...too much to ask of you

hey friends. i wrote up this long, rather emo, reflection last night. i didn't want my other journal to start feeling too redundant, or too filled with fragmented thoughts... so i'm posting it here instead.

a simple thought which turns into an internal dialog;

I've been wondering something today- A lot of self-help books, that i have ignored, put across this idea that you have to be perfect, or balanced in order to have a healthy relationship with someone.

And well meaning Christ-Help books, which I have considered, share the same idea, with well meaning words and compassion. One particular book reads "If you try and enter into a relationship without a sense of completeness, every relationship will be an attempt to complete yourself".

So thats the idea I'm wrestling with today. Basically, I'll break into a long narrative now, I had a lot of ambiguous relationships growing up. My parent's relationship fell apart when I was in grade 7, and that broke me. I didn't date in high school, mainly because i didn't think girls like me. The one relationship i had in high school was with a girl i didn't like, and i was only in it because i thought "i might as well take what i can get".

Because of all this i have a distorted outlook on love. I expect people to reject me so i try and win approval, i sell myself short because i feel like i don't deserve it. My friends don't see the real me often enough- they see the cliche me that is lonely, and therefore hopelessly romantic. In that i spend so much time chasing after a relationship that i miss the point of love completely.

What I'm getting at is that I have a hard time reconciling with love. I'm trapped in this paradox that says "because i have been broken in the past, and because i have a messed up view of relationships, i myself should not be in a relationship".

It becomes "because I was denied love, I can't have love".

And so theres this fear of entering a relationship with all my emotion baggage, and brokenness, because i would expect too much of the other person. i would expect them to fix me. So, another idea is developed- that i need to fix myself before i can love someone.

That shouldn't be my view of love. That is simply not what love is. Love is carrying each other's stuff. Its saying "we are in this together". Its wrong for me to expect a relationship to fix me, but its also wrong to think that i am incapable of being loved.

~

I've said this before- I think about relationships every day of my life. I'm not exaggerating. Either its the strange blessing I have been given, or... its the longing for something deeper that i have been given. I want my relationships to reflect a deeper sense of belonging, of openness. I want my relationships to be everything i was denied as a kid...

I want to feel like I'm worth something to someone.

~

Too often our views on broken relationships are transfered to Christ- no-one liked me as a kid, so why would Jesus like me? I can't find anyone who will love me, even with all the stupid things i do, so why would Jesus want to love me?

Theres an entire religion that says "you have to have your stuff together in order to find love". The truth is there are two laws that Jesus held in esteem, above every other Hebrew law- Love God, and love people.

I don't have to resort to wondering whats wrong with me, and making that the reason for every rejection i feel. But I do anyway. There shouldn't be entire "churches" built on this idea. But there are.

Donald Miller put it best (as he always does) in a lecture for Seattle Pacific University (which you can download free on ITunes, shame-less plug). He said that its not about religion, its about relationship. Its about believing the truth, that Christ desires a relationship with me, over the lie, that i have to fix myself before Christ can love me.

all this does is keep us from the intimate, understanding, personal relationship with Christ- someone to talk to when we feel like a loser, and someone to hold us close when we feel alone.

Now, if only we, as followers of Christ, would stop bitching about how sinners are taking over the world and started loving like Jesus did... If the Church was anything like the loving community that it was intended to be...If only I myself started loving like Jesus did... maybe we all wouldn't feel so lonely, and worthless.

~

I had this image in my head last night, when i was trying to describe all these ideas to my roommate. i told him, "its like you're trying to save a person from falling off the cliff. There is the superhero approach that sits at the top of the cliff trying to pull a friend up by a rope, and there is the human approach. The human approach is being beside the person on the cliff, helping them get to safety."

being beside a person. I think that this approach makes a huge difference. Rather than try and play "secure" we should be honest with whats really going on, deep down.

thats shalom, in all its simplicity. hm. and there are probably a hundred better ways to describe it.