My Dirty Laundry

I used think the world would be better off without me. I’d avoid going to social events because I had this obscure belief that my presence would somehow downgrade the party.

I used to wish I was never born. When I was about nine or ten years old, I’d sit in my room after coming home from a day of being teased and picked on (the term “bullied” wasn’t widely used back then) at school, and I’d think about what it would be like to cease to exist. I never considered suicide as a serious option, but I would wish and even pray that God would somehow magically erase my existence. 

I used to think life is nothing but broken dreams and thought of the ability to dream as a cruel joke God plays on mankind. Then I decided maybe that didn’t apply to all mankind, just the stupid ones. Like me.

I used to hate myself. 

I’d remind myself that I hated myself over and over in my head, sometimes whispering it aloud when no one was around. 

Sometimes I still do.

The reason I’m even writing this, the reason I’m “airing my dirty laundry” on the World Wide Web, is because I wonder if maybe I’m not alone.

I wonder if maybe there’s someone else out there who feels the same way.

Someone else who needs to know he or she is not alone.

Someone else who could benefit from the things I’ve learned that have helped me.

And I wonder if there’s anyone out there who needs to know I’m not perfect either. Sometimes I feel like people expect me to be or think I am. That bugs me a lot, because it’s simply not true.

I’m not there yet. 

I still struggle. 

But God, in his grace, is helping me through, and he’d love to do the same for you (as would I).

At the risk of sounding a bit more “preachy” than normal, here are a few realizations I’ve had that have helped me in the past, continue to help me and may help you if you ever feel the same way:

1. You were created for a purpose. 

No matter what anyone else may say, you are not a mistake. 

I recently saw the movie “Hugo” and my favorite part was when Hugo, the main character, brought his friend Isabelle to his spot at the top of a clock tower overlooking the city. 

As they sat there taking it all in, he told her, “Right after my father died, I would come up here a lot. I'd imagine the whole world was one big machine. Machines never come with any extra parts, you know. They always come with the exact amount they need. So I figured if the entire world was one big machine, I couldn't be an extra part. I had to be here for some reason. And that means you have to be here for some reason too.”

I love that quote because at first it sounded like a “feel good” movie quote that would be great if it were true, but then after processing it for a few seconds, I realized it is true. God is the clockmaker of the universe and he made everything and everyone, including me. And He does not make any mistakes or extra parts.

2. That purpose is love. 

When asked what the greatest commandment is, Jesus replied, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind. And love your neighbor as yourself.” (See Matthew 22: 34-40)

I always thought I knew what Jesus meant by that, and I always thought I did a pretty good job at practicing it. Then one day a question hit me: How can you love your neighbor as yourself if you first don’t learn to love yourself?

Donald Miller, in his book “Blue Like Jazz,” writes of a similar revelation: 

“I am certain it was the voice of God because it was accompanied by such a strong epiphany like a movement in a symphony or something. The sentiment was simple: Love your neighbor as yourself.

“And I thought about that for a second and wondered why God would put that phrase so strongly in my mind...He was saying I would never talk to my neighbor the way I talked to myself, and that somehow I had come to believe it was wrong to kick other people around but it was okay to do it to myself. It was as if God had put me in a plane and flown me over myself so I could see how I was connected, all the neighborhoods that were falling apart because I would not let myself receive love from myself, from others, or from God. And I wouldn’t receive love because it felt so wrong. It didn’t feel humble, and I knew I was supposed to be humble. But that was all crap, and it didn’t make sense. If it is wrong for me to receive love, then it is also wrong for me to give it because by giving it I am causing someone else to receive it, which I had presupposed was the wrong thing to do.”

3. God loves you.

Perhaps the most profound of my “revelations,” if you will, is also the most simple: 

God loves me. 

God loves me so much He died a horrible death on the cross for of me, and forgave me. (See John 3:16-17) I think part of the reason I find it so easy to hate myself is that I find it so hard to forgive myself. 

If you’ve ever felt the same way, think about that for a bit.

God forgives you and God loves you, yet you can’t forgive and love yourself? Is your judgment higher than God’s? 

Jesus said as He died for you on the cross, “It is finished.”

Now trust Him and leave it there.

I know it’s not as easy as it sounds. Believe me, I know. But with God’s help, it is not impossible.

4. God has a plan for you.

This goes along with my first point that God created you for a purpose. A verse I have found helpful, as it talks a little more specifically about that purpose is:

“’For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’” (See Jeremiah 29—I recommend reading the whole passage and thinking about how the context can apply to your own life.)

5. It’s not about you.

The last of my points is possibly the hardest one for me to grasp. I think sometimes what may seem like simply a low self-esteem problem can actually be a pride issue. 

Not following? Reread the first five paragraphs of this post. What word does each one start with?

“I.”

Francis Chan, one of my favorite authors/speakers once preached a single sermon that was a whirlwind summary of the entire Bible. His point, in the end, was that although the Bible is filled with many short stories that have what we consider main characters, none of them are actually the main characters. The story isn’t about them, it’s about God. 

The Bible, both as a whole and as a collection of individual stories, is ultimately about God and His story.

My life and your life are no different. Our stories are not about us, they are a part of God’s bigger story. 

Living for yourself just leaves you worn out and unsatisfied. I’ve tried it, and I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s really not about me. 

And to me at least, that is a huge relief.

The Story That Will Never Be Written

Imagine a library bigger than any you have ever seen, bigger than the Library of Congress. It is filled with so many books no one has ever tried to count them. But it doesn’t matter how many books are in this library because people don’t go there much, and it is usually empty. Every once-in-a-while someone will stumble through the doors by accident, not quite sure how they got there, and stay only long enough to take one book off the shelf, flip through its pages, and return it to its place.  No one has ever read any of the books from these shelves, but even if someone were to try, it would be impossible.

Every page in every book in this library is blank.

Such a place exists. Figuratively, but it exists. I know this, because I’ve been there. In fact, I was there today.

The last thing I remember before suddenly finding myself in the library, I was sitting on my bed looking through a photo album. I had paused at a photo of my late Great Aunt Lettie and was trying to remember what was going on in the captured scene.

In the photo, we are sitting around a table at another relative’s house in New Jersey, and Aunt Lettie is entertaining everyone with one of my brother Eddie’s puppets. 

I remember we were all laughing so hard our sides hurt and some of us had tears in our eyes.

Eddie loves puppets and is always doing skits with them, so when Aunt Lettie started fooling around with the puppet that day, some of us started encouraging her to write a skit for him to practice with his puppets at home. She loved the idea, and promised to work on it and send it to him in the mail. Almost every time we saw her or talked to her after that, she would mention the puppet skit, and say she would be sending it soon.

It never came.

She died before she could write it.

I hadn’t thought about that day or the puppet skit in a long time until I looked at that photo. And that was then when I looked up to find myself in the library.

When I arrived, I saw a book on the shelf in front of me that seemed to stick out just a little further than the others, which were lined up perfectly even with each other. It seemed to be calling out for me to pick it up, but somehow I couldn’t. I don’t know how, but I knew, like in a dream, that this book was Aunt Lettie’s puppet skit.

I selected a different book from a nearby shelf and began flipping through its blank pages, but immediately wished I hadn’t. Just like I’d known the identity of the other one without touching it, I knew this one the second I opened it. I thought of Tom O’Hara, a man who used to live down the street from us.

“Mr. O.,” as I called him, was an extremely talented yet unknown photographer, and would capture the image of a flower as small as my fingertip and then have it printed the largest poster size available. He also took beautiful pictures of the many old barns around the area where I live.

On several occasions, he offered to show me how to use his camera and teach me about photography. I always said yes, I’d love that, and I think we made plans a few times to start, but we never got around to it. I kept saying I’d come over one day soon, but was always busy with other things, so it would get put off again.

He died a couple years ago, and now that will never happen.

I knew as I flipped through the pages of the book that this was its story.

Again, although figurative, this library exists, and every book on its shelves is a story that was intended to be written, but never was and never will be.

The purpose of the library, however, is not for its guests to be reminded of and have them dwell on their unwritten stories that will never be, but to encourage them to take note of their unwritten stories that still can be, and finish them.

Just as everyone has past regrets, everyone has potential future regrets and unwritten stories that threaten to end up in the library with the others.

What are yours?