I don’t want to be manipulated into loving anyone. Or feel like my life is dependent on his approval. Like to be funny I need him to laugh. To be successful I need him to agree. To be anything I need something else. And maybe that’s why I feel so stifled here, like my prayers hit the ceiling because I don’t have his approval of my faith/my worship (even if I do).
I feel like I need to ask permission to live fully abandoned.
So I stay here. Walking on egg shells. Held back from my God by a prison I put myself into. I ask for You to come in. But I keep You at a distance, holding tighter to my fear of their reactions. I try to fix myself into my expectations of their expectations of me. I have to be skinny enough for everyone, I have to read enough for them. I have to be happy enough for her. I have to laugh enough at people for him. I have to be sufficiently distant for her, not clingy. I have to be funny enough for them. I have to be spiritual enough for her. And I change my stories/actions/interactions so as to fit them.
And all the while my soul withers inside, wishing to just be seen for who I am. Wishing to be so different from any of them that they have no choice but to accept me as I am. “And he calls each one of us by our names to come and play and he whispers to your heart to let it go and be alive”
I don’t know how to just be. I don’t know how to rest in who you’ve made me. I don’t know how to come alive. I feel like there’s so much of my spirit that wants to be free but I keep it locked up for fear of their reactions. I don’t want to live in fear. I don’t want to hate myself. “That’s how he made you. Just let it happen”
What if I could just trust? What if I stopped caring? “There’s no shame in looking like a fool, in giving what I can’t keep to take a hold of you”
