versions of you
I saw of version of a young me today, she was standing at the bus stop waving as she put her little brother on the bus. We don’t share any physical resemblance, but something about her spirit wouldn’t let me look away. It read like: “responsibility”. The kind of responsibility that comes from being born as the oldest sibling. It’s a kind of thread that ties most all eldest siblings together. A kind of thread that, if not careful, can feel more like brick than string. Deep breaths. Air fills my lungs and I slowly exhale with a kind of deflation that hits the top of my stomach with a pang. Past versions of me fill my mind like a flip book, quickly shifting from one scene to the next. Slowly growing, slowly changing, with one constant in between. A constant that’s hard to put my finger on and even if I could stop the flip book and analyze the moment, the next one would feel just the same. Deep breath, pang, repeat. “Help me touch it, God. Help me to name it.” Tears well up in my eyes as I become aware of the space between what I’ve thought about myself and what He thinks about me. Truth circles my heart but it doesn’t settle in. It flows in and out like the light from a light house. Disappearing and returning. This happens again and again and again - as if a sentence is being written out for my soul to read. Each word of truth illuminated with every new pass of the light. I can’t quite catch it, so I wait.
“Disappointment”- There it was a truth uncovered, slowed down just enough for me to see it. I was in fact, disappointed. Each letter of the word now poking deeper into the pang. I was disappointed with her and it stained every page - A drop here, a splash there. Fog settled in dimming the light for just enough time to feel the darkness of it all. The mist hits my skin and my whole being recognizes this damp feeling - a kind of dampness that makes it hard to breathe in deep with a kind of fog that makes it hard to see. I close my eyes and open them again, there’s a stillness in the fog and I feel it again…The pang hits the top of my stomach and I see it, the lie. This lie hanging there in the fog like a ragged banner blocking that light of truth that keeps circling to find me. This lie in the dampness of the fog that says, “you could have done that better”.
I could see it, in each chapter of the flip book - memories clouded with disappointment in myself. Judging her from here and all the “here’s” before for not seeing how she could have “done that better”. If she had just not done that, not said that, not hurt that loved one, not gone there, not made that choice, not felt that way, kept making that mistake - not stopped - not started... a rage filled scream fills the air, “you didn’t carry responsibility, responsibly!” The final blow comes like a rush of wind clearing the fog. My feet are stuck in mud as the wind rushes passed me and the sound of longing to go with it whooshes past my ears, but I can’t move. I’m stuck, she’s stuck. Stuck with fear that future me will look back at present me still carrying that same banner, those same drips of disappointment on the pages. The reality of the crossroads creeps in, a convergence of truth and lies, of past and present. Knowing I have to move, knowing I have to keep going, but knowing I can’t keep weaving new chapters with this brick weighted thread, surely I’ll sink.
I had reached the end of the flip book. I close it and look at the cover, the title makes my whole body feel heavy. “You could have done that better”. Each chapter crying out to tell the true story of my life but all I could see was an ugly muddy font scribbled with words of disappointment. I hold the book up to my chest and let out a deep sigh. As I hang there for a moment, my heart aches for every chapter, for every version of me that I didn’t express love to, that I forgot to show grace to, that I forgot to forgive. We look at each other there, me here and her there, and a softness fills the space. I see myself outside of myself in a whole new way. The way a loving parent does, with so much love and joy in their eyes. The way a proud father does, the way The Father does…with so much grace and forgiveness in his heart.
I whisper through a trembling breath out into what feels like the wilderness and an, “I’m so sorry, please forgive me” flows out into a vast unknown.
Holding the book there, close to my chest, warmth flows back into my limbs and the hair on my arms raise as a final exchange is made. Truth in place of lies. Peace in place of brokenness.
“Thank you”, I tell her. “I love you”, I say. “You did the best you could. You kept trying, you kept going, kept hoping, kept seeking, and you keep finding. You were learning, you were living, you were growing through all of your failing and succeeding…repeating that over and over, all the while stepping closer toward walking with Him. What a beautiful way to live. What a beautiful way to grow.”
I hug all the versions of me in that book one last time before peering down at the cover through blurry eyes. I can’t quite make out the words yet but the title looks different somehow. I wipe my eyes to see something brand new written, “Beloved without measure”. And through those kind of knowing and nodding laughter filled tears the heaviness of an accusing voice that once said, “you could have done that better” is replaced with something much gentler and eternal: You are loved beyond your failures. A tender healing and quietly powerful reverence fills my heart at the sight of the crisp blank pages and I say, “ok God, let’s grab the pen.”