Unapologetically Yours, With Messy Love

Where do you find yourself hiding today? Behind the beautiful smile, successful career, and big house? Afraid your friends will see the imperfections in your delicately woven picturesque life?  What if your windows were made of glass?  What would the onlooking world see?  Would the fights with your husband startle everyone?  What about the cuts on your teenager's arm, visible only when he's at home and wearing short-sleeves?  Or, maybe your hiding spot is behind the bridge in a tent, replete with pipe, needle, and bottle of whiskey to keep you warm against the cold stares of society? The addiction is large and consuming enough to blot out your own shadow so you don't even see it anymore and those who do catch a glimpse are quick to look away in disgust and disdain.  Your family wrote you off years ago as a hopeless addict, and you've settled into the mire of the same lifeless beliefs about yourself.  Emergence into anything better is merely fantasy work that comes to life only after the needle has pushed into the vein.  Those brief moments are the only time you ever feel alive now anyway, and even then there's still a lurking sense of something missing.  A tiny spark refuses to be snuffed out.  Still, you hide.  The wife who covers her bruises with the makeup brush before leaving the house.  Her curls brushed softly over her cheek to conceal what most already know, or at least suspect. She's too ashamed and too scared to do anything different because the pain of the unknown threatens to be more excruciating than the blows of his fist.  There are countless scenarios of the ways in which we all hide, but I want to encourage you today to live unapologetically as you are, and to that effect, I'm also unapologetically yours - with messy love.  

I'm weary of all the judgment in the world today.  The fear.  The insecurities.  The hiding.  What if each one of us simply walked through this life as we are.  No hiding.  No apologies.  No watering down.  How would it look and why don't we do this already? I can't answer that for you, but I can share what I've discovered as my own journey has progressed.  First, let me tell you a little bit about the things I've tried hard over the last two years to hide behind. Two years ago I lost my career as a blossoming psychologist.   Why?  I married a former client with whom I had previously worked professionally for about seven months.  In my field, and a few others, it's frowned upon to ever marry a former client, but if a mental health clinician should decide to do so, they are required by policy and regulation to wait a minimum of two years.  Well, I didn't wait.  Outcome? I lost my rights and privileges to practice psychotherapy in the state of California. The challenge to walk in truth was terrifying and the journey that followed was arduous.  I lost much more than my career, but a bigger picture exists, as one always will.   I'm happy.  We are still married, still stupid crazy in love, still making the messes of life into art, and still doing "us."  I don't disagree with regulatory policies in place for fields like mental health, law, and medicine, but with that, I now believe through my own personal experiences that there really are times when good things transpire out of the unexpected and, incidentally, the prohibited. The greatest love stories aren't always black and white; sometimes, they're messy, complicated, and paved on difficult terrain.  Like mine. What about yours?  

You might have the most clean, mess-free love story and life out there, and if you do, I'm genuinely happy for you, but many of us do not walk a blemish free life or love journey.  The pain of our narratives, however, in the hand of Christ can be translated into unfiltered beauty, raw joy, and new life if we only have the courage to come out of hiding.  I began this post with a  burden for truth and honesty on my heart, and I want to encourage you to feel safe in embracing your own life's messy and complicated parts too.  I've learned  a lot from the last few years about the kind of life I want to live and the person I want to be.  I want to be authentically me in this world, and I want others to feel safe in my presence to do the same.  Bring the good, bad, the ugly, and the pain and joy too.  Bring the light, the dark, and the world you're struggling to leave behind in order to embrace the new.  Bring it all, and trust that you're safe.  You're loved, and you are cherished by a God who sees all of you - and loves you just the same. 

Unapologetically Yours With Messy Love,

"Doc"

"I have loved you with an everlasting love..." - Jeremiah 31:3

A song for your listening pleasure! 

Video Credits to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFNrN_6Ta5I