shame and love.

The greatest source of shame in my life is my messiness. Interestingly, my workspace is always impeccably clean and organized – because I don’t function well in chaos. God played this dirty little trick on me where He made me have anxiety in disorganization, but also made me naturally disorganized. It doesn’t matter how well-intended I am or how determined I am to change…it doesn’t matter that I cry because I am so sick with myself and loathe my lack of discipline. Inevitably I turn around and everything is out of control again. ‘How did this happen?’ I say to myself time and again. and then I avoid. I can’t handle the shame of facing the mess I have made…of looking at it long enough to do something about it. My heart turns into knots at the thought of drudging through the disaster I created and making sense of it somehow.

I don’t talk about this much because it truly shames me…beyond guilt or conviction…I’m talking deep, painful shame. I confessed it, tearfully, a few nights ago to my precious friend/mentor Mary Beth. I cried just to confess to her my own sickness. last night, she and I were sitting and drinking peppermint tea…laughing about who knows what and she said, “Let’s go clean your room. Right now. C’mon. Let’s go. Get up.” It was 9:30 at night. I told her the thought was madness…we both needed sleep…there wasn’t time…I didn’t want to. She didn’t give me another option. So we went to my house and we cleaned my room. We were done by 11pm. She even vacuumed. She even took my laundry. She was like this amazing reverse tornado of neatness that swept through my tragic disaster and made it normal again.

Who does this? What kind of person does this? I asked her and she said, “Oh, I just love you a lot.” I don’t understand that. I certainly accept it and am humbled by it…but I don’t think I’ll ever understand somebody loving me enough to look at me in all my shame and help me do something about it. I just don’t understand it.

Running points tally for Mary Beth: 9,722,908