There might be a lot of honesty in this post - I feel like I'm recovering from some kind of poison that I've been suffering from for awhile, so this week has been a week of purging.
Since I posted last, so many things have happened, and it's been a lot of processing and figuring things out. I 'knew' there would be a lot of that on this trip, but I didn't really figure it would be quite so intense. It turns out that, while I was at home in our culture, I built a bunch of walls up and had a lot of stuff at the bottom of the well that I didn't even know was there. There were some obvious ones of course, the skeletons that I knew were in my closet that needed cleaning out...but I've been realizing I have them in other places I didn't know to look as well.
When I was picking a title for this post, I was looking at describing the season of life I've been in here the last month, and 'Derailed' seemed to fit best because I've been realizing that sometimes, the only way for the smaller hidden broken things to grab your attention is for the train to go off the tracks and make a great big mess. So, that's where I'm at, recovering from the trainwreck that this last month has been - and just in time for my Grammy's funeral tomorrow that I can't go to.
So, let me try and simplify the tale a little bit:
First, the biggest thing Jesus has been highlighting on this trip is fear. From the very beginning of it He started picking on it, and then
gradually it just starting unwinding more and more, to the point where it exploded. I've heard so many people tell me how brave I am because I try new things and am willing to be a little adventurous - it's true, I'm not afraid of putting myself in sketchy situations sometimes but it's only because I've seen Jesus protect me in those kinds of situations, and it's been no different here.
But relationally, socially, organizationally...I'm the most terrified, confused individual out there, because I don't trust myself very much at all. I'm hard on myself - I've said things I would never even dream about saying to somebody else, to myself - and I doubt everything I do, say or act on. And to be honest, I had no idea where that came from.
Some people know I've had a dream to open up some kind of art studio, and I had no idea what that looked like or where to start. And then one day here, I ended up writing this whole deal about teaching creativity ... not just art, but teaching people to be creative, to embrace creativity - because if you look at anything we do as humans, it all requires us to be a little creative, whether we're drawing up business plans, designing buildings or experiments in a lab, actually drawing, or coming up with new ways to approach an issue - they all require a little out-of-the-box thinking. And when I started writing out how I could teach creativity, I ended up finding that fear was really the only thing that was necessary to break free of. When we do something and we're afraid to fail, we like having those 'rules'; the defined structure of guidelines we can follow so we can maximize the chance of our success. And we need a little bit of structure, rules and guidelines to follow. The problem is that we don't use the rules and guidelines as they were meant to be used - we use them as crutches. Instead of using them to help us build something amazing, we turn them into a box that we live in. And I think that's why religion is such an easy thing to fall into. It's terrifying being outside of the confines of following rules, because it's harder to gauge where we're at, if we're doing it right, or if we're going the wrong way entirely. But the way Jesus intended us to live was in the freedom of His Spirit, letting Him lead us while we remember who we are and what we're worth. And that's a terrifying place to be, not only because it requires us to live outside of the box, but because it means we depend on community to keep us accountable, and our living in the Word to gauge where our hearts are at.
How did I connect creativity to Jesus? It's kind of two-sided. For one, I think pressing in and knowing Jesus is a HUGE step into beating back the fear that consumes our everyday, and the second, is that for people who don't know Jesus, I think realizing how much fear there is behind creativity and illuminating it for the sham that it is is a big step towards figuring out who Jesus really is. Being here, and going back to Cusco, I've been so heart-broken by the number of people here who are turning to so many spiritual things to 'find themselves', in place of turning to religion, the rules - because that's how Jesus has been presented to them. Because if rules and guidelines are all we know about Him, they're the only things we can tell other people about Him. And I've wracked my brain trying to figure out how to deal with that...how do we communicate to people who Jesus is, how much He loves them, how much power He has to heal their wounds and how much they're worth...unless we can communicate to them that He's about more than just logistics, and structure, and rules - that he's about the relationship! And relationship is scary, and vulnerable, and doesn't really follow the rules. It's about accountability, and respect, and forgiveness, and patience...And everything that Love is defined as. But it's not an exact science, and we are really bad at it most of the time, which makes it even MORE scary and vulnerable.
I still have very little idea. But He's working on it.
Of course, the fact that He's working on that through me means He has to be working on it IN me - hence the big mess. So here's the honesty part:
When I was coming back from Cusco (the second time), I was 2 hours into my 24-hour bus ride when I found out my Grammy had died. I wasn't incredibly sad, because she'd been in a lot of pain, lost most of her memories, and was suffering for quite awhile - it was time, and she knew Jesus! Of course, there's still grief, so the bus ride was pretty tough - sitting there for 22 hours with nothing else to think about. Then, there are a million other factors like my family - but mostly what concerned me was how confused I was. The last week, I've been basically emotionless, like I have no sense of direction, or feeling...kind of like I'm totally numb. That's a big deal for me, because I tend to be pretty aware of my emotions at any given time, maybe a bit over-emotional, but there's always something - and the last week, nothing.
When I was younger, I used to be a serious party animal - not because I enjoyed it, but because I was so insecure that being drunk all the time helped me numb everything. And when I found Jesus and stopped drinking/partying/being boy-crazy, I decided I would never get back into that scene. Since then, I've had drinks, but always in a controlled environment, safe, responsible, and NEVER being drunk.
And I have no idea how I wound up here. For two weeks, I stayed at this party hostel where everyone else in the place was drinking excessively, smoking, doing drugs. And for two weeks, I had no problem saying no, opting out, sleeping early, avoiding everything. And I was excited to get out of here when I left again for Cusco. But when I got off the bus in Lima again and went to my new hostel, I found out it had been closed due to a city code violation, and I had nowhere else to go, so I ended up back in the crazy hostel. And I don't know if I was just grieving, or whether I was trying to un-numb myself, or if I was just weak, or whatever, but I ended up joining the party - I got so drunk that I actually don't remember anything past a certain point of the night, I woke up in a puddle of my own puke (sorry for the graphics), and I was in incredible, INCREDIBLE amounts of pain - and I ended up crying hysterically. And you know what? It didn't help. I didn't feel anything but pain, and for the moment, I totally forgot about God and all the things He's ever done to heal me and protect me from that. The next morning, this really nice guy who had decided to share the room with me to help me out financially took care of me - he cleaned up my mess, and got me breakfast, helped me feel better, etc. And the following night, all I could think about were things of lust. Not because I cared for him, but because I knew from my past that it's the one thing that shakes me awake. And I knew that I didn't want to do anything, because I promised myself a long time ago now that I would never again, until my wedding day. And I don't know what I thought, but when he invited me into his bed to cuddle, I didn't say no. He was nice, and he'd taken good care of me, and he was really, really sweet about everything - but when he told me that he thought I was holding back, something hit me in the face like a brick and I shot out of bed and went for a walk, like I was shaken awake from the past week and a half and I realized something.
The thing I realized, is that I've been holding back SO. MUCH. in fear of myself; in fear of screwing it up, losing people from my life, feeling rejected, anticipating humiliation - keep the list going, because it literally doesn't end. And I feel awful that I required so much of a trainwreck for me to realize it - but something that I knew about Jesus is that sometimes He lets us fall on the rocks so that we remember the disaster He brought us out of. For me, I've been so afraid of falling away from Jesus, I've been afraid of screwing up my faith and falling right back into where I was. But I realized that morning that He's not the kind of person who steps aside. He might let us fall, but He doesn't step away, or remove His hand, or hold back His Love. So maybe, I needed to realize that even when I fall and turn my life into a mess He's still with me - and I can't screw that up. That was a big revelation. The other one, was that I realized I have been so afraid of losing people from my life that I've accidentally been manipulating them into remaining in my life, and holding back Love from them. Because I was so afraid that being myself, being honest would cause people to step away and opt out of my life, I just kept the Love Jesus had placed in my heart for them to myself, so that they wouldn't a choice. But what He revealed to me about Love is that it's not capable of being withheld - when you hold Love back, it turns into hatred...only not for the other person. It backfires and turns into hatred towards yourself - and that's where I've been living. So, I've made a couple of tough moves the last couple of days, choosing to be vulnerable and allow people the choice of remaining in or opting out of my life - and it's tough because I genuinely do care for those people, it's just time to let them know that I do love them and that it's a gift that they can actually choose to accept or reject...which is what Jesus did - He didn't wait for people to be in the right place to tell them that He loved them, He didn't try to control the way they would respond. He just died for them, and left them the choice to decide whether or not they wanted His love.
So.
I'm a little bit of a mess. I'm a little bit of a broken mess but I'm really, really sure that He's good, that He's teaching me to lean into Him and trust Him to build my life and direct my steps. I've always been a little bit of a planner for anxiety reasons, but He's been demolishing that, and I know He's building me up for something- He has a plan. The thing is, I'm really tired of being ashamed of being a mess. If there's something I've learned from here (specifically), it's that I'm not a special case of crazy - there are sooooooo many people in the process of figuring stuff out. So, I'm still afraid to post this - there's a lot of stuff in here that I don't talk about, stuff I really don't enjoy having people know about me, things that are hard for me to admit. But Jesus is the one who gets to judge me, and He already knows, and He's already decided He forgives and loves me more than anything in the universe, so I'm deciding that it's all good.
My hope is that wherever you're at, you'll be encouraged by the fact that there's no one you have to be, and nothing you have to do for Him to love you. There's so much confusion, but there are a couple of truths that He's had me focusing on:
-He is who He says He is
-I am who He says I am
-He can do what He says He can do
and -He WILL do what He says He will do
Of course, it's not all sadness and heartbreak here - there are a LOT of good things, a lot of peaceful moments, and a lot of cool adventures - as you'll see in the pics. But since this blog was more for keeping you all updated on the story behind the adventures, it might seem a little bleak. There are a lot of struggles, and I think if I was travelling with other people it might have been a different kind of adventure. If feels more like I'm wandering around in the wilderness, learning how to lean on Him and walk in His authority, which is so hard, but He's so good - and I hope that's what you get from it all. He's so, so good, and He's worthy of it all.
as always, Love you guys.
-B<3
