community is scary

In these past few months I’ve met a lot of new people. All my new racer friends. It’s been so good. So so good. I love people. I’ve always been a big people person. Buttttt trying to dive into a brand new community has once again brought to my attention how hard it can be. We’re all humans and we’ve all been hurt because that’s just how it is. And we have to deal with it. I pray that we all choose to deal with it healthily. But anyways, I’ve realized once again a lot of things about myself through this process. Such as how scared I am of groups. How paranoid and anxious I can get, out of an honest fear of rejection, when I risk loving someone new. I realized that I don’t want to get hurt (obviously). And my brain goes into fight or flight really, really quickly in order to protect myself. It’s a defense thing. I actually listened to a podcast on this topic not too long ago that walked through what happens in our brain when we find ourselves in these anxieties/fears. Complete nerdy, psychology stuff, I know. But it was incredibly interesting and makes a lot of sense scientifically. BUT just as much as I can be aware of what’s happening when I’m anxious, I can be aware of how to work straight through that in order to be healthier. 

 

I’m a processor, I’m always reflecting on something.. God bless all my friends who sit through this with me. Haha I love you guys – you know who you are. But I’ve truthfully had some tougher days in the past few months that have forced me to reflect, where I just really kinda wanted to run away and hide because that’s a lot easier than facing the tough realities of relationships. But I know that I know, that pushing through the process of finding intimacy and diving into it is so incredibly worth it on the other side. Lysa TerKeurst’s book Uninvited is my FAVORITE. I always joke about how it’s a second bible to me. Her words are so real. So full of grace. The way she connects the truth about how hard relationship can be with the truth of who we are in the fullness of Christ is incredible. One of my favorite quotes from her book is this, as she talks more in depth about people who are living in the fullness of the Lord:

 

“The fullness of God is tucked into the sacred places within them. The full taking in of God is their soul oxygen. It’s not that they don’t need people. They do. God created them for community. But the way they love is from a full place, not from an empty desperation. They are living loved.” 

 

Not from an empty desperation. Other people don’t have the ability to be our soul oxygen. I want to learn how to walk into the room with my 43 other teammates and look for ways to love them, rather than sitting there feeling like I can’t breathe unless they’re filling my own voids. I want to be able to trust that not everyone is out to get me. That distance doesn’t always equal rejection. That my paranoid assumptions about what other people are thinking about me are unfair to them and equally as damaging to me. That I don’t have to be in leadership to belong. That I can sit back, listen and relax while doing it. That what I have to say does matter. That I can be known. I can be seen. I can be myself and be loved fully for it.

 

I often say that I appreciate your prayers – and so I’m here this time to give you a specific one. My prayer is that I simply would be able to learn how to live out of a place of fullness this year as I dive into community. Not out of a desperation to be loved, but from a place knowing that I’m already loved, giving me the freedom to love others even more abundantly. 

 

“With God there is fullness. There is no lack. Nothing can be added or subtracted with human acceptance or rejection. With the fullness of God we are free to let humans be humans – fickle and fragile and forgetful.” – Lysa TerKeurst 

 

I believe that. And I pray that I would have the power to tell my flesh no when it wants to place my worth in other people. I can’t wait to see what God shows me about my identity this year. It’s gonna be good.