The Wound of Love

C. S. Lewis wrote:

To love at all is to be vulnerable.  Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken.  If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal.  Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements.  Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.  But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change.  It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.  To love is to be vulnerable.

There is a certain wound that is created when you find yourself in the place of saying goodbye to something or someone you love sooner than you expected.  This happened to our family this week as we said goodbye to our nine year old puppy, Shelby.  

In looking back it seems like it should be odd that it was unexpected.  We had been struggling with weight loss and had many more vet visits in the last 6 months than she had since she was a puppy.  Somehow though as you are actively working on issues, it seems you can lose sight of the extent of the change going on.  You get absorbed in the details of managing the problems caused by the illness and miss seeing the bigger picture.  

Suddenly, something happens to change your perspective and you can look back and see how so many things tie together.  For me, I think that has happened in the last 24 hours.  

All of the sudden the reality of what we have been living in as a family, while trying to walk through the experience we did not fully comprehend we were going through, made various reactions both my husband and myself have experienced over the past couple of weeks find perspective.  

I often times struggle with what to make of the drama that can be Facebook.  In the middle of our sick puppy struggles, I actually found myself doing that again, but somehow now on the other side of things I get some clarity as to why certain things triggered emotions.

My husband happens to be extremely logical.  There isn't really a lot of emotion tied to most of what he says or does.  He saves the emotion for the more important things: me, our daughter, our baby in waiting and our puppies are some of his top priorities for expressing emotion.  Fortunately for him, a Facebook status that gets attacked as insensitive has less impact then it does for me.  Last week one of my struggles in the middle of walking through this experience of declining health with our puppy, who would leave us too soon, was my husband experiencing some extremely emotional responses to a Facebook post.  Normally, I can shake it off and move on, but something about these responses have stayed with me even a week later.

I have realized as I have thought about it more how much we fail to stop and think before jumping in to give an opinion someone's observation.  To defend the fact that maybe the article we decided to share felt like a knife to someone else's chest because of what they were going through.  For me some of the comments left me feeling like my husband was being told that the one posting was hoping I would get cancer so he knew what it felt like.

Our reality...

We were dealing with the situation even if we weren't completely aware of it in the moment.  The pain associated with seeing the articles people thought of as inspiring were too real for us.  We were watching the energetic puppy we loved waste away.  We did not have the diagnosis of cancer so we were fighting something we did not even realize we were dealing with, but we were experiencing it very acutely.

And then came Wednesday, the day we had to say goodbye too soon to our once energetic, little Boston, Shelby.  The puppy, who prepared us for our just as energetic little girl, Myka.  Who loved to play tug-o-war, but also loved cuddling for naps and movies.  

It is amazing the capacity for love we have as humans.  I am completely convinced we never tap into it's full potential.  At times like this I think it is because of the gapping wounds that love leaves whenever we experience loss.  We then attempt to wrap our hearts carefully with things that just brush the surface and give us false feeling without ever really risking giving our love to something that could make us feel that deeply again.  We tap into others emotions through blog posts, magazine articles and even Facebook posts and think we have felt.

Wounds hurt, whether they are inflicted by others or whether they are experienced by loss.  

To love is to be vulnerable.  

As Lewis so beautifully put it:

Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken.

It is true.  Whether it is a dog or cat, a child, spouse, even a church family.  To love means to be vulnerable.  It means to open yourself up to the emotional rollercoaster that reminds us we are alive.  To love is to connect to God through another, whether that other is animal or human.  To love also means to open yourself up to a portion of the pain that God feels in his interactions with us.

To truly love in that way is to touch the heart of God.

Perception

Perception is a funny thing.  It's something that is formed in every one of us differently.  Our perception is formed by our life experiences, the wounds we've suffered, the joys we've felt and the grieving that has occurred in our lives.  

It's also seems to be one of the hardest things for us to accept about one another.   We so often want our experiences and life views to be the lens through which others see the world, but that is very seldom the case.  You see we weren't created in a factory.  We weren't all poured into a mold that sent us all out into the world exactly the same.  

We had different childhoods and different relationships that informed how we see the world.  They not only inform how we see the world, they impact how we experience it.  Actions that mean one thing to one person take on a totally different meaning for the person who has been wounded by similar actions.   Those relationships, actions and wounds mean that what can seem completely innocent to everyone else in the room can be the very thing that cuts the soul of one lonely individual.  

A little overwhelming though isn't it?  To think that at any given time, in any given place you could say the one thing that cuts to the heart of a person without even thinking about it or realizing it.  Because of perception a relationship could be forever altered by our words or actions....

Wow, that can be kind of a big thing if you think about it.  It can almost make one afraid to let any words come out at all....  

Now, step back a moment and really think about it.  

Our perception is formed by our life experiences, the wounds we've suffered, the joys we've felt and the grieving that has occurred in our lives.  

Perception is informed by our life experiences not just the wounds we suffer.  It is influenced by the joys we feel and not just our grieving.  If it takes all of these things to create perception in each of us, isn't it possible that we can change one another's perception?

Most definitely, the strongest example of changing perception that I can think of comes from Jesus when He speaks to the Samaritan Woman at the Well.  He changes her perception of what it is to thirst, He changes her perception of Him as a Jew and last, but definitely not least He changes her perception of herself.  He takes a woman who comes to the well to draw water during the hottest part of the day so she can avoid the ridicule and shame that being around others guaranteed and He had her running into the town square to tell those same people she had been avoiding about living water that didn't come from the well and not only that He had her owning her faults to every last one of them!  

I think the key to changing one another's perception starts with asking the simple question of why does the other person's perception need to change?  Are we just trying to get them to see things from our point of view?  Or do we genuinely see their need to have their perception changed so they see themselves as valued by God?  As being part of a community?  

For Jesus changing the perception of this Samaritan woman wasn't about making sure she saw what she was and what she had done.  It wasn't even about showing her who He was even though He did that.  It was about making God accessible to her.  Giving her the opportunity at relationship with Him.  In changing her perception He changed her world for the better!  

So again....  Perception is a funny thing.  It's something that is formed in every one of us differently.  Our perception is formed by our life experiences, the wounds we've suffered, the joys we've felt and the grieving that has occurred in our lives.  How will you change someone's perception this week?

Masks

Have you ever noticed how much people like to wear masks?  We never want to really let others see us for who we really are, so often even when we profess to want genuine and authentic relationships we bring our faithful masks along.  Of course we make sure they are the really cool ones.  The ones that are nearly indistinguishable from us because they contain key pieces of our emotional and spiritual DNA.  They are thin enough that most of the time we convince even ourselves that they are really us, but like any really good mask they hide who we are from everyone around us and sometimes they are even so successful they hide us from ourselves.  For however long we wear them we can convince ourselves that we really aren't as lonely, sad, depressed or isolated as we truly have become.

Masks become a way of life with most of us.  They are what we hide behind when people hurt us or disappoint us.  In fact the more people disappoint us and fail to respond to any gestures of genuine relationship we perfect our mask just a little bit more.  Protecting ourselves from hurt and rejection we secretly vow inside to never let anyone that close again.  

Tonight, I'm finding myself conflicted.  One part of me wants to continue to hide behind the mask, while the other part values the honest, but rather ugly truth.  The honest truth is 2014 hasn't been a very fun year for me.  I've felt rejected and abandoned on several fronts.  It feels like I've lived most of this year much more dependent on a long-suffering (and very awesome) husband than I would have liked with very few friends.  I think circumstances made it even worse since I started feeling the need to live behind masks again.  Never able to be myself with those around me.  Being me wasn't ok anymore.  I'd been genuine and open and the hurt that came along afterward wasn't worth it.  I wasn't ok, but it felt like everyone around me was wanting me to be ok.  They wanted a Tonya that wasn't hurt and crushed, but that's where I was so I pulled out my mask.

One of the bright spots in 2014 for me has been the introduction of a new counselor into my life.  God blessed me so much when he sent D into my life!  With her help and experience I'm learning that it's ok to not be ok with the way things are in my life right now.  I'm also learning to value the very small group of people that it's ok to just be Tonya with.  The small group of people that I can just take off the mask of politeness and say I'm not ok today.  The people who can talk me down when a panic attack starts.  

I'm finding that I'm happiest when I can stop the masquerade that is life outside of this support system because the truth is that I'm not made to live my life behind a mask.  God made me to reflect His glory and that glory has the ability to shine the brightest in my darkest moments.  In my darkest moments I've discovered that I can't hide behind the mask of false happiness anymore.  I've lost that mask somewhere in the last few months.  So I walk out of moments that make me double over in sorrow and loss and I go find a corner in which to mourn the loss of that piece of my life.  I've stopped trying to hold it together as much.  I've also noticed though that when you lose the mask it makes people uncomfortable.  They want to fix something that isn't in their ability to "fix".  My reality is I'm in a season of great loss and grieving, I'll make it through.  God promises in Psalms 23 that even when I walk through the death of a dream He's with me.  He doesn't make me go there alone.  Yes, He's with me, but he's also surrounded me with my tiny fellowship of friends who's strengths support my weaknesses.

So my truth and reality is I'm not ok right now, but I'm ok with that.  Every time that God adds another member to my fellowship of friends, He adds another piece to the puzzle that allows me to lose another mask.  And the adventure in that is my friends come from the most unlikely places!! 

Facing the Past

Recent conversations with a couple of friends combined with things I've found myself struggling with recently have made me think a lot about how our past affects us.  It's funny, but it seems like every time I start to think I've made progress in an area something happens that makes me think maybe not as much as I thought...  Maybe it's just God keeping me humble, but after managing for a few months with no issues from one I think maybe I had started to think I had it under control, which obviously meant God had to show me I'll never have it under control.  

I realize it's a lesson that will probably still have to be repeated occasionally, but I discovered something this time around that I hope I remember a little more quickly in the future.  To deal with wounds from the past the only way to heal is to continually give them over to a loving God.  Of course much like Frodo discovered after being stabbed by the Nazgul some wounds while they heal always leave reminders.  They bring with them certain reactions that are instictive because of the original pain they delivered.  We pull away from the pain that we expect. 

Of course even though we pull away almost instinctively we still have the final choice.  We can continue to pull away and react defensively or we can face our fears and insecurities and allow God to use others to help us deal with them.  I suppose that one thing that stood out to me as I personally faced some things and it was that maybe as a way of getting me ready for the next growing phase God had sent just the right people into my life to give me the reality checks I needed at the time I needed them.  People who weren't afraid to say slow down, hurry up, kick it in gear or even just wait. 

I think it brought me back in a full circle to something the last several months have been reinforcing.  Success in life really is about the relationships we make.  Not success in the "I made the Fortune 500 list" way, but success in that I accomplished things I never would or could have on my own and I did it because of the people who held me up when I was discouraged, encouraged me when I didn't see what God was doing and held out for the bigger picture they could see from their vantage point.