The thing about life in time is that it doesn't wait for you to get your crap together...it just keeps happening. When the soul is hurting the body must still continue doing what it does like work, school, and getting out of bed. Otherwise, the weight of the world will crush your soul even more and you will find the problems only increasing when you try to demand that life in time stop just for you. It will not stop unless God makes the sun stand still for you. He has done it once, but I wouldn't count on that being a normal thing haha.
Soul care happens while life continues the way it does. Perhaps we might have the chance to let go of some things to make more space for caring for the soul, but for the most part we suffer daily on the inside and it happens while we need to work, eat a taco, go to the bathroom or sit in a class. It's like laughing and crying at the same time.
I feel like I could cry right now, but I know my body needs rest in order to wake up and go to class tomorrow. I wish I could press pause and collect myself and sort through my thoughts--make it all tidy and organized inside so that outside will also be good...but it's not going to happen. I'm going to have a lot of mess inside, and that's been hard to face. I like things clean and organized otherwise I consider it "bad," but the gospel is that we are simultaneously bad and good--sinner and saved.
So I am bad, but I'm also good. However, I tend to operate more from being bad rather than from being good. I end up trying to prove myself, fix myself, or figure myself out rather than believing that I am good enough. The shame in me, that tells me I am bad, is what makes me so afraid to take risks and feel okay inside. I don't want to be bad, I want to be good. I want to believe that I am good and that there is nothing I need to do to earn or maintain it. I want to be free in the blood shed for me by the Son. But I'm still operating from my shame. I still feel how bad I am, and though that helps disengage me from judging others, it puts me in a tar pit by myself.
I feel it in the smallest moments. When I fail at doing something well I am shamed, when I sing badly I am shamed, when I quit something I am shamed, when I gain weight or have a pimple I am shamed, when I get a bad grade I am shamed, when I make a mistake or offend someone I am shamed....and the shame is painful. It's not just what I've done but it's who I am. Otherwise why would it affect me so much unless it hit the very core part of me...the most vulnerable part of me is the real me. If the real me is bad then that is painful.
But the real me is also good, and it's been hard to grasp that. I know the gospel in my head, but it penetrates my heart like small pin pricks. Shame is in my heart and it hinders me from receiving the love I so badly want and need. It's hard to actively believe that I am good enough to be loved as I am when I feel that I am not good.
So I've been seeking out more truth, and things appear to get worse before they get better...and I doubt if what I'm doing is actually working. Then I realize that the best I can do is only what I know to be the best I can do. I am doing the best I can. I cannot do any better than my best. So, I continue....and I notice moments of change. Small moments, but big in my context. I'm more brave, more loving, and slightly freer. Those gospel pin pricks are like moments of search and rescue for my lost and hurting soul.
It's painful. Pain, pain, pain. But one moment of real love makes it all worth it.
To be loved as me. The real me.
More and more I believe in being honest and speaking the truth in love. Be honest and speak the truth in love. For me that has been revealing my shame (the things about me that I am not proud of), being vulnerable, and getting hurt in the process.
But if the real you is loved it is worth it to go through all that pain.
The gospel is that the real you is loved.
Believe it and walk in it.
Jmegrey
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