We are not all one thing.
I hate that sometimes. The black and white world of my childhood faded away pretty quickly as I became a young adult.
It’s hard when people hurt you and the desire is to villainize them completely. Last year we suffered a devastating betrayal in our church community, and in that process I found myself questioning every single positive and life giving interaction I had ever had with this person who had now deeply wounded me. The double life that my friend had been leading left me questioning if any of the good was real—or if I had been a complete fool and believed in one massive charade.
But then I remembered, that we are not all one thing. We are not only our biggest failures, our most grievous sins, or our biggest mistakes. We are not defined by the worst things that have happened to us. Nor are we only our greatest successes, our moments of pride, or the best things that have happened to us. (Though man, how I wish we could be sometimes.) I wish I could live in the glow of my best moments so that the shadow of shame barely touched me. But the reality is that for every good moment—every moment of blissful satisfaction at a job well done, every swell of pride that comes from human praise, every memory of joy and laugher seems to have a shadow side.
We all have experiences, choices, and choices that were made for us—and these things shape us, but they are not who we are.
There is but one constant that I’m still trying to wrap my mind around: through our failures and regrets, our triumphs and celebrations, our moments of raucous joy—in the middle of the mess that is being a multifaceted and imperfect human, the one thing that is always true about me is that I am Beloved. No matter what.
This last week I have been having to remind myself of all of this again. I got into a smallish car accident a few weeks ago that was *technically* my fault and the voice of shame has been LOUD. I wasn’t being reckless or foolish or doing something blatantly illegal. I was just a Mom trying to parent while driving, and something that I normally would have seen slipped my notice for a moment. Everyone was fine. Cars can be fixed and replaced. But still the voice of FAILURE was so incredibly loud—like this is all I am now. Branded with a ticket for “careless driving” when being care-less is the last thing I’ve ever been in my entire life. And it’s not about the ticket or the accident really—it’s about this angry, bitter voice in the back of my head that still thinks I need to perform to some sort of inhuman standard, in order for everything in my inner world to be simpatico.
Why do my successes not stick like my mistakes? Why can I accept other’s mistakes as part of their multifaceted, imperfect human existence, but not my own? That’s probably a question to dig into in therapy. But for now, I’m trying to remind myself of the truest truth—I am not all one thing. I am not my biggest failures, or my greatest successes. I am not my bad days, nor am I my good days.
I am just me: flawed and faithful, loving and impatient, hurt and healing—and this is all part of the beautiful agony of being a multifaceted human being who is continually being sanctified by the God who loves me where I am, how I am—but who also loves me too much to let me stay stagnant.
Through it all he whispers, that though I am not all one thing; one thing I always am is Beloved.
And the people that have hurt me? They are Beloved too. Sometimes that’s hard to wrap my mind around—and I know it may be for you as well. Depending on how you have been wounded and where you are in your healing journey, that might be almost impossible to hear. But I find it very helpful as a human being living in this broken world, that everyone around me is living with their flaws and failures too. We can only imagine the stories that they are living; both the ones that they themselves have chosen, as well as the stories written for them by circumstances. It doesn’t make all the bad okay, but it does help me to have compassion for the broken parts of other people, even when it feels like they have weaponized these shards against me. Because they are not all one thing either—but one thing they always are is Beloved. The Gospel is big enough for all of it. My perfectly imperfect human errors, my deep sins, and yours.
So the next time the inner critic comes to beat you over the head with your failures; you might try gently saying to her—I am not all one thing. But one thing I always am is Beloved.
Iove this. the one thing I always am: beloved.
This is a great reminder for ourselves and as we look at others who may have harmed us. I would love to share this in my next email newsletter if that is okay with you?