Asking for Directions

Today I am choosing brave. At least I think I am. Yesterday was one of those busy days where you know you won’t have time to get to everything but you secretly hope you will anyway.

I set aside time to read and do a bible study after work and got pulled into the Facebook universe for an hour instead.

Oops.

How does Facebook do that anyway?

I packed up my books and laptop—reluctant to leave but unwilling to begin the snowball effect. You know…where you mean well so you push a little harder to finish one thing but then the next thing is even more delayed?

As I was driving home my mind was on the workload of the evening, the regrets of Facebook scrolling (addiction?) and the craziness that was going to be tomorrow. I realized that as I was zoning out I wasn’t exactly staying center in my lane. I corrected and hoped that no one had seen me. I was pretty sure I saw my neighbor drive past.

Then I began focusing about what I would say if my neighbor ever brought it up. I was scolding myself and feeling quite a bit of shame.

This shame thing—not a comfortable feeling. It tries to grow and intimidate. It leads a gang of others named guilt, deception, anger, perfectionism, fear and embarrassment.

This really wasn’t that big of a deal. I know that. It bugged the part of me that wants to be seen as good and ‘on top of it.’ It is one of those ugly things we call a “pride issue.”

My mind started wandering to excuse and validation. The truth was: I wasn’t paying attention like I should have been. Had I confronted shame at that moment I wouldn’t have given it an excuse to grow.

But I didn’t because pride was involved too. Pride and shame argued.

Just like in the movie “Inside Out.”

I let it distract me—whisper doubts I’ve had before as truths, make me feel awful and grow the problems of the day I hadn’t yet solved.

Another song came on the radio and it was a little too loud. I signaled left looked for oncoming traffic and began my turn. I also reached down to turn the volume down.

I took the corner a little too wide.

Whether it was actually the distraction of the volume knob, or the frustration and mental distraction of the previous mile I don’t know. I turned too wide and tried to speed up a little bit to turn faster, my front right tire caught the gravel on the edge of the road and I was off down a slope to the side of the road.

I went through all the stages. Seriously did that just happen?  I realized just how foggy my brain had been and felt shame all over again. Or maybe guilt?

They’re cousins.. they look alike.

Frustration with myself…okay no it was anger.

I want to start explaining here that I’ve never been off the road, or caused an accident… explain all the ways I am a good driver and prove that this wasn’t normal. I want to justify and delete sentences because this is not something I am proud of. I am better than this.

Why? Because I care what you think. God loves me when I mess up, and He knows exactly what I was thinking and how close I was to lying about it to save some dignity—and yet—Mercy.

And Because I can count on His mercy, I often forget to seek Him first. I want to make sure the world knows who I am and that I’m worthy. When I’m focused on what everyone else thinks, I forget what He thinks of me. I need to keep my eyes on Him to avoid getting distracted.

I decided it was time to get back on the road but I had a problem. The bank ahead of me was more steep. The one behind me was possible but the road I was on had heavy traffic at this time of day and it was just below a hill…no one coming over the hill would be able to see me.

Great. I had seen my husband drive up some pretty steep things and the key was always getting a run at it. So… the safer option required driving skills I probably didn’t have. I had seen him do it though so I could learn by imitating. Right? Plus my pride didn’t want me to sit here for any longer than I had already… someone might see me.

I gave it some gas, coasted down the grassy hill and took a gradual angle to get up the embankment.

I didn’t make it. My car had only front wheel drive. The driver side tire wasn’t catching enough road to pull—and the passenger tire was spinning gravel and soft dirt. I was stuck.

I tried turning the wheel the other way..it shifted but nothing.

Shame was laughing at me.

I was making mental notes about dealing with issues before they grew, never driving again, never mentioning this to anyone and how to bribe my husband to do the same and hoping the car didn’t suddenly start moving backwards.

As a car or two zipped by, I realized that this was still the busy road with lots of traffic and I was in a fairly unsafe spot. The nose of my car was just over the edge of the shoulder into the road. If someone was drifting too close to the outside of the road as they came over the hill I would be hit.

Because of the angle of the ditch I also wasn’t certain the car wouldn’t roll if I stepped out. I didn’t want to make it worse but I also wasn’t safe where I was at.

I called my husband and without condemning me at all he told me he was on his way.

Ugh. I started believing all the things the enemy had called me before. This was proof of my failures and inability to use my head…How do you get stuck like this? Shame and I were agreeing on the situation we were watching.

Trying to get me to agree with him is Shame’s favorite game.

More people were driving by—not recognizing me I hoped.

Then… they began pulling over. Oh no.

“No…its okay, my husband is coming.”

The man started looking at the front tires and putting gravel under the wheel.

“It’s okay,” the wife said, “He’s going to see if you can get traction so you can back down. The cars are coming too fast you need to not be here”

She was right but I didn’t want people to see me in my mess. I wanted to get out of it myself.

I got me into this. It really was all my fault—the not paying attention and the error in judgment about getting out of it..

Then it clicked—God began pointing out what I didn’t see. I am so thankful He doesn’t give up on me in the thick of it.

The view out of my windshield was crooked because of the angle of the slope. I was high centered because I was not in a vehicle capable of what I tried to make it do (also I am not a skilled off-road driver), I was stuck, because I had tried to save myself.

My perspective is crooked because I can’t see with perfect eyes the way life actually is. My vision is skewed. So even if I’m making perfect decisions…they won’t ever actually be perfect because I can’t see perfectly. Like building a structure on a crooked foundation.

I was high-centered because I was not equipped. I’m not equipped to do life by myself or perfectly. I am going to need help and it has to be okay because doing it myself puts me in a dangerous situation. It leaves me vulnerable to being hit and injured more. Letting shame speak to me invites the others in—anger, deception and more.

So there I sat, high-centered, relying on strangers who saw the risk in me being where I was. They saw what I needed better than me. Even their vision was better at seeing the truth than mine.

We need each other.

A truck pulled up.

“Are you stuck? You can’t be stuck here…it’s not safe. We’re going to pull around, we have a tow strap.

“It’s okay my husband is coming…”

“It’s not a good place—my dad got hit here. We’re going to turn around.”

And they did.

Now shame and relief were arguing. Anger joined in—both yelling at me and my husband’s tardiness (which was a lie because it hadn’t even been 5 minutes).

I cowered in the corner of my mind watching all these emotions argue while the kind strangers tried to find a place to hook a tow strap.

I wanted to put on a brave face and act cool and collected. I did NOT want my shame or weakness to show. I’m tough. See how tough I am?

Yep I was playing it cool.

We all heard a car speeding up the hill. We hadn’t found a spot for the tow strap yet but the stranger’s truck was hanging more in the road than my car. It seemed like the oncoming vehicle wasn’t going to have time to stop. The stranger jumped in his truck and sped to the other side of the road.

The oncoming vehicle stopped in time, but it would have been close.

My husband showed up and they decided to pull the car down the hill instead of up. We got everything in place and the car back to the grass at the bottom of the ditch.

I looked back at where I had been stuck. The hole under the passenger tire was huge, there was no way I would have made it out without being pulled.

Perspective.

The people that lived close to the intersection had come down to help. They knew how dangerous this intersection was too.

“Someone wasn’t paying enough attention was she?” The woman asked.

Shame yelled “Oh snap!”

“Well, I don’t really know what happened, I took a wide corner and maybe something with the tires….” I scrambled.

Great. Deception and Shame were buddies in my heart, can I leave this party now?

“Lord I don’t like this feeling or this situation can it just go away?”

I didn’t listen for the answer. I couldn’t because I was letting Pride and Shame make the calls.

I was also angry at being trapped by things I didn’t actually believe anymore. I remember feeling these things.

No.

I was not going to get imprisoned by my emotions. I had to deal with the consequences of letting them speak, the consequences of bad decisions and poor judgement.

–but I wasn’t going to make it a bigger problem. I wasn’t going to indulge them anymore. I was going to fight back.

How do you kick shame out? I don’t know.

I googled it.

I came across an interview with Brene Brown…the answer was vulnerability.

I scrolled through the concordance in my Bible and read all the entries.

I realized that the Lord had been quietly asking me to blog about the experience.

Seriously? Who blogs about an embarrassing experience that they are ashamed of?

Uh. That would be me.

I decided that if vulnerability was the way to overcome shame then I would do that. I am not going to feel it any longer than I have to.

“There is no condemnation in Christ Jesus”-Romans 8:1

I wasn’t paying attention like I should have been and I made an error in judgement. I am still a good driver and I am not a terrible person. Just a human one having a rough day.

I don’t like making mistakes but I am willing to bet I’m not the only one. I can’t change the past but I can choose to learn from it and not to dwell on it. This was a foolish mistake and it could have been worse.

But…

I am choosing to not give Shame a place to speak in my head or my heart—choosing to be vulnerable and share to take away shame’s power.