You know, I’m now 24 years old, and I have to admit that sometimes, in spite of the official adult status, I am afraid. Like, scared out of my mind, ridiculously afraid—and of things that I ought not to be.

                I normally would not admit these things—even to myself. But in the past few months, I’ve realized in talking to others that many of us are struggling with the same fears…and also that often times, there is redemptive healing in honesty about the things with which we wrestle alone at night in the isolated depths of our minds.

                So yes. I admit that I’m often afraid. Normal people are afraid of things like spiders and falling off the top bunk in their sleep at night, and yeah, I’m afraid of those things too, but some of us struggle with fears that run deeper—fears that are more pernicious, more soul-destroying, more devastatingly undermining of our identities as people.

 Perhaps the biggest fear—the one that has followed me thru three colleges, into other countries, and finagled its ugly way into the gritty details of each friendship in my life—is the fear that somehow, I’m not enough. Not funny enough, not caring enough, not smart enough, not godly enough, not gifted enough, not relational enough, not consistent enough, not normal enough, not observant enough, not beautiful enough, not athletic enough, not polite enough—inadequate. Undesirable. Incompetent. Worthless. Unlovable. Incapable of commanding respect.

There was—and sometimes is—a part of me, deep down, that honestly believed that if anyone truly knew who I truly was in my darkest moments, they would turn their back in horror and silently resolve never to spend time with or speak to me again—and even the thought of rejection on that most personal, most real, most unavoidable, most intimate level was so excruciatingly painful that I resolved never to let anyone get that close. I was petrified by the idea of intimacy because it exposed so much which could be so easily and so irreparably destroyed…and yet I yearned for intimacy, because the human soul and heart is designed expressly for the purpose of enjoying rich fellowship on an intimate level with other humans and with our relational God Himself.  

It’s a painful dichotomy—to be deathly afraid of the thing you can’t live without. To be the jailor as well as the inmate in your own prison…to rebuff the intimate advances of others with politeness, with humor, with pretended invulnerability, with a  show of spiritual depth…anything to keep them at a distance emotionally, to keep them from coming in close, to keep them from knowing, to keep them from rejecting, to keep them from deserting emotionally…because if you don’t let anyone in enough that they really know you or really care, then you can’t really lose what you never had when they turn and walk away.

Deep down, I despised myself, and I despised the realness—the earthiness, the lack of perfection—of the human race. I despised myself for wanting an intimacy and honesty in my relationships which I could not admit to and could not allow. I despised others for failing to see thru the façade when I so desperately wanted them to, despised them for not pursuing anything deeper than a superficial friendship, despised them for what I assumed to be their inability to handle the truth—angrily despised the fact that as humans, we only seem to be capable of loving each other until we actually realize that the other person has issues. Then it’s time to bail out.

It was a tremendous burden—the weight of this mountain of contempt, and an ocean full of a deep, seething kind of rage, all of which had to be hidden, smoothed over with a smile, a laugh, a joke, a kind word, the appearance of having it all together…so that no one would ever guess the truth.

Mercifully, our God has wired us in such a way that at some point, in some way, we reach the end of our physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual strength. The pressure becomes too great, the pain too excruciating, and we snap.

Last summer, as I navigated the emotional ups and downs and the physical strain of the book field for the third time while trying to keep 23 years’ worth of unprocessed crap locked tightly inside of my mind and heart, I reached the point where I could no longer hold it all together. I snapped…and it was ugly. For the first time in my life, I admitted to myself that I am afraid, that I’m needy, and that I was absolutely furious with the entire human race, including myself. Emotionally, I was a wreck. Spiritually, I felt empty, abandoned, deserted, and worthless.  

But our God is tremendously grace-giving, and even as He allowed me to come to this lowest point, He was preparing my heart for a gift of healing which I could little foresee or even imagine as I stood at the end of last summer looking forward into the coming semester wondering desperately, brokenly, if the pain of working thru all of the ghastliness of 23 years of life lived as a lie could possibly be worth it.

It was at that point that God—thru an incredibly faithful, incredibly dedicated mentor who has been crazy-committed to loving me unconditionally and helping me to realize that most of my ideas about friendship, intimacy, God, and what it looks like to live out one’s faith were horrifically skewed—reached down and planted a seed of hope. It came in the form of a book, titled “Wounded Heart,” by Dan Allender. It was written to help victims of childhood sexual abuse, which wasn’t a part of my story, but the principles and overarching truths dealing with the process of restoration and healing have been a huge part of the lengthy process of healing and wholeness which God continues to work out in my life.

Do I still struggle with a tremendous fear of not being enough, of being personally rejected, or being deemed inadequate or undesirable by my friends and family? Yep. I absolutely do. But now I admit that to myself. I admit that to my mentors. And I remind myself constantly of the fact that we are called to risk much and love recklessly regardless of reciprocity…that it is before an Audience of One that we stand or fall…that God is our Judge, our Lover, the One who has said—and continues to affirm—that we are ENOUGH in His eyes…that we have tremendous value because He has given us worth, and that because of that, we can be intimate with each other, even if we do so timidly at first, calculatingly, fearfully.

I have realized that in the area of relationship, God works thru our imperfect obedience and our initial failures in the process of learning to be appropriately intimate with each other. I’ve made a whole lot of mistakes in relating to people in the past three years alone…and yet as I continue to allow God to change my thinking, my heart, and my style of relating to people, I also can see that He is continuing to change and grow my relationships with those He has placed in my life. And for this, I am sincerely grateful…although the whole process of being real with people in friendship still scares the willies out of me at least three days out of seven. ;-)