Breaking of Steadfastness

I don’t understand why people have such a high view of me. Kirsten today told me how Professor Harlan (a teacher from 2 quarters ago that she now has) told her I was such a sweetheart. I've gotten a lot of various encouragement from people I hold dear as of late. I get this stuff over and over again from many different people. I don’t know. It’s not that I have a poor view of myself and that I don’t have any self-esteem, but it’s just not that. I don’t understand why people think so much of me.

It ties into the fact that John and I were talking about this weekend. I try too hard. When I was talking to Kyle last night, I realized a root source of that was being a Christian in a non-Christian family for several years, even a bit to this day. When I came to know the Lord, I had to seek Him out fully. I had to seek out fellowship, had to read the Word, had to develop all of these things largely on my own. I didn’t have my parents telling or encouraging me to do anything. It was upon my shoulders. In addition to that, my hearing loss has always been a source of me working harder. That’s a long story in itself left for later.

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I want to lay again in a field of poppies, drinking in Your abundance and presence. I want to relive that drive-how it cleared my mind and took me to another place. Relaxed. Uninhibited to You.

Lord, I don’t know how to let that be my life in this time-that the variety the poppies and wildflowers brought also consists in my everyday-if I open my eyes to it. Life is surely a journey with many twists and turns, even the everyday.

Lord, there has been such a resolve in me to remain steadfast, and You are breaking it. You are teaching me what it means to ebb in the gentle waves of this life You have before me.

But it seems all I’ve known is what it is to be steadfast. So strong in resolve of knowing You, trusting You, seeking after You. And that steadfastness is a character in my everyday life as well-people know me as that. In many ways, it could be the foundation of which they base their other opinions of me on. Somehow, I’m a “sweetheart,” and being known as that largely comes from a steadfast character displayed by me as being a “sweetheart.” It doesn't come from me being a sweetheart some of the time and a jerk the others.

The interesting thing with this that I see now is that my own steadfastness has become a comfort. It has meant that I’m generally not subject to the changes of life, particularly the everyday, to affect me much. I think a reason why I am such a hard worker has been because the character trait of steadfastness has allowed for that-I generally don’t have the same day-to-day “life” distractions that most people feel. I am able to focus and get a tremendous amount of things done.

It seems like that is to start breaking now. That I need to learn to be a sailboat floating in the waves, bobbing up and down with it, rather than a powerboat cutting right through it unaffectedly. To recognize that there are times of change much more than just from season to season.

To somehow, become more human, whatever that means.

So often, I don’t truly recognize my weakness before You. And because of that, it limits Your divine intervention in my life as I don’t leave room for it. If I don’t allow there to be a need, then how can I accept Your provision for that need?

John says I try harder than anyone he knows. I never would’ve assumed that myself. Yet, that’s a strong statement, especially coming from him.

Why do I try so hard? And how do I stop trying so hard, when it’s so ingrained in me that I don’t even know what that means? Because, if you were to ask me, my first response would be that I’m not trying hard enough.

I want more of Your Holiness in my life. I want more of my character to display the heart You have given me. I want less of myself in the things I do and who I serve. I want less of me and more of You.

I see these things within me that need to be changed in order to reach these dreams.

But I cannot do it alone.

And though I want to, I can’t do it by trying, or even by remaining steadfast.

It seems like instead, I need to ride the waves in a sailboat, letting God steer the path. I need to feel every up and down and actually be a part of it. I need to let God show me and do those very things I desire on the course. As much as I tend to envision it to be, those things I desire are not an eventual destination. It is something that happens in the day-after-day, the continued reliance and trust upon Him.

Not by works, not by striving.

But by surrender.

By the breaking of steadfastness.