Listen to the blog:
I am in the middle of one of those conversations today.
The kind that starts without much effort. He is sharing openly, his fears and frustrations. I am tracking and we have known each other for years.
Then he says something that just doesn’t align with his values. I know it when I hear it. And the topic is one we have covered many times. I want to challenge it. I want to ask; how does this align with your faith?
But I am simultaneously calculating his level of frustration at this moment and the experiential landing of any well-intentioned pushback. I find myself consciously making the choice. I choose to appease and keep the peace. I reflect back what he’s saying, acknowledge his frustration and fear, and leave out the harder truth:
But you know that God is in this.
You are letting fear keep you from doing what is the right thing.
That is what I really want to say.
I can tell that my actual reflection hit the right chord as he is nodding his head. He feels heard. But I also sense he feels validated. I maintained the relational connection, but did I just choose to take the easy road?
I leave feeling uneasy. I’ve been doing this a lot lately if I think about it. I’m saying things that are not untrue, but I am choosing positions to keep the peace, taking personal responsibility for my response rather than standing my ground on relational injury, and focusing on the good so other people feel encouraged, even if it hurts me or doesn’t really help them in the moment.
The worst part is I know I’m doing it. I am choosing it. Lately even if someone hurts my feelings, I find myself taking the responsibility off them and apologizing for how I feel or how I responded.
It does keep the peace. But what am I losing? What is the cost?
I vacillate between life is short, why not just ignore the slights, the offense, the differing opinions if it keeps the connection intact, and the alternate view that the connection is no longer real, safe, or built on mutual trust if I can’t just speak my mind and heart.
When I choose harmony, I am deciding for myself and the other person.
Am I really helping? Is this really giving me any more control? It just feels like a different kind of work and exhaustion. I do want to maintain strong relationships and I am using the excuse that I can only control me.
But is that really the only option?
It’s complicated, I tell myself.
I can turn the narrative in my own mind until I can make almost anything feel justified. I’m very good at that. I can line up my need to stay in control with my what-is-mentally-healthy mode and my what-does-the-Bible-say mode and use them interchangeably to support whichever choice I already want to make.
I know the mental health world tells us we need self-care and boundaries and the ability to assert ourselves, so we don’t lose ourselves. Say what you think regardless how it lands…it is the truth, right?
And I know the Christian world tells us to give, forgive, sacrifice, and love regardless of what is happening on the other end of the relationship. Show grace. Suck it up.
And I live in the tension between those things.
I am trying to follow Christ, but I don’t feel healthy, so I must not be doing it right. The world says, you can’t give up self, sacrifice who you are, and live comfortably. But I am pretty sure that just living for oneself results in loneliness, isolation, and the opposite of community.
Everything in moderation comes to mind. But I don’t think that is what Jesus did. Or what the Bible suggests. It is pretty all or nothing.
Pray without ceasing. No moderation here.
Forgive seventy times seven.
Submit to your husband. Always. Not when you want to do what he wants anyway.
Well, at least there is the Sabbath, one-seventh of our lives devoted to self-care.
Lately, life is hard. Not terminal illness difficult, just hecticness-of-life stress. Business adjustments required to grow, family growing and pulling your heart in different directions, relationships strained, health impacts as I age, and the everyday maintenance of life stuff.
I am not a coast-through-life-and-this-too-shall-pass kind of person. I am in a constant pursuit of growth, development, peace, and purpose. I try to figure things out. Right now, I am trying to figure out all the pieces of my life puzzle. As I lean in to do this, I struggle with the approach because this “loop” keeps playing in my mind.
I need to do this in our business because it is the right business decision. But is it loving your neighbor as yourself? But I need to be a good steward. Yeah, but you must also take care of yourself. You can’t constantly absorb everyone else’s issues. I know, I am not completely in control. God is the only one in control. If people would just do what I am saying, things would change for the better.
The cycle continues.
I am tired of carrying what isn’t mine. No one is making me. I am wearing the martyr t-shirt. And I know it is knitted together with fear.
If I surrender, will I completely lose control? The answer is easily yes. But then I also know that God is in control and that should be enough to trust in the outcome. I need to surrender to the truth. What is really on my heart to say or do?
I am calculating the math on both sides right now. If I say this or do that, the responses could be x, y, or z. Which one can I live with? So, I adjust my truth to preserve the outcome I am hoping for. That doesn’t mean lying. But sometimes I don’t say everything I think or everything I really want to say.
That is where the exhaustion is hiding. Not in loving people. Not in forgiving them. Not even in sacrificing for others. The exhaustion is in trying to love, forgive, sacrifice, preserve the relationship, manage the other person’s reaction, protect my own heart, obey God, maintain peace, and still somehow hold onto the illusion that I am not controlling any of it.
But I am.
I am trying to control the outcome by managing the truth. And maybe that is not surrender at all.
Maybe surrender is not silence. Maybe surrender is not appeasing. Maybe surrender is not carrying everyone else’s feelings, so they never have to feel uncomfortable.
Maybe surrender is just saying my truth, all of it, in a loving, Jesus-like way, and not trying to control the outcome.
Ughh. I hate the thought of that.
I know I am not really in control anyway. And I get that when I try to take control, I am taking it from God. I may not like the outcome because there are other humans involved on the other end. But I do tell everyone else that God will take care of us whatever the outcome.
I do believe that, right?
And if I do, the one direction that most takes care of my mental health, relinquishes the exhausting notion of control, and honors my faith, is to just speak the full truth.
Speak the full truth period.
The rest isn’t up to me.
