Wow. It’s been a little over a year since I wrote my last post, and boy has a lot happened since then (i.e... moving, emotional clarification, spiritual clarification, vocational direction, and the list goes on).
I turned 29 earlier this year, and though not intentionally, this year has definitely been a time of reflecting back on my 20s and getting more clarity on who I am NOT, and on who I am.
The 20s have been full of intensely joyful times, and intensely painful times. They have been a spin of cognitive dissonance, emotional dissonance, and spiritual dissonance, all intertwined with lies and truth, love and grief. Why? Because reality has a way of revealing falsehoods- of demanding the physical world to line up with what is true. As I’ve swum through the murk of sleeplessness, pregnancy and postpartum, parenting, false theologies gone wrong, my “others’ defined” identity, personal relational fears realized, loss of loved ones, failure to meet personal standards, and the chaos of incessant moving, trash has surfaced. The waters of my life have been so continually stirred that facing the mess was inevitable. Sinking below surface level was equally inevitable at times, as many of you have experienced in your own lives. It’s been the 20s of many deaths. Some of those deaths have been bad, but some have been very healthy. Every one of these excruciating “deaths,” have led to more honesty, integrity, and strength.
Deaths I died, and near-death experiences:
Death to hope.
Death to any form of self-value.
Religious death (death to extra-biblical teachings on identity and holiness, and death to the “right group” mentality.)
Spiritual suffocation (spiritual confusion in emotional isolation/oppression from important people in my life. IYKYK).
Death to trying to meet up to impossible standards. Both standards imposed by other people, and standards imposed by myself.
Death to letting other people determine who I am and who I should be, if I am or am not acceptable and/or capable as a person.
Death to trying to prove my good intentions/trying to force people to not assume the worst about my motives and actions.
Near physical death during childbirth, and as a result, death to confidence in my body. *just threw this one in for kicks
Yeah, yeah, so dramatic. You know those “Stricklin Women.” #gaslight
During my 20s, I learned what that was, through lots of personal experience. Unfortunately, in MANY conservative Christian circles, little girls, big girls, and women are trained to enter life’s battles defenseless and exposed; their identity and purpose soft and malleable so that the men in their lives can make them holy for God. “Submit your spirit to men, because this is how you, as a female, can please God. God will clean up your emotional carnage during the final judgment, no worries.” would be a good summary for MUCH of the teaching directed towards women in these circles. Oh, and “take all things to the Lord in prayer,” because you’d better not take your personal well-being into your own hands. We don’t want our women going psycho all over the place, disrupting toxic relational dynamics, and (shhhh), thinking they might be called to (preach).
Oh y’all, during my 20s, I learned again that the Bible is so good, and so freeing! And sometimes so confusing, which is fine. I also learned that the gifts of the Spirit aren’t gendered, and Jesus didn’t teach discrimination or hierarchy. He taught culturally revolutionary things like “let the little children come to me,” and “the first shall be last,” and all sorts of other things about not putting ourselves over others, and how the hierarchy of the Kingdom of God=Jesus is King+all the children of God are one with Him. Which means that you’d better love and treat your neighbor as you would treat yourself. There is no Kingdom of God, according to Jesus, in which a group of privileged, powerful people are by default in charge of less privileged and powerful people, or in which said group can determine other said group’s callings and value, and spiritual growth. That was a really, really important lesson for me. Painful, but necessary.
Another one of the most significant things I learned in my 20s is this: females are called to follow JESUS. Not man. The Creator is the One who determines your giftings and callings, not the men in your life. Your gender is not your identity: God’s Spirit working His grace and creation out in your distinct personality and giftings, in love, in you, is your identity. This is really freeing, because I know that God loves me wholly. His love is WAY less finicky and dehumanizing than the approval of man.
BAM. Go ahead and sling the #feminist, #heretic, #crazyliberal labels my way. While you
me, I’ll be over here pursuing God’s callings for my life and resting in His love. WHOOP!!!
All the snarkiness aside, the 20s have been wrought with a bit too much confusion, pain, and anger. I lost so much of who I was. I felt like my personality morphed into something awful and alien. My faith almost burned out completely. I wore myself out trying a little too hard to deserve and secure love, without success. I tried a little too hard to mold myself to people’s expectations. BUT, here I am, at the end of the 20s, feeling like a much different person. Ultimately, all the relational wrestling, all the internal wrestling, and all the wrestling with God’s word has led to an unfamiliar, hopeful, and terrifyingly freeing horizon. I know the approaching years will hold grief and joy, pain and growth, but it feels good moving towards them with drastically more emotional and relational awareness, and with newfound freedom to lean into my callings for the glory of God and the love of others, without the need of man’s approval and validation.
Thanks for being here! This was a really raw post, and I know was offensive and/or concerning to many of you. Real life is offensive and concerning. I hope at least something I’ve written today helps you on your own journey towards light and love.
Just remember: when the forest burns, new life grows.
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