blogging thru Scary Close - chapters 7 and 8

Do you ever get tired of trying?

I do. I get tired of trying to be more than I actually am. Tired of being the one who presses. Tired of being the one who is desperate. Tired of being the one who is always drowning, asking for help (But no one can hear her.)

Tired of the hustle. Tired of caring about those who don’t care back.

Just…tired.

Chapters 7 and 8 really made me understand this.

The people we chose to love can destroy us, because true intimacy can only happen when we give up control and allow someone to destroy us, forgive them when they do, and hope they forgive you when you need to be forgiven.

I seem to be good at choosing and loving those who make me try. A lot.

And how much do I make people try for me? (I really don’t want to pull at that thread.)

As Christ-followers, we can mistake enablement for grace, and Don tells us that our hearts are worth protecting. How do we balance this with grace? These are truths I’ve known for a while, far before I read chapter 7. But I still don’t fully understand how to balance grace with protecting my heart. This is something I’ve been desperate to figure out most of my life.

This is perhaps because of my ridiculously high sense of justice. I prefer to be right rather than to be in the relationship. Yet I will feel every hurt of that broken relationship until it very nearly kills me.

The heart of the problem and the essence of the solution, says my fellow writer, Kansas Bob, is that I am still learning to love. One of the many things love is about is that expresses what we are about. And we make time for what matters to us. If you don’t make time for me, you don’t love me enough to matter. This is how I feel. I’m not proud of it. But it is how I feel.

The process of learning to love and be loved by someone, Don writes, is a “slow and natural process.”

So I guess I’m trying too hard.

But what about the truth that love is a decision? Does this not imply there is trying in the midst of it somewhere?  And when do you stop trying, set down all the baggage that person has given you and just walk away?

I never really thought I was that controlling of a person. But perhaps I am. The next chapter is about manipulators. I pray I don’t find myself there.

I’m still tired, guys.