Last week, I wrote about becoming the referee in our own lives.

The writing had more of a prophetic voice than the pastoral voice that comes naturally to me. Usually I lean toward reflective, careful, warm, pensive ways of sharing and being with people. Pastoral care (spiritual care) is at the center of ministry for me. 

But in that post, like ancient Israel’s prophets or John the Baptist, my tone was far more clear, direct, and definitive. Declarative. “No one gets to tell you, ‘no harm, no foul.’ You are the ref in your own life. You are the steward of your experience. No one else.” 

I squirmed a bit as I prepared to publish. I heard that clarity and sharpness—not sharp like a knife, but sharp like focusing a picture. The opposite of blurry. But, ummmm, different. 

Is it OK that this sounds different? What if people are confused or put off by the shift in tone?  Should I go back and soften it? 

After some pondering, praying, and processing, I sensed a settledness about publishing it with the original sharp focus. Here’s why: “Pent-up truth-telling tends to come out with some velocity on it.”^[1]

Here’s my why:

I’ve worked so hard for so long to even get to a point where I had words about becoming the ref in my own life. So many things about me, from being a white woman raised in suburban Atlanta in the 70’s and 80’s to my particular family story to my birth order to my interior hardwiring to living as an Enneagram 2 to being taught that Jesus only wanted me for a sunbeam (a lesser sunbeam, of course, because girl) for so, so long, plus a dozen other realities, shaped me to be someone who had to work for years to tell the truth about what I experienced, what I felt, what I saw, what I knew to be real in my own personal journal. 

Journaling became essential for me in middle school. I discovered then that writing helped me figure out what I was thinking, feeling, or experiencing. A true extrovert, verbal processing is how I make sense of things. There were so many voices in my world, right at my ear, always speaking so loudly and with so much authority that I had trouble hearing myself. 

As a teen and young adult, much as I might argue my point of view or stomp off when I wasn’t heard or speak with sureness and even arrogance to say my piece, right under that veneer was a sea of self-doubt, and even more so, self-distrust. Not just, should I have said ?! Or Oh, wow, I didn’t handle that well! or Ugh, I’m so embarrassed. All of which are awkward and hard enough.

But something much deeper was at play. Other people’s points of view and perspectives and versions of the truth took up almost all the space in me and in my world. In a black-and-white/either-or/zero-sum system, there can only be one winner. Other voices dominated. My inner voice got smaller and smaller and smaller. It was only with intense velocity that the deeper truths could come out, which I usually regretted–or was made to regret–immediately. So that inner voice went down even deeper.

I often came across as confident and self-assured. I was neither.

So journaling became a refuge, a place to hear myself. Yet, even in my personal journal, I would often hedge my language, editing myself before the words even made it from pen to page. 

No one else was reading my journals (thank God!). But I didn’t need to experience anyone judging me or making fun of me or telling me that I was “crazy” or “too sensitive or “too angry.” I had internalized all that feedback, all the verbal and non-verbal corrections, all the nebulous codes of “how to be and be seen” to such an extent that I fed back, corrected, and coded myself automatically. 

I didn’t even realize I was doing it for the longest time. I’d just shut my journal with a strange sense of sadness, not realizing I was shutting out myself. It took decades of journaling and growth and hard things I could no longer shut out and a phenomenal support system and oceans and oceans of grace to figure out I had other options. 

First and foremost, I had the option of listening to God. Not the “sunbeams, only” version my fundamentalist upbringing had taught, but the God who loves and sees us all. Who understands us better than we understand ourselves. Who hears us before a word is on our lips or formed in our minds. Who designed us to thrive as we love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Who knows why we get stuck in the unhelpful and often tragic cycles that we do and how to help us get unstuck. Whose grace is always writing new hope in our lives. 

In listening to God, I started learning to listen to myself, to the truths I knew, but didn’t think I was allowed to hear or to say. The Spirit slowly, slowly helped me start to hear myself and tell my truth, even and especially if it was just for me.

Years ago, a mentor suggested I start reading the Psalms closely. There the voices of our ancestors gave me permission to lay it all out, spill the beans, pitch a fit, vomit up a torrent of feelings, dance with praise, sing with abandon, and let God work me through it. 

I write the truth in my journals now. Most of the time!

So the settledness around publishing the post as-is came when I realized I didn’t want to hedge anymore. I didn’t want to press “publish” and feel that same strange sense of sadness. The Spirit has guided, prodded, and dragged me too far toward freedom to start backtracking now.  

“I am the steward of my own experience. No one else.” Yep. And I want to be a faithful steward, valuing my own voice as I also value the voices of others. It’s not a black-and-white/either-or/zero-sum game after all. It never was. 

As it turns out, there are far more truths, more possibilities, more room to be than I had ever imagined. Thanks be to God.     

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^[1] Carolyn Hax, advice columnist. I’m thinking I need this tattooed in my soul. https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2023/09/04/carolyn-hax-dog-back-sister/?utm_campaign=wp_carolyn_hax&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_hax

^[2] Photo from https://thewritelife.com/journaling-writing-techniques/

^[3] Carolyn Dube created this amazing journal. I’m really interested in leaning into her playful approach to art since I am a stick-figure-at-best artist, but love to create. https://acolorfuljourney.com/colorfully-scribbled-morning-pages-transform-into-butterflies/