Trapped

I was a good kid. Kid that is. Good in school. No trouble My list of I never ranged much longer than my list of have done.

Where I grew up, maturity was keeping the rules and doing the right things, marking your checklist of spiritual accomplishments and sins avoided. On the outside, I was doing well.

But inside,……I was dying. Plagued with deep depressions and manias. Inside I was different.

My accomplishments never felt like enough, and I was being crushed under the weight of my own expectations. Grades were never good enough. My art was never good enough. I was never a good enough friend. I used faith like a self-improvement plan, but ignored my heart in the process. As I cried out for acceptance, inadequacy and inferiority were my constant companions. They taunted me screaming at me in my mind.

Yet when I was exposed to the message of grace as a young adult, I struggled to believe it was for me. Even though it was like a breath of fresh air to my soul, and spoke to my heart in a way that accomplishments and discipline never could, deep down I believed I could manage without it; I’d heard of dramatic turnarounds – stories of radical sinners embracing the grace of God out of necessity. But me? I followed the rules and tried hard; I didn’t need it. I could figure it out on my own.

I was wrong.

I’ve come realize that striving for acceptance has kept me in bondage. Performance and appearance were my chains. I’ve slowly begun to loosen them, accepting and admitting my failures. It’s brought freedom, and I’m finally becoming comfortable in my own skin.

But it’s a journey I will be on for the rest for the rest of my life. My gospel of the second change is a moment-by-moment reprogramming of my mind and heart. By falling and getting back up again, I’m learning to embrace second chances and walk in the grace of God.

My soul is desperate for the sweet wind of grace – something I’ve learned to accept, instead of achieve.

I struggle to make myself a priority. Ever.

I know we are called to put others first, to love sacrificially, to serve others rather than ourselves. The belief in those things developed in young in life and made me an empathetic leader.

But I’ve taken those truths to an untrue extreme. Somehow in the context of my own mind and heart, it became unhealthy.

It developed an inability to know who I am, and to give my own needs and desires any priority. It morphed me into a man who has difficulty asserting my, voicing an opinion, and making a decision that benefits me. It’s make me incredibly uncomfortable in situations where all eyes are on me or I’m forced to be the center of attention. It’s formed the blanket of apology I’ve carried around my entire life.

But I’m learning that putting me first is sometimes the beset decision I can make. That it’s healthy to stand on my two feet and be my own person. That I am enough.

While this paradoxical state make sense outside my own brain, this is how I’m choosing to live my life from now one:

I will always put others first, But I no longer put myself last.