Trauma and Responsibility

This post is a pretty deep dive into my psyche, if you will.  Bear with me if you can, but it's ok if it's a bit much.

It started with me jumping head first back into some work I started the day before, uncovering some trauma that explains, at least in part, why I feel responsible for things that are not my fault or not my burdens to carry.

I discovered yesterday that I have a "Responsibility Part" that is weighed down, desperate to keep me from being hurt by more people, so it takes unneeded responsibility, and I live chained, not free. 

So this morning, I coaxed that little part of me out, cowering and despairing and burdened, to sit with me and Jesus. 

How grateful I am that Jesus is always with me! "I will never leave you, nor forsake you," the great I AM said to Joshua as Jesus said later to His disciples, "Surely I am with you always, even to the end of the age" (Joshua 1:5, Matthew 28: 20).

Yesterday I had pictured that little Responsibility Part carrying what looked like a grey brick wrapped in grey paper, a great weight that was far heavier than it looked. Today, I pictured it with that weight like a grey vest. When that Part came out to sit with me, it took off the vest and laid it down, like it was showing or offering it to Jesus. Next thing I knew, tears were falling from my closed eyes because in my mind's eye Jesus picked up that vest and put it on Himself. He was smiling tenderly as He did this. It dissolved into Him, shining white like His garment, and I could see that it was no great weight to my Savior. 

It hit me, as tears wet my sheets where I lay picturing this, that the responsibility that I was carrying as this brick of burden was meant to be laid on Jesus. He wants to carry our burdens, and He is the one who is sovereign over all -- not me. I am not meant to carry other peoples' sins, even if they blame their sin on me. Them doing so does not make it so. Jesus carries that weight. He has either paid for it by His precious blood, or He mercifully gives them until their death to repent. They can carry that weight or give it to Him. They cannot make me carry it. My Responsibility Part was burdened by a weight that is not right for me to hoard. 

I didn't feel like this exercise (that sounds like such a callous word for something so impactful) was over, but I didn't know what came next. Jesus was gesturing to Responsibility and me to follow Him, so we did. He took us into a beautiful room, gold and white, with the softest cushion couches I could imagine to rest on. I felt like He was telling me it was time to rest. 

Then He did something I had as much an issue with as Peter did! I didn't know that I would have objected as Peter did to my Savior washing my feet, but oh did I! It felt so very, very wrong. I was so unworthy to have the King and Creator of all, my perfect Savior, washing and massaging my feet like I would pay a pedicurist to do! I objected, feeling the wrongness, and I pictured Him grinning at me. 

With a laugh, He said that He enjoys upending worthiness. 

That was the whole point of the cross, was it not? 

We are not worthy, I am not worthy, though I long so much to be, and He came to take our sin and unworthiness on as a garment and die for it. Then He gave us His worthiness, His perfection, to wear and someday be instead. I felt a taste of the joy He had in "upending worthiness," and it hit me: 

This is what carrying one another's burdens (Galatians 5) should actually feel like. Jesus washing my feet, taking joy in serving and upending my expectations and earning-worth-mindset, makes it possible for me to do the same. 

I don't serve people because they deserve it. I delight in serving others, helping them with their burdens, because Jesus does that for me. It's the way He made us. Everyone helping his or her neighbor, pouring out the love that He showers on us. 

My Responsibility Part wanted to take on the burdens others threw at me -- but it was tainted and motivated by fear: fear that they would hurt me otherwise. That's not true service. That's not the joy in serving that Jesus offers. 

Perhaps it's not even my Responsibility Part's job.

Maybe it's my Love Part.

So in the end, as this experience (a better word than exercise?) came to a close, we were sitting together, the three of us, on a hill top that I picture to calm myself. Jesus came to hug me close, a big sweet hug, gentle and full of hesed, and my Responsibility Part squeezed herself in between us to come home back inside me.

There was peace there -- and the start of healing. 

Photo credit: Eugene Chystiakov on unsplash.com