My heart needs a friend.
June 16, 2021 | Blogs | 3 Comments
“I am not who I want to be.”
The words slipped out of my mouth like an accident. An honest answer that came when I didn’t even know I was asking the question. I was just sitting at the kitchen table eating breakfast when suddenly I heard the words that came from my mouth that sounded as if there was a foreigner living inside of me.
But it was true and now I had to deal with the consequences of that truth. The truth is always better than the lie anyway. Lies wrap you up in a fake veneer of self that you can sell yourself when you look in the mirror but deep down you know it’s just fantasy. No fantasy today. No false reality. Just cold, harsh, winter truth.
I was not who I wanted to be. There was a person that I wanted to be and I was not that person. There was the person that I saw myself becoming in the future and I had failed to become that person. All that was left was me. The real me. And I didn’t like this real me. This real me was not as good as the other me, that future me that I had envisioned. This real me was still quite flawed and in progress and much more behind on the journey than that other guy who I was supposed to be. He was much less complete, far more broken, and not nearly as mature in thought or deed as that person I wanted to be. That was the truth. And the difference between who I wanted to be and who I am is where all the pain came from.
“I am.” Those two words spoken together are the most powerful words in the cosmos. Every time you say, “I am” you speak to your spirit. You speak to who you really are. You create, define and release identity every time you say it. The only words as important as “I am” are the words that follow it. So can you imagine what happens when you say, “I am” followed by “not who I want to be.” Something was deeply amiss in the state of my heart and my words had suddenly given it away. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. A spiritual stethoscope was needed. Was my heart out of rhythm? Were there blockages? Had my life source been contaminated? In that moment I did not know what it was but I knew something was wrong and I had a mystery to unravel.
It was time to do a spiritual heart check. The present moment had caught up to the perceived future reality and there was a disconnect between what I had wanted it to be and what it was. From that place I spoke words that alerted me something was wrong. Language articulates emotion. The words were the symptom that emanated from my heart, but what was the cause? What was hurting on the inside?
Disappointment. That’s what it was. But it was deep. The life-perspective kind of type. I had not felt this degree of disappointment in years.
When was the last time that happened? The memories flooded back to my mind. Flashback eleven years to my eighteenth birthday and I feel that same disappointment. This was the first time the present had caught up to the future way too fast and my heart was not ready.
I was eighteen years old and I was supposed to be celebrating, instead I was sad. I wasn’t ready to be eighteen. I didn’t feel ready. I didn’t feel mature. I didn’t have that self-assuredness that I thought an eighteen year old adult is supposed to have. I didn’t know where I was going and I didnt feel confident. Many of my peers had already been accepted into colleges and I was just trying to survive my science classes. I felt behind in life. And that is a very disappointing feeling when you want to feel ahead in life.
Perception is powerful. Our life runs in the direction of our eyes. Yet, what happens when we reach the destination that we have been running towards and find it to be not at all what we thought it was from far away? We come away with pain and sadness where we thought we would find joy and satisfaction. Expectation is the root of all heartache according to Shakespeare and I have found it to be true myself.
I see people through a prophetic lens. It’s as if the future is superimposed over the present and I don’t just see who people are but who they are becoming. I see where they are in life but also where they are going, sometimes even if they don’t see it themselves. This is also true of how I see myself. I know who I am but I also know who I am becoming. I am not in a stagnant state of being, I am journeying into another realm called the future. Deep down in my soul there is a longing to be more than I already am, to be transformed over time into the best possible version of myself.
So when I get to the future and I am not who I want to be, it hurts. It hurts because I failed. It hurts because it is the death of a dream. Dreams live in the future but they die in the present.
It hurts because I failed to live up to my own self-imposed performance based metric of personal success. And that was the problem.
In the months that followed the utterance of my dream-killing oracle I underwent much contemplation. I discovered that I harbored a deep inward resentment. I was at war with myself. The perceived perfect had failed to be achieved and I was left with just my imperfect self staring back at me in the mirror. I didn’t like that person.
That’s not very kind is it? You see, I was the judge but I was also holding myself on trial. I didn’t relate to myself as I would a friend.I am both the perpetrator and the judge and I swing my gavel in order to punish myself into conformity to the standard. No matter how painful or costly I want to give myself what I deserve. Yet, truth be told, that is not the best way to live with oneself.
You should treat yourself like someone you love. My heart is bent towards justice. I’m not prone to give mercy easily. If you break the rules you experience the consequences of your actions. This is righteous and holy and good. But what I have discovered is that it is difficult for me to give mercy to others because I almost never give mercy to myself. You can only give away what you already have. Because I am prone towards justice I rendered judgement against myself and my judgement was condemnation. What I have learned about condemnation is that you can’t punish yourself into being a good person. You can’t punish yourself into doing the right thing.
There is a better way of living and it’s called mercy. Instead of condemnation I should have given forgiveness. You see, the thing about mercy is you don’t deserve it. Mercy operates beyond the realm of justice and it’s a sweet, sweet gift to receive. Mercy changes you when you receive it.
As much as it is beautiful to render mercy instead of condemnation I realized there was a greater truth to be discovered.
Why was I the judge in the first place?
Judges deal with performance. Judges deal with what people do not with who people are. I had created in my heart a structure that was designed to receive love based on my own performance instead of who I was. I had subconsciously created a performanced based relationship with myself where my works were always at the forefront of how I saw myself which would always lead to a judgement of approval or disapproval based upon the perceived expected outcome.
What I should have given myself is the gift of acceptance. I should have accepted myself with all my flaws and shortcomings instead of comparing myself to a perceived version of myself that doesn’t even exist. I should have loved myself for who I am instead of what I had been doing. What if I refused to define myself by either my successes or failures and just loved me for me?
What if I freed myself from my own self-created prison of performance that necessitated a judge to keep me in line and I just treated myself like a good friend. You know, like the really good ones who love you just for who you are and not what you can do for them.
So that is what I have decided to do. I have abdicated my gavel and my seat as the judge of my life. I do not deserve that role. God is my judge and he will judge me. It is arrogance on my part to think I can do a better job than him. I trust him to render just verdicts upon me and I will yield to them. I yield my right to say, “I am not who I want to be” because I am who he made me to be and he loves who I am. With all my shortcomings and my failures and my sin he desperately loves me. So I will agree with him and love me for who I am and not based upon my own works or performance.
The words, “I am” are powerful and I speak to my spirit with the words that follow them.
I am… loved. That is the verdict. So because I am loved I will choose to love. I will love myself and others. In that order. I will receive love and I will give love. No longer will I be the judge of my own heart for my heart needs a friend. The beauty of this is I truly believe that from that place of friendship I will become who I want to be.