Words

Sticks and stones and things.

I'd prefer a beating by them. Because, as it turns out, I'm not like how "they" say. Not on this one.

Words can hurt me. And I'd take a broken bone over a broken spirit any day.

I guess I can't really say that-- I don't have any experience with split limbs. My heart splits, though. Along a fault that sinks deeper each time it's tested by the slightest jilt.

At least broken bones give reason to cry.

A bruised spirit? Well, that's just the stuff of emotional issues. Suck it up.

That's at least what I kept telling myself over and over again as I sobbed as quietly as possible. The car had been a refuge for an hour or so, but I was running gas down to supply heat. Without it, I was cold. Physically, yes. I looked up at the trees, then at the imperfect mortar of the retaining wall in front of me, then back at the pile of laundry still occupying the too-oft unoccupied passenger seats. Everywhere I looked there was something to remind me of just how terrible I am. I know that sounds like an exaggeration. I know it's not healthy or constructive. I know because there is nothing in my life that should make me want or need to hit my steering wheel with that much fervor. But I did. Repeatedly. I was cold.

The warm bath and the deep breaths helped. Maybe I just needed to sleep.

Doesn't it always happen that the one night you just want so badly to fall into a world where these thoughts of "I'm not good enough" "Why am I here" and "Will I ever experience the love and fulfillment that Jesus promises" slip into mute is the same night that, for multiple reasons you just can't do it?

It's no one's fault. The girls outside my door have no idea what I'm thinking, how hopeless that moment seems. It's not their fault that I don't know how to explain these times, or that I feel they wouldn't understand. It isn't the fault of the bustle outside of the window, within my sight and earshot. Not their fault that I want to drown out inadequacy at 9:30 p.m. It might be the fault of the coffee enjoyed in the company of others throughout the day-- but I can hardly begrudge those times. It's not even the cats fault for landing on my face once I finally, finally drift away from a hurt, momentary reality.

Lonely. Surrounded by so many good things, good people. But alone. Feeling like a spoiled brat for thinking the age-old selfish excuse for retreat: no one gets me. Crying for being a spoiled brat. Crying as I tell God I'd do anything to be in a place where I'm crying for something so much bigger, so much more worthy of my emotion than myself or the pitiful problems that torment my heart so. Sobbing because I started off the day with compliments and acclaim for standing up in front of the church and speaking out my convictions. Tears for the stories I encounter within the youth group, for the desperation I feel to help. Sobbing because I ended the day feeling stupid for the same convictions I spoke with confidence on stage. Frustrated because everything in me wanted to just go home and hole up and wait for disappointment to be over. Even more frustrated because I know how unrealistic and unfulfilling that scenario would be. Blowing my nose as quietly as possible as I read the words I wrote to God 4 years ago with the street light that managed to cut through the tiny opening in the blinds. Mourning the progress I've not made and struggling to see the difference God has made. Scared about what's next-- if in my comfort I feel such unease, what will come of harder situations?

Hurting, once more, because I can't be all things to all people and life continues to go on proving that even after I tell myself time and time again that I get it-- that I won't let the fault run deeper the next time reality comes with jolting force over my clearly fragile heart.

The rain fell so appropriately, as if on cue, making my tears feel a little more like they had some sort of place. Grace. Not a theological trapping or impersonal topic of debate. For me. A moment when my thoughts, my feelings don't have to be rational. They can just be. Where honesty can be the best policy because where I'm wrong He won't think less of me or have less of a purpose for having created me. In the desperation, dramatic as it may be, God gives me the time of day (night) that I refuse to offer Him time and time again.

Songs kept coming to mind that I felt compelled to sing in a whisper. Behind stinging eyelids, with bars marked by sniffles I sang. Bring me joy bring me peace bring the chance to be free bring me anything that brings you glory I know there'll be days when this life brings me pain but if that's what it takes to praise you, Jesus bring the rain. All to Jesus I surrender, all to him I freely give, I will ever love and trust him in his presence daily live. This is the air I breathe, this is the air I breathe, your holy presence living in me. This is my daily bread, this is my daily bread, your very word spoken to me, and I am desperate for you and I am lost without you.

Whoever "they" are must know that words hurt. Why else would they have come up with a catchy slogan to try an convince people that they don't?

I let myself feel like the earth is separating from under me and proceed to fill that space with sadness, bitterness, anger, worthlessness, laziness, and inadequacy. There is never enough to fill. As I muster up these feelings from a life that is relatively free of these things any other day, I realize how desperate I'd become to find a negative response, a selfish confidence to fill that gap. My desperation only deepens as I over and over find confirmation that I will never get myself from the imperfection I daily live to the ideal world I believe to be possible.

When I get to that point, the tears stop, the tissue gets lost in the sheets, I can pull my blotchy, sweaty face out from under the pillow. It doesn't rest on me. My means of taking every hurtful feeling and stomping it under my feet, hoping it will create a steady enough foothold upon which to cross back over to fun, fulfillment, and wholeness is lacking and skewed. Even my best intentions, my purest dreams cannot excuse the horrifying lie I buy into as I relentlessly try to use my own brokenness as a stepping stone to the perfection I so ache to be a part of.

I brushed my fingertips over the puddles created by my innocent desire to get away from all of this. I can't, God, I just can't. You want me to be a good friend, a good steward, an effective communicator, a precious influence, a noble thinker, a generous giver. And I just can't. The tears pool.

Can't, can't, can't. Words I pour like mortar into the crevasse between who I am and who I want to be-- the one formed by my own weakness and exposed yet again by my vulnerability.

No, Sadie, you can't.

Words. The ones I hear in the deep solitude of my bed at 1 a.m.

Still there, still awake, still no mute button for the "I'm not good enough" "Why am I here" and "Will I ever experience the love and fulfillment that Jesus promises." Just a choice to make. Listen to His words or mine.

Four hours of throwing my own around like sticks and stones into the deep dark abyss so long formed by the sin that fills my every day just wasn't working. My words to myself were hurting.

His are chosen much more delicately. He doesn't just throw them around carelessly like sticks, hoping one of them might eventually just sound right so I could get to sleep already.

It's important to choose the words I use carefully. I am learning that along the journey. If I'm going to be so affected by them, I have got to use caution in which ones I'm putting out there.

It is also important to choose the words I listen to carefully. I'm going to hear a lot of them, and I have only a limited capacity to control that. Even the words I use with myself will some nights provide turmoil enough to land me in the bed looking out over the threshold of the UMW apartments, watching as the rain spills off of the roof, wondering what on Earth God is doing to bring His kingdom through me. And, for that matter, why on Earth is He even trying? I'll hear those words but I don't have to listen.

When I was six I chose to believe God, that he sent his Son to save me and that Jesus lives to offer me a way to that perfection I so crave and will not find on this Earth. I must also choose to believe that God did that for me not because my weak, vulnerable self is worthy of hearing but because He is worthy to be heard.

⁷ Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.⁸ Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. ⁹Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. ¹⁰ Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.

(James 4:7-10)

Sometimes it's just time to cry. Not for believing the selfish, stupid words my mind tends to muster up when I am hurt or upset, but in believing God when He says in His word that I should feel unsatisfied by myself and the people around me-- believe God when He says I might just need to sing songs born of lament, still in praise to Him, as a prelude to the songs of righteousness he wants to place in my heart. Songs of reverence to the one who lifts the girl up, out of the devastating crack in her own heart-- the one she foolishly felt she could step over using words of self-loathing and bitterness.

By morning, I am happy to be acquainted once more with the inadequacy I should be ever mindful of, if only as a reference point for His holiness.

I listen to words regarding the latter, even if they aren't the only ones I hear. They are the only words I can rest assured are not empty. And in a world of emptiness, from the depths of the crevasse along the fault line that life impresses on sensitive hearts, wholeness--holiness-- looks good.

God is good.

⁶ Seek the LORD while he may be found;

call on him while he is near.

⁷ Let the wicked forsake their ways

and the unrighteous their thoughts.

Let them turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on them,

and to our God, for he will freely pardon.

⁸ “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

neither are your ways my ways,”

declares the LORD.

⁹ “As the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts.

¹⁰ As the rain and the snow

come down from heaven,

and do not return to it

without watering the earth

and making it bud and flourish,

so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,

¹¹ so is my word that goes out from my mouth:

It will not return to me empty,

but will accomplish what I desire

and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

¹² You will go out in joy

and be led forth in peace;

the mountains and hills

will burst into song before you,

and all the trees of the field

will clap their hands.

¹³ Instead of the thornbush will grow the juniper,

and instead of briers the myrtle will grow.

This will be for the LORD’s renown,

for an everlasting sign, that will endure forever.”

(Isaiah 55: 6-13)