disappointment//determination and finding wholeness in grace

Lately I've been noticing the small things.  And each noticing has led me to this simple thought: God cares about me.

Matthew 6:26 "Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not of more value than they?"

I love this verse.  It reminds me, in my own smallness and often pervasive feelings of unworthiness, that God sees me and cares for me.

It is not as if I operate under an ideology or a theology that says God doesn't care for me, but that is often just the message that my feelings inform me of.  I am not worthy to be cared about, by anyone.

Why is that?

Well, a year of mandated therapy (for a masters program in counseling psychology) as well as 8+ years of spiritual direction have led me to more than a few reasons and origin stories that answer the question as to why.  And having walked down those paths a time or two, I have been able to move past some significant roadblocks and ascend a spiral staircases or too (more on that later).

But still, sometimes, something happens and the feelings they creep up rather cunningly and I am left with the feeling of once again being a disappointment and feeling utterly unworthy of anyone and anything.

Part of it is my normal.  It is almost my own way of being...to live in "unworthy", accepting the idea of being a perpetual disappointment and perpetually disappointed.


As I am a people please-r to the core.  I want (for the most part) people to feel happy with me.  And when I get that isn't what's happening, my automatic default is: "What have I done?!?!"

Reality would most likely point to nothing.  However, my own false self and her grand ideas would say, "you most certainly have.  It is all your fault that he/she is not happy.  How dare you?!"

And so, I struggle with defining the reality of the situation.  It is hard to understand how much responsibility I hold and how much weight should be placed on that responsibility.

Lately it seems I am on a great track of disappointing people and they have let me know in subtle ways.  And in truth, the greater issue has been not knowing how to remedy their disappointments, because I feel unable to appease them or give them what they need.  Which then leaves me with wondering whether I am at fault for not being enough for them, or if it is their demands that leave us at this impasse.

Regardless of the answer, I found myself spiraling down deep into an ocean of desperately disappointing.  And I couldn't breathe.  And I couldn't see straight.  And I had to reach out and admit that I couldn't swim to shore on my own. I would drown if I hadn't cried out.

And that is where the light often breaks through.  When I realize I cannot make sense of the mess on my own, I cried out.  I stopped trying to fix and please and repair and appease and instead I simply whispered in defeat, "I can't."

"I am so, so sorry, but I can't."

And worse yet, that "I can't" was followed with the unknown of why.  There is no explanation to offer.  And trust me, I need an explanation, even if you don't.

But I cannot explain.  I have to sit with and in the truth that I may be an utter disappointment to myself and to you and perhaps to a myriad of other people.  And the admission that I cannot fix it, any of it, it is when I think I am at my worst that grace invades the space that I am in.

All because of GRACE, I find my way.

All because of GRACE, I move toward wholeness.

All because of GRACE, I can move out of the disappointment, beyond the unworthiness, and determinedly toward healing.

Grace, this majestic and wondrous gift.  Grace, a gift I do not often marvel at nor appreciate. And yet it is worthy of endless contemplation and adoration.

Grace allows me to receive criticism without it defining me.

Grace makes it safe for me to longer hide when feelings of unworthiness pervade.  Grace speaks worthiness over me.

It is easy to hurt others or ourselves when we don't let grace do its work.

To Him, the Grace Giver,  I am worthy and I am whole and I am seen and I am loved.

As I grasp His hand and let go of my need to control and be controlled by the negative, I walk toward a life that is increasingly free from the need to please and ever filled with the kindness of His grace.