Religion is a Relationship

I just finished reading The Same Kind of Different as Me. I have to say that it took a while to get into the book and start enjoying it. But once I was hooked, I didn't want to put it down. That feeling was justified when I got to the last few pages of the story. There are very few books that have quotes in them that reach me. This particular story is told from two different points of view. One is a homeless black man and the other is a rich white man. Oddly enough, it was the homeless man's words and thoughts on life that affected me the most. If I have to have anyone's view of the world, I want it to be someone who loves and sees things for how they are. Not walking around with some skewed, uninformed version of the world. However, the main quote that stuck with me was one from the rich man, Ron, who the homeless man, Denver, helped to transform his views on life. Ron said that, "Christianity is not a religion, it's a relationship". I believe this to be very true. If you go through your religious life only following rules and not growing in your beliefs or in your time in God, I do not believe you are following God's plan for us. But I also believe that God wants more from us than a relationship with him. I believe he wants us to have a relationship with others that reflects him. In our development of relationships with other, we grow in ours with God. If we are to reach people who need to be saved from their lives, they are more willing to follow those people they trust. They need to know that it isn't a 'catch and release' sort of system with them. I believe that if we all focused on our relationships with everyone involved in our lives, we would make large steps in the right direction for God. Do we have shallow relationships with others? Do we focus to much on a few? Are truthful and honest with ourselves and our friends? What relationships have you let fall away and not taken care of? I could go on about questions, but I have one more. What if God allowed us to fall into one of these categories? I know that if the one person I trusted more than anything to be there for me let me down, I would be devastated. God is there for us. Are we there for him? Do we reflect his love and grace to others through our relationship with them? If a wealthy, sheltered white man can go outside his comfort zone and become like brothers with a criminal, homeless ex-slave, why can't we?

Expectations vs Expectancy

I have always been one of those people who say expectations are my own worst enemy. I really had no idea what this truly meant in my life. I would be excited about an event and then after it was over, I would feel a sense of disappointment. I wouldn't have lived in the moment and then I would be frustrated that I spent lots of energy waiting for it and then I had no happy memory to keep with me.

While I was reading The Shack, the author raised the point of the expectations vs expectancy. This point was, at first, lost on me. It didn't apply. But the more I started to go through therapy and realized how much disappointment was affecting my every day life in association with expectations, I started to reconsider. To me, an expectation is a noun. A finite thing. It is a bar or a line in the sand I expect an experience to live up to. Something I had to realize was some of my expectations were unrealistic. (Example: When I graduated college, my family took me to Hawaii. John went with us and the whole time I was expecting him to propose. He didn't. I was disappointed. I remember very little about the trip)

So I started thinking. Why does an event have to only live up to a single measuring point? Why can't something be a good experience and not make it to the set expectation? Or, what happens if something 'exceeds my expectation"? Will I truly appreciate it if I am too busy trying to measure it?

I asked myself, "Why can't I just live in a sense of expectancy"? Why can't I just know things are going to happen and appreciate them for what they are? This allows me to live in the moment and make lasting memories. I mean, I graduated from college, went to Hawaii with the man I love and I don't remember much because I was swimming in a pool of anxiety and disappointment from my expectations. I completely this was self-inflicted, but I do not think I am the only one out there who lives this way.

I know I will be disappointed in life and this is not an attempt to never be. That in of itself is a unrealistic expectations. I had a sweet talk with a good friend about anxiety and I believe that if I can enter into a situation without set expectations, but aware that things will happen (living in expectancy) I will be more relaxed. I will have less anxiety and be better emotionally equipped to handle what will happen.

Softer or Harder?

Since I created this blog last week I have been experiencing excitement at the idea of getting started, but I have also been scared at the idea of getting started... nothing seemed to me to be relevant enough or intelligent sounding to kick start such an important thing to me at this time in my life.

I started reading the shack a few weeks ago. It has been taunting me from the shelf for over a year now. It came highly recommended by the giver and highly criticized by others. So this gave me the affirmation to ignore it all this time. I have to say starting this book was one of the best things I have done in a while.

All through the book I have been highlighting like a nerd in school with parts and excerpts I really like. There are even a few that I had to read out loud to my husband who of course had no idea why I was doing that. Half way through the book I finally found an excerpt that took my thoughts out of my head and put them on the page.

"Broken humans center their lives around the things that seem good to them, but that will neither fill them nor free them. They are addicted to power or the illusion of security that power offers. When a disaster happens, those same people will turn against the false powers they trusted. In their disappointment, they either become softened toward me or they become bolder in the their independence."

I am a broken person trying to put myself back together and learn how to love myself inspite of myself. I will not explain the reasoning here, but if you know me or maybe I will explain in time, you know this is true. The second part of the sentence about centering myself around things that seem good but enslave me was so true. It struck a cord with me. That is what teaching was for me. It was a way for me to feel like I had power over someone. I didn't feel like I had power over my life, my decisions, where I was or where I was going, but I could boss teenagers around and control their grades and sometimes whether or not they understood something and this made me feel whole. The part I did not realize was how it was filling the 'hole' in my life with the wrong things. No one has power that has not been given to them by God. This false sense of power is what I was basing my self-worth on. So, when this came tumbling down around me for doing all the things I thought were right, I was devastated. How was I going to be able to help people? How was I going to make a difference in the world? How was I going to do anything? Hiding myself and my own problems in the wake of someone else's and riding on the coat tails of my own teacher 'power' was actually burying my own problems quite nicely. They of course came bubbling to the surface when there was no more security.

I have since turned myself against the 'false power' of teaching and now towards the word of God. I am finding refuge and self-worth in the power of him and learning about him. I would say that in all my wrong and poor decisions, the best thing I have done is becoming softer towards him and not the opposite. I believe that losing everything and being forced to be with just myself for a while, not the power or the distraction of other's problems, has allowed me to start over and for the better. I have picked my weeds and now I am tending to my flowers.

An Introduction

I don't want to start this self-reflection blog off my saying 'I took a look in the mirror and didn't like what I saw'. I can honestly say that I stopped looking at myself in the mirror because I didn't recognize who was staring back at me. I lived like this for years, going through the motions of life, not really experiencing any of it. I thought I was happy, but had no idea how 'low' I was. After I lost my job and reacted a completely different way than I 'should' have I started to wonder who I really was. Most people who lose a job that have devoted so much of their time, energy and emotion into should not feel a sense of relief when it is ripped away from them unexpectedly. This reaction just solidified my confusion as to who I am.

I have been going to counseling and one of the main things we are working on is reframing how I see the world. I have been reconnecting with reading again which of course is one of my biggest loves. I have enjoyed reflecting on books and quotes and situations. That is what this blog will be about. My reflection on things I have ignored for so long. A deep, in-depth study of life in general. I welcome your opinions and thoughts on my posts because I believe that will only help me along.