The curtains in our bedroom are crumpled on the floor. The hardware gave way and shot slap out of the drywall. I tried to take it in stride, but standing there on a stool balancing one heavy-ended curtain rod while trying to get the other end to come out without scratching the ceiling, well. I cried a little. And clenched my fist tight like a toddler. Just one more thing not going right today.
I take close up photos of grass and plants and green living things because it helps me to remember to see. It is therapy to notice the beauty in the chaos of nature, to predict what happens next in the seasons even though each year it’s different, to believe in a God who holds everything in His hands.
I don’t like when things don’t go right mainly because I worship order and control a lot of the time. I want to do stuff right and to be right, not just as in having the right answer, but to have things go right by me. I put those curtains up in haste some time last year. And having them fall out of the wall is direct evidence of my domestic failure, like they’ve been waiting for me to have a bad day before they reveal their secrets about me.
I don’t really believe I’m a domestic failure. Not usually, anyway. But when the laundry piles and the baseboards stink and the curtains fall off the wall, the word failure comes to mind. I’ve circled around healing from my good girl ways for many years now, but there are still triggers that bring out the lies. And hearing them feels like finding a note from an ex-boyfriend. You aren’t attached to him anymore, but when you read the note suddenly you’re back there in college, standing in the middle of 15 years ago, feeling the sting of the break up. The feelings are real, but they are based on something that isn’t. Shadows. Remnants. Untruths. That’s what it’s like to hear a lie in your head.
We carry around those fragments of untruth with us everyday. And when things happen all in a row, it dislodges the crazy and even though we know the truth, the lie feels more true at the time. We have to choose what we’ll believe, then. It doesn’t feel very romantic or mystical to say it that way, choose what you’ll believe. But I do believe we have a choice, even when it all goes wrong.
I recently talked a bit about that choice with the women from Full Circle in Canada. I can’t embed the video here, but here’s a peek.
Here is a link to the interview if you’d like to watch. (This is a link to the entire program. Interview begins at 6:41. Ish). Would love to hear from you this morning – can you identify any triggers in your life that cause your crazy to come out?
Thank you, Emily, for these words of truth. I’m right there with you – the curtains, the laundry, smell, the drive for perfection. Can’t wait to dive into your book this week — so excited about a book written just for me. Thank you.
the thing that really triggers the lies for me, other than just having a cruddy day when nothing seemes to go right, is when relationships don’t go the way i want or thought. if plans with a friend fall through or i feel like i’m being left or rejected or in a big group of people where i don’t really feel included, Satan whispers the lies that i’m not good enough, that i need to be better and try harder, that no one is really a true friend and genuinely cares for me. it’s really hard because i’m at a point where i just don’t have a lot of close friends so his lies have a lot of truth to them too… it’s hard to believe the Truth when it just doesn’t feel or look true.
Right there with you. Praying for you this morning!
Crawling out of this hole as we speak…. it’s so comforting knowing I’m not the only one!
ahhh i can so relate…my crazy comes out when my routines are messed up. I like my nice little schedules and i love to control, even though i can hide it pretty well!
Oh, the crazy has been coming out with kids not sleeping and waking too early and then I’m not quite ready for the day. It’s like a tumbleweed that just gets bigger and bigger, and I struggle not to be bitter and resent the kids, the day, and everything in between. Control is definitely an idol and an illusion.
Rejection – however slight or merely implied (or assumed) – brings out my crazy and the lies. And too much on my plate. That was certainly the case last night when I got all sorts of crazy (and grumpy).
We are a one vehicle family… So during the week the kids and I are housebound. It makes me crazy/blue. I remind myself that there are worse things in the world than being stuck in a warm house. : ) And, this somehow helps me let go of the good girl, since I can’t really get involved with much and if I run out of groceries I have a worthy excuse. Although it’s confining, it’s teaching me to give myself grace!
Trigger? Did you say Tigger? Like a gun going off trigger? Ohhhhhh, yeeeees. My trigger always begins with expecting myself to do something perfectly. I have a “if I can believe it, I can achieve it!” But I want to do it by-my-self, without practice, without training, and I want to do it perfectly the first try! No plan B, I want plan A to work! I end up, setting myself up for failure! And wonder why I’m ready to scream and cry! (laughing) I do it to myself. No one else expects me to do it that way…Except Me! Since that is a trigger, then the question may be, “have I commited emotional suicide?” Good Glory, the things we do! (laughing)
I have enjoyed your blog for a while and watching the interview you linked to in this posting. How wonderful that you are coming to this understanding of God’s grace at a much earlier age and season of lie than I have! I am a recovering “good girl”, aka Pharisee:) If you’ve never read the little book called He Loves Me by Wayne Jacobson, I highly recommend reading it. It contains a tremendous message of our Father’s love for us and the freedom that is waiting for us when we see Him more clearly for who He is and His ability to get us off the performance track.
Blessings to you!
Paula
Oops, a correction to my comment…I meant to say season of life, not lie!
Choosing what you believe has been a lifelong lesson loved into me by the wonderful man I married over 21 years ago. I had all kinds of tapes rewinding in my mind and their volume eventually becomes silent the more I indentify where they come from. But triggers, yes! Parenting triggers all those feelings of failure, not being enough, good enough, etc. I do the same thing with photography as well. On a difficult day, a good walk with my camera changes perspective. Thanks Emily!
“I don’t like when things don’t go right mainly because I worship order and control a lot of the time. I want to do stuff right and to be right, not just as in having the right answer, but to have things go right by me.”
Me too. And when things don’t go right, I feel like I am being punished. Because it feels like things go wrong just to remind me that I am not perfect and that I will always be lacking. It feels like something always has to destroy my happiness.
That’s where I was last night and am this morning.
OH, don’t I know this feeling! I seem to be in a season where the lies are louder than they have been in many years so I am trying to reduce the static around me so I can choose the right voice to follow!!!!
Oh my goodness…how Divine! Just this morning I was so betwixed–in a perfection-seeking-fog. The curtain in my bedroom split apart at the middle when I opened the curtains (no joke!)…and my shower curtain fell! I was trying to be SUPER early, instead of just accepting Grace for *on time* or a little bit early. I wasn’t making room for other living and I was idolizing self. I stood in my bedroom and asked of the air (outloud)–am I perfection seeking? Then I got to work and focused on schedule for my family. Ours is going to change a lot and I was seeking order and control. I knew it and yet I was still twirling in what I can’t reach. Then the power went out at work and I lost everything I did! And yet I STILL went back and re-did all that–focusing on WEEKS and MONTHS way ahead of me, trying to get it all organized so “perfectly”.
Ugh. I thought I was past all this. And yet…He shows me, ever so gently, that I still need Him.
Thank you, Father! Thank you!
The crazy triggers must be going around. I’ve had a whole string of them. I woke up this morning and surveyed the disarray–all the undone, the laundry, the shorts and t-shirts still not packed away and replaced with seasonally-appropriate garb, the plastic lids that tumbled out onto my feet because my cabinets and pantry are chaos. Sometimes I have to just focus on the most basic things, our most basic needs, and call it a day. I wrote a post about this in my head this morning while in the shower but like the rest of the undone, I haven’t actually written it yet. : )
Love this post. You took the thoughts right out of my mind.
“I worship order and control”. Um, that will give me something to think about today. Yes, I have issues with it, but do I worship it? Hmmm. I’m afraid the answer may be yes.
This post is timely for me, too. While it stinks that so many of us are dealing with this, it’s good to know we’re not alone!
http://amykate1204.blogspot.com/2011/11/breathing-soul_07.html
Overtiredness brings out the crazy in me. I am most definitely not a go-with-the-flow girl, but when I am tired, man oh man, things really fall apart.
When I read how transparent you were in your blog, I knew I had done the right thing by being transparent in mine. Thank you for letting God use you to confirm this truth to me.
Love your post. I literally said, “It’s not fair!” this past week with the stamp of my foot just like a 4 year old when things didn’t go my way. I laughed… later. Oh, to Not worship at the altar of control and order. That’s a tough one. Thanks for the reminder to make the choice. Choose life, joy, & grace.
You have a priceless gift of taking the things that are so common to so many of us and putting them into just the right words. You write from your heart and the words go right straight to mine.
Thank you sweet girl. Praying His truth brightens your day!
My sixteen year old son is doing a great job of making the crazies come out in full force lately. He’s not doing anything intentionally wrong, just being 16. He recently broke up with his girlfriend and I went a bit nutso. At least I kept it all on the inside this time. I was so worried about how terrible she must be feeling. I saw her later that week and I was right, she was kind of a wreck. It made me want to run over to my son and tell him to get back together with her because she is a perfectly delightful young lady (and she really is, I love her) just so she won’t be sad. How messed up is THAT? Thankfully, I kept my mouth shut.
Beautiful job, Emily. So poised and full of the confidence that comes from Jesus Christ.
Oh Emily, I can so relate to this post. I had one of those days last week, and I ended up throwing a plastic garbage can at the wall in frustration! I usually don’t get angry (mostly I just cry), but for some reason things just kept piling up, and I began to believe lies about myself too. But I completely agree with you about always having a choice. It’s so funny that you posted this today because I just blogged about this choice we have this morning. I feel like I’m just beginning to understand a bigger truth-a truth that changes everything-that no matter what difficulties come our way, God is in them, and we can always choose to find joy in His unchanging, unfailing, unending love.
Hi Emily, I live in that tangled place of needing to surrender each moment. I love your challenge of thinking about whether I worship order and control. By the choices I make so often – sadly — I must. I do. That is not His life for me! Thank you for your transparency and encouragement.
I have been waiting all day to respond to this!! Right after I read this post this morning, I knew what my trigger was.
My kids. When my kids remind me what I haven’t done, or what I haven’t done well—that is my trigger for the un-doing. Meals they don’t like, permission slips unsigned, playdates not scheduled. My tone was too harsh, my response was too emotional, my patience was too thin. So often I feel like I’m too much, and not enough, all at the same time. Stacked together, these all speak “failure” loud and clear to my heart.
But I love what you said, Emily—that we can choose what we believe about ourselves—and the truth is, that I am doing the best I can!! And, I’m not a failure. I’m just not perfect.
Living under grace is most effective if I choose to believe it.
Love your blog, Emily. Thanks for sharing your heart.
Oh, I am so there. I feel exactly as this fine lady. My kids and my husband are my barometer to my emotions. It’s so bizarre how even though I know I am a good mom/wife….how just one comment on the food or not having clean socks can make you feel so useless.
I have fantasies of a small quaint apartment with a kitten sleeping by my feet as I quietly read a great book, calmly sipping a nice cup of tea.
*loved* the interview – especially the 4 questions you mentioned at the end…..I’m going to print them out to remind me of them each day:)!
Thinking about my trigger, and I instantly feel like I’ve been time warped into the Mary and Martha household; and I’m snapping and stressing like Martha. Obviously it’s ‘my’ big agenda that I am focussed on – I am trying to do it all – rather than the ‘one thing’ that is needed….. how do we remember that? How do we maintain a ‘one thing’ focus in the midst of juggling all the balls that life throws our way?
For me it’s clothing. Well, it’s a lot of things, but for right now it’s clothing. I must have changed my clothes a hundred times last week trying to find the right outfit for wherever I was going. The clothes weren’t good enough because they couldn’t possibly cover enough of me up. Not because they’re immodest, but because I don’t like how I look right now. I can’t remember ever liking how I looked. But I realized tonight that this usually happens when God is on the move. It’s an attempt to undermine what the Spirit is doing in me and to make me take the wrong side and get me to stop putting myself in a position of being exposed. BUT it’s the part of me that dares to be open and exposed that attracts those looking for hope. The enemy doesn’t like it one bit. Bummer. Sucks to be him.
Hi Emily,
I just watched your interview on Full Circle. I have read your blog for about a year. I bought and read your book and was so moved by it. By the way… I am in my 50′s. Now this interview! Never hearing you in person before or hearing you speak, it was a real blessing. So impressed with your genuine spirit and honest heart. Thanks for sharing this interview with us.
I hesitated buying your book because of the age difference in you and my stage of life. I can say… I am soooo glad I bought it as it has ministered to me.
God bless you and I hope there is more books coming!
SO much of this rings true with me. Thank you for sharing those wise words, how comforting it is to know we are not alone! Tonight in the simple act of baking brownies I’ve made a bajillion times for a bridal shower tomorrow, I managed to mess up a bit and stood in tears at the disarray that was my kitchen. Failure. Expectations unmet. Certain my friends would snuff me for screwing up the precious brownies. Knowing the reality is very different. Freaking out that I wasn’t maintaining the level of control I most certainly worship. Oh how much I needed this reminder tonight that God’s grace reaches beyond all of that, wipes our tears, comforts us in the midst of our silliness, and gives us teachable moments where we are reminded to lean on Him.
Thank you Emily. I always walk away feeling refreshed after reading your blog posts. So appreciate your realness and heart for the Lord!!
Hi Emily
I went to early prayer this morning at church, it was good. I had coffee afterwards with friends..that was good. I went to another short meeting at church..it was good. I walked out, got in my car and drove home and felt deflated, isolated and useless, my knee was aching, my son has a bad back and is in pain and only 23 and the whole of my world just caved in at that moment. I felt tired. Slowly today has come back into focus..a touch of joy, reading blogs…3 cartons of quilts for Queensland flood affected people were just delivered and that has put more joy into my day. My troubles are taking a back seat..where they belong and satan’s attack is diminishing in importance just like it should. Thank you for sharing ‘cos I needed to share today too.
I feel like your words capture themes in my heart that I have never been able to put to words. You are a gift to this world and I wish I knew you personally.
Oh, Emily… this: “We carry around those fragments of untruth with us everyday. And when things happen all in a row, it dislodges the crazy and even though we know the truth, the lie feels more true at the time. We have to choose what we’ll believe, then.”
It seems things happen all in a row too often lately! Maybe it’s part of having an almost-one-year-old? Maybe it’s just part of needing to learn grace… maybe both.
So today I will try to choose what I believe…
(thank you)
Hey there, good girl!
I just wanted to say thanks a lot for the extra effort and work that you put into the 31 days series. I read every day and truly appreciated the content. So thank you!
Great post. I can so relate! My head is full of that voice and those lies. Every moment, it’s a choice to either listen or reject those lies. Also, loved you on Full Circle. You have a way of just simplifying everything…making it crystal clear.
it’s a journey were on…..us good girls who are addicted to order and control and perfection.
thank GOD that Jesus came to set us free.
Yes! thanks for helping me identify what’s been bugging me all week. Technology. It’s always stymied me, but now I realize it links back to the message- “Better figure this out on your own or everyone will know how backward you are.”
Instead of letting my failures isolate me, I’m asking God’s help to use them as a point of receiving grace and help from others.
I think your ears are perfectly adorable.
I know of a wonderful home blogger named The Nester who would love to come over and help you hang up your curtain rod! And I bet she would be able to list 10 perfectly wonderful and TRUE things about you! I think I heard the Lord singing, “I love you truly, truly dear,” to you. Unfortunately, after that comes the next line as my husband sings it, “How ’bout another long neck beer?” What can I say? The divine is often interspersed with the crazy!
I had trouble sleeping last night. I picked up your book and flew through 4 chapters (I’m not much of a reader). I wanted to come leave you a message and tell you thank you for writing this book. I loved the interview as well. I know I need to pull off the masks and part of me is afraid that nothing will be left. But reading your story and reading about your journey, gives me hope.
Oh how many little things in my day end up speaking the world “failure” to me, when that is not the truth…why do I believe the curtain rods more than what God tells me…I LOVE that it is the little things that can bring us down (curtain rods), but that God also uses the beauty of little things (leaves, dew, flowers) to bring us back to where we need to be…extraordinary how He works….
I really enjoyed watching your video in the wee hours of the morning when my active mind won out the battle for sleep. You have a very nice camera presence. You communicate the truth you’ve unearthed with clarity, beauty and grace. It was soothing to my soul.
I loved hearing your actual voice and seeing your mannerisms as you talked so passionately with a heart to free us. I appreciate your message, book, life words, and who you are. Thank you for blessing me and so many others. I’m enjoying the connection in relating to the good girl in me. Today, I get to start Part 2. Bring on the healing. I’m loving me more and more. Grace, grace, grace…
Yes. Yesssssss. The letter from the old boyfriend. Unfortunately I can relate to that dumb note that did not get thrown away. If it makes you feel any better I burned dinner two nights in a row this week, and it did throw me off way more than I’d like to admit. Thankfully no matter what I fix my son would still want a peanut butter sandwich, and grown-ups can always have a bowl of cereal. I told my good girl if a gourmet meal was that important to her, she could go the restaurant up the street. She wasn’t invited to dinner anyway.
Wonderful interview!! You are so poised! Loved hearing your sweet voice. I am getting that book. Pronto.