Survival vs. Life

Photo by bruce mars

Striving...I really dislike that word. I shouldn’t because striving can be a good thing in the right context. Striving has a negative connotation for me because I allow it to drive me in an area of life that always leads to failure. The context is in the question “Am I good enough?” The answer is always no, so I strive harder and I end up exhausted and honestly pretty ticked off. I know I’m not alone in this. When we continue in this cycle it gradually spins faster and faster out of control until we latch onto something to pull us out of the frenzied chaos.

Unfortunately I have latched onto things throughout my life that have only served to confirm the fear and belief that I’m not good enough. After too many grips onto the wrong things looking for love, affirmation, purpose, and identity I gave up in early adulthood. I accepted the lie as truth and I lived out of that belief. When a person falls into the pit of accepting this lie as truth, life ceases to be life and deteriorates into survival.

Photo by Maria Lindsey

Galatians 5:22-23 give the gifts of the Holy Spirit. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance (patience), kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”

These are the characteristics of God and He wants us to have them in our lives as well. They are there for the taking, but we have to stop taking hold of things that promise relief but deliver disillusionment. So many of us have a fear of intimacy. We are afraid of the vulnerability that intimacy requires so the enemy of our souls offers us counterfeit options. If he can convince us that intimacy is dangerous and that we can have all the benefits without the vulnerability, relationships are at stake. In the absence of relationship the concept of family fades. Without family, that place of belonging and safety, there is no security, no firm foundation. The result is a society of lonely, empty, disillusioned people seeking something to fill that hole.

Too often we turn to what appears to be safer options, things that don’t require vulnerability. Success is alluring until you reach the top and have all the stuff but no one to share it with. Bars and hook ups make you feel attractive and desired until you wake up in a stranger’s bed full of regret and shame. Perfectionism gives us a sense of accomplishment until the next imperfection stares you in the face and screams to be fixed. That drink, that pill, they take all the empty inadequacy away until you are so bound by them that you will do just about anything to get the next fix.

I’m very well aware that there is no such thing as a perfect family but that is good news. You can do it imperfectly and still do it well. I am also very aware that there are many families that are abusive and dangerous which is such a harmful travesty. Family is more than blood. I have friends in my life that I call “family by choice”. They are the aunts and uncles to my kids because we have chosen them to be so. I have people in my life who have been surrogate mothers to me in the absence of my mom and it has helped heal my heart. These women have modeled for me how to be the same for young ladies in similar circumstances. We are not condemned to continue in the dysfunctional cycles we may have come out of. We do not have to remain victims to what we had no control over as children. We can learn and grow and change. Choose to be a victor not a victim full of hopelessness and self pity.

Photo by Craig Adderley

Vulnerability and intimacy are absolutely necessary for the full abundant life Jesus died for us to have. Is it scary? Yes, but what is even scarier is to live a life of so called “safety” so guarded that you miss out on life all together. There isn’t one of us on the planet who hasn’t been hurt but we cannot allow that to stop life. Learn from it, be careful who you open your heart to, but open your heart. Open it to Jesus first and seek Him and he will guard you heart. He will teach you, heal you, guide and direct you to a full life of abundance. Not a perfect pain free life, but a really really great life full of the things that matter.

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