Bringing light from darkness

There are times in my life that I have met people, especially within the church, who seemed like they had always had such a perfect and golden life. A life without complications. A life without mistakes. A life without pain or loss. A life without bad decisions or regrets. Each time I met one of those people, I would have a twofold reaction. I would want to be them and I would feel inadequate compared to them.

My life has been filled with a great deal of blessings.  But it's also been filled with a great deal of pain and shame. Truthfully, for most of my life, I have wished I had not had the painful experiences that I have had in life. Some of those experiences I had no control over, and some were of my own choosing. I've realized recently that some of the latter were likely consequential choices because of the former. However they came about, they were painful, and things that affected me for much of my life.  They affected my view of myself. My view of others. My trust in people. My joy in life. My marriage. My parenting. They affected every part of who I was. And in many ways, they limited who I would become. Who I would allow myself to be.

But when I think about changing my life, and taking away all the painful, I realize that I would also be changing who I am on a fundamental level. It's not typically on the mountaintop that growth occurs, but in the valley. And so I no longer wish that I could change my history. I will always regret choices that I made that hurt other people. I will always hurt for the pain that my younger self experienced. But I accept that through that pain, and through those mistakes, I grew, and I learned, and I developed strength of self and strength of character that I wouldn't have without those experiences.

Most of the wisdom I have, albeit some days limited, doesn't come from between the covers of a book, although I do pick up some pretty good nuggets there. The really deep wisdom comes from personal experiences.  From being in the mud and the muck and being among the ashes.

I know now that the people that I have met in my life who seem to have it all together and seem to have never been affected by the ugly in life, probably aren't nearly as full of light as they seem, but are just a whole lot better at hiding their darkness. I've learned in recent months that there's great strength in being vulnerable about our darkness and our shame. Because shame grows well in dark places. But it can't thrive when it's in the light.

So if you're one of those people who other people think has had a perfect life with no regrets and no pain, and the pain of feeling like an impostor is tearing you apart, it's time to set that lie aside. Find someone you trust with your innermost being.  Everyone should have at least one of those people. Tell them the truth about who you are.  The good, the bad, the shameful. Lay it all out in the light. It takes great bravery to be vulnerable. But the benefits are so worth it.