Ordinary Lecture

(These are my thoughts/notes taken from O'Donnel Day's ordinary lecture on 1.18.10)

"Search me, O God, and know my heart.

Try me and know my thoughts.

And see if there be any grievous way in me,

and lead me in the way everlasting."

~ Psalm 139:23-24

Scripture says that we need to know and to be known in our hearts, tried and known in our anxious/fearful places, and begin to see the hurtful ways inside of us, and this will lead us to life.

This is not an easy task to do. I do not want to be searched and known, I do not want to grow. This kind of searching involves pain, and pain hurts. How do I deal with this kind of mental/psychological pain? These hurtful ways that I see myself, others, God? The hurtful ways in me that include self-abusive thoughts such as:

- "I am all bad."

- "I am fundamentally unlovable."

- "Something about me makes people move away."

- "I don't deserve love."

- "My love is too great and will overwhelm everyone."

- "My need for others isn't valid."

- "My badness is worse than other's badness."

I have learned in my classes that self-contempt and others-contempt are defense mechanisms we develop to keep us from experiencing intolerable pain and loss. I have tended to lean more towards self-contempt (although it is said that these two pieces are sides of the same coin), and I have wrecked havoc on my own heart for many, many years. The most difficult thing for me to do is to extend grace to my own heart, to let go of my mistakes, and to believe that I am loved, even with all of my flaws. I have a hard time believing that someone could really love ALL of me- this kind of love is certainly the most dreadful kind--because there are parts of me that I still do not love and have not accepted.

"Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts. And see if there is any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting..."

Being searched and known in this kind of way leads to life...

In the past year and a half, I have found myself on a journey that I would not have guessed...I have been walking into my own story, searching with kindness and curiosity, (as well as self-contempt, fear, and resistance), braving into deep waters of these hidden places of hurt. And on this journey, my life is beginning to be recovered.

When I open my heart to God to search me and know me, and allow myself to get close to the kindness that I find in my Higher Power (sometimes extended in the faces of friends who listen and care, sometimes found in a circle of strangers at a 12-step group, sometimes at night, when I crawl into bed and begin to pray, and my anxiety-that has done its best to protect me- finally relaxes and softens into tears) I begin to feel worthy again, and lovable. I am grateful for a God who loves me enough to search me in this way, and bear with me "all things," so that I may find life in the process.