season of becoming....

"There are seasons of wilderness and there are seasons of settledness, this is neither, this is a season of becoming"

The theme of becoming is ever present in my life on the regular, which i think is pretty common for most people, we are ever evolving into who we'll be....and i don't know if that ever stops, the becoming, that is.

I feel like I was lucky enough to be settled for a real long time and then there was a season of wilderness. Lots of wandering, lots of questions, lots of shut doors. Lots of unknowns. The wilderness was scary and sad and...strange and hard...the ever present fear of the bottom dropping out, grasping on to whatever was at hand in an attempt to find my way out.

And sure enough, slowly, i let my self be found, i let myself be guided out of the wilderness into a place with solid ground. It took awhile and to be honest I still fight it, but i think i'm out of the forest (for now) and i've headed into a land of becoming.

Don't be confused. It's still up hill the whole way. It's still strange and scary and hard. It's a lot of looking back and cutting ties, while also holding on and being pulled forward into who i'll be, without being able to see what's up ahead.

I can't explain of terrain of "becoming" exactly, i think because it changes from day to day. Sometimes i'm drowning, sometimes i'm in a dead sprint running for my life, as it were, and sometimes it's a slow stroll, a slow incline, a meander through gravel and dirt, but every day, a little more of the broken pieces get put into place, a little more truth and beauty is allowed to escape. and a little more me takes shape.

the sculpting is hard. Especially on days when the in progress version of myself is too...unfinished to be ok with. i'm so...cynical, i'm too sassy, too fat, too ugly, too under dressed, i can't put my makeup on right, my hair looks like a train wreck. No one likes me.....on those days, and they happen frequently in this becoming process. on those days, i wanna take a hammer to all of  it. i want to crush everything that's wrong.

i want to start over.

Except that i have to start over with where i am, and that hasn't changed.

In my brain, i know i'm made in God's image, i'm his....handiwork, a masterpiece....a Picasso in a room full of Monets.... but that literally does not translate to my heart.

like it's a language my heart doesn't speak. My heart doesn't speak "enough"  it just doesn't.

But in this seasons of becoming, i've gotten some Rosetta Stone Jesus in the form of people who love me simply to love me, and not because they need something from me.

Who don't let me get away with my cop out....everything fine...people who have the same conversation with me 53 times in 30 ways and still smile on the other side of my neurotic, insecure,ramblings . People who are real with me about their fears and baggage and struggles....people who must see something different in this process of becoming. To them, my  in progress must be somewhat manageable.

I've been humbled in the last few months, coming to terms with triggers and fears and roadblocks that often lead me to jump ship or fade away without much of a fight. Flaws literally take my breath away when i see them and realize the impact that my brokenness has on other people.

I trust people too easily but then just live in deep fear that they'll use me and then be done with me...so it gets real jacked and all kinds of codependent, and, well, frustrating for everyone involved. i make people prove their love with games they don't know they're playing and standards they'll never live up to.

so there have been a lot of table, and car and office chats that i promptly leave and proceed to weep after because exposure is vulnerable, and vulnerable leads for potential heart break. and heart break leads to wilderness again, and i HATE the wilderness.

But becoming, that's about being smarter and healthier and better....and being more ok with who i am and fixing the parts i don't like. It's ok to fix the parts that you don't like, and that don't look like jesus. Made in god's image yes, but perfect we are not, so improvement is always possible.

I'm horribly human and still trying to put my shit in the right place. And sometimes i make jesus mad.

Sometimes when i hear about people who are tiny complaining about post baby stretch marks, or when i hear about people who are so "everything is so hard even though i have a community of people who help me all the time" or "here's my dream and i'm gonna try to do it, even thought i'm a terrible person but i have everyone fooled" well....i think real shitty thoughts....or...for example when the people i tried to hard to make love me for four years, all of a sudden....stop loving me, and i am so filled with hurt that it turns to a wicked tongue, well...i feel justified in my feelings.

because for whatever reason, my hurt, my struggle is more real than theirs. It's more justified because of my story...which is really quite boring and probably lacking in substance.

it's in these moments when i know that becoming is still happening, I have not arrived. i'm no where near done. i need to to learn a lot more and have tons more grace and love so that some day the title of "Christ follower" is something of which i am worthy.

And i guess what I'm saying in that there are not decades or genders or life stories matter when it comes to who is part of your becoming season. It's all unexpected and unexplained, and so far beyond us, that we have no choice but to roll with it.

and it hits me, as much as people are a part of my becoming, i am apart of theirs as well. It's in deeply meaningful yet supremely awkward coffee chats and conversations chuck full of things you'd never tell half the people you know.....it's in the moments of unexplained tears, and weeping in offices and crying in cars, in understanding silences that I realize how incredibly "in this together we are" and how you can't do this shit alone....and we were never meant to. And its in those moments where the scary and the negative and preconceptions and judgments melt away.....

and you're just kind of left with a feeling of gratefulness, and love and empathy for every struggle that is being faced and all the becoming that's happening, and in that knowing that we have a chance to become something beautiful. together.

i'm accepting this becoming seasons knowing that it'll be hard, but knowing that i'm not alone, and that better might not be around the corner, but it is certainly down the road.

So....Grab hands with your people and wade the waters of change together.

I think you'll be glad you did.