into the desert

and speak tenderly to her.

There I will give her back her vineyards,

and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.

There she will sing as in the days of her youth,

as in the day she came up out of Egypt. (Hosea 2:14-15, NIV)

Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. 

(Romans 5:4, NIV)

When You Feel Like Letting Go

For years I was obsessed with having a strong, confident faith that appeared flawless and seamless. So when I felt the first shock-wave of resentment toward God and the church because I tried to live up to standards and expectations I now realize I could never actually meet, I thought it would be just a short-term jarring of my spine; what I didn't know was how shattered my faith would become. I looked at all the years I spent trying and trying and trying to live my life in ways the church said was appropriate -- how often I needed to serve and how I needed to keep serving even more when my proverbial cup had run dry -- and I was fed up. I became bitter towards those who cracked their whip at me, and became bitter even towards God for feeling like He was endorsing this breakneck, tired-as-hell lifestyle of service. 

You know what, God? If this is what being a Christian and serving you looks like, this is bullshit and I don't want it. That's the line I threw at God more times than I can count when I felt like I couldn't hold on any longer. I wanted to let go, run away from the expectations I came to loathe, and leave all that legalistic crap behind. 

I admit that in the mix of my anger and my desire to still hold on to my faith (despite the temptation to just toss it into a heap and leave it behind), I felt like the responsibility to 'hang on' was all on me and God was just sitting back watching, waiting to see what would happen to me. God, could you give me a hand here? It feels like I'm doing all the legwork. 

It's a frustrating sensation to feel like God is just watching me dangle on my string, swaying in the wind, as if this giant struggle was/is somehow a test of strength on my part. Will I let go or will I hang on until He decides to rescue me? 

But the part of me that has read over and over again in the Bible about how much God loves us and even knows the number of hairs on our heads (Luke 12:7) kept reminding me that He already carries more of my burdens than I realize. One of my favorite books in the Bible is Isaiah, an Old Testament book. (Reference point: the Old Testament is the set of books that tell of Israel's history before Jesus was born.) While the context itself is set in a particularly barren spot when the Israelites were exiled to Babylon, it is still a story of God's unconditional love for his people and his desire to rescue and redeem them. That story of love, redemption, forgiveness, and reconciliation is still alive today because of Jesus Christ, so I often feel a connection to those prophetic chapters in the Old Testament:

Shout for joy, you heavens;

rejoice, you earth;

burst into song, you mountains!

For the LORD comforts his people

and will have compassion on his afflicted ones.

But Zion said, "The LORD has forsaken me,

the LORD has forgotten me."

Can a mother forget the baby at her breast

and have no compassion on the child she has borne?

Though she may forget, 

I will not forget you!

See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;

your walls are ever before me. (Isaiah 49:13-16, NIV)

No matter how forgotten, alone, or abandoned I feel by God, it simply isn't true. My anger, my uncertainty, my doubts don't drive him away. My pain doesn't intimidate him. In my own period of exile, God is still here. He still cares and tends to my every need, even if he seems silent; his love is never driven away by any circumstance. "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, neither any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:38-39, NIV). No matter the height of my uncertainty or the depth of my doubt, God remains faithful, even when I feel my life and my faith and my ability to hang on has turned to shit. His hold on me is stronger than my own feeble, fickle, slippery grasp. For all the ways I am unfaithful and uncertain, His love remains steadfast, his grip perfect in strength. For that I can have hope. 

I have loved you with an everlasting love;

I have drawn you with unfailing kindness. (Jeremiah 31:3, NIV)

In the Aftermath of Legalism

I grew up going to church but it wasn't until high school that I truly started to make faith my own, instead of just inheriting all the spoon-fed stuff I heard on Sunday morning. Seriously, what kid wouldn't rather sleep in or go outside and play than go to church? Blah. I just wanted to eat cereal and watch cartoons while dressed in my pajamas. Digression aside, high school is when all those Sunday school classes started to make sense and, hey, they actually had a point to them. That metaphorical light bulb came on as the youth pastor explained in his sermon, "Jesus died on the cross to forgive you of your sins. You just have to trust and believe He did." Oooooh, that's what the cross is for. (Yeah, it was that moment.) 

About a year later I was baptized, and since then I have spent years reading and studying the Bible -- complete with a Theological Studies degree from my alma mater -- and trying to get a grip on what it looks like to love God and love people. 

I'll spare you a lot of details and just say somewhere along the way I learned to clothe myself in legalism. Merriam-Webster defines legalism as, "strict, literal, or excessive conformity to the law or to a religious moral code," and being a vigilant rule-keeping Christian was what I thought I was supposed to be. 

There was a problem with living by all these rules, though: I said I believed Jesus died so my sins would be forgiven, but I lived my faith like my salvation was something I had to earn. If I wasn't trying to earn God's love outright, I made sure my actions proved I was the real deal: I volunteered with homeless ministries, co-led a Bible study for four years geared towards high school students, donated food and money to local food banks, sponsored (and still sponsor) a child through World Vision, and sent monetary contributions to other such organizations. I didn't cuss, drink, smoke, or do drugs; I was careful to avoid the media I thought was too sensual or vulgar for my liking. Bible verses often were my Facebook status of choice. I did all this for the sake of trying to prove to myself, to others, and to God that, dammit, I was a Christian. I lived and acted as if all my good doings wouldn't be enough to get me into heaven, despite my faith claim that Jesus's death and resurrection meant my sins were forgiven and I'd be spending an eternity in heaven with Him. I tried being that poster girl of a good little Christian for years.

So what was missing? I had it all together. I was the "good Christian girl" who ran as far away from any trouble as possible. Here I sit, years later, looking at that mindset in hindsight and now I know I wasn't motivated by love for God; it was all about fear. I also tried living my life in the way a few of my home churches thought appropriate. "Go to church as often as possible." "Volunteer in this ministry and this one and this one . . . We need your talents!" "Lead a Bible study on a weeknight. You have the education and knowledge to be a great leader!" "Oh, and don't forget that Christian women are to be gentle, loving, hospitable, and weather any hardship with a smile while believing that God will deliver her!" 

Ugh. Can I say right now that the reason I'm writing this blog is therapy for my burnt-out faith? That's where I am right now: church-y Christianity burnout. I'm not quite the mess of cynicism and resentment towards God that I was, say, six months ago, but I'm still struggling. The past three years of my life have taught me a lot about accepting God's grace -- probably because I was wrecking my health just to keep up appearances -- and I'm still learning to see God as my loving Father and Redeemer instead of a celestial slave-driver with a whip. 

It's a near outright war trying to give God permission to pull out the painful burrs of anger and rebellion so that my character will look a lot more like Jesus's, but it's a struggle. (Okay, it's a big struggle.) And I have no idea what I'm supposed to do in the meantime; then again, maybe I'm just supposed to let Jesus's unconditional love fight through my anger and bitterness and cynicism. Maybe I just need to sit and be and be reminded that John 3:16-17 applies to the little rule-follower-turned-rebel that is me: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him" (NIV). Maybe all I need to do is let God love the hell out of me.

"Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light" (Matthew 11:28-30, NIV).