Optimistic Worrier?

Words of wisdom from 2 long ago friends and one current husband keep coming to my mind lately.    The first is:  When the pain exceeds the pleasure, I’ll leave.  The second is:  Satan can’t steal your joy if you don’t let him.   And from my husband?  We worked together for years before becoming husband and wife and we both love to laugh and tease.  Consequently there were a lot of office jokes played on each other. I had a Peanuts comic strip on the wall of my cubicle.   I don’t remember the whole strip just the {new}funny ending.  Basically Charlie Brown was lying in bed contemplating something while looking up to the heavens and said “Why me Lord?”  One day I noticed some blue ink and upon looking closer, noticed someone had drawn in another of those “clouds” and written in it “Because you tick me off Cheryl”.  Yeah, I married him anyway. I mean how can you resist spending your life with someone that just gets you!…J

Because these first 2 thoughts keep coming to mind, I am going to go out on a limb here and assume that God is once again trying to reach through my ears that I have closed to teach me a lesson I probably don’t want to learn.  Or remind me of lessons I have learned the hard way once before.  I am Joyce Meyer’s poster child for her “just how many times do you want to go around that mountain”…. 

Many years ago my best friend Chuck was a fun, caring, supportive, always there for me kinda cute guy.  The only problem we had was that he wanted to date me but I didn’t want to date him.  One time he even vowed to be there for me every day for 6 months (188 days) while my boyfriend was on a Navy deployment half way around the world.  He said I wouldn’t make it on my own, so he would be there for me.  I didn’t think that was fair to him but he said, and here come those awesome words of wisdom, are ya ready?  “When the pain exceeds the pleasure, I will let you know.”  I never really understood those words until tonight.  I just really, really appreciated that he was there for me, all 188 days and more.  Eventually the pain exceeded the pleasure for him, and he went in search of a nice young lady that he then married.  I was even one of her bridesmaids b/c back then you just didn’t have a girl be your bestman!   

Fast forward about 15 years and I had another best friend and her words of wisdom (to me frequently) were “Don’t let Satan steal your joy” or put another way “Satan can’t steal your joy unless you let him”.  This one was easier for me to understand yet very difficult for me to live. 

You see, I am an optimistic worrier.  I know, that’s kind of an oxymoron.  Well not sure if it’s really a true oxymoron but I love that word and felt like using it.  No one else in my family were worriers, so I’m not sure how I became one.  But like any other job I have undertaken, I, as a perfectionist (reformed perfectionist as my family can attest to now!) worry to perfection.   Once in my 20’s during a counseling session, my pastor told me that I worry so well that if I have nothing to worry about, I worry about that.   I wish I could say worried but I can’t - I still do a pretty good job of worrying. 

I didn’t understand Chuck’s words back then because the optimist in me always thinks everything will work out if you just work hard enough, pray hard enough, beg hard enough, aw, you get the picture.  I love happy-ever-after-endings and would always try to get them no matter what the cost to me.  So, I stayed in a marriage way longer than was healthy for me, chased after love from friends and family members way longer than was smart for me and compromised God’s directions for me too many times in order to keep the “peace”.

The beginning of this month God began clarifying some things for me.  He reminded me of words from a sermon : are you a peace keeper or a peace maker?  Because there is a big difference.  Jesus was a peace maker; I on the other hand have been a peace keeper.  I have wondered all of my Christian years (and I’ve been one for as long as I can remember) what my spiritual gifts are.  Last year 3 very dear close friends decided to enlighten me.  We had met once a week for years in a group Bible study and then the four of us (commonly referred to as the FAB 4) branched out and met every Wednesday for 2 hours of Bible study, encouraging each other, prayer and of course eating something yummy.  I guess since we had broken bread together for so long, they felt entitled to clear up my dilemma of being 51 and not knowing my Spiritual Gifts.  One session I was lamenting the fact that I had said something nicely and gently to someone and meant no harm but now they weren’t speaking to me and I was confused.  After all we were both Christians and I was sure God wanted me to say what I said because I surely did NOT want to say it on my own…   Cynthia looked straight at me and said it was simple.  You have the gift of exhortation and people don’t like to hear what you need to say.  I didn’t like it.  I asked if I could give it back or at least exchange it.  I mean it doesn’t even sound nice.  I wanted one of those really nice ones like “Healing”, “Helps”, or even “Mercy”.  You know the kind that when someone who has the gift of mercy dies, everyone gushes about all the mercy she gave them.  I mean really, have you ever heard someone say:  “That dear Mrs. Smith, she was just the best exhortater, she really knew how to tell us stuff we really didn’t want to hear…”  That’s what I thought; I haven’t ever heard anyone gush about an exhortater either.   So I just continued to pretend that my FAB4 friends didn’t know what they were talking about.  Well until several weeks ago that was easy to do.  In a church Bible study of how to be a “Joy”ful” Woman, the leader gave us some homework – a little booklet that after you answer a gazillon questions, tells you what your Spiritual Gifts are.  And guess what?  You probably won’t believe this.  But my friends were right.  #1 was Exhortation.  #2 was Prophecy.  And #3 was Giving.  Ain’t that just something.  Now it’s confimed.  I can see in the future (prophecy) that I am going to tick you off by telling you something you’d rather not hear about (Exhortation) but because I am an optimistic worrier, I’ll throw in my #3 gift and give you something beautiful that I have made while I prayed for you to not be ticked off at me for saying something I would rather have not said in the first place.

This has been a common thread in my tapestry of life and now I must decide if I want to remain a “peace keeper” or step out with God and become a “peace maker.”  I just wish if He had to give me these gifts, that he would also have made me a {oops, can’t think of the word that would encompass an oxymoron of optimistic worrier} so that I wouldn’t so often let someone steal my JOY when I have only been following God’s direction in delivering that message.  If you are still reading, I guess you are looking for a closing to this long diatribe (it’s not really a diatribe but again I can’t think of another word.  Where is my friend that loves words, when I need her!!.)  but I’m not sure what it is because I think better out loud and I haven’t finished processing all of these thoughts.  I will say that since I am no longer a perfectionist, I am not going to stay up tonight and spell check, grammar check, sanity check my ramblings, or figure out if exhortater is even a real word.   

I have been allowing someone to steal my joy lately and now as I weigh some of the different paths ahead, I hope I can remember Chuck’s wise words and realize that when the pain exceeds the pleasure, it’s OK to leave.  That every situation doesn’t call for us to turn the cheek 7 times 77 times.   That keeping the peace, is usually not something peaceful – remember Jesus in the temple overturning tables?  And most of all, that as long as I am walking with God, everything will be OK.   Now if I can only remember these words when I wake up tomorrow morning and climb out of my cozy bed….