Armour

*tw: depression, self-harm, suicide

Over Christmas, I encountered a bully. He bullied me in person, and then online. He published a video about me, and then made two more. (I would link to them, but honestly, he loves getting lots of views and I would rather not feed his ego. I haven't even watched the second two videos because I don't want his numbers to increase.)

I was totally shaken, and I cried for days. How could this person do this to me? Why would he hurt someone he doesn't even know? 

My mental health was struggling, and I was tempted with suicidal thoughts. I even found myself experiencing self-harm (which brought so much relief, because the physical pain temporarily blotted out the emotional pain. This surprised me, because before this I had never understood self-harm. If you want to talk to me more about it, please reach out.). 

I could not understand this great agony I was experiencing. Why did the criticisms pierce? Why did the flood of online hatred go so deeply into my soul? 

Everyone kept telling me to let it go, but I didn't know how. How do you just not feel what you feel? How do you let things go when they have lodged into the core of you like an arrow with barbs?

Loving friends prayed for me. I received kind and supportive texts and messages, and people I don't even know thanked me for standing up to this bully. But the love and warmth fell off me like water off a duck's back.  None of it sank in. Nothing touched the stabbing pain.

And then one night I asked Patrick to look at the latest videos, because I wanted to know the worst. He read the title of one to me, and I burst into tears and ran out of the room. Patrick was baffled. Truly baffled. "This guy is nobody to you. How can his opinions hurt you?" he asked.
And I lay in the dark thinking about that. "Doesn't meanness hurt everybody?" I thought.
But no, it doesn't; not to this extent. I think meanness hurts everyone, but not like this.
So what is happening, I asked God, why does this hurt so much and why do I feel so alone?

And he showed me an unexpected truth.

My armour is on backwards.

When people say nice things about me, loving things, kind things, I put up my hand like a stop sign. "No, no," I say, quite literally, "Not so." And I stop them from coming in. My armour deflects them. They bounce off of me and roll away.

But when people say mean things about me, hateful things, unkind things, they slide right in. They slip through like arrows through mesh, slice into my skin and lodge in my heart. "You're right," I whisper, and I don't even raise a hand against them, "this is true."

My armour is on backward. I have a hard shell preventing the outpouring of love from coming in, but only a strip of mesh against the arrows of hate.

So I started trying to put it on the right way. I determined to try to let the love in, and say a firm No to meanness.

And I was startled by how often love comes to me. How often kindness is directed toward me; thoughtfulness and warmth. 

I couldn't start my van that first particularly cold day, so we took taxis to school. Mid-afternoon, two friends texted and one friend popped into the classroom to offer rides home and make sure we weren't stranded. "Let the love in," God whispered, and I experienced a paradigm shift as I realized these kindnesses weren't offered out of obligation or dull duty, but out of love.  Right there in the classroom, my heart swam and my eyes pricked with tears as I chose - maybe for the first time ever - to receive love as love, and to welcome it in.

My friends.

I have run into my bully a few more times. I have had opportunity to practice saying a mental "No," to the hatred and lies he spews. I have been able to let his meanness roll off of my heart and not let it lodge.

But I have been absolutely overwhelmed by the thousands of opportunities I have had to put down my armour and let love in. Kindness rains down, love and joy pour in. Taking it at face value and letting it in is almost painful in its sweetness. People say and do kind things all the time. I can't believe how much I resisted it before, how little I valued it and how fiercely determined I was to not let it in. And it's everywhere.

I still find myself automatically deflecting sometimes. "You look lovely," my friend might say, and I say "no no, YOU look lovey." But I've been learning to back up and shimmy out of the armour, saying "I mean, thank you!" And then, in my heart, letting that warmth right in, right in to the place where I store what other people think of me, and what I think of me.

And frankly, with all that love in there, there's not a lot of room for unkindness to stay. It has a harder time getting in. Even when I forget to put my armour up against the meanness, there's still a little extra resistance before it stabs my heart, a little breathing room for me to decide what I want to do with it.

I've raised my kids to know they're the bosses of their bodies and they have the right to decide if they assent to being touched or not: their consent matters. 

I never realized this applies to hearts too. 

I can say yes. I can say no. I don't have to take everything that's flung at me. I can adjust my armour.

It's blowing my mind.

I just wanted to share in case you, too, need to reconsider your heart's armour. Maybe you need permission and understanding, like I did, to say no to hatred and to affirm the love you're given - and to discover with joy that love is truly all around you.

xo.

 

and He gave us each other

You know how you've read some Bible stories what seems like a million times, and you already know everything about them but then God surprises you with something new in them anyway?

I was reading the story of the Prodigal Son and kind of put my brain on autopilot, because I know it inside out.

I used to hear it a lot, and I always thought what a total shame it was that the younger son took his share of the Dad's money and wasted it. So ungrateful, and so unfair. I felt a kinship with the sulky older son - that's definitely who I'd be in the story: jealous of the one who'd made off with a big chunk of my dad's wealth and lived it up and then came home and was welcomed with fancy clothes and a feast.

But like he often does, in spite of my assurance that I already know this story, God showed me something new this time around.

As a reader, I was always really taken with the greedy son who took his dad's money and ran away. But within the story, the people who are concerned with the money?

The prodigal son.
His friends.
The elder son.

The people who aren't concerned with the money?

The father.

He never brings it up. He isn't concerned with it. When the son leaves, he doesn't keep watch with hope for the return of his fortune.  When the son comes back, he doesn't ask him what he's done with the money, hoping there might be some left.

The important thing, again and again and again, is people. Connection. Togetherness.  His heart longs after his sons; he cares about both his runaway son and his jealous son. These are the ones he loves, they are the treasure of his heart.

And he loves them so much. He wants to celebrate the younger son's return, but not alone. He goes to the elder son and begs him to come join them in celebrating. Begs him. He needs both of his sons for his joy to be complete.

One of my friends reached out to me lately to ask me about counseling and to confess that she feels like a bit of a failure to need help.

Do I understand? Hoo boy, do I ever.

Like Luisa in Encanto, I feel like I have to be strong and not let anything fall and never let anyone down and hold it all together.  I feel like a person should be able to handle their life on their own and not need anyone else.  <-- this, of course, is false.

In the garden of Eden, before any snake and sin made their appearance and broke us, God said it wasn't good for man to be alone. So He made him a helper. Then He put them in the garden to take care of it.

Creation needed care. The perfect first man needed - listen to that, needed! - help.

We were not made for self-sufficiency.

Not made for it.

It's a fuel that doesn't work in this engine.

We were not designed to meet all of our own needs, nor the needs of our lives - and God did not tell us to come to Him for all of those needs either.

They need a helper, He said - and He gave us each other. (!!!)

I act like both sons all the time. If I just have enough money, I think, I can handle this life and be on my own.

or , in the mode of the other son - 

Somebody wasn't there for me, why should I be there for them? If they cared, they'd reach out. I don't need them.

But self-sufficiency is a lie. There's no such thing. That's not how we were built.

We were built to need - to NEED - and God saw what he had made, and God called it good.

We need each other. We need brothers and sisters, we need sons and daughters and parents and friends and we need counselors and doctors and neighbours and coworkers.  We need help and direction and we need support and understanding and we need love. Needing each other isn't a sign of brokenness or sinfulness or weakness.

Needing each other is how we were made. It's the mode of our existence, and it's what the father's heart knew: we are each other's true treasure.

We need help ... and for this, He gave us each other.

One Winter's Night

Patrick went to bed two hours ago. 

I stayed up to take the dog for a walk before bed, but she was sleeping so warm and rumbly against my legs - she purrs, or something like it - that I almost fell asleep myself. At last I peeled my face off the cushion and she lifted her head, floppy ears perked. When she heard my jacket rustle off its hook, she flashed to the door and wriggled and wraggled - her body awake before she was even aware, I think.

The night was fresh and inviting - still too cold to comfortably yawn in, I realized with a shudder - but warming up after a few weeks of bone-snapping freeze.

Late summer nights, I like walking on sidewalks. Streetlights and porch lights feel familiar and safe as I stride in and out of my own shadow.

But winter nights, full of snow and starlight, pull me to the river. The river trail, which melts into blackness on summer nights, gleams in the snow and welcomes me in come winter.

So Eevee and I walked to the trail. The sky overhead was a deep navy, full of bold stars. The river, though -

That ordinary tideless river? 

Tonight she was lit with magic.

A warm bed of fog lay all along her, misty and frosty and murky. Streetlights from the far side swam through the grey, long fingers of orange sliced by shadows. The trail was crushed with snowmobile tracks and squirrel prints and paw prints and boot prints, with one lonely set of footprints winding over the riverbank and straight across the frozen water to the other side of town.

The deep and sparkling sky atop the cloudy river was one of the most astonishing things I've ever seen. It felt like an upside down night - shouldn't the river sparkle? And the sky be filled with clouds? But here we were in the middle of magic.

We ran straight through it.

Oh yes.

Cracking atop a thick bed of well-pressed snow, we ran through the woods, the little bridge, the tunnel.

The sleepy, chubby, middle-aged mama wearing pyjamas, bare feet stuffed into her husband's skiddoo boots? She was gone and there was just a girl with her foxhound, running beside a river full of clouds with stars in her hair.

In a few minutes I will tuck the dog in and kiss the kids while they sleep, brush my teeth and climb into bed. I will snuggle my cold toes up to Patrick's warm legs and in the morning I might forget, but

For five minutes tonight, I ran through glory.

Amen.