Life in Allocation...

So... I know it's been a while since i've blogged. OK well i've only blogged once. I guess it'd be slightly more correct to say... it's been quite a significant amount of time between my first and second blog. Anyway, I suppose i'll start out by posting a fraction from a book i came across by John Eldredge, called Waking the Dead. Pretty awesome stuff. Spoke to me at least..

"The deeper reason we fear our own glory is that once we let others see it, they will have seen the truest us, and that is nakedness indeed. We can repent of our sin. We can work on our "issues." But there is nothing to be "done" about our glory. It's so naked. It's just there -- the truest us. It is an awkward thing to shimmer when everyone else around you is not, to walk in your glory with an unveiled face when everyone else is veiling his. For a woman to be truly feminine and beautiful is to invite suspicion, jealousy, misunderstanding. A friend confided in me, "When you walk into a room, every woman looks at you to see -- are you prettier than they are? Are you a threat?"
And that is why living from your glory is the only loving thing to do. You cannot love another person from a false self. You cannot love another while you are still hiding. You cannot love another unless you offer her your heart. It takes courage to live from your heart. My friend Jenny said just the other day, "I desperately want to be who I am. I don't want the glory that I marvel at in others anymore. I want to be that glory which God set in me."
"Finally, our deepest fear of all . . . we will need to live from it. To admit we do have a new heart and a glory from God, to begin to let it be unveiled and embrace it as true -- that means the next thing God will do is ask us to live from it. Come out of the boat. Take the throne. Be what he meant us to be. And that feels risky . . . really risky. But it is also exciting. It is coming fully alive. My friend Morgan declared, "It's a risk worth taking."
-- John Eldredge in "Waking the Dead", pp 87-88


The deeper reason we fear our own glory is that once we let others see it, they will have seen the truest us... vulnerability. No one likes being or feeling vulnerable. Of course there is something thrilling there.. a part of us craves it. Longing for the excitement, the unknown. But for the most part, from what i have noticed at least, we all (including myself) hate it. I guess you could call it a love-hate relationship, with an emphasis on the hate part. Letting someone else into our inner most thoughts and concerns, ideas and passions, secrets and weaknesses... i believe to be one of the hardest inner battles we'll face in our lifetime. Honestly, I can't think of many instances in my life where i've let someone see many of those "vulnerabilities" (i guess you could call them). In fact, I've spent the majority of my life pushing them away, or hiding them; and putting up a front. Growing up pretending like I was normal, healthy. Keeping my illness a secret as often as i could. Never letting on to even my closest friends how truly sick I was... how close I had come to death numerous times. Making up stories when asked about my scars. Hiding my tears in church. Clenching onto my chair when prayer was offered. There is so much fear in vulnerability. It's like the two have been synonyms my entire life. Practicing fear without even realizing it, and learning to hide the weight it provided with excellence. A friend once told me, as I finally broke down after months of distress, that she never knew I was hurting. One of my best friends had no idea I was in such pain. My first thought was, wow, I cant believe i've gotten so good at this. My second thought, I have been such a coward. All these years, doing everything I can to hide my weaknesses, therefore covering so much of the glory God has worked in my life. Fear has been the absolute center of it all. Fear is more often the means behind every decision rather than God.

John Berryman- "We must travel in the direction of our fear."

Since first realizing the fears in my life (other than vulnerability), God has given me so many opportunities to trust Him, thus allowing me to witness innumerable accounts of His glory and blessings in my life, through me, and in the lives of others. God is most definitely taking me to the next level in trusting Him, facing my fears, and dealing with my "issues"/vulnerabilities. It feels entirley risky, but im trusting in His promises. Or trying to...