The Spiritual Gift of Mercy

In my Pauline epistles class, my professor said that instead of thinking of our spiritual things as something we enjoy doing, perhaps they are something which requires sacrifice on our part.  I don't see why they can't be both.  I've gotten to a place where I automatically reject any Christianese anti-joy stance, because I firmly believe God desires for us to enjoy life and the gifts He gives us.  But it makes a lot of sense that in our broken world, the things that ought to bring us joy will also bring us pain.

A couple years ago I asked some people from church to identify my spiritual gifts, and instead of continuing to listen to my professor (who I really do love, but well, I have a short attention span when I'm interested in something else), I searched my emails.  There it was, Joel saying he thought I had the spiritual gift of mercy, long before I considered studying counseling and making mercy a career.

I thought back several months, when I spent an agonizing evening with my friend Libby, opening up for the first time to a friend about how the weight of the world sometimes feels like it will break me, how my bouts of depression are more often global in scale than personal.  The ways people hurt each other, the inevitability of war and abuse and my helplessness to do anything about it--this can feel unbearable.  Libby said I take too much responsibility for other people's feelings, and she is absolutely right.  But I think there is something else to it.

If my spiritual gift is mercy, and if spiritual gifts require sacrifice, then this makes sense.  Mercy only exists where sin exists.  Being tapped into the richness of mercy necessarily means being tapped into the depths of sinfulness.  There some days I find this exchange more acceptable than others.

I have always been an emotional sucker for underdogs.  I cried for Gollum more than any other character in The Lord of the Rings, because he just needed unconditional love, oh my God.  My absolute favorite part of counseling is when a client tentatively admits to some secret, and by not reacting in horror, I get to watch their faces open up just a tiny bit in trust before the rest comes out.  All the shame, all the horrible things they have thought or felt or done.  I love being the person to hear their worst and to say, "I'm so sorry you went through that.  I understand why you would have done that.  I'm so grateful you shared that with me."  I hadn't really thought of it as mercy before, but of course it is.  I love seeing someone at their worst and saying, "I'm not going to punish you for that."

My overabundance of mercy is counterbalanced by an incredibly diminished capacity for justice.  I hate war, I hate revenge, I hate the death penalty, I hate giving up on someone.  My church is going through Joshua right now, and I very much appreciate how nearly every week whoever is preaching addresses the complexity of what it means to serve an occasionally genocidal God.  I struggle with that a lot, and the concept of God's justice in general.  There are exceptions, though.  I think of the men and women who kidnap children and naive young women, who sell other people's bodies for sex and abuse, who buy homes paid for by someone else's nightmare.  I think of those people, and my capacity for mercy shrivels up until I understand God's justice.  I understand His disgust with our sin, His desire to see it--to see us--utterly destroyed.

That's unusual, though.  And honestly, if I met someone who worked in the sex trafficking industry and managed to talk to them, I'm sure I would discover their own background of abuse and neglect and pain.  I'd like to think that I could learn to empathize with even these disgusting people, that I could learn to show mercy to them.

That doesn't negate justice.  I understand that justice is an attribute of God, despite my usual inability to fathom it or especially to appreciate it.  But I just read G. K. Chesterson's Orthodoxy in which he states the inherent paradoxes of Christianity.  Ours is a religion, not of balance, but of passion.  Christianity has inspired the gruesomest wars in history as well as an enduring community of people committed to non-violence.  Our God is entirely just and entirely merciful, and I think His people, being finite where He is infinite, are able to inhabit and display just one or two of His attributes. Someone else has justice covered.  I've got mercy, for worse and for better.

Ambushed by the Bible

For the past two weeks, I've been leaning more towards the "stay in Dallas" side of the future.  I had a breakthrough in group therapy that involved me crying in front of people, feeling horribly embarrassed at displaying vulnerability, and then being invited by a friend to talk about it more afterwards.  It was a lovely departure from my core belief that people won't like me if I open up.  Combined with the fact that I just read Vital Friends, a book about the benefits of working with friends, I was feeling like it would be super dumb to leave my Dallas support group.

As a result, I have taken no steps to contacting Dina and continuing the conversation of moving to Greece.

But.

My church is going through a series on Joshua, which is this consistently annoying reminder that God calls His people to do crazy things outside of their comfort zone, often with very little clear guidance beyond "Do this step.  Okay, now this one."  On top of that, my friend who took me out for further conversation accidentally compared me to the person I am annoyed with who only reacts to things, but rarely acts.  "Oh," my friend said.  "So like how you don't like to do anything unless someone else decides for you."  :|  On top of THAT, I started thinking about all the ways this opportunity came up, how so much of it seemed, well, supernatural.

It reminded me of the parable of the talents.  God gives people passions and opportunities, and if you use them and grow them and try, then He rewards you with further passions and opportunities.  But if you freeze up and do nothing, well...you may never get an opportunity again.

I was telling all of this to my friend today, and then she had to do homework, so I pulled out my Bible.  My small group at church has a challenge to read all four gospels in a month, and I am doing very poorly at it.  I opened up to my current location, which was....the parable of the talents.  Since it is the Message translation, I read, "That's a terrible way to live!  It's criminal to live cautiously like that! ...And get rid of this 'play-it-safe' who won't go out on a limb.  Throw him out into utter darkness."

Well.  Well, okay then.

So I emailed Dina.  It's not a decision, but it's a step away from being paralyzed with fear.

But Then I Think

I've been napping more often, which is only unusual because I've been sleeping a normal amount.  This didn't strike me as odd until something deep inside told me, "This is what you do when you're stressed," and intuitively I knew that was true.  It isn't really that I'm more tired than usual.  I just...sleep.  Oh, a bit of extra time? I subconsciously think.  Might as well be unconscious, then I don't have to worry about anything.

I'm in a weird state of limbo where Greece plans are concerned.  I have no new information, since I am letting the Petrous have some family time in the midst of their son's surgery and recovery.  However, this means my attempts to plan my future are happening without the most important part--the side beckoning me forward.  Without that lifeline, I feel like I'm stumbling forward for no reason at all.

I found out that accepting a job at my internship will, best case scenario, mean living off the same amount of money as I've been making these past two years.  Possibly even less.  While it has mostly been fine to live on $1,000 a month, I was kind of hoping that was a grad student lifestyle.  My supervisor assured me that, as with any new business, I shouldn't plan on actually making real money for the first three years of working in private practice.  This means that if I stay at my internship, I will need a second job.  A job...like nannying.  Although it feels a bit humiliating, I'm not above telling my bosses that I was mistaken--counselors don't actually make good money for awhile, and could I please continue to work for them?  I'm sure they would say yes.

What worries me is Greece.  If Greece is temporary, say three or six months, and I return to Dallas...what will I return to?  I could work at my internship well enough, but my bosses will have to find someone to replace me.  That means looking for a new second job.

It feels so much like life in Dallas would be easy.  Well, not easy.  This whole continuing-to-live-on-the-poverty-line is not great.  But if that's what it means to work in private practice, where better to do it than somewhere I have an understanding, supportive second job family?  Am I an idiot for giving that up to move somewhere new?  Does there come a point in maturity where pragmatism outweighs passion?

But then I think--God uses the foolish things of this world to shame the wise.  It's feeling incredibly foolish to walk away from a career laid out for me with minimal obstacles.  If it's foolish to go to Greece, does that mean I should?

But then I think--there are plenty of foolish things that I don't think God is necessarily leading people to do, like when I ate a bag of Twix candy bars.  God might love using ridiculous situations to show his glory, but that does not mean all ridiculous situations are his specific plan.  What if this is my pattern of leaving a good place, of being scared of the intimacy and commitment of settling down?

But then I think--what "pattern"?  Why am I determined to view all my personal revelations as necessarily bad?  So what if I moved from Peoria to Jackson to Fatick to Peoria to Dallas?  Each time I moved, I felt peace that it was within God's plans, and in every place I found a new family--people who cared for me and encouraged me to grow, people I could serve and love and miss.  I don't think any of my moves were wrong.  I think, for whatever reason, God gave me a passion for seeing new places and experiencing new things, and he has given me many opportunities to live this passion.  Why think of that as a bad thing?

But then I think--well, isn't it?  Aren't community and commitment good things?

But then I think--of course they are, but why can't both life paths be good?  Staying is good, and going is good.  They both offer separate rewards and separate challenges, but one is not necessarily better than the other, nor is a decision to follow one necessarily what the rest of my life will be characterized by.

But then I think--

But then I think--

But then I fall asleep.

Greece

I'm only quiet when I'm processing, and a two month absence from blogging accurately indicates that I have been processing something rather massive.

I'm working toward moving to Greece after I graduate.  So much of this possibility is unclear--when I would go, how long I would stay, if it is even possible.  The short story is that the Petrous, a dear family I visited twice on mission trips to Athens, invited me to join Dina in working with women leaving sexual slavery.  Everyone I have talked with about this opportunity has been overwhelmingly supportive, whether in affirming the reality that this is my chance to invest a long chunk of time in travel before settling into a professional life, or in reminding me that I never actually wanted to be in private practice anyway; my dreams have always skewed toward the international and missional. 

Everything is still very much in the information stages, but that hasn't kept me from leaping ahead and preemptively deciding that I will definitely go.  It took me about a week, back in July, to work up to a fever pitch of excitement.  Here at last was what I had been waiting for.  I remembered sitting on a Seattle beach with Roy, telling him how so many of the greatest events of my life have occurred because of random connections so perfectly timed that it felt like God.  This could be it again.

The first month of thinking and planning was almost entirely done in delirious excitement.  This second month, well, I'm becoming more realistic.  Working with women coming out of sex trafficking?  While I love the idea of putting my feminism into practice and tangibly helping women who have suffered the worst forms of oppression, I am completely overwhelmed by the magnitude of the job.

One friend told me that my singleness is a gift, not only in my freedom to travel as I will, but in my emotional freedom.  I can work in an emotionally draining job, go home, and take care of myself.  Were I married or had kids, I would go home to more people who needed me to be emotionally available to them.  This is a very nice thought, one which I clung to as evidence of this opportunity's perfection.  But...a job that is that draining?

My supervisor has been having me read articles about secondary traumatization, an effect of counselors working with a large caseload of trauma victims for a long period of time in which you inherit their triggers, memories, and nightmares.  I'm already terrified of rapists, clutching car keys between my knuckles in dark grocery parking lots and checking my backseat for potential kidnappers.  This fear is driven from email chains twelve years ago--how much more scared will I be when sitting before me is evidence of the worst humanity can inflict upon each other?  Stories of rape, violence, humiliation.  How will I be able to listen to them, empathize with them, be with them in their pain and come away whole?

I don't know if it is worth it.  Why should I tear myself apart to put someone else together?  Of course, if this happens, I intend to be proactive about self-care.  I will try to create a support system on which I can unload.  I will create safe spaces for myself, and give myself as much time and quiet as necessary to restore myself.  But still.  There are some things you cannot unhear, some realities you cannot ignore.

Last week Mike preached on Joshua 3 and 4 when the Israelites are going to cross the Jordan River at its deepest, during flood season.  Mike said it would have been nice if God had parted the waters in advance, had given his people ample time to see his power so they could trust in his provision.  Instead, it took the faith of twelve men to step into the water, to begin walking into a deep river that showed no hint of a miracle.  "Yet as soon as the priests who carried the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water's edge, the water from upstream stopped flowing.  It piled up in a heap a great distance away."

I've been excited, and I've been terrified.  Now I hope to bring the two emotions together.  I will continue walking toward this deep river that threatens to swallow me in sorrow and fear.  I will continue walking, only because I have the assurance that if God is leading me, He will also make a way for me through the valley of the shadow of death.

Courage, dear heart.

Reframe

Whenever I'm with a group of single women, there is an 80% chance that the conversation will meander towards a discussion of the fears we have surrounding marriage--giving up freedom, trusting that intimacy will stay despite personal growth and/or change, etc.  And twice this has happened.

Me:  Marriage is scary!  I just haven't found a guy who I like and respect enough to let go of the fear and start trusting.
Friend: That's not true.  You've loved guys that deeply before.  They just didn't love you back.
Me:  ...

I'll be real, I can only barely tolerate that level of honesty.  I have been pissed about this conversation for months, and I'm only starting to process what that means.

Why does that reminder--they just didn't love you back--make me so angry?  Well, obviously because it touches on rejection and unworthiness and all those horrible feelings.  It feels like it is a break of the friendship code, where you don't, you know, shove your friend's face in all their insecurities.  But on a deeper level, that statement angered me because it took away my control.  When I narrate my singleness, I give myself the power, telling people I haven't found the right guy, I'm not willing to give up freedom.  I am the person keeping me single.  It's my choice.  But when my friend called me on this, I was suddenly stripped of even that.  Not only do I not have a person who has committed to loving and supporting me through life, I'm not even responsible for this lack.  My last shred of dignity, taken away.

The introspection doesn't end there!  Again, months after this conversation, I am only beginning to shift the way I frame my singleness.  If it's not my choice, then what?  I mean, it would be easy to sink into all the things I'm avoiding (rejection, unworthiness, etc), but there's another side.  If I'm not choosing to be single, then that means--I'm open to love.  I do give my heart away.  I practice vulnerability.  I risk my affections, and I'm willing to gamble on romance. 

I have to give up the illusion that I'm in control of my singleness, and that hurts.  But I get to give up the illusion that I'm a cold-hearted bastard.  Giving that up is a bit scary, of course, since a cold heart isn't broken so easily.  But it also means all that therapy nonsense where I worried I couldn't feel and that I lived in hopelessness was, well, nonsense.  I do nothing but feel and hope. 

That's my new narrative.  I'm ready to love and be loved.  So far those halves of the sentence are not synchronized, since I'm not interested in being loved by those who confess it, and the guys I love similarly dismiss me.  But I'm not broken, I'm not shut down, I'm not hard.  I'm ready for marriage, and when the day comes that the guy I love says, "hey, me too," I don't think it will be difficult to take the next step.

Unless he's allergic to cats.  Then there's gonna be a problem.

St. Maarten Stories: Snorkeling

My biggest concern about going to the Caribbean was getting bored.  On a list of things I value about vacations, probably two of the last are relaxing and water.  As near as I can tell, those are exactly what people go to St. Maarten to enjoy.  After a day of lounging by the pool to move to lounging by the beach and back, I was ready to spend some cash in order to get out of the resort and go on an adventure.

We could rent a Mini Cooper and drive around St. Barths!  Whoa, for...way too much money.  In the end, the tour desk in the resort lobby offered only one affordable package, which is how Lindsay and I found ourselves in Phillipsburg with twenty other people waiting for a boat that would take us snorkeling at three different islands.

As we walked along the dock, our hostess directed us to two different boats.  "Oh my word," I murmured when I caught sight of the second boat's captain.  "Lindsay," I hissed.  "Look."

"That is the most attractive man I've ever seen," she breathed.  Behind us, a woman on her honeymoon leaned in to us and added, "I hope we're on his boat, huh?"

A group of five party girls strode eagerly toward him, but our hostess directed them to the other boat.  At their sounds of dismay, she assured them, "You'll see Sander again, don't worry.  Family of five, you're with the girls.  Everyone else, you're with Sander."

Lindsay and I exchanged grins.  Sander, a tan tall man with blond hair falling to his chin, smiled at our approaching group.  "Climb on in," he said.

"His accent," I whispered.

"Where are you from?" Lindsay asked.

"I'm Dutch," Sander answered.

"Oh, I.  That's great."  His face and his voice combined were too much for anyone to react to in anything resembling calm.

Sander got us settled into seats and fetched drinks for everyone.  He explained what bays we were in and what houses overlooking the water were owned by which celebrities.  He grinned as he drove faster over the waves, bouncing us through the green and blue waters.  I spent 80% of my mental faculties trying to look at him without looking like I was looking at him.

"He took off his sunglasses!" I groaned at Lindsay.

"Oh my--he has Zac Efron eyes!" she answered after sneaking a glance.

"I can't handle this."

"Well, then you definitely won't handle this.  He just took off his shirt."

We docked in a cove with no beaches.  Sander explained that this was our first snorkeling destination.  He talked about different kinds of fish we might see, and purple eggs, and probably something else, but I was fixated on the fact that we were in fifteen feet deep water.  I'd assumed we would always be wading in from shore, not dropping off the side of a boat.

"Lindsay," I whispered.  "I can't swim."

"What!?"

"I mean, not well.  I don't know if I can do this."

The rest of the people on our boat were passing around scuba masks and flippers.  I took a set and swallowed bile.  Some of our fellow passengers jumped off the side, and some eased themselves into the water from the ladder in the back.  I saw two women grab pool noodles for floatation devices, but they weren't snorkeling.

Sander looked at Lindsay and I.  "Are you ready?" he asked, smiling with his stupid Dutch teeth.

"Yes," I said, and took his hand.  I let him walk me over the back seats until I was by the water.  I climbed in and mimicked Lindsay's actions as she put on the mask and flippers.  She pushed away, and I glanced at Sander.  I was not going to stay on the boat like an idiot and make his tan friendly face fall in disappointment.  I took in a breath, and meant to push away from the boat.  Instead I blurted, "Could I have a noodle!?"  Sander tossed me a pink one.  Face burning in shame, I took my noodle and slowly followed Lindsay toward the cove.

She showed me how to breath through the mask as I clung to my safety noodle.  "Let's go!" she said.  I breathed in my fear and then let it out, putting my face below the water as though it wouldn't kill me.  And then it didn't.  I let myself dead man float and found that the mask actually kept water out of my eyes and lungs.  I wasn't dying--I was snorkeling!  I kicked my flippers and found myself swimming, noodle to the side and almost unnecessary.

Once I was confident I wasn't going to immediately drown, I actually noticed that I was looking underwater.  There were fish there, darting into the rocks, shining purple and yellow around the edges.  "This is so cool!" I yelled, and inhaled salty water.  I came crashing to the surface, clinging once more to the only thing keeping me from drowning, spitting out the breathing tube in horror.  Lindsay surfaced beside me.  "Um, don't talk when you're underwater," she said.  "Here, pour out your tube like this.  Got it?  Okay, let's go!"

I did eventually get the hang of things.  I gleefully swam through a school of tiny fish and tried to touch them unsuccessfully.  We saw a big needlefish swimming near the ocean floor, and urchins dotted the sand and rocks around us.  I found myself comfortably twisting in the water, reveling in the grace and confidence that floating enables.  We made our way back to the boat when we noticed people packing up.  I handed Sander my noodle and pulled off my mask and flippers.

"Let me help you," he said.  "The ladder moves."

It was rather wiggly, and his strong Dutch arm was reaching out in front of me, so I clasped his hand and pulled myself onto the boat.  It was slippery, so naturally I had to hold on to him a little longer than necessary, just to be totally safe.

"How was it?" he asked.

"It was beautiful," I said, meaning the water, the sealife, and his face.

"Great!" he said, and piloted our boat to our next destination as I grinned into the ocean spray.

St. Maarten Stories: Concessions

While we were walking along the St. Maarten beach, Lindsay asked me if anyone had ever kissed me.  I coughed out a laugh and admitted, no, no one had.  She sighed and said I was lucky, which elicited another painful laugh from me.  After silence stretched too long, I said, "I would ask when your first kiss was, but honestly, I don't want to know.  I'm feeling bitter, and I wouldn't appreciate it."

So it was fortuitous that Jordan flirted with me at the resort's chocolate buffet immediately after we returned.

Lindsay had pointed him out as the cutest guy at the resort that afternoon.  She called out to him and carried on a conversation that I mostly observed, wondering when she would finish so we could go to the room.  Unwilling to look totally anti-social, I made a few comments, but I internally rolled my eyes when she invited him to meet us later.

I might have been pissed at her extroversion, but I wasn't going to risk hanging out with a hot guy unarmed.  I dressed up and painted my eyes darker than usual.  It was nothing, nothing, but you know.  Just in case.

He did find us, practically running up, begging for our help in escaping a girl who had been following him around during his weekend at the resort.  The three of us talked until his friends appeared.  Lindsay had already met them, and Jordan moved to sit at the edge of the group next to me.  I should mention he was an absolutely delightful asshole.  He made horrifically racist and sizeist comments with a grin, and I couldn't help laughing.  He was a good ol' boy from Georgia, and I found it easy to fall into the role of being shocked and appalled at the things falling from his lips.  "You say the most horrible things," I told him.  "I know," he grinned, leaning into my shoulder.

Confident assholes.  My weakness.

Everyone else had left the chocolate buffet, and the workers had turned off the spotlights.  "Let's go inside to the bar," his friends suggested.  Lindsay said she was tired, but I convinced her to go in for just half an hour.  Jordan pulled up a semi-circle of chairs and made sure we sat beside each other.  He put his knee on my chair so I could press my hand against it if I wanted.  I did.

Half an hour came and went, and his friends glanced between us and said they were going upstairs.  Lindsay again said she was tired, but I convinced her to stay.  I felt dangerous.  I wanted--I wanted to give up.  Here I was in another country with a cute boy who I was pretty sure wouldn't say no to anything I suggested or allowed.  For so long I've loved boys who said no, who said, "oh, but I like her," who put up walls that I couldn't get past.  Jordan was wide open, and I desperately wanted to take advantage of that opportunity.

"What's your favorite band?" he asked.

"Mumford and Sons, probably."

"Ugh!  You're a hipster!"

"Haha, yeah, I guess I am.  I like my men in skinny ties and suspenders."

Jordan grabbed my arm and smiled close.  "That's horrible.  I would never be caught dead in a skinny tie."

"That's your loss," I grinned.

"I'm going to bed," Lindsay said.

I could already picture what would happen if she left us alone.  A new story, one I would probably regret.  But at least I would finally have an answer to the question, "Has anyone ever kissed you?"  I would look back on whatever happened with sadness and guilt and a deep satisfaction.

"I'll go up with you," I told Lindsay.

Jordan leaned in again and said, "I'd really like for you to stay here with me a little longer.  I'm leaving in the morning."

Well.  I smiled and said as meaningfully as I could, "I would really like that, too."  I turned to Lindsay.  "Alright, I'm ready."

We went upstairs.  I washed the makeup off my face and pulled on a t-shirt and shorts.  I said goodnight, slid under the covers, and turned off the light.  I stayed awake for over an hour regretting my decision.  I could still go back down.  I could find him again.  I could have my secret, and I would hate myself for a while, but I would feel desired and complete in a way I am increasingly desperate to experience.

It's hell, sometimes, fighting to hold onto hope.