Five Minute Friday: Small

I'm linking up with Lisa-Jo Baker for Five Minute Friday. The prompt is Small and though I can't say I stayed strictly in the time limit, I found there was a lot to be said.

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There is a part of me that feels small.

She’s the messy me that I’ve never had the courage to face. She shrinks away and tucks herself in corners of my heart because her story is painful and she carries much of what is too terrible to experience and yet stay sane for the day to day.

Now I live in safety, but she still lives back there in uncertainty and fear. The past bleeds forward so often that numb is my favorite state and though the highway won’t carry me there, my crazy coping methods will.

I keep the small where she was told to stay with my anger and self-hate so big and scary that no one dares mess when Mom goes there. Every uncomfortable moment in the present drags those old feelings of shame, rejection, helplessness, longing and fear forward like a child’s soiled blankie that never leaves her side. Before I even know what that feeling is, the anger is flying at it hard, slamming it back down and the rage is attempting to silence whatever it was that opened the door for the messy me to be seen.  I don’t feel like I even know what hit me. I’m flooded with shock when I survey the blast zone that I create in those out of control moments.But most of all, I feel numb.

I have worked hard for years to get to the bottom of all the destruction caused by my rage. I think, now, I see it.

I’ll find freedom by seeing it. By seeing the messy me.

By letting the small become big.

By taking the safety of the present and offering it as a gift to the past.

The discomfort of memory and emotion must be something I am willing to stay in for long enough to bring Christ to that moment. Yes. The discomfort of embracing the messy me is what I must be willing to endure, so that her finding comfort may finally make way for her finding love.

Today, I had an argument with an overemotional preteen whose anger often blasts away like her mommy’s. I felt my value taking a hit, and it was a familiar agony from my teen years. My anger marched in, took position and lowered its weapons. Then, I backed away. I fled. In retreat I asked myself, what am I uncomfortable with? Then I saw her disappointment and frustration. I was not comfortable empathizing with those powerful emotions. So that’s exactly what I did. I returned. I showed empathy. Peace settled and there was no blast zone to gaze over tonight.

There is a part of me that feels small, but hope looms large that she’ll finally be free.

photo credit: muffinbasket via photopin cc