It Isn’t Humility

I’ve been rather unhappy the last couple of days. So much so that I couldn’t bear to post my feelings even here, this blog where I am so transparent.

I had to vent, show my frustration, stare a little at an uncertain future, and even this blog is still a touch too public for that.

So I crept into a little corner I know in the internet, one known to only three others, and vomited up the poison inside.

What I can share here though is why I was feeling that way. I am becoming convinced that my marriage will not survive.

I took an assessment of who I am, what I am, and looked hard at my wife’s heart to learn what I could.

This is what I learned: Though I have many gifts and blessings my wife does not love me any more.

Haven’t I anything she might admire or want?

I am creative. I paint and draw and write and imagine. But being creative is not enough to win her heart.

I am intelligent. I love to learn and gather tidbits of knowledge like some weird cerebral squirrel storing walnut-shaped ideas and facts in a hollow log.

I am curious. I go beyond learning and search out strange connections within this Rube Goldberg world view I have.

I have a large heart. I get choked up by beauty and suffering and joys and all sorts of things which point to a layer that covers all that is real.

I have a good job. I am a professional, I am respected for what I do, and I love doing it.

Yeah. It is about self esteem. And clinically I understand why I feel like this. But following Polonious' dictum "To thine own self be true" does not change the fact that I feel she sees me as something slimy crawling out from a rotted cedar lying along some path in our Oregon woods.

And then I hear a soft whisper... deep in my heart, ever so quiet... and it says:

“I love you.

“I love you enough that even if I didn’t save anyone else, I would have let those men nail me to that piece of wood if it meant saving only you.

“Hang on, Will. Hang on.”

We sang a song this morning that sparked ideas so strongly that in the midst of the song I wrote down a few thoughts in my Moleskine:

Strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord
We will wait upon the Lord
We will wait upon the Lord

Strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord
We will wait upon the Lord
We will wait upon the Lord

Our God, You reign forever
Our hope, our Strong Deliverer

You are the everlasting God
The everlasting God
You do not faint
You won't grow weary
You're the defender of the weak
You comfort those in need
You lift us up on wings like eagles

Strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord
We will wait upon the Lord
We will wait upon the Lord

Strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord
We will wait upon the Lord
We will wait upon the Lord

Our God, You reign forever
Our hope, our Strong Deliverer

You are the everlasting God
The everlasting God
You do not faint
You won't grow weary
You're the defender of the weak
You comfort those in need
You lift us up on wings like eagles

Our God, You reign forever
Our hope, our Strong Deliverer

You are the everlasting God
The everlasting God
You do not faint

Oh...

So much of that song resonates in my heart...

About how I will receive strength.
How He is so much larger than any of my problems.
How He is the Defender of the Weak.

That last line... It made me think of the legend of Camelot. How King Arthur wanted to create a government where strength did not dominate the weak, but defended what was right, what was true. I thought how Camelot, the whole idea of chivalry, is the faintest echo, the dimmest reflection of what my God is.

No matter that I have been tested and am tired, that I am obsessed with my failures, my weaknesses. He is bigger.

I feel I am less now than I have ever been.

That isn’t humility.

It is just a place of hurt and rejection and darkness. It is where I am, but I know, I really know, that someday I will walk out of this darkness.

The reason I know this?

Because He says so.

If I am really such a disgusting piece of trash as I feel I am, then He would not be willing to do so much for me.

Feeling low is not being humble.

I think humility is something very different.

I think humility is about knowing who one is, knowing all one’s strengths and virtues and gifts and blessings, and then putting them completely at the service of others without a thought of or for oneself.

That is what He did.

He who spoke the universe into being, Who lives beyond time and space, is Goodness in ways that cannot be imagined by someone like me, stripped Himself of the power of speech which created the universe, confined Himself into a time, into a place, and exposed Himself to the most vile evils in existence.

Perhaps one day I will learn humility.

I’m not there yet. For if I were, I wouldn’t be so wrapped up in my own pain.