the rambling missionary

by erika haveman

 

Existing is a funny thing.  What we think we know and have all the surety of one day or week or month or year can shift so dramatically in a matter of days or weeks or months or years and one day we realize we’ve changed.  What we thought we knew about ourselves or life or someone else is different.

I can recall days, not long past, where my mom or sister would spontaneously want to do something on a Sunday afternoon but I would not join them because mentally I hadn’t prepared myself for the spontaneity.  Somewhere the spontaneity wasn’t safe – it wasn’t part of the plan for what Sunday was: watching football (or golf or baseball) and a nap.  The plan, the routine, existing in such a way as that was safe, known, comfortable, predictable.  I liked it that way.

I would suggest I didn’t understand what my soul needed in a Sabbath.

My weekends are still pretty predictable but I’ve recently discovered that spontaneity – having no plans and existing, specifically alongside of another person, has brought my delight, joy, life, enjoyment.  I’ve found myself so grateful for friends who are spontaneous and always up for whatever wild idea – or lack thereof – that I have and are willing to just go.  Most recently I found myself getting all dressed up with a friend.  We had no plans of where we’d go, just a rough idea of how we wanted to exist together – in makeup and dresses.  We hopped in my car, started driving and just let the day happened.  The day brought coffee, Chickfila, beaches on a frozen lake, drives up a mountain, mug painting, drinks, pizza…but that was just what we did.  What made the day better was how we existed.

Sometimes in thoughtful conversation. Sometimes in laughter.  Sometimes in embraced silence.  Sometimes in song.  Sometimes in our own worlds.  There was no pressure to perform.  There was no expectation to ask the right question.  There was just existing.

I think sometimes I want the safety of existing to be automatic.  When I’ve dated I have expected things to be there without the awkward.  Yet I have always – and continue to – find myself overwhelmed by anxiety when I’m with or even simply in the presence of a guy who I want to be myself with.  I’m wrestled and wondered why my nerves take over, why anxiety has a place.  I don’t think I’ve ever been “myself” with a guy I’ve been interested in.  Beyond that I think there are a lot of friendships in general where I struggle to be “myself”.  So how do I get to a place of safety with some people and not others?

First of all I think the safety has to come from within.  In December something God really highlighted to me, through a gentle, nudging question, was, “Do you feel safe with yourself?”

For the first time in my life I realized I didn’t.  I didn’t feel safe with myself.  If I don’t feel safe with myself I will always doubt safety with others.  Even with my closest friends who I can just “exist” with where there are no expectations when we’re together I feel unsafe when I haven’t spent time with them.  When there is a gap of time and space when we’re not together I start to wonder if I am doing enough to make them feel loved or seen or known; I ask them to hang out or if I can visit them and then I start to wonder if I am pressuring them or if they are actually trying to avoid me and now I’m putting them in an awkward position and I’m only their friend out of pity.  I’ve had these conversations with one of my closest friends and she has reassured me she feels no such thing toward me.  Yet I doubt her.  That’s not on her.  That’s on me.  That’s because I don’t feel safe within myself.

A practise I started in the fall of 2020 was one of silence and solitude.  Being alone and being quiet.  Pausing for dozens of intentional minutes at a time to wait on the Lord.  Partially I was forced into this place due to the loss and grief I was feeling at a depth I’d never known that was all triggered by the death of my Grandpa.  I still regularly cry out of missing him.  But those pauses, that silence, the quiet really started to establish something new to me: a safety in the unknown.

I’ve shared before how I overthink everything.  I still do, but I do it less.  Well…I do it less when I’m regularly spending time in silence before God.

Psalm 46:10 says “Be still and know that I am God.”

When was the last time you were still?  When was the last time you looked at your life and saw a marked difference? When was the last time you knew that He is God?

Personally what I have discovered is the faster the pace of my life the higher the anxiety and the more I overthink.  However when I incorporate regular times of silence and solitude, slowing down and waiting, the more productive my life seems to be yet the less I worry and the less I even think.  Therein I simply exist.

Existing is a funny thing.  And I hope for more of it.