Dichotomy of Desires

The odd thing about conflict is that it always reveals the nasty, sinful parts of your heart – if you’re willing to see it for what it truly is. On the outside, it looks like justified hurt and the outworking of grief or anger; what those flippant remarks and tears of frustration have revealed, though, is a horribly selfish, self-centered, self-idolizing human being – and that less-than-glamorous human being is yourself. The instant you begin to feel that there might actually be something wrong with you, you flip it around and dispel it from your being, right onto the creature who has provoked this wound in the first place. There is always some sort of truth in the hurt and anger of the original conflict, of course, but it is almost never what it seems to be on the surface. And once you let it fester, the disease of self-love and othering can consume everything in its path in such a way that it looks as though you can never turn back.

The past couple of years have been rough for some obvious reasons, but others have been hidden from the public eye for quite a while. It is no secret that I deal with anxiety and depression and feelings of low self-worth, and that has definitely been true as we have navigated through the highs and lows of life, especially in the past year. However, quite a bit of that journey has been hidden from view – not because I’m ashamed of it, but rather because I wasn’t sure if I was in a good enough place to talk about it. Talking through grief is one thing; talking through moments of rejection and isolation without stemming into gossip is another. It is the latter that I feared, so I stayed silent – on that and everything else. I suppose that I also felt fear itself, fear of what truly processing those feelings through my words would do to me. My spirit was already so deeply wounded that I feared delving any deeper, and I think a part of me hesitated for fear that I would never come back from it. In my lack of writing, my avoidance of transparency, there was also a very real fear that certain persons would read my words and judge me even more for them, so I avoided further offense. I had already done enough damage, so their actions told me, and I needed to step back and prevent it from happening again. Or so I had convinced myself.

There was something about that rejection, about being completely written off by other human beings who claimed to love me, that had completely shattered what self-worth I had worked so very hard to accept over the years. In just a few short moves, I was completely taken aback and shoved into a shell of my former self, one who accepted the notion that I was less-than-worthy of love, grace, and forgiveness because it had finally been proven to me. If I wasn’t worth talking to, if I was the only one who wanted to fix the problem, then I wasn't important enough, I wasn't worth the effort, and everything I had feared about myself was true. None of that is true, of course, but that’s what some wanted me to believe. That’s what the enemy wanted me to believe so that I would thus become further isolated, vulnerable, desperate, and broken.

When the world tells me that I am not worthy of love or grace, Christ shatters that lie and tells me that He sees me, knows me fully, and chooses me – every day and for all of eternity. I didn’t earn it, and I don’t deserve it, but neither does anyone else. And yet, His perfect love persists. There is so much freedom in that truth, and I praise God for it. It is because He called me back into His truth that I was able to come out of that dark place, out of the feelings of isolation and rejection, and back into His light.

I haven’t been in that darkness for quite a while now, but those horrible consequences of conflict have not yet completely ceased, mostly because the conflict has yet to be resolved. It’s a weird road to walk, and not one that I have wanted to accept at all, but one that I have been forced onto. I want to get off that road and sprint into a field of forgiveness and grace and love, while I also very much want to stay on my side of that restrictive road and hold onto those feelings of anger and hurt, and live my life accordingly.

But it is in that dichotomy of desires that I have to ask myself this: which of these pictures is Christ-centered, life-giving, love-affirming; and which of these pictures is rooted in my sinful, prideful, wounded, bitter heart? I think the answer is obvious. And if I’m being honest with myself, it’s the same one that my tender, sinful, prideful, wounded, bitter heart most desires.