I HAVE MY OWN BEDROOM.
Six months ago, I dropped into the lives of five people who were not exactly expecting me. I imagine that it would be sort of like giving birth the instant you find out you’re pregnant...and then discovering that your “baby” is actually a fully functioning 20-year-old, with a personality and a life and a separate network all in place already. Jarring, to say the least. Anyway, since then we’ve had a little bit of a space conundrum. Until this year, I was wholly unacquainted with the feeling of “displacement” that comes with not having my own bedroom. And to be honest, I didn’t really even notice how stressed it was making me until I moved into my new bedroom. But now that I see it, it’s actually crazy to me how necessary it is to be able to spread out into my own defined space. I have been incredibly grateful for one of the little ones, who so graciously gave up his room for a little over five months so that I would have a corner of the world to temporarily call my own. But dang, am I ever glad to be able to give that space back to him, for both selfish and unselfish reasons- he and I both (actually, I think all of us) were needing some refuge. For a while there, it felt like we had people on top of people, sharing rooms and shifting around and fighting over toys...
My beautiful little room is tucked away down in the basement of the house. It is consistently the perfect temperature for me, just cool enough that I can bury myself under six blankets and purr myself to sleep in a little "cocoon," as my dad used to always call it. The day I moved in down here, I snuggled into the deepest corner of my bed, wrapped in my fluffy fleece blanket, with a mug of tea perched on my lap and my bible open in front of me... and I prayed over this room. For a long time. For really vague things, like safety and refuge and good chi, and for specific things, like space for grieving, godly conversation, and a good night’s rest. I knew that being down here would dramatically impact my feeling of being settled here, for better or worse I wasn’t certain. And for the first couple days I think I was waiting to see if the house would close in around everyone else, like a body healing itself after a thorn is removed, shutting me into my own little secluded pocket of the world. Silly, I know. But it’s changes like this that test my level of trust in the security I have in this world. This time around, I’m fairly certain I failed the test. I fell in love with my bedroom the second I entered it, but fear gripped the part of me that still sometimes questions how much I belong anywhere. And those first couple of days, I allowed the fear and lies to be my reality and truth. I gave in to the idea that I was separate, physically of course, but to my confused and darkened mind, that translated to a relational level as well.
My beautiful little room is tucked away down in the basement of the house. It is consistently the perfect temperature for me, just cool enough that I can bury myself under six blankets and purr myself to sleep in a little "cocoon," as my dad used to always call it. The day I moved in down here, I snuggled into the deepest corner of my bed, wrapped in my fluffy fleece blanket, with a mug of tea perched on my lap and my bible open in front of me... and I prayed over this room. For a long time. For really vague things, like safety and refuge and good chi, and for specific things, like space for grieving, godly conversation, and a good night’s rest. I knew that being down here would dramatically impact my feeling of being settled here, for better or worse I wasn’t certain. And for the first couple days I think I was waiting to see if the house would close in around everyone else, like a body healing itself after a thorn is removed, shutting me into my own little secluded pocket of the world. Silly, I know. But it’s changes like this that test my level of trust in the security I have in this world. This time around, I’m fairly certain I failed the test. I fell in love with my bedroom the second I entered it, but fear gripped the part of me that still sometimes questions how much I belong anywhere. And those first couple of days, I allowed the fear and lies to be my reality and truth. I gave in to the idea that I was separate, physically of course, but to my confused and darkened mind, that translated to a relational level as well.
Sometimes it seems there is just no pleasing me. I’m always asking for more. God gives me the greatest desires of my heart and I find ways to tell him that they're not good enough. I find ways to convince myself that I’m not worthy of being loved, and then that belief grows and mutates until I am hypersensitive to everything, and reading between lines that are between other lines that don’t even exist. I wrap myself up in excuses about how entitled I am, when in reality, everything I have is completely an undeserved gift of grace. Scott and Kara didn’t have to adopt me. But they did because they love me. They didn’t have to build me a bedroom. But they did because they care for me. And what do I do in return? Pile up ridiculous and uncommunicated expectations, and then convince myself that because transition is hard, I probably just don’t fit. Moron. Sometimes I think if I had a conversation with myself on things like this, I would sooner use my fists as advice than my words.
What I really want is to rewind and unwind some of the emotional crap I’ve tangled myself into. I want to be able to walk into those hard moments again with some of the fresh perspective I have now, and come out on top. That way, I could be absolutely certain that the good parts of me outweigh the nasty, messy, dramatically emotional parts. And I can be that wise, steady, independent (yet still maybe somewhat fragile) 21-year-old human that I long to be, instead of broken and teary and constantly in need of forgiveness. But I’m learning the hard way that that is exactly and specifically anti-grace. Yes, I have been called independent, and steady, and even wise on occasion. But to hide the fact that I can be nasty, messy, and dramatically emotional... well that would just be fake. And to be loved for part of who I am and not all of who I am is not really something I’m about, admittedly.
But there are a handful of people who have seen those messy versions of me- they’ve waded through a good sample of my emotional drama, held my hand lovingly and graciously the whole way through, and came out looking just as muddy and worn as I am- and to hear them say, “I love you still”... MAN, there is something so much more precious about that than if I was the perfect, single, independent 21-year-old woman that I sometimes wish I was, invested in relationships that were completely monotone and unshaken.
Because love is not monotone. Love is color and sound and texture and light, and hugs and tears and forgiveness and puzzles and pillow fights, and plates of dinner saved for me when I come home late from work.
And love is grace. From every angle, love is grace.
I need grace. I don’t want to need it. But every day I need it. Grace is my refuge, like my bedroom is my refuge. At the end of the day, it’s where I can rest. Grace softens my heart and humbles my pride. It makes me more beautiful and more human, in a world that is shouting at me over and over to be more god. It seems foolish and surprising, but it is actually the single oldest divine encounter between God and us- we have been given the gift of grace since we ate the fruit on day one.
We all fall short. I fall short. Man, that’s a gross understatement. I fall flat on my face. But I’m incredibly lucky to have people surrounding me who live and breathe God’s grace and who love me more deeply than I can yet grasp. And you are lucky too, because even if you don’t have that, you and I both share one gracious Heavenly Father.
His grace is enough.
Beautiful.
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