Perspective

It is amazing how emotional pain, anxiety, and anger can distort perspective. I deal with this on a daily basis with many of my clients, and from time-to-time I have to be my own therapist and “practice what I preach.”

My 20-year class reunion was a couple of weeks ago. I did not attend. However, I was sent a link to a MySpace profile that contained a slideshow of some of the events and people from the weekend. As I watched that slide-show, I felt a lump in the pit of my stomach. That same lump I felt many days as I walked the halls of my high school. The lump that is associated with feelings of insecurity and inferiority that began literally in the 3rd grade with classmates making fun of my stutter or my obvious lack of athleticism and chubby frame. The lump was most noticeable to me in junior high. I used to find lots of change and even a few dollar bills in junior high because I walked around with my head down and shoulders slouched in junior high not wanting to make eye contact unless absolutely necessary.

That lump was the beginning of the distortions for me and was tied to so many of those negative emotional experiences. I began to paint my high school years as “traumatic” and "uncomfortable" in my head. I looked at many of those pictures and felt the wounds from the past – the betrayal of a friend in the 5th grade, the condescending or indifferent interactions had with “the popular” crowd. Still many “why questions” unanswered. To be honest, I wallowed in this muck of self-pity for a couple of days. Then I realized that in actuality, most of High School was the source of a great deal of fun and fond memories. There is still no denying that elementary and junior high school were traumatic, but high school was overall a tremendous time where friendships developed, fun was had, and meaning was derived.

That caused me to consider what was different about high school than the previous years. The very real answer came that in the Summer prior to my 9th grade year, I surrendered my life to my Lord Jesus Christ. I can honestly say that my self-confidence and identity came in, and from, Christ (still does!). Those wonderful memories are inevitably tied to Christian friends and an active youth ministry.

Let me be clear, my relationship with Christ did not “solve all my problems” and magically heal all my insecurities but provided me with hope, strength, and resources to walk through all that stuff. As you can tell by the very nature of this entry, I still struggle with some of those things – self-confidence and insecurities – but through what Christ did and does in me “I’m not who I was.” I also owe a great deal of thanks to a few of my “OLD” friends (Lisa, John, Curt, and Cathy) who have made contact with me and through whom God used to bring things back into proper perspective.