Yesterday Camron and I were going through a book he bought which has valuable questions for couples to answer before blindly entering into engagement with a stranger whom they find attractive. We answered question after dumb question and laughed hysterically at the other’s answers. This book very often asks us to give 5 of something. 5 adjectives to describe your relationship with your mother. 5 things that you think defines a successful marriage. 5 reasons why someone should want to be with you and 5 reasons they shouldn’t. I find that interesting. Why 5?
Anyways we are daily finding out that we are very much the same, and very much different in all the best ways. Camron makes me laugh harder than anyone and true to form, his darling sarcasm left me in physical abdominal pain from laughing. We imagined a life with each other and giggled at the chaos that it promises. We agreed and discussed and I felt giddy and overwhelmed with joy in the passenger seat of my least favorite car of all time. The world is always the best place when we are together because right now Camron is my most treasured companion.
He is leaving for camp this summer because God has gifted him in youth ministry, so I took the opportunity to deviate from the question book to ask him how he thought our time spent apart would be. Valid question. His answer was long and sweet and well thought out but included the words “I can compare you to other girls.” Granted, that sentence is taken WAY out of context and is unfair for me to single out seeing that I know (rationally) that is NOT at all what he meant. He might have not even said those words in that order, but regardless it is what my broken ears heard.
I blinked away my apparent shock. “Fix your face, Ally” is always the only advice I can muster to myself, knowing full well that I wear every felt emotion on the outside. Thankfully, the Holy Spirit always rushes in hastily during times of my reeling insecurity and protects me from voicing dramatic pleas for acceptance when my heart feels threatened. This is probably the best thing about God the Spirit. Mouth control.
In that minute, my spontaneous and confident self recoiled faster than you could snap your fingers. Walls went up like lightning, and I resolved that Camron would not have the capacity to wound me deeply. Vulnerability left me exposed and I buckled down, and put on my tough girl rouge of nonchalance, once again lying to myself with bold declarations that I wouldn’t care if all my worst fears came true. I wondered if Camron would notice the change in my countenance. I wondered if he could feel the panic in my heart. I prayed that I would not react out of emotion and I preached to myself as Camron went on to say all the sweetest things about his adoration for me that I couldn’t hear.
My resounding fear of being abandoned really cripples me outside of the grace of Jesus. I am faced with this reality more often than I would prefer. Yesterday I felt rejected and helpless, even though my sweet boyfriend was speaking and had spoken so many truths about how deeply he cares for me during our four-hour drive home from Houston. One sentence and I am spiraling into defense mode. It’s ridiculous when you look at it through the lenses of sanity and rationality, both of which I cannot find in my quiet moment of fear.
Brittney pointed out that by comparison there is always going to be someone better than me in any decided area - so many girls who are prettier than me, funnier than me, more Godly, less crazy. Comparison would be the death of me. So, it is pointless for me to find any worth in trying to the best at anything. I already know I am not the best at anything or otherwise I would have competed in this year’s Winter Olympics - a dream I have not fully given up on. This leaves me once again at the feet of Jesus frantically searching for my definition, knowing that I am quite unable to prove myself. I am left looking to the one who created me to tell me that I am enough. Wanted. Loved. Safe. That He is not going to give up on me. I need to be reminded. It is the most beautiful way that I experience the grace of God.
Scripture pours into the cracks of my anxious heart and comforts me in ways that my own words, Brittney’s words, Camron’s words cannot. An Almighty God lifts my face and speaks directly to ME. To his most prodigal and loved daughter. The same daughter who is constantly looking away, running ahead, persistently digging cisterns that can hold no water. He looks directly into my imperfect soul and speaks infinite worth over me to which no one and nothing can compare.
Somehow, this gives me the ability to breathe again. To be able to rest in Jesus and therefore be able to hear what Camron actually said, which is that he likes me. This matters to me and heals me all over again. Because of Jesus, despite my very wobbly and sub-par performance on most days – I am liked and chosen by God, whose opinion of me enables me to be everything I am. I am free to be funny and spontaneous and horrible with details and deeply crazy. It releases me from the constraints of comparison because at the end of the day, I am already so fully loved and filled by the one whose adoration determines my eternity and gives meaning and purpose to my life on earth.
Once again, my dependence and allegiance set fully on my first love. I wonder how many times I will get to re-learn this lesson? How thankful I am for a God who is patient and willing to tell me over and over and over again, that I AM HIS.
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