I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.
Romans 7:15
Every leader desires to be successful, and most are willing to go after training, hone instincts, and follow those who are willing to mentor. But one thing I’ve observed across my lifetime is that success is often motivated by darker forces in a persons’ life. The will to overcome (or hide from) childhood poverty, abuse, or feelings of worthlessness can lead to type A drivenness – and sooner or later, those who are driven by escape must return to face the monsters of their childhood and the damage the beasts have wrought. At least if they want to lay down the masks and find rest, they must.
How do I know this, you ask? Well, it’s true, I have observed it; but it’s also true that I have lived it. Childhood abuse in a Christian family. A certain recipe for trouble ahead. Confusion about my worth and about love — was I worth protecting? For what was I ‘loved’? Performance? Looks? Was I dangerous somehow? And how in the world could I trust that God was love as I had been taught?
My coping style was what I came to think of as ‘spinning.’ If I would just spin hard enough, people would comment on my spinning and not notice what was missing. So, I worked hard, tried hard to shine, sacrificed truth for being liked, and smiled to beat the band. I lost myself, but I sure had personality.
Like a ballerina whose toes are bloodied as the dance ends, my spinning finally came to an end about 10 years ago. I fell so long and hard that I wrote in a lyric, ‘falling seemed to be the thing that best defined me.’ But out of the long, hard fall, I stopped trying so hard. I cried. I let others see my weaknesses. I began to talk about what was real instead of hiding who I was and how I felt. And I found a group of friends and mentors who I trusted with the messy me – and they loved me well.
A decade of healing, five years of seminary training, and four years in ministry later, I’d like to say everything is just perfect. But it’s not. I find again the need to dig around like an archeologist in the ruins. Maybe the ground beneath me shifted, and there’s a new layer exposed? All I know is that the things I think I should be able to do, I can’t. The places I think I should be able to navigate, I’m not. My desire to do well– and in fact, my doing well — just isn’t enough. And I feel God inviting me to what Ruth Haley Barton in Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership calls a purgation, a “commitment to self-knowledge, which is essential preparation for Good News. Purgation (or self-simplification) is a way of ‘clearing the decks for action.’ The house is swept and polished and the garbage is collected and burned. The purpose of purgation is always remedial and never punitive. It is meant to help and not punish….”
That last part is especially important for anyone who’s ever been a type A, driven perfectionist. How does God invite us to more if we interpret it as him saying we are not enough? And how can we respond with open heart instead of running for cover, holding onto whatever we’ve always held onto to keep us ‘safe’? I invite your reflections….
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