I never knew there was a part three. I always thought the options were to leave or be left...I never knew anyone could stay.
But it happened.
I stayed. They stayed. We all stayed together. Through the hard parts, the yucky parts, the uncomfortable parts, the bumps and hurdles - my church stayed with me and I stayed there.
I never stayed anywhere before. I always got a favorite person and the relationship always imploded and it never worked out. It's like that bad song playing over and over in your head and there was nothing I could do to stop it. And it's true, there really was nothing I could do to stop it. I didn't stop it. In fact, if I were making my own decisions, I would have followed the script and left and I'd be sitting here today writing to you about the latest tragedy in my personal soap opera spiral. But I have a Father who loves me too much to let me parent myself and He stepped in and decided to teach me what it feels like to stay.
What It Feels Like to Stay
It feels strange, uncomfortable...it even kind of hurts. Not the painful kind of hurt, but the kind of hurt like when you stretch your muscles a little bit further than they want to stretch. It feels new and I'm still figuring it out.
It doesn’t feel peachy keen or happy-go-lucky. It does't feel like a fairy tale or a Disney movie. It feels real. It doesn't feel like the high from a drug that will make you crash and burn. It doesn't feel like water dripping that you can't escape, or the silence of loneliness. It feels like a deep breath. I never knew there was anything different than living in the horrible song stuck on repeat, but I knew I felt or numb and everything around me felt empty. Staying feels meaningful.
 |
It feels safe - like the really, really good kind of safety. Not the boring, restrictive kind of safety and not the suffocating, authoritarian, over-bearing kind either - but the kind of safety that makes you feel protected and loved and yet allowed to make mistakes.
Staying is really hard. It means doing hard things and not bailing out whenever you want. It means working through your gross stuff and hard stuff and uncomfortable stuff. It means being honest with yourself and others. It means not demanding others fill you up but rather accepting the places in you that are needy and accepting the imperfections of others. Staying means being around people who have hurt you and knowing that you have hurt them too. Staying means asking for forgiveness from others and extending forgiveness all around whether you feel like it or not. Staying means not always getting what you want and not always having your way. Staying means hearing "no." It means not running away even when you really, really, really want to. Staying means knowing you don’t know everything and other people can teach you things. Staying means being open to change and compromise and it means listening when you would rather talk and having hard conversations and receiving correction and being hurt sometimes.
And yet, it also means being known. Really and truly known. It means feeling deep joy and contentment and peace that is impossible in a surface level life. It means experiencing a profound delight in seeing others grow and change and getting to share your growth and change with others. There's an unfamiliar exhilaration in having memories from five years ago. There's this palpable wisdom in knowing you knew this person when they weren't in college yet or weren't married yet or weren't a parent yet and now they are.
And yet, it also means being known. Really and truly known. It means feeling deep joy and contentment and peace that is impossible in a surface level life. It means experiencing a profound delight in seeing others grow and change and getting to share your growth and change with others. There's an unfamiliar exhilaration in having memories from five years ago. There's this palpable wisdom in knowing you knew this person when they weren't in college yet or weren't married yet or weren't a parent yet and now they are.
It's not that anything in my life is perfect, because it's not. It's not that I feel no one will ever leave me again or I'll never be hurt again - I always thought staying would mean that - that it was some sort of arrival at utopian stability - but I don't feel my life has reached any peak, I only feel less fearful of change. Having people stay in my life and me staying in theirs doesn't mean that I've finally obtained permanent status with everyone. I know God may call my friends to move or He may call me to attend another church or move to another state. Staying just means I don't feel obsessed with abandonment or like any big changes will be caused by a big falling out on my part or theirs. It doesn't mean no one will leave me, it just means I trust God will help me handle it.
But marriage is hard just like staying is hard. It's when you look at someone and they know every yucky and awful thing you’ve ever done. They’ve seen you at your very worst, deep in your sin, deep in your selfishness, they saw the time you were clinging to the toilet throwing up and didn't look pretty and they saw the days you stayed in bed and didn't shower. They've seen you when you were in pain and angry and when you were depressed and vulnerable. They've seen your ugly cry. And yet, somehow, they still love you. Somehow they are able to stand with you week after week and they choose to see the good parts about you too. And somehow you're able to look at them and love them through their yucky parts too. It's a crazy thing.
But marriage is hard just like staying is hard. It's when you look at someone and they know every yucky and awful thing you’ve ever done. They’ve seen you at your very worst, deep in your sin, deep in your selfishness, they saw the time you were clinging to the toilet throwing up and didn't look pretty and they saw the days you stayed in bed and didn't shower. They've seen you when you were in pain and angry and when you were depressed and vulnerable. They've seen your ugly cry. And yet, somehow, they still love you. Somehow they are able to stand with you week after week and they choose to see the good parts about you too. And somehow you're able to look at them and love them through their yucky parts too. It's a crazy thing.
Staying feels like living in the present, like there are no weird dripping sounds from the past and no fearful silence from the future. Like the only sounds are here, right now, today. Not dead. Not numb. Not silence. Not too fast like living in fast forward. Not too slow like living in rewind. Just right.
When I wrote about being left, I felt like a victim. I felt powerless, like a hurt child who is always sad and broken, abandoned by others. When I wrote my post about leaving, I felt an empty sense of power and control and yet a deep fear of my facade being shattered. I wanted to be the person who abandons others before they have a chance to abandon me.
When I write about staying, I feel free. Not free because I finally feel like I can trust anyone in my life to stay, but free because I finally trust that I'll be okay if and when people come and go.
Staying feels like you are neither sobbing at the window of your house nor in a field far away from it. It feels like you are inside your house, living in it - Enjoying the space. Cooking in the kitchen. Living in the living room. Scrubbing the floors. Repairing things that inevitably break. Maintaining the things around that need constant upkeep.
It's hard work. And it's enjoyable.
Staying is worth it. I like it. I think I'll stay with staying.
