I’m a relatively easy person to impersonate. I like structure and process, and so hate surprises. I’m loyal to Guzman y Gomez’s burrito bowls, and love all sunsets.
I also really care about mental wellbeing, rooted in the belief that the world isn’t just about life and death and that emotions were made for a reason. I’ve actually spoken about this topic on numerous occasions — 1:1, youth group, formal events etc. It’s my life talk-track.
But lockdown has given me time to reflect, as I realise in my heart that I haven’t really lived this out for myself. It’s a long struggle that dates back to my teen years — feelings of inadequacy have led to very bad situations, including blindly letting others question my sense of reality and identity. Whenever this happens, my natural posture is to become as small as possible, to crawl up like a prawn in my bed and never leave until I have to wake up. But this has all recently led to the following question — “why did I accept this? I know better.”
This self-reflection is jarring, because I’m usually the one who questions others who have shared the same tragedy.
I am my own blind spot.
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I’ve recently been listening to this podcast series called ‘The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill’ by Christianity Today. Essentially it’s a “long-form storytelling” of the journey of the now-collapsed Mars Hill church in Seattle, led by controversial pastor Mark Driscoll. In the same vain of the rise and fall of celebrity pastors we’ve all seen, here’s a New York Times article for some context.
One of the key questions discussed was how Driscoll was able to stay in his leadership role for so long, despite evidence of spiritual and emotional abuse. Something that I resonated with was how easy it is to stay quiet because of the good and fruitful results, but ignoring the very serious red flags along the way.
They are their own blind spot.
In the midst of all these broken pieces, I do believe God works in mysterious ways. In fact, I believe God does not makes mistakes.
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“The church is a hospital for diners, not a museum for saints”
I am not “perfect”, nor am I as pure as people think I am. I say that, not from a place of boosting, but a place of deep shame and not knowing how to say no or to ask for help when I was younger.
There’s much more to the story, but the main point is that it set me on a path to learn about the concept of grace. The thing about grace is that it’s not flimsy standards or minimizing the consequences. It’s an acknowledgement of the magnitude of what happened, and still being shown a supernatural level of good will — at their cost, not yours. What great, yet undeserving, love received.
One example of God’s grace is how the challenging seasons in my own life were never left as just a mistake, but have since transformed into the things I care about today, including mental wellbeing.
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I’m sure a lot of us have found ourselves in a similar boat, thinking: “Why is this happening to me?”.
But I think that question is quite narrow-minded, as if your blind spot is to the rest of your story.
If you know me, you’d know I love getting to know people and their stories. My hope and prayer is that you start to see there is something at work in these times, and trust the storyteller in the midst of this.
Looking forward to hearing your story :)
