(Missed Part 1? Before you read on, catch up, and click right here !)

When I gave up on being June, and decided I was a Jane, there was a certain amount of relief and rebellion that followed. I mean….remember that girl in high school who desperately wanted to be a cheerleader? She started preparing for the tryouts 4 years before they actually happened, and when the day finally arrived, even her most well-practiced cheers and jumps weren’t good enough. And when she didn’t make the cut she declared to everyone around her (but more to herself), “Cheerleaders are morons anyway!”

That was me when I didn’t make the June group. I relaxed a bit, the way people do, knowing they’re officially disqualified. And then I breathed in the motto of “Whatever!! Never wanted to be a perfect, beautiful, talented, LOSER in the first place!” Then, being the good sport I am, I decided to HATE everyone who gave the appearance of having made it into June-hood. Of course, I didn’t hate them to their face…that would be wrong. I’d smile at them when dropping off my kids, and small talk about how amazing the fundraiser they were heading this year was going to be. Sometimes I’d even go to breakfast with them and pretend they didn’t order some gluten free nutritionally sound meal, as I was scarfing down my biscuits and gravy. But I hated them in that “I tried to be you but couldn’t be you” sort of way. And so the initial relief I felt at letting June go, settled into resentment and shame.

I think resentment is a total art form. It’s like someone gives you a perfectly clean white canvas at a certain point in your life and says “Here….see what you can do with this”. And because you’re feeling particularly slighted or pissed off that day, you pick up a paint brush, dip it in black paint, and make a very small, and intricate mark in the center of the canvas. It’s no big deal. Still tons of space left to add color. But the next time you get hurt, or your expectations aren’t met, you go back to that black mark, adding to it…feeding it, really…, more and more black, until eventually, one day you stand back and realize that you’ve built a masterpiece….and resentment has filled your canvas. There’s no room left for laughter, and gratitude, and deep breaths.

Shame is worse. It sneaks past your thoughts and attitudes and slides down into your very soul. It convinces you that your sins and your mistakes and your weaknesses are who you are….instead of what you have to overcome. Shame says you’re a loser, a lost cause, a horrible person. It is the official escort that leads you down into despair. And there are few more dangerous and scary places for a person to be, than in despair.

And so that’s where I landed after my initial “I don’t’ give a crap” time period. My failure to be some June-type person was the culmination of 30 years of face plants that started on the playground in 4th grade. Thirty years of “You’re TOTALLY not doing that right!”. Thirty years of trying to be….and never quite being. Thirty years of following, and chasing, and copying. That taste of dirt and blood carried me all the way through high school, past college, and into my marriage and motherhood. I knew everything that I wasn’t…but had absolutely no idea who I was. The result was that I settled into a deep depression, and was ultimately put on medication. The result was that I spent years trying to fill the hole inside of me with too much alcohol, and too much food. The result was some serious cracking in my marriage because it couldn’t fill the hole either. And my babies got completely ripped off in the mom department for far too long.

And people didn’t know! Because I refused. I was humiliated. So I did my damnedest to look normal to the rest of the world. When people smiled at me, I smiled back. I cracked jokes. Went out with friends. Attended church, and raised my hands in worship. Volunteered at my kids’ school. Made crappy attempts at Pinterest recipes. Folded laundry. You know…pretended I was living some kind of life. But most of us can only pretend for so long.

One day, while the kids were at school, I stood in the middle of my living room and just randomly screamed. It was totally unplanned. It just….happened. I was picking up toys and straightening pillows for the millionth time that week when all of a sudden, I just gave up. I dropped what I had in my hands and screamed in total anger and frustration. I completely terrified the cat….and I’m almost positive he’s still got some form of PTSD to this day. Then I plopped to my knees and sunk my face into the carpet and began crying. Another face plant…. but a different kind. I was at the end of myself. I had nothing left to give, or try, or do.

That was the day. It’s the day I’ll tell my boys about at some point when they’re older and they need to hear it. Because that was the day I gave myself back to the only One who might be able to do anything with me. That’s when I handed Him my shame, and I gave Him my black-filled canvas and said, “Here….see what you can do with this.”