When I’m with You
I’ve written here about how I listen to a CD. It is on repeat until most of the songs are memorized. When I get tired of the CD, or get a new one, I simply put the old away and move along. When I pull the old out again, memories of the time period I first listened come with it. I have had startling memories come to light as I re-listen to old CDs. I can remember feelings, certain roads, thoughts and other specifics when certain songs come on. I have been enlightened at times to “go back” and visit old memories through song and can then insert those experiences into my life narrative. That happened this week with the album from Citizen Way called 2.0. I like the whole album.
The last time I really listened to this album on repeat was in 2017. I was having tremendous difficulty in a family relationship to the point we agreed to professional counseling. On the drive down to the counseling session, this album was playing loud and the majority of the songs are upbeat, with lots of scriptural truth throughout. At the time, I didn’t know this would be our final appointment. I didn’t know we would leave that parking lot torn asunder with our hearts far from one another. I thought this would be another stepping stone toward healing, understanding and reconciliation. There are several songs on the album that prepared me for the encounter, and then a couple to help me afterward. That’s what this one is.
These counseling sessions were hard for me to attend. I heard a person I knew and loved make a lot of assumptions and accusations about me to someone else I didn’t even know. I felt small, weak, misunderstood and unloved. And yet, while the emotions were a lot, I knew I wasn’t alone, and that none of what was being said was the final say. Looking back, I can acknowledge that this person was dealing with their own problems, and as often is the case with family, there were no new techniques for dealing with the same old problems. I’ve noticed that families tend to travel the same rutted roads of strife out of habit, rather than looking for truth and creative, redemptive ways to connect or reconnect with one another. In this final session, I was painted into a corner and then mocked for being there. It was an incredibly difficult and humiliating experience.
Fast-forward to present-day. I had a dream last week and the dream was all about being humiliated. People laughing, pointing, and rejoicing in my shame, discomfort, and humiliation. I woke up with my face hot from embarrassment. And I was given a key. The rotten experiences I have been walking through the past few years all have humiliation at the heart of them. This makes me super sensitive to shame and humiliation when I am around people. Rather than entering each human encounter with my shame-meter at 1, on a scale from 1-10, my shame-meter is stuck at 6 or 7, simply because of the cumulative effect of past experiences. This makes me easily shamed, and I can’t handle simple slip-ups easily, because I am already well on my way to being embarrassed. This is nothing I can fix alone. It is enough that I have seen it. Now, I can turn this key over to my Father and Friend, and allow Him to work His healing in this place.
One of the specific ways I have felt ashamed of who I am is by being too much. I’m too much for many other people to handle because of how I am made. This is ultimately not my problem, but I have been shamed and humiliated by others when they point out my various giftings, talents, capacity or traits like these are defective and terrible qualities. Of course, I’m also responsible for my sin and how I fail in conducting myself as a brand new creation, and this sin further complicates assessments of me. I believe this is why it’s imperative that we learn how to love one another as God loves us. Love is the redemptive force of being able to treat one another as recreated, brand-new, learning-as-we-go travelers. We are on this journey together, and we have been given love as a tool and (may I suggest) weapon to cast out fear and overlook a multitude of sins and offenses. In love, we choose to see the best in one another while praying for the rest.
This song played in the car on Monday, and I had to listen to it again, because of the one line: “I’m never too much for You to take.” This line touched my shame-meter, and I could feel it shrinking a bit. I trust over time that this sense of shame will diminish to no longer be an ongoing problem in my interactions with others. My shame-meter will sit at a 1, and I will have time and cushion before I reach severe humiliation and embarrassment at level 10. I know I will likely remember the sensitivity, but I won’t have to react in the same ways. My mind is being renewed to conform to the mind of Christ. There’s only love and grace when I’m with Him. And I want to take the love and grace to others, no matter where they are. I don’t want anyone to think they’ve got to clean themselves up when we interact. I just want them to be who they are, because that’s who I want to be. And if they’re too much for me in the moment, I can rest knowing that I have a Friend who can help me carry the extra. He certainly carries my extra.
I’m not afraid. I’m not ashamed. I’m safe when I am with You.