Getting Over “Get Over It”

As I wrote in my last post, this Lenten season I am FASTING from

• Unrealistic pressures and expectations
• Worry, doubt and fear about things out of my control
• Making decisions solely on making others “happy” and self denial at the expense of being “needed”

My plan was to intentionally focus on each of these, 2 weeks at a time, and writing about my experience and what God is teaching me. This blog post was supposed to be about giving extra attention to letting go of unrealistic pressures and expectations, and reality hit this week. I’m dealing with all 3, all the time.

Right off the bat I’m giving myself extra grace this week because not only did we have an “ice-apocalypse” down here in Texas, but sadly one of our dogs died on Friday. Lily was old. She was having lots of trouble getting around and having accidents in the house every day, as well as some other problems. She’s been holding on it seems for months and we’ve been saying “any day now”. She had seemed happy but restless the last few months until suddenly she seemed extra anxious, like she was in pain, so it was time to let her go. It was sad to say goodbye but it was the right thing to do, to end her suffering.

The next day I was cycling through grief in my head. I was fine, relieved and thankful when I woke up realizing I didn’t have to clean up an accident on the floor. And then I wasn’t fine, seeing her empty food bowl. I was fine again realizing that I could relax, not having to worry about trying to get her to relax and stop pacing. And then I wasn’t, listening to a quiet house. (until my other dog started snoring…)

My head played mind games with me all day, playing the guilt recording I know well.

“Was it the right decision?”

“What if she could have lived longer?”

“Maybe we let her go TOO long and she was suffering?”

“We could have taken better care of her.”

The TRUTH is, I know that those are voices of the enemy trying to discourage me because guilt that feels like condemnation does not come from God (Romans 8:1). Instead, God’s voice says, “I am with you. You are loved. Your decisions can be trusted when you are leaning on me. You showed mercy and love to a dearly loved part of my creation. I am pleased.” I know it is God’s voice because I have been practicing putting the voices I hear on trial, especially in decision making. I ask, “is that you Lord?” and I know that only the Lord can answer YES. (1 John 4:1-2)

Many of us are grieving, hurting, dealing with trauma, and down right struggling in the current season. Just when we think things might be improving from a pandemic lockdown, social isolation, economic hardships, illness, death, racial and political division, and a number of life’s other challenges, we get hit with an ice-apocalypse and the death of a beloved pet. We ask, is it ever going to end???

What I know to be true and I will keep reminding myself until it becomes a habitual voice that I listen to FIRST and not after doing brain gymnastics for 3 hours, is that GOD IS GOOD. And He CARES about my feelings. The hardships that I face MATTER to God. It may seem like He’s not doing anything, letting things fall apart, and that I’ve been abandoned, but that is a LIE. I won’t always understand it, and I will probably have to face sad feelings, pain, and heartbreak, but I KNOW that I KNOW that I KNOW that God is good.

I KNOW that I KNOW that I KNOW that God is good.

So that gives me the freedom to take the pressure off myself, or anyone else, to fix the current mess I’m trying to clean up, or the broken pieces I’m trying to put back together, or fill the hole that has been left with the loss of my fur friend. I can’t fix that. But Jesus can. I can’t put it back together. But Jesus can. I can’t fill the hole that Lily left. But JESUS can. We may not ever understand the WHY behind the hard and painful things we face but we CAN with confidence lean on the ONE who does. He gave up EVERYTHING for us. He knows. Our pain matters.

I’m taking the pressure off this week and not “require” myself to be happy. I get to be sad. Yep, I GET TO. I am allowing myself time to grieve. I’m taking the expectation off myself that I need to “get over it” and let Lily go. I’m feeling the feelings instead of dismissing them or beating myself up about it. I’m saying a prayer of gratitude for my “judgmental” self that has tried to serve me well, and protect me, and motivate me in the past with guilt for hard feelings. This is a part of my past self that wanted to protect me from staying down too long. This is the part of me that in the past somehow believed that there wasn’t room in a life walking with Jesus for sadness or anger. I am giving myself permission to let that part of me go, because in Christ there is ALWAYS ROOM for sadness and anger, especially when we bring it to HIM. I’m not an expert at that yet and that’s ok. The expectation of being “good” at not feeling guilty, or making room for sadness, or feeling the pressure to be happy has been released.

So why is it that in the Christian community we put pressure on ourselves to “get over it” with loss and grief, and traumatic things? Why is it that we tell people “they’re in a better place”, or “at least they are no longer suffering”, or dismiss the loss because it seems “minor” comparatively, as if the loss of a pet is less significant to a person or that your pipes breaking and flooding only one room “could have been worse”, and “at least it wasn’t…” has the intention of lifting someone’s spirits after loss, but is really about making the person that says it feel validated for “helping”. When we say that to someone, we are making it about OURSELVES, not them. We are diving into comparing their loss to our life experience or that of another, and in addition it shows that we are uncomfortable with hard feelings so we say things about another person’s loss to make ourselves feel better.

Side note here: That’s not intended to be a guilt trip from me to you, I promise. It’s human nature, something I’ve been intentionally learning how to do better, and I believe we need to talk about it. I’m all about getting some of these hard topics out in the open. Let’s no longer hide behind “hard things” that make us uncomfortable because we either don’t know enough about it, or don’t feel confident/comfortable talking about it, we don’t agree with the other person in the conversation, or we think we might be wrong so we just sugar coat it or ignore it. Perhaps we can all be mature enough and open minded enough to consider another point of view, to recognize that we might be seeing an issue from the wrong angle, be willing to listen toward understanding (even if we don’t agree) and that maybe it’s ok to learn from our mistakes.

Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? – Galatians 1:10

Back to the topic at hand, Theodore Roosevelt said that “Comparison is the thief of joy.” His quote is not scriptural exactly but still wise words and it is biblically based in Galatians 1:10 and Philippians 4:11-12. It’s really true, isn’t it? We are the primary victims of our own comparison most of the time, but it goes both ways when we listen to and receive or take into our minds comparison words. When we compare with anything, our joy is stolen. Or maybe even put another way, when we compare our life experience to others and make that our own truth, we GIVE IT AWAY. We literally in every way give away our joy.

When we compare loss or traumatic events, it even more so becomes a vacuum that sucks the life out of us. I have lived this lie for most of my life until last year when I began to really dig deep and address my unhappiness. I finally recognized, with the help of a professional counselor, and LOTS of journaling and prayer time with Jesus, that I had been allowing a traumatic season from my childhood to be in the category of “are you sure that’s what happened?” and “at least it wasn’t…” (fill in the blank) or “it could have been worse”. These were said to me by someone who I confided in, who loves me, and was trying to help. I’ve realized now that THAT was more about their own uncomfortableness with facing hard things and not about ME at all, but as a child the consequence was I dove head first into a life of comparison and people pleasing, living my WHOLE adult life

• not fully trusting my own thoughts and feelings
• not fully trusting others that say they “love” me when their actions don’t show they are FOR me (and everyone is going to let me down at some point), but continually feeling the pressure to win them over and receive their “validation”
• comparing and diminishing/dismissing my feelings based on what I saw others doing/saying
• comparing my life experiences to others and evaluating “truth” from their perspective, which is not MY truth at all

I’m over it. I don’t mean grief. I mean the dismissal of grief, loss, heartache and pain. Dismissal is no longer allowed. I’ve set a firm boundary. I refuse to meet the expectation that I must be “strong” because I know that a life with Jesus promises TRUE JOY. I believe it, but I don’t always feel it every hour of every day, and that is OK, and definitely not a reason to feel shame or guilt. I have permission from my Lord and Savior to BE WEAK lean in, be as sad as necessary for He will RECEIVE me there. I have permission to stop the guilt trip over it. I validate that voice or dismissal with “I see you. I recognize that you are trying to help. You are no longer needed for this work. Thank you and move along please.” I’m not going to beat up the voice of dismissal and wouldn’t the enemy just love it if I had another thing to feel guilty over, so I’m setting a boundary on that too.

The process of facing grief, loss, and healing from trauma and heartache takes a long time and I’m giving myself permission to feel all the feels. I’m speaking words of encouragement to the “Shelley within” that has been wounded and broken from heartache and I’m holding her hand, listening to her pain, smiling and nodding as she remembers sweet stories, committing to “weep with those who weep” as she mourns, and whispering “big sister” or “best friend” words of “I believe you” and “I’m with you”.

Dear friend, what are you facing today? Do you need to let go of expectations and pressures on how you “should” feel or what you “should” be doing? The “shoulds” are not serving you well, are they? Have you been comparing your loss to how others’ handle it, or dismiss your pain? Do you need to embrace your inner self that is hurting and become your own best friend, with the help of Jesus’ compassionate, loving partnership of salvation and healing. It is by HIS sacrifice and gift of grace that you no longer need to STRIVE or save yourself from this life of “try harder”. I know you’re tired. Me too, for real. I’m ready to hand over the striving and ACCEPT this tremendous gift of rescue. It just takes practice, repeat, and start again. You are not condemned for this. You and I are not alone. Take my virtual hand and let’s take that step toward getting over “get over it”, together. We can do it our own way, at our own pace, with God’s help.