What is Wrong with You

Today, I find myself back in a place of self condemnation and trying to measure up. Its a place the Father took me from many years ago. Its a place I thought I'd never be and here I am again. This is a competition I can never win. I will never measure up. The words that once plagued my thoughts are back. "What is wrong with you?" What is wrong with me? Sigh. I'm tired of making lists of all the things wrong with me. I am even more tired of people giving me lists of things that are wrong with me. Little do they know that the lists they make could never compare to the binders and binders of lists I have made myself. So many things wrong with me. Those I love the most just reinforce the belief that I am not good enough. A very sad and disgusting thing happens when you are in a place where you are covered with self condemnation and the feelings that you aren't good enough for those around you. That rejection covers you in mud and anyone that gets close to you gets muddy, too. That is happening in my home. We are in a tennis game of the back and forth yuckies and we are both covering each other in mud. So much mud that neither of us can even see the other at this point. The mud covers our eyes and is in our ears and we can't hear each other. I know for me it also makes me desperate for the words from those that tell me there is something positive and of good rapport in me. I am drawn to their words as if they are life giving water. I know I am also pushing my spouse towards the words from another. Its history repeating itself.

I just want to run. I have the overwhelming desire to put on my tennis shoes and run and run and run until I have no breath left in me... until there is no light left in my eyes and until every thought in my head has been finally silenced. Gone is the place where I felt safe. It has been replaced with a dark shadow that seems to follow me everywhere I go. Gone is the purpose and vision that would wake me at 5 in the morning with a determination. It has been replaced with a weariness such as I have not known in a long time. From where did it come? It happened so fast.

My mother called me this morning. She said she sensed I was not well and felt led to call. I told her, "I am tired." My soul is tired, my heart is tired, my mind is tired, and my life is tired. But, all I said to her was, "I am tired." She told me I would spend the rest of my life tired if I got married again. I expected to hear her tell me she had tried to warn me. Instead of that her voice became almost a whisper and I thought she was going to cry. "You won't be tired the rest of your life." She told me. "You must have hope." She then began to tell me how she had been protecting her heart against my husband until she was sure. It is noteworthy to mention that my mother has always had this sixth sense kind of thing. She knows things before they happen and she knows things about people's lives even if she has just met them. I have that ability every once in a while, but my mother's gift is strong. She told me that yesterday, God showed her that she can love my husband. She told me that she can have hope in my husband. And she told me that she can trust my husband. She also told me I was supposed to marry him and that it would be okay. She told me that I needed to trust and hope in my husband, too. I heard her words, but they can't reach past this sense of dread that I feel. The words that I used to speak to other women echo in my thoughts. "You can't trust your feelings... your heart is deceptive.... obedience is better than sacrifice... Arise from the ashes of your emotions and take your rightful place..." They almost mock me now. What I once told other women was possible in their marriage has become impossible in my marriage. What a cruel irony. God change my perspective.