Sensitive
I hate being so stinkin' sensitive.
There are topics that for whatever reason are like minefields sometimes, and I can't seem to help but take things very personally.
It probably doesn't help that I've been reading a book about Asperger's syndrome and how it affects spouses and loved ones. So, I already feel like a bit of a freak and a burden and an emotional drain. Just being me has the potential to cause all sorts of pain and frustration and hurt.
And the way that I have to eat is an incredible burden on not just me (and boy is it ever!), but on my family as well. I'm keenly aware of it, and any perceived attack aimed in that direction cuts deeply. I am weird. I am making things hard. The way I eat is wrong, and it costs too much time and money. And maybe if I'm screwy in the head from some sort of ASD, then this is just more proof of my insanity.
Or church. That is a topic that is insanely sore.
(Kind of like my abdomen. DO NOT TOUCH. IT HURTS. Sometimes less than others, but it's always at least uncomfortable.)
And any of these things, they easily lead to a downward spiral of thoughts. I'm dragging everything and everyone down. I'm an inconvenience, an annoyance, I'm wrong, I'm faulty.
And honestly, I AM. We could do so much more, have so much more time, so much more money, if I weren't like this - if I didn't have this weird physical whatever it is that makes it so I can't eat stuff, if I didn't have this strange mental/social ineptitude, if I wasn't so rigid in my theology and practice requiring so much time and effort and gas to satisfy.
BUT. These things are not ALL that I am. I need to learn, yes, to quit taking everything so personally, but these things have also meant that I can cook well, efficiently, and without thinking, and we have become much more self-sufficient. I can analyze and become very knowledgeable about lots of different topics, and I have been able to teach my children the Truth (and have been kept in it myself.)
While I do so very insufficiently, I am able to serve my family daily in household tasks and meals, packed lunches and bedtime stories, etc. Not everything about me is a burden, not everything about me causes pain.
The 8th commandment probably would be helpful to remember. I'm quick to take offense, but how much better to "put the best construction" on comments, to let them slide and not let them raise my hackles (far easier said than done.)
I don't know why God has seen fit to give me these particular crosses. I don't know why He has allowed my family to have to endure these burdens because of me. And I don't know how to separate them from who I am, and not see others' frustration with my physical and/or mental maladies - or criticism of them, even minor ones - as being attacks on me personally. But I know that one day I will be freed from them.
And I know that Christ has lived perfectly in my place, for me. He was attacked, accused of being possessed by a demon, and his family was embarrassed by Him...but He never took it personally, never lashed out, never despaired. Instead He willingly carried all of their sins (and mine) to the Cross where He paid for them, forgiving us even as He hung bleeding out His very life. And that blood He gives me each Sunday (and yes, it is most certainly worth the time and the effort and the gas), cleansing me of my sins, reassuring me that I am His, that He loves me. I am not a burden, but my sin is, and it is one He carried willingly. And through His atonement, He casts it as far away from me as the east is from the west.
Those little comments probably won't cease to sting (even though they're probably not meant to, or intended in that way), and maybe, with God's help, I'll learn to let at least some of them roll off my back, like water off a greased duck. But even when I fail, and they irk, and they prick, and tears drop like blood, I can look to the One who sees, who knows, and who graciously forgives me my sin, and will one day bring me to Himself.
-M
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