It happened...and I'm still alive

Well, I worried and worried and fretted and flapped and chewed my fingers and asked 'What if...?' and the very thing that I feared so much has happened. 

Swimming. Source of endless angst for me as it necessitates getting my out of shape body out of comfy jeans and T shirts and into a garment that's small and tight and doesn't cover anywhere near enough of me. I read articles about how to choose a flattering swimsuit and I can never understand it. If it doesn't cover chin to ankle in dark coloured flowing fabric, preferably bias-cut, then how on earth can it be flattering? 

Anyway. 

I have Big hang-ups about the way I look, and I have started swimming again to try to get a big fitter, and (who knows) a bit thinner. 

I started swimming with the swimming club that my daughters go to, as they have a 'Masters' squad (ha!) that trains twice or three times a week and has in one lane a handful of older people that are closer to my level of fitness than the svelte gods and goddesses in the other five lanes. They sashay out from the changing rooms laughing and joking in their beautiful colourful swimsuits while I sort of skulk in my black one that's intended to make me invisible. 

Despite all this, I have been enjoying it.

I've perfected the art of draping my (large) towel over one shoulder, carrying my kitbag in front of my legs and scurrying between the changing rooms and the pool incognito with my hat and goggles on. You'd be amazed at how quickly I can arrange my things on the poolside and get into the comparative safety of the water if I time it right.

All this time (since February) I've been working on this. I know that it's unlikely that any of the other swimmers are particularly interested in my progress along the side of the pool, and I have repeated to myself over and over that I don't know any of them, and so what they think doesn't matter to me. 

And then. 

And then the devil upped the ante. At least I think it must be the devil's work, because no sooner had I started to get used to the way things were, things turned into a nightmare.

My older daughter swims three times a week with the same club, though at the up-and-coming end of it rather than the gasping for breath end. Sort of like the sublime to the ridiculous. There is one session a week that Elizabeth can't go to as she is committed elsewhere. Many of her swimming friends do attend that session, and it was always on a Monday at 5pm - 6pm.  This never mattered in the least, until they moved that session to 7pm - 8pm. 

This is the hour immediately preceding my swim. These kids, friends of my daughter, would be getting out of the pool just as I was getting in. Only a bunch of kids; eight, nine, ten, eleven year olds. Surely once they'd got over the hilarity of Lizzie's mum in a swimsuit and goggles surely the interest would wane? Maybe so, but the fear of being recognised by anyone made me blanch. 

Then, hot on the heels of that awful thought was another, more sinister concept. If those kids were emerging from the pool at 8pm, then their mums would be waiting in the changing rooms for them, just as I was stuffing my clothes in a locker and trying to sidle past to where the water is. 

The Sunday before this new arrangement started, I couldn't sleep. I worried and worried. I strategised that if I arrived ever so early and got changed in loads of time, I could maybe wait until the kids were just climbing out of the pool, which is the cue for the mums on the viewing balcony to get up and come down the steps to the foyer and changing rooms. In that minute while everyone was in transit, I could take my chance to dive out and down the far end of the pool, walking flattened against the balcony wall where they couldn't see me. This was the best plan I could come up with and hinged on split second timing. 

I worried and worried. I asked God to make me thin overnight (not for the first time). I asked for a mysterious blanket of fog to descend over the pool between 7.55 and 8.05pm.  I asked for courage, for discovery was inevitable.

I even had a dream about it that night; no kidding. I dreamed that I was in exactly this situation and I was so worried, but when I arrived that night at the pool everyone was leaving the building via one door, and I was able to enter through a different entrance at the other end of the building. Perfect! In my dream, my anxiety evaporated. Problem solved. I come in, they go out, and never the twain shall meet.  

In my dream, I said to myself, 'God will make it alright'.

I woke up thinking, 'God will make it alright'.

Of course, even that relief and reassurance, throughout Monday the tension mounted; I was aware on some level that it was unlikely that God would make it alright by changing the fabric of the sports centre in time for my swimming session. I seriously considered giving it all up and not bothering. If things hadn't already been so hard regarding this swimming thing, I might have decided to stop going at this point, but seriously it seemed that there had been one obstacle then another in front of me since I started this latest fitness drive that I am stubbornly convinced that it's the right thing to do. It must be doing me some good. It must. I don't want to be intimidated.

So Monday night came and I put my plan into action, and do you know what? It worked like a charm.

Nobody noticed me. Hallelujah.

If only that were the end of the story. The following week, the stress levels climbed, the same situation, and one of the kids pointed at me and waved. A couple of weeks later and I got cheers and a round of applause from the balcony. Several of the mums have asked me about the swimming; some of them have laughed. One pulled a disbelieving face and said, 'You?!'

Yes, me.

Some of the mums have said how brave I am (they don't know the half of it), and one or two have congratulated me. A couple have even confessed to a degree of envy. On the night of the embarrassing applause, one of my fellow swimmers said, 'Take no notice. You're having a go, they're just up there sitting down.'

This week I swam and as I walked onto the poolside half a dozen of the children waved and smiled. I waved and smiled back, and I didn't glance up to the balcony (with my contact lens out I don't see very much, anyway). I had a laugh with a few other swimmers in my lane, learned some things, swam a personal best and I'm starting to master the butterfly.

Yes, me.

So here's the thing that I need to keep hold of.

The thing I feared happened, and I'm still alive. They found out about me, they saw me, they laughed at me (but not all of them; and that's important), and yes, it was pretty much as bad as I thought it'd be, but I'm still here. The world is still turning, and I am still swimming.

Progress-wise, hmm, well, who knows. I scrutinise my body and the scales for signs of a dramatic up-turn in health, but if there are any, they are so gradual as to be imperceptible, but that's alright. I didn't get out of shape in the space of a few months and so getting healthier will be a slow process too, I guess.

I'm thanking God for two amazing things that have happened to me lately.

1.  I am actually enjoying myself.

2.  I am not afraid of being seen any more.

Well, not as afraid as I was. I don't relish the long walk to and from the changing rooms, but if I meet someone I know I no longer feel that I might die. This is a very small thing on one level but on another, for me, a Very Big Thing.

God did indeed make it alright.

Revelation

I feel the need to preface this little moment of insight with apologetic words; I am quite sure that many people have long understood and accepted this simple yet life-changing idea and have built their life on it. If they were to stumble upon this they might shake their head and wonder why I'm making such a big deal of it. Of course God wants us to trust Him with it all. Of course we are of value; Jesus died for us. 


I'm sorry; I never really got it. Not in the 'changes the way you see everything' sense. Head knowledge, not heart knowledge; there's a world of difference.

I'm not sure I've got it yet, to be honest, but I had a glimpse. Like once before, ( The View Looking Backwards - was that really three years ago?!) I think there's a place in my life where there's a kind of viewing platform. There's a mountain range that I'm climbing, and every time I get to a summit it turns out that there are more mountains and I have to descend and climb another one. 

Somewhere beyond this range there's a final mountain, and at the top there's a place where you can stand and turn round, and see how very far you've come; how many mountains you've climbed. 

What's on the other side, I have no idea, but it's better and more beautiful and easier walking than this. 

So here it is. Be gentle.

I was nine, and in the middle of a game of rounders on the school field when I first compared myself with the other girls in their navy blue PE knickers and realized that I was bigger than most of my classmates. 

The realisation came with a sense of shock; I'd never given much thought to my body; it did what it was supposed to do; I was quite good at sports and had plenty of energy. I looked about at the slender and slim one day with different eyes and realised that there was considerably more of me. 

My head filled with static. I can remember it now.

That day was born an acute sense of self-consciousness and shame. 

I longed to be slim, and for thirty-four years my self-esteem has ebbed and flowed in direct correlation with the numbers on the scales.

And then, the slow revelation.

My longing to be slim is a longing to be approved of by other people, to be thought beautiful by the world’s standards. 

By 'the world' I mean 'other people' as a huge homogenous group. 'Them' as opposed to me. I'm aware that world in its entirety has no interest in the size of my thighs, but whether we like it or not the society we live in dictates what is acceptable in terms of beauty, acceptable behaviour, all the social norms and to reject those dictates is practically impossible because of the pervasive, subliminal, insinuating nature of the brainwashing.

In our culture thin is acceptable, fat is not.

It soon became apparent after that day on the rounders field that the world did not find me beautiful; it was not possible. I didn't look like any of the girls or (as time passed) women I saw all around me. I was the wrong shape. I weighed too much. I remember one science project when we were aged eleven where all the class had to be weighed and measured and I cried the night before and I hung back in the hope that the other kids wouldn't notice the number on the scales. They did. One girl came up and read it off the little dial and announced it loudly to the rest. 

I wanted so badly to fit in. I still do. I still don't like what I see in the mirror even though I know how completely I am loved and accepted by my heavenly Father. 

But I am realising that setting so much store by what Other People Think is a lack of trust in the only One whose opinion matters.  My wanting to be loved by the world is a lack of trust that God will meet all my needs, emotional and otherwise, and so I’ve been looking elsewhere for affirmation and security. I put the opinions of others before God’s.

I realise that to court the friendship of the world is a big mistake. If I ever did manage to gain entry to the gang, she'll turn out to be the worst kind of friend. 

If I get thin enough to meet with her approval, my nose will be too big, or my laugh too loud, my ideas wrong, or my faith unacceptable. I can alter and tinker and edit myself to try to fit in over and over again, but ultimately I'll be rejected because I am just too old to fit her image of perfection. My needy membership request will time out; if indeed it hasn't already. I will never, ever measure up, because the bar will always be raised just out of reach.  

If my daughter at school met a girl who treated her like this, I'd advise her to seek friendship elsewhere. I've said a thousand times, 'A friend should make you feel good about yourself, not bad.' And yet the world made me feel bad for being me, and for decades now I've let her get away with it. She's nothing but a bully.

I feel so sad for those actors and actresses who are defined by their beauty and then feel forced to pursue it relentlessly as it fades; surgery and make up, carrying on a pretence that they still have what was so prized for a fleeting season in their youth. This is not to say that they aren't still breathtakingly beautiful, but the world - she is fickle and demanding. She will always criticise and wrinkle her nose; discard people who no longer fit the mould, even if they were once celebrated and revered. There will always be a new, youthful star with taut skin and pert breasts and full lips, no wrinkles, no stretch marks. 

I never realised that it was a question of trust. I can't trust the world, for she will aways let me down, talk behind my back and find a reason to criticise me.

Well, no more.

God wants me to look only to Him for my value, for only He sees things clearly. Everyone else's opinion is limited and fallible and bound in by what this broken world thinks.

God made me and He doesn’t make mistakes. God is the Good Friend. He is never making impossible demands of me, and when I struggle to meet them, making more. He never asks me to be thin when I'm not, to be young when I'm getting older. God will never make me feel like I'm never picked for the netball team. I am chosen. 

I am loved beyond what is reasonable, right now, as I am. All of me. I am not too heavy for Him; my heavenly Daddy can lift me onto His shoulders and carry me effortlessly. No matter how much of me there is, the most beautiful part of me is Him. 

I am a daughter of the living God and I make His day. It says so in the Bible. Zephaniah 3:17. This is from the Good News Translation and it's definitely good news. 

The Lord your God is with you;

    his power gives you victory.

The Lord will take delight in you,

    and in his love he will give you new life.

He will sing and be joyful over you...

He is joyful over me. Some translations say He exults over me. He celebrates who I am. He loves me enough to die for me, just as I am. Every wrinkle, every scar, every grey hair, every inch of me.

No wonder God has never granted my prayer to wake up one morning a size ten. If He had done that for me I would still be dependent on the size on the label for my sense of worth. He wants me to trust Him; to trust that I am loved, and to love Him back. 

He wants my heart, and unlike the world, He'll take care of it. 

I trust you, Lord. 

Lord God, take this little glimpse of what might be and turn it into something that I know really down deep in the heart of me. 

Take head knowledge and turn it into heart knowledge. Help me to walk taller because I know that You delight in me.  

I want that to be enough for me. 

That enormous, life changing, gobsmacking revelation to be enough. It amazes me that it isn't; that I still want the people in the swimming pool changing rooms, the mums at the school gates, the people in the clothes shops that only stock clothes in small sizes - those people, whose opinions Do Not Matter - I still want them to approve of me, to accept me. I want to be acceptable. 

And yet, I am acceptable; I am accepted. 

Lord, in that verse from Zephaniah, you said that you'll give me victory. Please give me victory over this. I don't know what life might look like with this victory, but I am longing to find that viewing platform and see both how far I've come, and what the view is over the other side. 

Lord, thank you that you take delight in me, just as I am.

Let that be enough. 

Amen.

Sinking and swimming

Advisory:  This post contains nothing profound, nothing revelatory or inspirational, nothing very spiritual or deep in any sense at all. (Unless you count the deep end, which is 12'6". Not the place to drop your goggles.)

As part of my latest drive to shake off some excess poundage, I have started to swim again. The water level of the local swimming pool rises ever so slightly twice a week as I climb in and trawl up and down for a bit.

I have to say, getting in is a bit easier than getting out; funny how heavy you feel when you try to exit a swimming pool. Heavier than you were when you got in, strangely enough, which is unfair given that you've worked off some calories while in the water - it stands to reason that you should feel lighter when getting out, but sadly not. I hate getting in and out - much more than the actual swimming, which I don't mind too much.

The distance from the ladies' changing to the shallow end seems a long way to me. While in the water, I'm just another head and shoulders, the water happily distorting all that lies iceberg-like, beneath. It's a great equaliser; until we all start moving, it's hard to know who's the swimming club star out for a bit of serious training, who's the sinewy lifelong swimmer with lungs of iron, and who's the portly middle aged woman trying to work off a bit of flab.

That's me, the last one. In case you were wondering. 

My aim is to swim twice a week. 

The other day the water was quite warm, for a change. Last week it was so cold that you could see your breath and the lifeguard had a jumper on; it felt like a Christmas Day swim in the Solent. The cold wasn't the worst of it, mind you. The worst bit was that I saw five people that I knew.

Five. That's not good news for someone as self-conscious as I am. I try to keep track of people I know when I see them in the pool so that I can engineer a good moment to get out when it's time to flee. I try to wait until they're on their outward length when I head for the steps so that their backs are turned when I make my exit but with five people that wasn't too easy.

That's how self-conscious I am. I hate being spotted in my swimsuit, even though I know intellectually that nobody actually cares. The casual observer probably has no interest in the sight of me staggering to the changing rooms but still it preys on my mind.

I was swimming along, trying to stay submerged as much as I possibly could, but it seemed that every time I came up for air, there was someone grinning at me. Figures from the past (junior school classmate: might not have recognised me in goggles - I can only hope), someone from the school run (no such luck, wanted to compare notes on the school trip), a couple of people from church (likewise, bright smiles) and a waitress from my favourite cafe (might not technically count as someone I know, but nonetheless...)

On the upside, I was motivated to keep moving. Chatting at the pool requires effort and concentration as my eyesight is limited without my contact lens and more often than not my goggles are steamed up or half-full of water. My hearing, never that acute at the best of times, is also somewhat compromised when my ears are swishing with water and so more than an awkward 'Hello!' between breaths is about all I can manage. Am I the only person who gets hung up on the possibility of social encounters at the pool? I bet for most people it's not a thing at all.

Sigh.  It's so much easier not to bother, but I must do something. I've asked God to help me with the problems I have with eating and myriad other problems relating to self esteem, body image and health and so it's only right that I should try to help Him help me.

So - up and down the pool.

It's amazing how your mind wanders while you're swimming.

I've tried doing lots of things to relieve the boredom as I trawl up and down the pool - I have counted breaths, counted strokes, sung songs in my head, recited poetry, tried to pray, but it's all a bit disjointed and incoherent, as if the act of swimming demands not quite enough concentration to be absorbing, but too much to allow the thoughts to do anything constructive. 

'Breathe...breathe...breathe...ouch...shoulder twinge...is that a hair clip on the bottom of the pool or a small creature? Blimey, that guy must have lungs of iron...water in my goggles...breathe...breathe... cracked tile...hello, Jesus, been meaning to talk to you about...bit cold tonight...LAND OF HOPE AND GLORY...did I send Katy's school trip permission form back...?' 

And so on. 

In my own little world, watching the underwater world go by, looking out of my little round windows. 

Goggles. If ever there was an invention straight from the devil, it's got to be goggles. I have a hate/hate relationship with mine. 

Before I invested in my first pair I asked about, got some recommendations and deliberated long before choosing which to buy. Make and model. Then a few weeks passed without the opportunity to nip into a sporting goods shop, so I ended up getting some out of the vending machine in the foyer of the leisure centre. 

That was a palaver in itself as I managed to jam the machine and someone had to come and open it up, rummage in the bowels of the machine (isn't it fascinating, the inside of a vending machine?) and extract my goggles and my change. Then it turned out that I'd inadvertently purchased a pair of kids' goggles, so had to do some apologising before I was allowed to change them for an adult pair. By this time I had no bargaining power and so accepted the first pair that were handed to me. This pair were a sort of grey and purple and, if I do say so myself, I looked a complete prat in them when I put them on. 

It was about two weeks before I got the hang of actually putting them on without snapping them painfully on the bridge of my nose or accidentally removing eyebrow hair, but then it turned out that they leaked. I'd read the instructions on how to adjust them but I just couldn't get it right. Maybe my eyes are the wrong distance apart or something. Every time I raised my eyebrows, they sort of slipped down. Of course, the ability to raise one's eyebrows unimpeded while swimming is a bit of a necessity, isn't it?

By the time I splashed my way to the deep end there they'd be, half steamed up and half full of water. I would squint through the murk and tread water while I emptied my goggles. So I tightened them a little more, but still they leaked. I think my eyes must have bulged with the pressure, but since I can't see much it's not a problem. Actually, as I have one short-sighted eye and one long-sighted eye, I am able to see any distance if I kind of lose focus in one eye, but that involves a slight turning in of the eye I don't use, so I don't tend to do it very often for fear of unnerving those around me. (Imagine: a fat middle aged woman treading water with half-full goggles and a wandering eye?)

Those goggles never did stop leaking. I tightened them until they started making a sucking noise when I took them off, and still they leaked. They left a pair of rings, raccoon-like, that stuck around for an hour or so after I've finished swimming, which isn't a good look for the school run.

Then there's the issue of steaming up. All goggles steam up, even the ones with the non-steam coating. I was struggling with mine one day when a stranger volunteered the information that you had to spit into your goggles to stop them steaming up. He demonstrated (on his own goggles, I'm pleased to say) and then stood there, waiting for me to do likewise. I hesitated, then delicately licked the lenses in as ladylike manner as possible, and he laughed, informing me that I'd be better 'gobbing' in them.  I muttered something and pushed off from the side with as much dignity as it's possible to muster after an exchange like that. 

Next time I was at the pool the helpful man was there again and he smirked at me from the far lane. Had I felt like it, I could have informed him that his advice didn't work as copious quantities of saliva still hadn't solved my steaming up problem, since I'd had a sneaky gob on them before I left my cubicle in the changing rooms. Maybe there's something wrong with my spit. 

I think my current pair are a bit better, and I have to say I have finally cracked the steaming up problem, if not the raccoon rings or the looking like an idiot. My goggles are reliable enough for me to leave in my lens these days so I have a better chance of identifying objects beneath me on the seabed without adding a floating contact lens to the debris. 

The struggle continues. 

Up...down...tiles...tiles...turn...agh, coughcoughcough...how much longer? I'll be 44 next birthday...MUSIC AND PASSION WERE ALWAYS THE FASHION AT THE COPA, COPACABAAAANA...oh, lovely swimsuit...bit chilly tonight...'Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him, Horatio...' ouch, my hip...breathe, breathe, breathe...

Breathe...




Footnotes:

1.  I am not actually a Barry Manilow fan. Really.
2.  The secret to unsteamy goggles appears to be a tiny, tiny drop of washing up liquid rubbed over the inside of the lenses. Pass it on. Let's eliminate the need for goggle-gobbing.
3.  This is my 400th post. Thought I'd make it an important one. 

Letter to a stranger

Dear Stranger

I hope you don't mind me calling you 'Stranger'. I know that you are familiar but you're so different from me that you might as well be a new person. I recognise you because you look a bit like me in some ways, but in all the ways that matter, we're miles apart. 

You're me, a year from now. Or maybe two years, five years...ten years? I hope not as long as that because I want to be you, and I don't want to wait that long. You would know how long it's been, but I can't ask you, because I'm way back here. I just get a glimpse of you from time to time.

I know you must be older than me but you don't look much older. Your hair has more grey than mine, but you still do it the same way. A quick blast with the hairdryer and you run your hands through it; it's good to know you haven't come over all salon-fresh in the years that have passed. I can't decide if you have more lines round your eyes - I think maybe so, but it's not what I see when I look at you. I see a woman who smiles more. A woman who cares as little as she ever did about grey hairs, but it's as if the things she did care about have gone. The stuff that engraved those deep frown lines between your eyes - that's gone. It's gone!  You're transformed. 

Where are those lines? I can see them still, but they're not obvious. They're reminders of the days of worry and anxiety, but now when you look at them you don't try to smooth them away; you smile as you remember how hard it used to be to lay down troubles with God. How you used to hang onto your anxiety and how tightly clenched your fingers used to be.  I look at your shoulders now as you walk and you are relaxed, at ease with yourself. You're not tensed up like I am. You're swinging your arms, comfortable in your own skin. I see you've lost that habit of clutching your cardigan defensively tight around you as you walk. I wish I could do that, but I need to cover myself up, you see. 

I know you see - you have been where I am. You don't feel the need to hide any more. 

Here's the big question, and I'm trying to make up my mind. Are you thinner than me, future self? I hardly dare ask you, because right now, where I am, I hate the way I look. I hate it so much that it's taking over my life. I have an idea that God has something for me regarding my body image, my self image, my self esteem, whatever I should call it, but I don't know what it is, or whether I have to somehow work it out. I know that God doesn't want me to live like this, and when I see you so free and unselfconscious, I feel tears in my eyes as I long to be a woman like you. 

I look at you and I know that God has done something. Whatever precious gift He gave you, you took it, you unwrapped it and you put it on. You never took it off, did you? You're wearing it still. 

It looks great on you.

I think you are a bit slimmer, but it's hard to see. Somehow it's not what's important, is it? You walk along and your head is high and there's a contented smile on your face. You're happy being you. How do you do that? Where did that apologetic feeling go? How did you get rid of the long- held conviction that you are not worth the space you occupy? I want to know how you did it. 

Oh, it's such a comfort to me to see you like this.  I love it when I catch sight of you. 

You are a different woman. I know you intimately, I don't know you at all, but I want to know you because you look like the kind of woman who could help me. You look like the kind of person who would stop when you saw me watching you with despair in my eyes and you'd sit down next to me and tell me it's going to be alright. You'd confide in me that you haven't always been like this, and if things can turn out alright for you, then they certainly can for me. You've got a big smile, and although your teeth are just the same as they always were, you don't care any more if people see them. 

You've learned that your smile is more important than your teeth. You've learned that who you are is more important than what you look like. You've learned that food will never give you the comfort and reassurance that you've been looking for for almost all your life and you've made your peace with that, because your comfort and safety are found in God. I can see what a huge thing this has been for you. 

You've learned that you are precious and unique and loved; so, so loved. You've learned that your worth doesn't come from what other people think - and those lessons have been absorbed deep down in your soul. It's not just head-knowledge any more, not just theoretical. 

You believe it. You found the Truth, and it has set you free, hasn't it?

Finally, you're free.

I'm envious of that confidence that I see as you slip out of my sight again. I want to be where you are, but I don't know how to get there. It seems like a vast mountain to climb and there are days when I just can't imagine that it's possible. So when I see you and it's clear to all the world that you've made it over that particular peak, it gives me a bit of strength. 

I don't know how to take even the first step, but I know that in time, He will show me. I think - I hope - that it's going to be soon. 

He won't leave me behind. 

Thank you for giving me hope, stranger. It's been nice to see you. 

With love

Helenx

Linking up today with Ruth Povey at Letters To... 

An audience of one

Are you listening, Lord?

Are you watching? 

Are you there, right there, as I sit in front of my computer with my fingers on the keys?  Because I'm feeling vulnerable and exposed and I'm needing you to be here please. 

It's something about who I am and why I am that I want to get off my chest today; I've said it before and there are some days when I think that you're at work in this troublesome area of my life and then I have weeks like this and I realise that I'm right back where I started. 

So here I am. Are you? 

You've said you are, and so you must be. 

Waiting. Watching. Listening. Waiting with a smile, encouraging. Expectant, because you know what I'm going to say before I do.

'Before a word is on my tongue, you, O Lord, you know it completely.'

Psalm 139:4

I spend my life trying to please people.

There we go. Said it.

I'm not sure why, but I worry so much about what people think. Always have. I find myself frustratingly preoccupied by people's opinion of me far too much of the time. 

I'm the sort of person who stops in the supermarket to exchange a spontaneous few words with an acquaintance and then plays the conversation back in my mind over and over wishing that I'd said something else, or not said anything; considering and fretting over what the other person thought, what impression they must have of me. After such an inconsequential exchange I am quite sure that the other person is thinking of nothing but the frozen food or special offers but I go over it and over it in my head.

You'll know that it's not unusual for me to make a phone call and then put down the phone afterwards and stand where I am chewing a finger, deep in thought, and I'm rehashing it in my mind. Usually there's something I'd have done differently.

Sometimes, like this last week, I make a complete mess of something out there in public and then on those occasions I have so much material to work with when I rehash and revisit and agonise that I am just knocked over by it all. And this is why I'm here, now. 

You know what a minefield of potential gaffes the average day is for me even without the occasional total wipe-out. And it's not only what I say - it's how I look (what do people think?) and decisions I make (do people approve?) and how I act (how do people see me?). 

I know what it is that I want people to see when they look at me; I know what I would have people think, most of the time; it's just that I always fall short of my own idea of what I should be, and so I'm convinced that I fall short in other people's assessment of me as well. I'm constantly assessing and regretting and wincing at my perceived mistakes. Sometimes I'm crippled by it.

Immobile.

I assume that the thing people notice is the bit I'd hide if I could. I assume that other people are always assessing too and yet I know this isn't true. Most people are much more peaceful and accepting than I give them credit for. But then again...maybe they're not...

You see how I tie myself up in knots? 

A friend reminded me of something yesterday.

I am playing to an audience of one. 

Of One. 

It doesn't matter what other people think. The only opinion that matters is yours,  Lord God.

I have to take a deep breath and say that again, Lord.

It doesn't matter what other people think.

Of course, I have many years' programming that needs to be undone; I seem to have become wired to assess and worry and this has given rise to self consciousness and diffidence and indecision. I rarely have confidence in my own decision making; if I decide something and immediately someone questions me I am invariably shaken. I wonder if I was right after all, should I perhaps have thought differently... and the process cycles once again. 

Why am I like this? I don't know. That's a whole other Thing. Maybe one day I'll luxuriate in someone's deconstruction and come out understanding myself in a whole new way; or maybe one day I'll just learn to let go of it and be transformed into a complete new person. Maybe I can climb the mountain to a higher level where the air is different and I can be freer. Who knows, but you? 

An audience of one. 

Recently I've had to make several decisions involving different people with different expectations of me. Each time I've been in the position where I couldn't please everyone. Each time I've agonised about it and worried about it and the truth is that there is only one opinion that really matters. I still have some tricky decisions coming up and I need to be sure that I am doing what pleases you. Not pleasing other people so that they will have a high opinion of me. Not pleasing other people so that I can gain a sense of self-worth because they depend on me.

Not doing something so that I look good/busy/godly/committed/needed/competent/efficient/any other adjective I can insert to prop up my frail ego.

What other people think is of dramatically lower importance than what you think.

'Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of God.'

Galatians 1:10

An audience of one. 

Oh, God, that's easier said than done. I often feel obliged to do things - I find saying no very hard. I worry that people will be disappointed or disapproving. But I find that when I take on something for the wrong reasons it becomes stressful and oppressive and overwhelming; indeed I've just extricated myself very painfully from one commitment that has been nothing but anxiety from day one and I am still not sure why I said I'd do it in the first place, other than that people expected me to. Not good enough. 

It all comes down to being close to you. Walking close enough to hear your voice. Holding on tight enough so that I feel your presence. Stopping long enough to look and see the real picture. If I don't do that then I dash past knocking things flying and getting it wrong and having to go back and pick up the broken pieces. 

So I have lots of claims on my time. Since Katy has started school I have more time and I don't know where it's going. I'm busier than ever and the only, only thing I'm sure of is that you are waiting for me to dedicate some of that time to you. There are worthy things out there; enjoyable and less so, things that are productive and undoubtedly need doing - but I need to stop, wait and discern which of those things are for me because you want me to do them, and you have equipped me for them, and which I would do only because someone else wants me to do them. 

What do people think of me?

What do you think of me?

An audience of one.

I want you to approve of me.

I want you to be pleased with me. I want to be less concerned with the opinion of others. I don't mean that I want to be careless of it - but not desperate for it.

I just want to learn how to walk with confidence in the steps you have carved for me, secure in the knowledge that I am doing all I can to be your servant, and my significance comes from that. Not from the ideas that another person has of me. Of course I want to be thought of highly, and I should, because I carry your family name and I should look after it.  I mustn't pursue others' approval at all costs. 

'Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as though you were working for the Lord and not for his people. Remember that the Lord will give you as a reward what he has kept for his people. For Christ is the real Master you serve.'

Colossians 3:23,24

Amen. Help me to remember that, Lord. I keep forgetting.

My need to get things right has sort of gone askew and I need to ask myself who is marking the scoresheet? Who says if it's right or not? Every person in my life thinks that I'm someone different; only you know me, all the sides of me. You know me inside out. Every strength, weakness, hope, dream, fear, insecurity and foible. Many people would not love me so much if they knew what you know.  People would reassess their opinion of me dramatically if they knew all that.

But you love me anyway. More than that - you delight in me. 

You accept me because you made me and the angels celebrate when I get something right that pleases you. With everyone around me I have to play a part - even with people that I love who love me. Only with you can I lay my whole being down and be assured of perfect love however badly I get it wrong. However many times I have to ask your forgiveness.

Why would I close my eyes and walk past that wonder in pursuit of another human being's flawed opinion that isn't based on all the facts? 

You are my Father and I am your child and I want to light up your face with pleasure because your opinion of me is the one that matters. I want to remember at those moments when I could go one way or another that you are my real Master. I serve the God of the Universe. Please give me wisdom and discernment and integrity. And courage.

And when the curtain comes down there's only you, waiting backstage.

There is only you.

There has only ever been you.

Lord God, help me to remember that I play for an audience of one.

(Images theatre2.JPG and theatre_c.JPG by hotblack courtesy of Morguefile.com. Used with permission)