Wrestling

Many times, the premise of this blog leads me to give a dishonest portrayal of myself. Looking for the beautiful, trying to find the beautiful things in life...not much place for negativity on a blog like that.

I have ways of coping with that. I skip writing on those days until I feel better. I post an impersonal picture or video that I do think is beautiful...but they allow me to hide. I never really intended to be completely transparent on this blog anyway...I mean, that's what private conversations, diaries, and prayers are for. Not the internet.

Yet, today I want to write about the harder stuff. Today I want to admit that many of the topics I write about are ones that I wrestle with. This last week I think I posted twice about the concept of home, posting from two different sides of the argument within me. My life is very up in the air right now, and I want a place to call home, I want a place where I can be myself, but also where I am my best self. I don't want to come home and release the chained beast within, as I have done my whole life. It's ok to be nasty at home because I've been cooped up in this polite vocabulary all day and now I need to be me in all my anger and rudeness. Gosh, that sounds so weird to put it in words, but that is actually what happens to me. My mom has told me that she would go easy on us after school because she knew from reports that we were being very well-behaved in the classroom. It's a bad habit I have carried with me my whole life. Lash out against the ones you love because you know they are stuck with you. What am I thinking?

And yet I find it so hard to be a nice person with those closest to me. They are most able to get under my skin, to annoy, to frustrate...My expectations are so high. I want you to be perfect, I want this relationship to be better, I want good things for you. And yet, here I am being a hypocritical lunatic! I don't get it, and I don't like it that I do these things.

One of my close relationships has been strained for a long time. I can't let up on this person. I nag, I complain, I criticize. I sure do have a funny way of showing love. I recognize what I am doing, although I probably don't recognize all the hidden motivations. I do hear myself, though, and it's like I can't shut my mouth. I walk in with such good intentions. Today I will be better. Today I will keep my mouth shut, or only say nice things. Today I will be different. I pray about this, I agonize over this, but I have not been able to show any results of a new heart.

I am really hard on myself as well. The things I see this other person doing are things I also see myself doing. The things I nag about are things I don't want for myself, things I struggle with myself. This other person doesn't see anything wrong with these things, or at least not to my knowledge, but I do.

But I am called to love. I am called to honor. I am called to respect. I serve a wonderful and powerful God, and I want him to take this relationship and change it. Today there is awe and recognition of incredible beauty in the fact that God can change the situation, and he can change me. I have wanted him to change the other person for so long, but really, the change must come in me.

So there it is, one of the many things I am wrestling with lately. I include it because I am also seeing how struggle can be a blessing. All things, even awful things, can come back around and change me for the better, to be a more humble, more loving, more understanding servant.