What if I am worth hating?
When my racing thoughts stop and the productivity and acclaim and noise quiets down, my deepest fear surfaces: what if I am worth hating?
For a long time I didn’t answer that question because I feared the reply.
I lived in a shut-off, tamped-down, disengagement. A low grade depression. A low grade life.
I grew up believing that God’s grace was enough, is enough, and should always be enough. But I wasn’t happy. There was no sense of fulfillment, peace, or “enough” in my life. I thought that made me a bad Christian. I had accepted Jesus into my heart, my sins were forgiven, I was supposed to be happy. I should have been happy. I believed Christians had a duty—a responsibility—to be joyful. Christians had the hope of heaven and the relief of forgiveness, a built in best friend and Savior. Non-Christians had Darwin and Nietzsche, chaos and meaninglessness. I had no idea how they even got up in the morning.
But instead of joy and security I lived in depression and guilt.
When I was little, I was not only a rule follower, I made up my own elaborate rules. There was a right way to do everything from the order I ate my food (from least favorite to favorite, vegetables first) to the right way to be a Christian. I thought God wanted me to do everything perfectly and was constantly afraid of failure. I repeatedly missed my own mark, failed to measure up to rules of my own design.
I carried this into adulthood.
I burdened myself with unrealistic rules and expectations to the point that fear of failure paralyzed me. Then I’d feel guilty. Then I’d feel guilty about feeling guilty. You get the idea.
I wrote last week about the transformative power of asking the flipside to my life’s haunting question. What if I asked not if I’m worth hating, but if I’m worth loving?
When I began to live my life as a Yes to the second question, everything changed.
I began to love myself. I began to believe that God might love me.
I found the true meaning of mercy: a compassion that forbears punishment even when justice demands it. Even when justice demands it.
I found a God that loves me even when I deserve punishment and smiting and consequences.
In my weaker moments, that question still haunts me. Am I worth hating?
But I’ve found that it no longer matters what that answer is. That answer is not the reality of who I am.
Regardless of where I’ve failed, God invites me into a new reality of love and being loved and loving others.
The answer no longer matters because I know that I am loved, even when I am worth hating.
Un Regalo Para Mi
A Guatemalan Fit of Unwarranted Compassion
Okay, okay, I've gotten some feedback that the term "Fits of Unwarranted Compassion" is confusing. Am I talking about my own compassion towards others or God's compassion toward me? And if I am talking about God's compassion, doesn't the word "fit" seem a bit too sporadic and haphazard to describe something as constant and pervasive as God's compassion? Well, the answer to all of those questions is yes. Yes, these Fits of Unwarranted Compassion describe unexplainable feelings of compassion I've felt for other people. Yes, they describe God's compassion towards me. And, yes, the term "fit" is too careless a word to attribute to God's compassion.
The fits describe my own view of God's compassion, at first. In the midst of anger and despair I started experiencing this beauty and this meaning and this purpose and this joy that I couldn't explain and felt I didn't deserve. I eventually came to call them (because I love to title my life) Fits of Unwarranted Compassion. For a long time I viewed them as unpredictable bursts, fireflies of meaning in my otherwise dark night of the soul--fits. I didn't see them as connected. I didn't even see them as God. The fits more accurately describe my own fitful recognitions of God's hand at work.
I guess the only way to explain it is to describe one to you. I'm going to tell you about a more recent event in my life, when I'd already identified these fits as God's love. But I'm hoping it will help explain what I mean by these fits and why I am so profoundly grateful for them.
This summer I had the chance to lead a mission trip to Guatemala with a group of college students from Point Loma Nazarene University. Guatemala has long been a place I have wanted to spend time in--either visiting or living there long term. For a million reasons, this trip was a gift from God. For now, I'll share just one of these reasons.
I work as a grant writer for a great organization where production and polished writing and attention to detail means not only personal satisfaction but critical funds for our programs.
As much as I love my job and the people I work to support, I needed a break. And God knew that.
He literally handed me this trip on a silver platter, forcing me to take the breather I so desperately needed but never would have taken had I not been offered this trip.
And breathe I did.
For five weeks I turned into an inarticulate, Spanish mumbling, VBS kid song humming fool.
And it was wonderful.
There was nothing to produce. Nothing to polish. My thoughts and ideas could remain unfinished, unexpressed, unanalyzed, and unclassified.
There was no grant to be proofed and no blog to be wrapped up nicely. No catchy punchlines or taglines. No persuasive arguments or marketing campaigns.
No to-do lists. No feelings of being behind or inadequate.
Five weeks of simply soaking it all in.
And it was glorious.
It may sound selfish, but I believe God knew exactly what he was doing. I came back from that trip with new vision and hope and excitement for my job, my relationships, and the ways God is living and moving and breathing in me even when I can't explain it.
One of my favorite quotes from Henri Nouwen (sheesh, three Henri mentions and this blog is only a week old!) says, "If we lack the strength to carry the burden of our own lives, we cannot accept the burden of our neighbors."
I believe that is true with all my heart. When I'm overwhelmed with work or questioning my relationships or obsessing about how good I look in a bathing suit, there's no way I can reach out to others. When I can't even get a handle on prioritizing a to-do list, how am I supposed to care for others and carry them?
It is experiences like these that I call Fits of Unwarranted Compassion. And all I can say is gracias.
I Love Lucy to I Love Aly
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Today, July 28th, would have been my grandmother's 85th birthday. When I was little I was convinced my grandmother and I were identical twins. Never mind the 60-year age difference, Nini was my soul twin and sister. Miraculously, we loved all of the same things—her homemade spaghetti and meatballs, reruns of I Love Lucy, bedtime stories like Make Way for Ducklings, and rummy tournaments that lasted over a decade. She also had a keen interest in my gymnastics practices, the third grade spelling bee, and any boy I had a crush on from elementary school through high school.
It wasn’t until she passed away that I discovered the secret behind our enduring bond: her love for me.
Turns out we didn’t just so happen to love exactly the same things. She made my interests her own. She made my trials and letdowns her own. She made my excitement her own. Now she may have been more apt to enjoy an I Love Lucy episode with me than a Power Rangers episode with my brothers, but I highly doubt she had an unbiased interest in the Agatha Christie novels I would recount to her in murderous detail or how a velvet leotard did not provide the same amount of cooling power as a Lycra one during a four hour gymnastics practice in a gym with only a declining swamp cooler to combat the sweltering heat. Always my biggest fan and partner in crime, Nini actively looked for ways to connect with me, to value me, to listen to me, and to encourage me. She made me feel loved and valuable no matter what.
Whenever I read Compassion by Henri Nouwen (which is about once a year), I am reminded more and more of Nini. Nouwen says, “When we have discovered that our sense of self does not depend on our differences and that our self-esteem is based on a love much deeper than the praise that can be acquired by unusual performances, we can see our unique talents as gifts for others.”
My grandma’s unconditional love gave me a sense of self and confidence that helped me see myself as a gifted and valuable person. Not to espouse selfishness, egocentrism or self-addiction, but I am becoming increasingly convinced that the key to loving others starts with loving myself or at least starting to believe that maybe, just maybe, there is something lovable and redeemable about me. Why else would Jesus command that we love others as ourselves? What reason would I have to believe that others have gifts and talents to offer the world if I don’t believe that I have anything to offer?
We all have a natural aptitude for selfishness, that’s not the issue. Self-centeredness has nothing to do with truly loving yourself and everything to do with seeking to fill the gaps in us that ache for love and acceptance. One of Nouwen’s antidotes to selfishness while interacting with others is to “Pay attention in a way that they begin to recognize their own value.” Perhaps we could apply this advice to ourselves as well. What if we paid attention to ourselves in a way that allows us to recognize our own value? And what if this belief in our own value spurred us to value others, to serve others, to encourage others? When we believe we are loved and valued, we can shift our focus from seeking attention to seeking to love.
Happy Birthday to the woman who paid attention to in a way that I began to recognize my own value.