Higher stakes and broken pedestals

Yesterday was a big day for me, a big day of realizations. These realizations are difficult for me to write about because they could easily be a source of shame. But they are part of my journey, a journey I've chosen to not be ashamed of, so they find their way here to this entry.

One of my favorite topics to teach on is the loss of innocence, those key moments in life where we come to new understanding or new maturity usually through a source of pain. A common moment of lost innocence is that experience when we find that someone we've placed so high on a pedestal takes action that breaks their statuesque state. Their pedestal breaks and they come tumbling down from the lofty image we once held of them. Often this is a parental figure or a mentor or a teacher, but I am having a unique broken pedestal experience. I have tumbled from my own pedestal, on which I felt so strongly secure.

This is difficult to admit, to own up to the idea that I had such a lofty image of myself, to admit that I believed I was invincible. It is partially difficult to admit because I lecture students all of the time about the feeling of invincibility, warning them that they can't survive anything and that they must make different choices. But my invincibility was of a different sort: I naively believed that I could protect myself from the pain and consequences of life. I believed that I was strong enough to hold those hurts and stings of sin at bay. But I, of course, was wrong.

I have discovered in this journey that I am the queen of self-protection. I proactively admit sin and mistakes in attempts to protect myself from consequences, hoping that if I own them first there will be greater mercy. I do not take risks that I feel may cause me pain because I am concerned about my precious self. I do not take emotional risks often, I do not put myself into situations where I might be too vulnerable for fear of being taken advantage of. And the thing is, it worked for a while, or at least I perceived it to be working. In a sense I guarded myself from fearful, difficult and painful experiences, to an extent. I, at least, felt like I protected myself from consequences that I couldn't handle.

The problem is that now the stakes are higher. Before I could seemingly protect myself from painful consequences because I was dealing with smaller issues. If I lied, it was only about a failure to complete a homework assignment. If I didn't pay a bill on time, it barely made a dent in my meager credit score. But now these seemingly same sins have ramifications that echo on a much larger scale. If I don't pay my bill on time they could take our house. If I make a mistake a work, I could lose my job. If I don't cook food properly, people could get sick. All of the sudden (not really...I've been an adult for a long time) stakes are higher and I lack the ability to contain the consequences.

Herein lies the problem, I, the great self-protector, can no longer protect anymore. I have to deal with the fact that I am broken. I have to live with the consequences of my sin. I can't shelter or hide from mistakes. I now have to rely on God to be my protector, rely on Him to help me through (not always save me) from the consequences of my sin. I can't do it any more, my position on the pedestal has been compromised.

There's also an even bigger problem. Because I have been striving to do all of these things for myself, when I have to begin to look to God to fulfill these roles, I don't recognize them in Him. It is not that He can't meet all of these needs, because He absolutely can and more, but rather that because I have not asked them of Him before they are new to me. I am being asked to say "God I can't protect myself from the pain of sin, please be Merciful." He is merciful, but I haven't given Him the chance to exercise that quality in my life before. Thus I am being retrained to trust in a wholly different experience of the same Holy God. It is no wonder then that this is hard; it is like beginning a new exercise routine, I'm training and feeling muscles that I didn't even know were there before. They are going to get stronger, but it is going to take time.

Although I'm broken as a result of my fall from the pedestal, there is a greater peace within me. There is a freedom in not desperately attempting to protect myself, there is a calm in knowing that I am broken and that's the reality of being human. But there is a struggle as well. I have to fight the urge self-protect, to try and control consequences. Instead I have to live through them, experience them, and allow God to use them. I have to trust that God will fill in the empty roles I've left, which means I have to resist taking those roles back. I have to thwart the desire for control and concede that I don't really have any. Even though these battles will be challenging, at least I can rest in knowing that I am not alone high up on my pedestal trying desperately to ward off my enemies and the stinging arrows of sin. Instead I have fallen into the arms of a loving Father whose arms are so much stronger and more comforting than my own. And while the stakes are higher, the rewards and blessings are that much greater.