Best Version of Me

There is a best version of me and surprisingly, she often shows up when she is hurting. I have written before about how God does his best work in me when I am broken. The broken version of me is not the best version of me, but it is when God is doing his work, if I will allow it. No, the best version of me comes a little later. She shows up when the hurt is still fresh but when the healing has begun. She's not the broken version of me, or the version who thinks she is healed. She lives in between.

The broken version of me can’t see past her own pain. She’s selfish. The ‘healed’ version of me has a lot of pride. She thinks she has healed after all. So not only is she prideful, she is also ignorant. She thinks she can stop the healing process because she is all good now. She may be the worst version of me, if I am honest. But the best version lives between the two. She remembers vividly what being broken is. She lives in the humbleness that says “I did not get this far alone and I will not get where I am going alone’. She sees all the good and all the bad and she feels both. She sees herself in others that are hurting. She is sensitive to the needs of others. She does a lot of self reflecting. She takes care of her mind. She spends more time with the Lord, more time writing, more time being creative, more time with friends. She wants to learn how to love herself more and so she researches that. She wants to heal and so she focuses on that. She says yes to more opportunities, dreams about who she can become, feels her emotions and invests in getting better and stronger. But she doesn’t usually last that long because soon enough, pride will start to work its way back into her mind, slowly taking over and separating her from others.

I recently got back from a mission trip to Jamaica. This is my 3rd year going on this particular trip where I travel with a team of professionals who configure and deliver wheelchairs to the residents of several orphanages there. The trip is absolutely incredible! We get to stay at the orphanages and see parts of Jamaica I could never dream of seeing. We get to spend time with the incredible residents and caregivers of these homes and I get to watch this professional team transform the lives of the residents there with disabilities who would otherwise not have wheelchairs at all or would have the same chairs for many years regardless of their growth or changes in physical need. The stay is not exactly 5-star. We have no hot water, no air conditioning, sometimes no water at all, we share bedrooms and bathrooms, etc. but we are treated like celebrities in comparison to how the residents live. We all travel with our re-chargeable fans, and sleep masks with blue tooth speakers and snacks and travel size toiletries and stanley tumblers and headphones and backpacks and laptops and cell phones and sleep sacks and medicine and first aid kits and electrolytes and mini cameras with printable film, and we are given breakfast, lunch and dinner that is fabulous. They even cater to my gluten-free self, which is unnecessary and which I do not include on my intake form but once they found out, they went and bought me food so I could eat with everyone. When I come home from Jamaica, I immediately walk into my apartment and think “wow, this is gross. It is gross how much I have.”

For a whole week, I do not complain about a thing. I am the most grateful person you will ever meet for that week. I am so full of love and gratitude and I am desperate to get back to the kids on the next trip. I scroll through pictures and beam with happiness at their faces and the impact they have made on my life. I tell everyone about the trip trying to express the impact of it and never being able to find the words that properly convey how much I love this trip. 

Then 2 weeks pass and my bills are due again, traffic is bad, work is hard, I have a million things to do and no time to do them and I gained 5 pounds and my friend hurt my feelings and I need an oil change and I don’t have any groceries to make dinner and oh-my-gosh I have no energy and I think I am getting sick and Christmas is coming up and I need to start buying gifts…and on…and on…and on. And before I know it, I have forgotten about the kids in Jamaica that I truly love. I mean, sure, I think about them every now and then, I tell others about them but mainly, I have forgotten. Then as the date comes back around for the next trip, I almost dread it. I think about the cold showers and the no air conditioning and the being on our feet all day and the long days and lack of sleep and the lack of choice in my meals and how I am going to get along with the team this year. I all but forget that I LOVE this trip! 

The best version of me is not before the trip and not even during the trip but right after the trip. When I am grateful and when I can see all that I have and really enjoy it. 

So when I speak of the best version of me being the version that is in pain, that is what I mean. The version that has pain but is not broken from it. The version that is very in tune with their pain but not living in it. The version that can clearly remember the pain but that doesn’t see as a big gaping hole anymore. 

I do not like the version of me that comes next, the one that is far separated from the pain. Who thinks she has overcome. Who is giving advice to others about how they can overcome or worse, the one who judges those who are in the depths of their pain. The version of me who stops seeking after God and who has taken control back, or what she thinks is control. Poor girl is sorely mistaken. Poor girl will learn the hard way…again. Poor girl will repeat this pattern again. Poor girl will let pride take away from her life, her relationships, her view of self, and mostly her bond with the Lord in order to try to control things. She will forget what rock bottom was and the pillars that got her out. She will abandon those pillars because she thinks she is good now. And how sad that will be because she will give up the best version of herself in the process and that does no one, mainly her, any good. 

So I talked to my therapist about this lightbulb moment that I had that made me realize that I am venturing into the version of me that I don’t like that much. She listened patiently while I told her everything I just wrote, being so proud of myself for drawing this analogy and I was ready for her to give me a gold star for my self reflection and my self awareness and I was ready for her to be stumped as to how to solve my issue.

But what she said showed that she is the professional here, not me. She said it sounds like what I value is connection and that I feel the most in tune with myself and who I want to be when I am connected. Specifically connected to people who are in need in some way. She suggested getting more involved with volunteer work and I think she is right. I think a lot of what I have talked about in this blog is that I want to stay in with people: in the pain, in the emotions. I want to be for others what many people have been to me during this time. I want to show up for other people, even when it is uncomfortable for me. I do not want to fix anyone, I just want to show up and the best way to show up is to just start doing it. Start finding people who are hurting…I shouldn’t have to look far because truthfully, we all are hurting in some way.