Catharine I have a problem. It’s something I’m working on.
Whenever I start to feel happy, like really, really happy, a “voice” starts talking in the back of my mind. It reminds me of flaws, problems, and primarily things on to-do lists from years past. It reminds me of things I told someone I would do at one point in life, and then never did, and now there is no way I can do them. It reminds me of all kinds of little things I still feel guilty for that I cannot change.
It distracts me from my happy moment.
It’s something I’m working on with a therapist I’m seeing. This type of thought pattern is called “filtering”– when you ignore positive things, and only focus on negative things. It is not a helpful type of thinking. I think there’s another aspect to what I’m experiencing, too. It’s a quest for perfection, a desire for everything in life to be resolved, and a somewhat obsessive-compulsive desire to not sin, be at peace with everyone, even with people who no longer want or remember what I had once told them 10 years ago I would do (one of my memories involves saying I would bake someone an apple pie that I no longer have contact information for, and I can’t remember their name). It’s like some part of me thinks I don’t deserve to be happy, because I can identify all of these failings– that maybe if I can find a way to resolve all of my failings first, prioritizing things “correctly,” then someday I’ll be able to actually be happy.
Though of course it is good to make reasonable efforts to do things we’ve said we’ll do, this is taking things to an extreme. I know that a very legalistic view of scripture and a desire to not sin has contributed to my way of thinking. I think I’ve almost had it trained into me by church culture to not be too happy– because if you’re too happy, it’s because you aren’t humble enough, or because you haven’t repented of sin enough. It’s some pretty messed up logic.
Well tonight as I was putting our kids to bed, it occurred to me that having my guilty memories is a gift. It is a reminder of how much I need Jesus. If I can learn to believe and feel God’s grace, and to embrace the fact that I am forgiven now, because of Christ’s sacrifice– there is literally nothing being held against me, and I no longer need to hold those things against myself. I can also have grace with other people, when they fail me; I can remember that I am no better than they are, and that we’re all completely imperfect and needing of grace. I can remember how I’ve been forgiven, and seek to forgive that same way, too.
So failure is a gift. It is in our sin-nature to fail; that is why we need Jesus. And every time someone else fails us, we can look to our Redeemer for the grace we need to forgive them, too.
So I’m working on acknowledging that voice, and redirecting my focus on gratitude for the moment I’m in. I know that it is for freedom that Christ has set us free.
For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
Galations 5:1 ESV
Good word.