Round Two: Puddle of Emotions
Well, I got through the Puddle of Doubt. However, soon after I found myself in another puddle — at 1 a.m.
This one was different. I woke up worrying. Not about tasks on my to-do list, but over many things.
Last week I encouraged us to look at Psalm 139:23-24.
O God, see me and my anxious thoughts. Show me where I’m off base, lead me back on your path (my paraphrase).
Now I had to follow my own advice. I couldn’t get back to sleep…the anxiety was deepening. Storm clouds were gathering as I began agonizing over everything present and future.
By 2 a.m., I was still in it. I had prayed, surrendered, reasoned, repented, rebuked the devil, and rearranged the worries several different ways. Nothing had loosened their grip. So I finally got out my journal.
At 2:30 a.m. I began to feel the same worry I had before. Did I hear God clearly about Tangled Not Broken? Am I even doing what He wanted me to do? Do I have what it takes? And hadn’t I just been in this puddle?
No. This was different — deeper, darker, and attempting to swamp me.
And underneath it was a deeper question of identity: “Who am I to think I can?”
Part of what I was questioning was my own imagination. Was all this creativity something to trust, or evidence that I had wandered a little too far into Deb-land?
I have a big imagination and have been dreaming up a whole Pond of stories I’d love to share someday soon. They are about a confused frog, a mischievous owl, and a very sweet bunny. But should I even write out these stories, or am I just a little too close to the edge…?
I’ve been learning more about my dad, who died when I was a baby. He was called Woody because our last name was Woodward. He was in the restaurant business. I started thinking about him, randomly, or so I supposed, and took a photo down from the wall.
It showed his hamburger stand, pictured above. Looking at Woody’s Sooper Pup, shaped like a Scottie Dog and outlined in neon with a wagging tail, I thought, well, this man was pretty creative.
And I thought of the song phrase I had been singing all week:
“His blood runs through my instrument…”
I looked it up. It’s from “The Leader of the Band,” through which Dan Fogelberg honored his father.
As I had been singing it, I was thinking that the “blood” is Jesus’ blood. And for me, it is.
But it is also Woody’s blood, his DNA, running through me.
He remodeled Woody’s Sooper Pup into Woody’s Drive-In, featuring a big neon clock. He pictured opening a Dining and Dancing Club someday. He was a dreamer.
He was community-minded and involved in the Fraternal Order of the Moose. One of his positions there was “Prelate.”
When I found that out, I casually looked up what a Prelate was. The answer I got was: “a chaplain, spiritual leader.”
Oh.
I had no idea I had been following in those footsteps, too.
Sometimes pieces of our identity may mystify us. We may spend years thinking some part of ourselves is strange or excessive, only to discover there was a story behind it after all.
I began to wonder, maybe it’s okay to be me. Maybe I was forged to be exactly me. I’m not beige, quiet or shy. And neither was my dad.
Maybe it’s okay to dream big. My dad was a dreamer and a doer. Unfortunately, he had to catch the early train Home.
My Fathers
The comforting part for me is that I also have a Heavenly Father. Talk about a dreamer and a doer.
The earth was formless and void. He brought forth light, land, sea and sky. He created not just earth, but galaxies. He created all sorts of creatures, but not just moles and sloths. He created hummingbirds and peacocks, lions and tigers, platypuses and giraffes.
Creation is extravagant. Strange. Playful. Beautiful. Wildly varied.
He created you and me. Handcrafted. Specific. Carefully.
Not growing up with my father meant no one ever said,
“You are creative like him.”
“The apple didn’t fall far from the tree.”
My identity was never “one of Woody’s girls.”
Maybe you grew up without someone who could reflect parts of you back to yourself.
Maybe no one ever said,
“You get that from your mother.”
“That sounds just like your dad.”
Or maybe you received messages that were negative and hurtful.
Those missing mirrors can leave blank places in the way we understand ourselves.
Sometimes anxiety exposes a question beneath the question.
Mine was about identity. Because I never knew my father, I had never had him reflecting those pieces of me back to me.
Through curiosity, prayer, memory, family history and a song, God let me see something I had been missing.
I realized that I am more like my earthly father than I ever realized…creative, spiritual, and learning that it’s okay to dream.
And I see something else in myself: I bear the image of my heavenly Father. I can be like Him in love, serving, and creativity.
Somewhere in all of that, the worry finally loosened its grip. I felt loved, created for a purpose, and able to stop wrestling with everything at 3 a.m.
I was finally able to lay my cares aside and sleep.
I don’t know that this will be my last visit to the Puddle of Doubt. Maybe doubt will be an occasional companion on this journey.
But perhaps each time I find myself there, I’ll recognize it a little sooner and find dry ground a little more quickly.
Let Emotion Open a Door
If you told me that a very uncomfortable, restless night would result in a faded black-and-white photo morphing into a colorized one, and me feeling closer to my earthly and heavenly fathers, I would have given you a funny look.
The goal isn’t to obsess over every emotion. The goal is to notice when one persists and to ask what may be underneath it.
Prayer. Curiosity. Listening. Following the thread.
That’s precisely what happened.
When an emotion won’t let go, don’t assume you know what it means.
Get curious about what’s underneath it.
Bring it before God and spend some time with Him.
He may be inviting you to see something you couldn’t see while you were busy trying to make the feeling go away.
In the morning I was persuaded that these were not simply ideas I had invented for myself. I still believed I was walking in the direction God had called me.
His blood runs through my instrument and his song is in my soul.
This speaks of my earthly father and my heavenly One.
Like Father, like daughter. I am his. I am His.
It wasn’t just “can I do this?” It was “who am I to think I can?”
I’ll tell you. I come from a neon Scottie Dog Sooper Pup guy who wanted to have a Supper Club.
I’m a dreamer and a doer.
I’m Woody’s girl.
And I’m His girl.
