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Have you ever wanted to break up with yourself?


Have you ever uncovered parts of yourself that felt so scary and painful that you just wanted them to go away? To somehow separate them from the fabric of who you are and divorce them away?
I have. A lot. If I’m honest, this is actually one of my favorite ways to handle my needs and frailties.
It sounds like: this need is way too overwhelming and no one wants to meet it anyway. So, I will just push it away until it doesn’t feel like it’s mine anymore and I can’t feel the pain of it being unfulfilled. Or, I discover some horribly vulnerable place in my character and the exposure feels so stark that I declare, “That’s not mine! I would never struggle with that or think that or do that or say that! Not mine!”
The problem is that I have become very fragmented as a result. I have feelings that get lost in my body and I struggle to find them. I have physical sensations in my body like headaches that bore right through my skull and stomach-aches that burn like fire, but I can’t tell what experiences they are connected to.
When I finally want to reconnect with these feelings and rejected parts of me, they are sluggish to respond, like a leg that’s been completely asleep for a while. When the feeling returns, it’s scary and painful, like emotional pins and needles, hurting me with their intensity. I’m so overwhelmed that I’m not sure I want these parts after all. I blame them for my problems and want to break up with the parts of myself that are so messy and broken.
God is still teaching me how to receive His love. Apparently, I have to let the love of God in for it to be effective. It only transforms and invigorates the places where it reaches. So, when I imprison my weak places and cut them off from the love of God, then they can never grow, heal or change. When I measure out God’s love in accordance with my judgment of my performance, then there are a good many areas in my life where little love is granted because I think that little love has been earned. I can tell where God’s love is reaching because those places are growing and fruitful. But other areas in my heart and mind are more like the desert because the river of God’s love was damned up and not allowed to go there.
Telling my needs that they are stupid and refusing to fill them does not make them go away. It just changes them into deeper chasms of unmet longing with louder demands. Disdaining my fragility does not make it strong, but further burdens what is already weak. Breaking up with the parts of me that I don’t like doesn’t destroy them, but it does destroy me. It keeps me from receiving God’s love and experiencing His power made perfect in my weakness. It prevents me from enjoying who God has made me to be and recognizing His delight in me, even in my brokenness.
I’m still scared, but I plan to reconcile with all the broken off parts of me. I’m asking God for shalom within me.
Still Counting Gifts:
·         #708: A fun double date at Blue Man Group
·         #709: Hamburgers at The Roundhouse
·         #710: My wedding dress!
·         #711: Answered prayers
·         #712: Snow even though I’m longing for spring
·         #713: My mom and how patient she can be when I’m in a stormy state and she’s encouraging me
·         #714: A drive with Karyn
·         #715: Sugar jones cupcakes
·         #716: The emotionally soothing power found in a sugar jones cupcake
·         #717: The terror and joy of knowing and being known
·         #718: Giving and receiving forgiveness
·         #719: A new work computer
·         #720: I still get to go on dates with my parents

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