Undesirable

 You know how it is sometimes... you come across a phrase in a book... you hear someone say something in a certain way on a podcast or interview or lecture... you read something in a text or article online with wording in a particular fashion... maybe even a singular word just pops into your head... and suddenly, feelings or thoughts that had lain unspoken or unidentified spring into clarity and you can now make sense of and voice them for the first time. In an instant, the whole picture has come into view and you are able to now boil down all the details into a cohesive thought and can name the unnamed thing.    

I had a moment like this recently where a single word seemed to articulate years worth of experiences, conversations.... even condemnations... and I could finally lament and express and feel, in a packaged way, what I had been quietly carrying for so long. And the word was simply this: undesirable. When this word crashed into my brain, I had to roll it around for awhile but it also felt like everything instantly made sense and I had a compact term in which to place all of the emotions I'd felt regarding many situations over my life: 

All the people who tried to make me feel inferior because I was homeschooled...

All the people who pushed me to attend college instead of chase my dreams the way I wanted to...

All the people who criticized, shamed, blamed, and framed me for things... 

All the people who stopped speaking to me... 

All the people who tried to "fix" and change me... 

All the people who told me to be someone I never was... 

All the years I've wondered why I've been single for so long... 

...all of it really comes down to feeling undesirable. There's this sad, empty feeling that comes when someone says or does something to you that instantly sends the message that you've been weighed in their balance and been found wanting - that you are somehow inferior, not good enough and that because you won't be or do what they want, therefore you are less attractive, less interesting, less wanted, less important, less desirable. You are not meeting their definition of satisfactory and, as a result, are to be judged, looked down upon, guilt-tripped, discarded. 

Now, before you all start sending me messages trying to talk me out of my lament here and telling me all this isn't true, I want you to know that I know this is more a reflection on them than it is upon me. I get that. And I've actually arrived at a place where I am extremely peaceful with my life and who I'm becoming and where I feel led to go. But I do think it's helpful to at least acknowledge the base level feeling of what happens when you receive the repeated message that you're somehow not acceptable to a certain person or group. That you have failed a test you didn't even know you were taking and are considered undesirable as a result. 

Perhaps that's been you, too. 

If so, I get it. And I feel it, too. 

As I'm beginning to understand what it means to do life in the abundant Grace that is offered me everyday,  I'm realizing that there is an implicit dignity that comes with that. As one begins to move in the center of God's love, one senses that they are valued, desired, and deeply treasured. It dawns on you that you are, in His eyes, beautiful and greatly loved. From that place, you start to see yourself and others through eyes of empathy and value... knowing that each has been created by God with a special purpose and deserves a basic level of respect and honor because of that. That's why, when someone bypasses that dignity and starts to rip you up, it feels internally violating - because it is. 

From God's perspective, every single one of us and our stories matter. We are brought into an existence of closeness and community and compassion within His family that gives us confidence and makes us realize that, regardless of our weaknesses or failures, He still looks on us with love, and His thoughts of us are precious. The challenge is then that we, as His followers, are to see one another with the same view. Sadly though, many of us do not. We let our insecure attachment filters get in the way. We let our own broken stories shatter those of others. We become more concerned with trying to get people to be like us that we can no longer see them for the unique creations that they actually are. And, with one sweeping comment or tone or action, we can undo years of trust and leave someone feeling.... well, undesirable. 

I think back to one situation in which I had a very charged conversation with someone in which they said some extremely hurtful words to me. Looking back, I think part of what bothered me wasn't just what was said or even how it was said, but the fact that their opinion and comments of me not only made me feel undesirable to them personally but also, because it looped in matters of religious practice, it also made me feel like God perhaps found me undesirable because I was somehow serving Him differently than this other person. There's nothing like feeling as though you are not wanted. Not just rejected, but just plain unsatisfactory. Someone has found you unacceptable to them - lacking, deficient in some way - and decided that you are not the perfect child, the perfect spouse, the perfect friend, the perfect employee. You feel overlooked and unseen. 

Once this message of undesirable gets inside of you, it can be really tough to let it go... to wash that through your bones and let it out and reject the truth of that. The sense that you are somehow unpleasing to someone else can stick with you for a very long time. The words, the voices, the memories can eat away at your confidence and personhood in ways that hold you back for years. And it's a whole other kind of effort to untangle those lies and remember that you are wanted still... if nothing else then by the King of the Universe Himself. When He looks at you, He sees possibility - He sees something beautiful you're becoming and longs for you and others to see it, too.

And so, I'm addressing all the times I've felt undesirable and doing what I can to make peace with them. I'm also looking to the future with hope and praying for a season in my life in which those closest to me reflect the chosen, intentional, desirable love of the Father and I can experience, though in flawed human form, a taste of the Divine as it is meant to be. But until then, I must sit with the sadness and know that God saw and heard it all too. It grieves Him also. And I must renew my intent to make each person I come across feel desirable to God and to me... even if I don't always feel that from others.