The other day I saw this comic... it wasn't meant to be funny or anything but rather to explain what it is like to have social anxiety. In the comic there was a girl sitting at her desk in the middle of the classroom surrounded by all these other students, and above her was this thought bubble that read, "Gosh, I really need to use the bathroom but I can't because if I get up everyone will look at me" (or something along those lines). Now to some people who would read that comic their reaction would be, "who cares if people look at you? You're human. Everyone has to use to bathroom. Just get up and go, nobody really cares. So just stop being silly, get up, and go"... and they would be right in what they are saying.
But as someone who as struggled with moments of anxiety like this, I can also see that it's not that simple. The truth is our minds are powerful things, and they can convince of of false truths that can hold us back from life and truly living. And while looking at it from the outside it may be so easy to say, "get over it, here's the truth"... when you're stuck in the middle... lost in your own head... you just can't seem to see it. I think this is why God designed us to live in community and to need other people....We need people in our lives who will stand with us and speak the truth to us when our minds have convinced us otherwise. We need people in our lives who will love us in our struggles, but will also allow us to stand with them in theirs and go to bat for them when the devil takes his best shot at them. And more importantly, we need God to enable us to be and to do this....because let's be honest... on our own we make a mess of everything!
But maybe that's just me... the truth is, I have never been very good at being open and vulnerable and letting people in. Take for example my last three months in Ecuador and my first year and a half home. I was struggling hardcore. I was depressed, I was shutting down, and my relationship with God was almost at its breaking point.... but very few people really knew what was going on... and even those who had some clue, had no idea the depths of darkness into which my mind would take me. I remember at the time I had a small core group of friends who it had taken me years to build trust with, and as I walked through this season I just watched those relationships crumble because I didn't know how to share what I was going through with them. And I remember at one point making the conscious decision that I wouldn't share anything about what was going on with me, but would instead only focus on them... believing that this would set things right. But you know what? It didn't. Community isn't a one way street...and people aren't going to share themselves with someone who clearly isn't going to do the same. That makes sense to me now... but in the moment my mind had me convinced that it was others who were wrong for not letting me in and that they were the reason things were falling apart.
The thing is, in those moments I wanted nothing more than a friend to stand by me and tell me everything was going to be okay... yet my mind had me so convinced that nobody would understand or care and that I was being weak and stupid and everyone would see how much of a loser I was if I ever said anything, that I refused to open my mouth. I wish I could say that I have grown out of this, that I have gotten over the whole vulnerability thing and I have learned to allow people to see the darkness so that they can speak truth to it... but the truth is, I am just starting out on that journey. In fact, at the beginning of this year I decided that I would force myself to join a community group at my church so that i could be surrounded by other Christians... people who would speak the truth to me and to whom I also could speak truth to. In the first group I joined, I saw God begin to transform my heart and take me from a place of wanting to be closed off to the world, for fear of getting hurt, to seeing my need for others... but that's only the first step into the journey.
So when that group ended, I had a choice to make, and I decided to keep forcing myself out of my comfort zone and more importantly out of my head...and thus, I joined another community group. I wish I could say...and now things are awesome, but the reality is..."this is hard yo!". After years of cutting myself off from others and becoming more and more afraid of people, each week I am literally forcing myself into a group of people who seem so open and vulnerable and caring for one another... and as much as I want to be there with them... I feel awkward, and the voice in my head keeps telling me that I'll never fit in, that I don't belong, that these people are so much better than me. But you know what...I'm not going to listen to that voice in my head... and I am not going to let my social awkwardness keep me back from God's best for me. I believe community is important... I believe it's God's design and his gift to us... and I believe that eventually, the more I go to this group, the more I listen to these people share the truth of God in their lives and the more I begin to open up myself, that more that voice inside my head will begin to change and begin to speak the real truth. I don't have it all together, I am not there yet, but I am pressing in...and I hope that is encouraging to you and convinces you to do the same. It's not easy... but we have to believe it's worth it... after all, it's not like God doesn't know what He is doing!
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