blogging thru Scary Close – chapters 1 and 2
“I’d have to know myself and be known.” – Donald Miller, Chapter 1, Scary Close.
Sound familiar?
I’m, of course, not accusing Don of plagiarizing me. That’s ridiculous. But when I read this, my heart stopped. Because it’s what in learned in 2013 after a very long and intense bible study. (Click HERE to read that story) and then became the subject of the workshop I did at the 2014 Women2Women conference.
And, subsequently, became the reason 2014 was one of the worst years of my life.
Not because I let myself be known, exactly. But because those people, to which I loved the most and I let myself be known, left. There were only a couple of people that it really mattered to for me, which is why I chose them.
And then it got too hard. I screwed it up. They screwed it up. We tried to move on, but it hasn’t really worked. Because when someone knows who you really are and they decide you aren’t worth it, that open heart you laid at their feet is no longer protected. And that’s why it hasn’t worked to move forward. Trust was gone. Pain rose to the surface. And like Don shares about his wife, she is wired to withhold trust until it is earned. The problem was that I thought those I chose hadearned my trust.
I’m apparently a pretty bad judge of character in this arena.
[Or, you know, maybe I need to just learn how to offer more grace to people and accept that relationships ebb and flow.]
[But, like Don’s wife, I lay a foundation with trusted friends and family. And to those people I am ferociously loyal. I don’t like to give up. When I love someone, I need to fight for them. But then when I fight too hard without getting signs from them that they still love me, I start to feel desperate. Then I withdraw.]
Do you see how confusing this is for me?
Don opens up in his first chapter about how he was afraid that people wouldn’t love who he was while he was in process, so the real him hid backstage, and he pushed another part of himself forward to perform for the world.
In chapter two, Don took me down with his authenticity about his own brokenness. He shared about a painful broken engagement, and the realization of unhealthy patterns he had. Patterns so careless, “it could level a heart.” (pg 11)
But he encounters someone who defines friendship at its very core. He finds someone who could speak truth to his heart so much so that his patterns are revealed. He begins to break even further so that he can be put back together. And that friend showed up and was willing to wade through the mess of Don’s soul with him.
[We all need friends like this. Don’t we?]
I won’t tell you the story, because, well, I think you should read the book. But also, because tears.
Seriously… guys. We’re just done with chapter two. I’m exhausted.
blogging thru Scary Close – introduction
I’ve read most of Donald Miller’s books – they are quick and easy reads (I highly recommend them when you are on vacation and your mind is relaxed.) I’ve found with his books that, like with any memoir, it’s best not to go with an expectation of solid conclusions and deep theological truths. That’s not the purpose of a memoir nor is it the purpose of Don’s work. He writes in the abstract; though you wouldn’t necessary get that from a first read – because he tells stories. And he’s really good at it. But he rarely “lands the plane” and tells you what truth to extrapolate from his work. I’m ok with that.
When I heard his new book was about intimacy and the relationships with those around you, I wondered how this might be a departure from the memoir genre. Don is great at asking questions… at wondering… at leaving things open-ended. I love this kind of reading, though it’s certainly isn’t for everyone. But books on intimacy and relationships (Safe People comes to mind, as I’ve just finished it) are very concrete and pretty formulaic. Not how I would describe his previous work.
So far, Scary Closedoes read like a memoir. And there are a few things left open-ended. But there is also a great deal of practical and concrete advice and thoughts that are a departure from his previous books. But make no mistake – this is not a bad thing. There isn’t a formula that Don sets up, no step-by-step process, but his thoughts are something a person can hold onto. They are not nebulous questions thrown out there into space that you find yourself running toward, arms reached out, swiping frantically to catch.
He has found a way to the middle, and I’ve often pictured myself with my feet firmly planted on the ground while words and questions and truth all gathered around me. Some waiting to be caught. Some entering my heart immediately. This is really the beauty of Scary Close.
After reading the forward and the first two chapters, I’d cried three times. Not so much in grief, though there was an element of it in my tears.
But mostly in the recognition that people are hard. That grace is lovely. And we don’t try enough to engage with either. This really seems to be the heart of what I’m taking away from Don’s book.
Bob Goff, who wrote Love Does, is one of Don’s closest friends and wrote the introduction. Goff oozes grace. This is a man who knows how to love and you can simply see that in his words. He tells a story of how Don placed himself in the front door of their hut while in Uganda, during the night, because abductions were a very scary reality where they were staying. He put himself between the harm and his friend. (Yes, tears.)
Then in a very quick author’s note, Don sets us up by telling us something I did no know about him – that he lived for applause. He lived for the approval and affection of others based on his success in life (or his humor, which is revealed later.) His life was a performance and that built up a wall. “Applause is a quick fix,” he writes. “And love is acquired taste.”
Seriously… guys. We’re not even to the first chapter.
of fragility and the way i think God works
Sometimes I think this is how God works on a feeler.
I was out on my back patio last night with a bottle of Nebraska wine and a friend and she said, “You’re being too sensitive.”
She’s not an unsafe person, although I would guess this is an unsafe thing to say. I am sensitive. And I’m okay with that. I’m also okay with owning my feelings and trying to wade my way through them until I figure out what’s on the other side. I’m not planning on becoming hard again, like I used to be, just because it seems like it’s easier. So I’ll take being “too sensitive.” And being too sensitive is not the worst thing in the world, as long as I don’t stay down in the mud pit and wallow there. But I do need to stay here long enough to understand what my sadness is teaching me.
This year is a year I’m taking something on for Lent instead of giving something up. Aside from a couple of community service things I’m taking on, I had decided to take on one of the fruits of the spirit: joy
And wouldn’t you know it, yesterday was one of the saddest days I’ve had all year. [Thus the wine.]
Sometimes I think this is how God works on a feeler.
After our second glass and some more talking, plus the blooper reel of Season 8 & 9 of Friends, I went to bed feeling the irony and the unfairness of this. I’m taking on joy for Lent and yesterday I used up a fair amount of tissues. Because I was sad.
It’s not like I was sobbing. That almost never happens. But in those small spaces of every day life, when you realize how much has changed and who’s left and you feel this is a season of realizing who your real friends are… *sigh*
Those small spaces were filled with some tears yesterday.
Then some despair. (Because apparently my new response to abandonment is flight. It used to be fighting, so I don’t know what changed there. (Click HERE to see what I’m talking about.)
Sometimes I think this is how God works on a feeler.
I’m not saying God made the sadness. Of course not. He isn’t a monster. My sadness is a result of my own sin and those sinning against me. God is not part of that. But placing it on my heart to take on joy for Lent this season, helping me discover the connection between that and the sadness I felt yesterday, teaching me what joy is in the first place, and giving me reasons for that joy? That’s all him.
This is how I think God works on a feeler.
And this Lenten season I am counting on him to help me find the joy.
new blog series
I’m about halfway through a game-changing book. It’s a quick and amazing read, and I’ll probably read it more than once. But just so that I can truly process it all, I’ve decided to blog through it chapter by chapter.
What is this book to deserve such a high (*snicker*) honor?
Scary Close by Donald Miller.
I was 13 pages in and I’d already cried three times. Not that it takes much to make me cry anymore, but still. 13 pages? Dang. That’s gotta be a new record.
So I hope you enjoy it… I can’t wait to start.
in which risk is the biggest thing
People are more than the sum total of their unsafe traits…. Don’t confuse people with unsafe traits. Learn to identify what traits hurt you.*
There is such a glorious raw and open wound that happens when you own your story.
Glorious in its freedom and liberty.
Raw and open in its vulnerability.
What we’ve been through is part of who we are. These are the tiny little pieces we put together to help us try to make sense of why. Why we feel the way we do, why we do what we do, why we are drawn to who we are drawn to, why we hurt the way we hurt.
When I feel like I can’t work and hustle anymore and I wait for something… anything… and nothing comes.
The white buffalo evades. He’s really good at that.
When someone fails to do what they told me they would do, it hurts.
If I’m honest with myself, this is just another form of rejection for me.
When someone leaves even though they know they are needed by you, it hurts.
The friendship manual we all have says, “Stay put, you idiot. Be present. You are needed in times like these.”
When I am pursuing and I am not pursued back, it hurts.
This makes me feel desperate.
And over all this, when someone knows all these things about me and they still chose to hurt me –
I must own my story. I must identify what hurts me, let those I love know I can’t have that, and then give them the power to fail me. To have a piece of me that I might not ever get back. To hurt me. All the while hoping they won’t.
I defy you to think of a bigger risk in life.
*Safe People, Cloud and Townsend. Pg. 115.
Stephanie Nelson 