Don't Patronize Me
I am not an angry person. Some might say that I'm an intense person. This is not by design--I just think about things--a lot. I'm also very well-versed in typical listening idioms designed to indicate that a person is paying attention, when, in fact, he or she is thinking about what wonderful comment to make next, where to vacation during the summer, or what particular snack sounds good right now. When I hear those things parroted to me during a conversation, I generally decide whether to end the conversation or to take advantage of that person's misguided attempts to validate me, and vent a little. If I feel the need to talk, I will.
There are times, though, when I'm so overwhelmed with all that's inside me that I cannot even speak about it. Those are the times when I become overly buoyant about life in general, when I make sarcastic jokes (usually at someone's expense), when I will avoid talking about anything serious. And when I am finished talking I feel worse. I have verified that I'm incapable of dealing with problems in a rational way, and I'm fairly certain that whomever bore the brunt of my giggling tirade will avoid me for the rest of our lives.
That's not the real problem. The real problem is that I'm finally starting to feel some resentment about the things I've experienced in my life.
...know thou...that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good.
That's the promise. The simplistic approach is to give it all to Christ. But please excuse me when I say that I sometimes have difficulty reconciling this. Christ, after all, is a man. And while I cannot in any way, shape, or form, discount the infinite atonement, I sometimes wonder how he can possibly identify with what I have gone through. He suffered pain unlike any I can understand. It caused him to bleed at every pore. I can't equate what I have suffered to that kind of pain. I only know that it did cause me to bleed. He was abandoned by his friends, beaten by those whose sins he had recently atoned for, mocked and spit upon. I can't compare my lonely abandonment and despair with that. But sometimes I wonder, as a pre-teen, surely this was more than a person, a child, should have to bear?
The Son of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than he?
No. I'm not. Not even close. And I'm not trying to make myself more than I am. I suppose I'm just saying--I hate having to deal with the aftermath of things I did not ask for. And the thing that really stinks is that my cousin David, was just one. There were others who felt that I was something available for their taking. David was the third, and not the last. Still today there are men who think it a compliment to say something about my body or to touch me inappropriately. I am old enough and strong enough to keep anything from going further than their ugly approaches, but the fact that they see me in that light robs me of dignity and makes me feel that same emptiness. Why? What is it in the things I do, say, or in my appearance that sends the message that I can be demeaned? I will never understand this, and in truth, I would just like to be treated as an equal and with a little bit of respect.
Give it all to Christ. Sounds easy enough. Tell me how.
There are times, though, when I'm so overwhelmed with all that's inside me that I cannot even speak about it. Those are the times when I become overly buoyant about life in general, when I make sarcastic jokes (usually at someone's expense), when I will avoid talking about anything serious. And when I am finished talking I feel worse. I have verified that I'm incapable of dealing with problems in a rational way, and I'm fairly certain that whomever bore the brunt of my giggling tirade will avoid me for the rest of our lives.
That's not the real problem. The real problem is that I'm finally starting to feel some resentment about the things I've experienced in my life.
...know thou...that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good.
That's the promise. The simplistic approach is to give it all to Christ. But please excuse me when I say that I sometimes have difficulty reconciling this. Christ, after all, is a man. And while I cannot in any way, shape, or form, discount the infinite atonement, I sometimes wonder how he can possibly identify with what I have gone through. He suffered pain unlike any I can understand. It caused him to bleed at every pore. I can't equate what I have suffered to that kind of pain. I only know that it did cause me to bleed. He was abandoned by his friends, beaten by those whose sins he had recently atoned for, mocked and spit upon. I can't compare my lonely abandonment and despair with that. But sometimes I wonder, as a pre-teen, surely this was more than a person, a child, should have to bear?
The Son of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than he?
No. I'm not. Not even close. And I'm not trying to make myself more than I am. I suppose I'm just saying--I hate having to deal with the aftermath of things I did not ask for. And the thing that really stinks is that my cousin David, was just one. There were others who felt that I was something available for their taking. David was the third, and not the last. Still today there are men who think it a compliment to say something about my body or to touch me inappropriately. I am old enough and strong enough to keep anything from going further than their ugly approaches, but the fact that they see me in that light robs me of dignity and makes me feel that same emptiness. Why? What is it in the things I do, say, or in my appearance that sends the message that I can be demeaned? I will never understand this, and in truth, I would just like to be treated as an equal and with a little bit of respect.
Give it all to Christ. Sounds easy enough. Tell me how.
posted by Samantha @ 9:08 AM
1 Comments:
At Tuesday, February 27, 2007 2:55:00 PM,
-L- said…
While I think all adversity can be for our good in an overlying philosophical sense, I think a lot of it is superfluous and tragic. It's because people suck, not because God is trying to bless us with trials.
I've had a hard time knowing how to give it up to Christ too. I don't have much insight into the topic. Maybe it's like when I was in med school and I was asking a friend how he had been so good at remembering all the millions of little details we were supposed to be learning. "I dunno. I just f---ing remember!"
Well said.
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