Christmas is a Vulnerable Time

Well! Today I left my house for the first time in two weeks. I was finally cleared by my surgeon to start Physical Therapy (yay!) and I am looking very forward to the hard work of rebuilding my strength and mobility.

It was such a missing month for me—for all intents and purposes, I pretty much went “deep and dark”/”off the grid” re: contact with the outside world as I a) survived my surgery and the ensuing surgical complications; b) survived the one-year anniversary of my sexual assault; and c) cranked out my RTS (seminary) course that I thought I had until December 30 to finish but NOPE! November 30. Yeah. That was some seriously fast—and enjoyably HARD—reading and studying and writing I just did 🙂 !

And so here we are. I actually have some current blog posts (contemporaneous to the life situations that I listed above) that I dearly hope to share with you all before too long. In the interim, here is a post I did a few years ago around Christmastime. Hope it’s a blessing to you!

Sending my love and care,
Tara B.

Christmas is a Vulnerable Time

I was almost knocked over this morning by a wave of extreme vulnerability.

When I thought about December 20, 1993 (the day Fred “formally” pursued a romantic relationship with me—at an Illini basketball game at Assembly Hall, aided by the pep band cranking out, “Hey Baby, I Wanna Know if You’ll Be My Girl!”) … rather than my normal happiness (December 20th is usually an incredibly happy and romantic date for me), I felt shame:

Why did Fred pursue me 20 years ago? Doesn’t he regret it? I bet his friends and family members were counseling him against a relationship with someone as messed up as me. There were so many beautiful, smart, godly, together women from happy, godly homes who would have loved to marry him. I wonder if he wishes someone much better than me was the mother of his children?
What was I doing in a top tier law school anyway? I had no idea what I was doing there. I didn’t even really understand what it was lawyers did. I had absolutely no educational background that prepared me for the study or practice of law. Why was I there? I didn’t belong there. I didn’t fit in with all of those smart, together people.

Then I thought about all of the people in my life who are suffering deeply this morning. Intense physical suffering. Spiritual suffering. Relational suffering. I thought about my feeble efforts to help them—by just being present. Praying. Talking a lot / conflict coaching. Being completely silent and just weeping. Sharing substantive help. Doing “nothing” but just distracting and laughing. And again, I felt shame:

What is WRONG with you, Tara? Don’t you KNOW that (she/he) just needs (a friend who is silent and present/more tangible, practical help and counsel)? Why can’t you ever figure this relational stuff out? You talk (too much/too little). You (give away too many resources/don’t give away enough).
You are a bad friend and the people you think love you are only tolerating you. You don’t really have a place that you belong. You’d better pull back and just try to not offend people too much. There is no place for the real you.

Sad, isn’t it? And just a little melodramatic, to be sure. But I don’t think I’m the only one who has these waves of not-good-enough-ness, especially at the holidays.

On any given day, our society is rife with a disastrously fake, shallow picture of perfectly beautiful people living perfectly beautiful lives in perfectly loving and harmonious relationships. We are constantly bombarded by ridiculous notions of really (hip / socially-active / godly / witty / good-at-friendships / perfect-romantic-relationships / perfect parenting-in-laws-extended family relationships / great at cooking and change management consulting and decorating and volunteer management / more involved with our children’s education / more content as a single person / more and better at whatever it is we feel our LACK in) people. But never more so than at the holidays.

Oh, come on! Look around. It all kicks into high gear this week. Your Thanksgiving meal is not going to be (beautiful / perfect / gourmand / simple / social-action-conscious-organic / patriotic / ministerial) enough. Time to get out your decorations? They are (not beautiful enough / so beautiful that they are selfish and materialistic and detract from the REAL meaning of Christmas). It’s (make cookies / take care of orphan time)! Are you ready? Ready to create happy memories while NOT encouraging selfish, materialistic tendencies? Ready to feel the weight of the LUXURIOUS life we have because we have CLEAN WATER to drink every day and we’re not afraid of imminent imprisonment or being sold into slavery? And then we have the audacity to buy lifesaver booklets to stuff in our children’s stockings (rather than curing one more orphan of a dreaded disease)?

How lonely are you in your singleness? How scared are you in your physical pain? Your financial vulnerability? Your spiritual doubts?

Take just one glance around you during this season of (intense spiritual confidence in God’s gracious work through the incarnation of Christ / happy-intact-marriages-families-friendships / millions of people who either seem to be WAY more wise and godly than you re: NOT spending money or just SPENDING money and enjoying it without guilt) and let yourself be quiet with the voices bombarding you inside your deepest fears … and maybe there are one or two of you who are more like me than unlike me in my (occasional) battle with (unnecessary and un-Christianly) feelings of what my first book (Peacemaking Women) describes as ungodly shame. (Because of course there is such a thing as godly shame—but unlike the emotional and spiritual cancer of ungodly shame, godly shame is redemptive, leads to repentance and salvation and leaves no regret—2 Cor. 7:10.)

If you are tempted at all to go down a path of being overly self-critical, overly self-condemning, discontent, given over to fears and doubt especially related not just to what you DO but who you ARE (your core identity; your truest, most vulnerable definition of self), I encourage you to camp out on a psalm that Fred recently read to me in our evening devotions:

Psalm 131

O Lord, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me. O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore.

Here is our hope. Here is our confidence. Here is the only way I know that we can push back against any extreme feelings of vulnerability we may be struggling with: we calm and quiet our souls, like a weaned child with its mother, because our hope is in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore.

Father and mother may reject us. We may blow it (again) with friends and need their forgiveness and grace (again). But relationships can be reconciled and we can learn how to love and be loved in this life. We can! All because we are loved with an eternal love that will last forever—into and throughout our REAL life in Heaven to come.

Think about it. Just for a moment as you start your busy Monday. Let your mind camp out here: on Heaven. That glorious place where every whiff of a scent of the safety and security of “Home” that marketers bombard us with at the holidays will be more than the scratch-n-sniff temporary experience of this life. When the best, most accepting, most honest, most loving, intentional, delight-filled, happy, safe, pleasurable relationship we have ever experienced in this life will be the NORM because we will see God as He is and we will view one another through unveiled faces; without all of the muck and mire of sin and self and life in this fallen world.

Isn’t that what we really long for this holiday season? And every season?

There is only one way to get there:

O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore (!).

(Emphasis added. I’m preaching to myself here more than anything else.)

Today is going to be a great day. Fevered children. Suffering friends. Simple pleasures. Simple ministry opportunities. Hard work. Relaxed cuddles. Ups and downs and fears and confidences.

The Lord never changes. So I don’t have to feel vulnerable. And neither do you.

I’m praying for every one of you who will read this blog. May God bless you and keep you in Him!

With love from your friend,
Tara B.

PS
I really do stay MUCH more in touch via Facebook these days. So if you’d like to see photos and read updates from our little family and/or my various travels, and if you are interested in links to articles / research, etc. that I have found helpful, Facebook is really the best way to stay in (timely) touch! Please click here if you’d like to become Facebook friends. 🙂 Thanks and g’nite—tkb

[A re-post from 2015]