Down side to Honesty
Sometimes I'm a jerk.
Shouldn't that be OK with me?
I mean, who am I kidding anyway?
Do I think I have everyone fooled?
If I stew too long in my self hatred, depression and non acceptance of the grace that belongs to me......do I not throw God's gift back in his face?
I am not expected to be perfect.
Why do I expect it of myself?
Why should I be so bummed if people find out who I really am?
Oh pride. I did not know I had so much.
An old friend gave me a bumper sticker for my car that I displayed proudly
saying "It is better to be hated for who you are than to be loved for who you are not." There goes that honesty and 'being real' subject again.
Being real and honest means people will find out my ugly side too.
That is the hardest part.
Sometimes I am ugly and I don't want to know it.
In Gods outstretched hand there is a jar of salve freely given for the wounds I have caused by being a jerk.
The wound of the other and the wound in my pride.
I need to let this salve heal me and bring me to the knowledge of humility.
How would we ever know God's grace if we never knew failure?
Stange, this picture of acheivement I have.
I see myself at a perfect weight, living in a nice big home with perfect privacy
and a well run store with no debt and then... and then........
and then what? I will look perfect? Life will be perfect?
I want to live in this moment and not be driven.
I see it so frequently and not just in myself.
I see us living frantically in the moment just to get to the next one that might be better. Ah well, I jump around now in my thoughts.
My only goal here is to convince myself to lay hold of the grace and the forgiveness that is mine today and be free of the guilt and shame that plagues me.
Because.......its plaguing me. How's that for honesty?
Shouldn't that be OK with me?
I mean, who am I kidding anyway?
Do I think I have everyone fooled?
If I stew too long in my self hatred, depression and non acceptance of the grace that belongs to me......do I not throw God's gift back in his face?
I am not expected to be perfect.
Why do I expect it of myself?
Why should I be so bummed if people find out who I really am?
Oh pride. I did not know I had so much.
An old friend gave me a bumper sticker for my car that I displayed proudly
saying "It is better to be hated for who you are than to be loved for who you are not." There goes that honesty and 'being real' subject again.
Being real and honest means people will find out my ugly side too.
That is the hardest part.
Sometimes I am ugly and I don't want to know it.
In Gods outstretched hand there is a jar of salve freely given for the wounds I have caused by being a jerk.
The wound of the other and the wound in my pride.
I need to let this salve heal me and bring me to the knowledge of humility.
How would we ever know God's grace if we never knew failure?
Stange, this picture of acheivement I have.
I see myself at a perfect weight, living in a nice big home with perfect privacy
and a well run store with no debt and then... and then........
and then what? I will look perfect? Life will be perfect?
I want to live in this moment and not be driven.
I see it so frequently and not just in myself.
I see us living frantically in the moment just to get to the next one that might be better. Ah well, I jump around now in my thoughts.
My only goal here is to convince myself to lay hold of the grace and the forgiveness that is mine today and be free of the guilt and shame that plagues me.
Because.......its plaguing me. How's that for honesty?
posted by Becky Nelson @ 9:33 AM
7 Comments:
At 6:27 PM,
Jacob said…
Well, as far as I am concerned, you are the most honest person I've ever known. Holy cow, you're a shining example of not only what I wish others could desire to be, but myself as well. Seriously.
And you have now challenged me. I have been so caught up in wanting to be liked that I have barely even stopped to think that there are things about me that are ugly, and that I am capable of being, well, a jerk. I mean, people should like me, dangit! I'm the real deal, the most worthy candidate for staying on the "lifeboat."
What? I'm not? Oh.
At 7:55 PM,
Anonymous said…
It seems that honesty or "being real" has value or is worth growing into as best we can. But even as I have come to adopt honesty as a high priority in my relationships I am made very much aware that there is a much higher priority of love. And sometimes love says, "keep your mouth shut lest you cause one of my little ones to stumble." Sometimes honesty is not possible and that's when Jesus becomes all the more precious to us because we can take it to Him for safe-keeping and relief. At least I have found this to be true for me.
At 8:06 PM,
Anonymous said…
I just read my last comment and it sounded rather.....platitudinous (is that a real word?). sorry.
Actually, I have been finding that the older I get the less I am caring about what people think about what I say and I say some things I wish I hadn't. But sometimes I just don't care. Even if it might offend someone or even hurt them personally. Most of the time I feel very bad about it and have to apologize. but what's happened to me? I used to be so nice.
At 6:34 PM,
Jacob said…
David, I agree with your statement, but it cohabitates with Becky's. Utmost is love. But, ha, who comes close to that standard? Like a pendulum, some swing hard right into withholding (for sake of love) and some swing hard left into "too much information" (for sake of love). Healthy balance is certainly a noble gesture.
At 8:30 PM,
Anonymous said…
Hey Becky!
When God sent all you Arends to me (or me to you all), you all were obviously not perfect people. This was one of the things that kept me around before I became a Christian! Do you think a bunch of Stepford Christians would have been attractive to me? Ewww.
You all were pretty honestly what you were and God used that - bad attitudes and grouchiness and all of that as well as all the nice and kind things you did.
So it’s good to strive to be more kind and less of a Yahoo because that is the image of Christ. But I think that God's grace is mostly about relaxing and going with it and letting Him change us as He needs to. All the self torturing introspective gets counterproductive in my view. Yeah. I’m an unpleasant jerk sometimes. But God knows it and He’s doing something about it one point at a time. I try to just leave it there and deal with the situation He puts in front of me. I got so tired of the self loathing and all that. If God’s grace is sufficient for me shouldn’t I just accept it?
In my life He has recently been helping me to be nice to people on the phone. You know - the bank, the cell phone company or whatever. It’s so easy to get nasty with people like that and they don't see the Fish on you car! When you get no sleep and have no down time its tempting to yell at people. It’s not right and not Christ-like for sure. But He's getting through to me I think. It's been awhile since I chewed one of them out - so praise God. He is also helping me to work on not going home from work in a bad mood and so ruin the evening for Susanne and the kids. Going home is often like going to the second job after spending all day at the first job. But that’s just what you have to deal with having kids. I have to pray a lot and sometimes go to the bookstore or surplus place to mellow out for a bit. But what doesn’t work is getting all morose about it when I mess up. It just makes the problem worse and annoys Susanne more anyway.
Just wanted to toss that in - and say hi. HI!
Tom Warner
spqr2755@gmail.com
AIM / MSN: SPQR 2755
At 2:49 PM,
Becky Nelson said…
So cool to hear from you Tom.
Thanks for your insights.
I'd like to be less introspective.
In many regards it has hurt me but I am glad for what I have learned in the long run because of the fearless searching of my soul.
It is a gift with a downside as well as it is a gift to be the carefree unintrospective.
Good and bad in both.
So you are really a family man. Wish I could see that. You have a very trying job so I can visualize the picture you painted.
Wow. Poor men.
At 5:37 PM,
J. Holo said…
"I want to live in this moment and not be driven.
I see it so frequently and not just in myself."
wow... i live in the Bay Area, where a comment like that is suicide for the average Joe. it's go-go-go here. Thank you for that. It's something I needed to relearn over and over again.
And your bumper sticker made me think of a bumper sticker my brother got once: "Jesus Loves Me, Everyone Else Thinks I'm a Jerk"
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