Ahhh. You can breathe. The circle is safe. Everyone sitting here is human, with their own version of the story full of joy, pain, and God. Emotions and spiritual journeying are full ranges of difficult to easy simultaneously for all of us. You are welcome into the deep. Pull up a chair and lean in as the coffee cools, and our hearts realize that the moment will be over before we want to go. You either have found these fleeting friendships and spaces, or you long for it.
I am intrigued with people, relationships, and emotions, plus a quick check on which blog posts get hits tells me you guys are, too. It freaks me out when I see something I as an ordinary fallible person wrote gets crazy many clicks till I remember we are all human, and we need reassurance that we are not alone in our brokenness. So for our greater good, and His glory, I will keep writing. Hang with me as I go the scenic route. You may not like how this starts, but as long as the end of the story is good, that's what matters, right?
You are too proud to seek help for yourself, but you're on an advocating bandwagon for people who desperately need help,(no, not yourself) or you just want to understand enough science to make life work for you. Deeper still, you sense something is off, and you just want to figure it out. You and I are both wishing I was using a different set of pronouns right now, cause neither of us wants to admit we are here, needy and broke like everyone else. It's hard to get our eyes off us and the crazy story we live.
In Corinthians, it talks about how we are changing from glory to glory. God doesn't want to have science and methodology in relationship with us. He wants to walk daily with us from one developing pane of gorgeous broken glass to another. We don't arrive at perfection till we get to Heaven. He is so creative that He doesn't want us to all have the same story formula. We are all different, and if we copied someone else, we'd be cheating and flunk the test.
So let's get back to the circle. It's essential that we keep it safe. The things we share aren't going to become gossip material. We see the tough times and damage that sinners have wreaked, but we walk in a bit deeper. We ask what was going on emotionally and spiritually while the story was happening. And we don't keep this in an online forum. We talk with real people about real problems, even if we get anxious in the spilling. We learn a lot in the circle.
You... Yeah, you who can't talk about your own stuff, but you are neck deep in your neighborhood full of problems. Eventually, this hood is going to push you over the edge, and you will get a chokehold on yourself. And you'll find out it's ok. You don't have to go cross cultural to experience it, but it's one of the richest ways to learn and change yourself. I know, because I have walked your path.
You... Yeah, you who just want to make life work, and function. You know more about survive then thrive. You just want to know the right behavior and actions to get you where you want to go. Ahh... I know you, too, for I have been there, done that. It breaks down at some point, that crazy formula just like Burmese grammar. It's freeing to not live by laws and formulas. You'll find that out once you reach the dead end of this road.
The stories, the patterns, and the hard pieces could be a dialogue for hours. But venting isn't our goal.
Our goals should include the following: Changing from Glory to Glory. More Jesus in me. More amazing redemption. More life then death. More light then darkness. Replacing lies with truth. Diamond polishing and sparkling. Joy in the midst of pain. Deep peace that what we know and experience now isn't the final verdict. Jesus won the battle already, and we're claiming it.
So practically speaking, how are you going to create a safe space to make these goals happen with your people?
You're wondering if I'm going to tell you to go to counseling. No, you don't need to. The church, or small groups of people doing life together can get you where you need to go. There's absolutely nothing wrong with going to counseling, but if the church did their job, there would be no need for an office with a long schedule. Read Larry Crabb books and you'll see where I'm coming from. What you need is a place to stop striving, and start breathing.
Form your circle(s). Some of these naturally flow together through family or community. Others happen as you live elsewhere for a while. Still others have to be intentionally planned and worked on.
Have a mentor. Figure out what you want to grow in this year, and find a role model for the year. Or maybe you need advice, find a wise older person who will meet you regularly. If you put a time frame on it, you can discuss your relationship openly in a year. If you are not going to where you want, or the other person wants to quit for any reason, you don't need to drag on and on, but can tactfully bring it to the table.
Pour out to others. Maybe that is younger people in your church. Maybe you help with a kids club. Or maybe like me, you beat yourself up a while before you realize you pour into 10-12 kids at school, and you help several families every week. Because they don't look like the mentee's that the women at church have, and the scenario is a bit different, it doesn't feel like I'm the looked up to mentor. Stop beating yourself up for doing something outside the box. Make a difference for the one you can impact, and be ok with that. I have met more than my quota of people, and there is only one minor situation I kinda regret investing in.
Your people will probably look more like Jesus’ disciples. A bunch of messy teenage fishers. If they don’t fit the nice clean illustrations of a mentoring book, don’t worry about it. Also, numbers aren't what matters. Jesus invested in 12, not a whole multitude.
You don’t have to know all the answers, or have life figured out to start helping others. Walk with God, pray a lot, and just be a friendly listener. Most people can solve most of their own problems if they think and talk about it long enough. Focus more on developing comfortableness in your relationship with God, the confidence in your own abilities. God uses broken crayons all the time, and they still color just the same.
Have a wide range of friends. You can learn something from everyone. City friends have checked up on my house when I'm gone, told me about this cool place or that one, patiently helped me understand cultures different than my own and more. Country friends have peaceful lives where they run if they hear any siren, while us city folks roll over and keep sleeping at this routine noise. 1:30 am gun shots not followed by sirens are a bit more disconcerting, but soon we fall asleep again. I have friends from at least 5 different religious backgrounds. I have liberal and conservative friends within the global church community. I have a dear friend over 80, and the youngest one is 2.5 years old. On both sides of my extended family, there are cross-cultural marriages that add a different dimension to the family tree, and I am extremely grateful for the heritage of acceptance that has brought me. If all my friends and family were all in the same community and all the same color, my worldview would be much different. Sometimes we learn the most from people we never planned to meet, much less learn from. Hold each of these relationships as a valuable asset, and you will be amazed at what they can offer. I have been richly impacted by so many people. If it weren't for all of them, I wouldn't be as far in my journey.
If you aren't sure how to strike up a conversation, just notice little details, ask questions, and ad lib from there. I know one significant friendship started from "Are you tired?"
At funerals, we sing the song “Will the circle be unbroken?” It puts this whole relationship thing in perspective. Circles are accountability so none gets lost on the way, and why we need the circles in the first place.
I am penciling in ideas like diving into some colorful topics ranging from toxic relationships to trauma and more glorious things beyond that. I didn't want to start without setting the table for our circle discussion.
Keep it safe.
Keep it real.
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