Hitting the Guardrails

I have been known as a guy who can hit guardrails. If during a meeting someone would tell me that I was being too loud, then I would (loudly) declare that I would no longer be speaking. Some of this was for show, yet some of this had an internal component too. While the emotional guardrails had been present with me for a long time, more and more they were becoming evident in my behavior. If I didn't enter the work environment with brashness, jokes, hugs and clever greetings then people would go on alert that something was wrong.

This began happening more and more frequently. When asked I would make a joke that everyone could stand down the 'suicide watch', that I just wanted to be quiet, couldn't I just act like a normal guy one day. That would at least satiate people's expressed concern. Trouble was, something was wrong.

Yesterday, my wife and I were talking about our days, and as we were chatting I told her that for the past few weeks I have just felt happy. It wasn't something that I was trying to achieve, it just WAS and it felt great. That used to be my 'normal', just a happy and content guy. (Although, in my previous 'normal' the happiness had more to do with people liking me, but it was at least not a battle to maintain a state of happiness.)

Now I know that some people will read this and think that I am missing the point, happiness is not our goal. Trust me, lesson learned, I know this. I'm not living for a feeling. Feelings are deceptive, they will change and diminish. I have lived in slavery to my feelings and I feel qualified to make the distinction. So maybe my word choice is not great, after all I am trying to blog and I don't want this to be overly scripted. Maybe what is going on would be better conveyed through words like joyful, confident, grateful, forgiven, secure, or maybe it is all those rolled into one.

What I am driving at is this is not a matter of a happiness because something good has happened to change my circumstance. In fact, much of my circumstance is still in confusion. Many of my relationships are still very damaged and there is a community of people that still have a perception of my fallen legacy. I have no guarantees of being the perfect husband or father, of having the perfect marriage, of having the ministry that my soul longs for daily, or of so many other things. But that is not the stuff that matters.

No longer do I continually battle the inner turmoil that I had been. Looking to my circumstances and the fulfillment of my expectations to define the quality of my relationship with God. It used to be that criticisms or deficiencies left an open wound of hurt in me. Loneliness consumed me in my marriage as my wife was battling with my expectations (and losing) and had baggage of her own that she was fighting to avoid. In a gathering with some friends last night, we declared "We are messed up!" So funny to hear us declare the obvious - at least we were laughing instead of crying or yelling.

It is ironic that running from or masking your fears makes you so much more likely to be hurt by them. That was one of my growing problems, I was a slave to my mask and who I wanted others to think I was. My guardrails became more frequent because this was getting harder and harder to maintain. Happiness now comes from embracing the freedom that Christ gives. Trusting God with my fears. Accepting His grace to not be absolutely perfect in everything that I do.

I just laughed as I hit the enter key at the end of the previous line. That seems so simple. It used to frustrate me when an author would make such a simple statement and move on. In fact, I once was so pissed off at a particular book I kept yelling "yes, I want that" while circling the offensive paragraph in the book. I ended up circling a hole through about 100 pages. Oh well, what's fifteen bucks when you're having so much fun.

This is the place I expected to be when I started typing awhile ago. But if you are not just walking the journey with me, but are rather looking for hope and happen to see a glimmer of yourself in anything I've said in this or some other post, please don't give up. I know. It's frustrating and I'm not going to leave the story there. To be able to talk about freedom, trust and grace has been an exhausting and painful process that I'll dive deep into in our times together. I used to have all the knowledge in my head, but there was a disconnect with my heart, which became the most frustrating thing of all. Why was God so far away and so quiet? Turns out the problem was with me and not God. Go figure.