inexorablyloved

You know how your voice sounds differently in your head than it does to others? It’s like you’re thinking “hey, I sound pretty good. I have a normal voice, everything’s fine, life is good” when suddenly somehow, you end up hearing yourself on some sort of recording. It may be a message, a videotape, a voicemail. Somehow, you hear your real voice and all you can think is “oh gosh. I sound like my mother. Why did no one tell me I sounded like my mother?”

I kid, I kid (I sound more like my sister). But really, especially the first time you hear your voice from not inside your head, it’s a very jarring thing. You sort of are startled. At first you think it’s the recording. “This thing must record at slower speeds. That has to be why I sound like a man”. Then you excuse it by saying that isn’t how you normally sound (I had a cold! 3 weeks ago! That has to be it!). Soon you just adjust to the fact…sort of cringing if you have to hear your voice and avowing to never speak in public again. Strictly sign language, world!

But tonight I was reminded of another part of me that often comes up, and is much more deeply jarring than my voice. You see, every couple of months some sort of event/conflict/problem arises, always with the same aggravating factor–my style of communication. It’s rarely the instigating factor, and I am rarely completely in the wrong, but it is always my communication problems that lead these (most commonly minor) issues to become major issues. I’m far too aggressive. I don’t mean to be, and believe me my intention is not to hurt anyone, or to win, or anything. It just…happens. I could explain it, but that’s not the point of this blog.

The point is this: whenever another friend comes to me with “Sarah…I feel like we need to talk about this”, my heart just sinks. I know exactly what they’re going to say, but it still hurts. It hurts that I can’t get past this. It hurts that I can’t seem to stop. It hurts that I hurt the people I love completely unintentionally. And it hurts because I think no one in their right mind would put up with this over a long period of time.

It’s not hard for me to see my depravity on days like this. It’s harder to believe that I am loved in spite of this. For me, I should have changed by now. I feel like this issue should be conquered. But it’s not, and I don’t know if it’ll ever be. And when it gets like this it gets harder to remember and accept the truth of God’s love.

I was almost crying today in the car (before this jarring news) when I was thinking about the love of God. Tim Keller says “the one who sees you to the depths loves you to the skies”. Perfect love casts out all fear, I was telling myself, and the only one who loves me perfectly is God, because he is the only one who can know me perfectly. God knows my communication issues. He knows the heart issues that don’t come out as often. And they aren’t jarring or scary to Him. He sees them, and He loves me in spite of them. That truth I was telling myself earlier today I needed tonight.
Thanks God, for reminding me of it.
I’m off to go work on some communication issues.