I am WISB

I'm a list-maker. I make lists in Word documents on my computer, on post-it notes at work, in tiny notebooks I carry in my purse, in the memo pad application on my Blackberry... you get the point. I make lists because for some reason, creating them relieves my warped brain of having to contain everything that swirls around inside of it. As a result, I have small scraps of paper scattered around my apartment and mini digital agendas cluttering my desktop. Sometimes the lists actually help me accomplish things. Most of the time they just bring me a taste of the aforementioned relief.

I come by it honestly – my mom has been making lists for as long as I can remember – but I'm starting to realize that it's not a healthy habit. See, this *slightly* compulsive list-making tendency of mine has made its way into my emotional and spiritual worlds and that's actually not okay.

I remember as a kid dealing with this pattern of feeling convicted about something-or-other, being completely broken up about it, and responding with a grit-teethed (huh?) determination to change. Self-discipline. Get better.

So I made lists.

HAVE QUIET TIME

APOLOGIZE TO BROTHER

JOURNAL

HELP MOM WITH DISHES

READ BIBLE

BUY BEST FRIEND A PACK OF SHOCK TARTS*

Cute? Um no. Actually not. Actually, it makes me cringe to see how I responded – even as a kid – to the deep-down knowledge that I was operating from a place of weakness instead of a place of strength. Formulas. Plans. Decisions. Now I see that for what it is... LAW.

I'm stepping out from under the law and dipping my toe in the vast ocean of Grace that the whole Jesus-on-the-cross thing paved the way to. And it's fantastically freeing. But. I still want to make lists.

Last weekend, my friend Amy spoke some powerful words (you know, the kind that come from The God of the Universe) to me. They were about my true identity, about the version of me that is real because it is how God designed me. She encouraged me to rediscover this part of me, to abandon all the damage in that area and turn my back on all the ish it caused and instead, embrace those aspects of myself which I've shut down and pushed out.

Wow, right? Right! Except for that the crazy list-maker that lives inside my head immediately saw an opportunity to take over and before I knew it, I was responding to those Life Words with a bunch of "to dos".

DO THIS

TONE THIS DOWN

FIX THIS

STOP THAT ALTOGETHER for flip's sake, you stupid...

DO A BIT MORE OF THAT

And that.just.sucks. Because looking at that list puts a bunch of pressure on me, it makes me feel like I have a long hard road ahead of me, a lot of work to do to get myself where I should be. And there is no freedom in that.

Here's the thing. I already am Who I Should Be. That was confirmed as a part of the redemptive work of the cross. It was done, once and for all, by a God who doesn't leave any piece of his work unfinished for me to deal with. I may not be operating out of WISB (I love acronyms) and I may not have been for a long time… or ever. And there may be a lot of junk clouding WISB, and I may have to reclaim WISB (so glad I’m not typing this out each time). But I am WISB. I always have been. And that cannot be reversed, no matter how much damage I've experienced.

So I'm forging ahead with a new approach: Burn the lists (figuratively, of course) and adopt a new "plan" of action... JUST BE. From here on out I'm going to intentionally be WISB. Walk in it, speak from it, believe that my agreement with the truth of WISB will close the gap between who I've been being (huh?) and WISB.

(Okay I’m tired of saying “WISB” now. I think I’ve made my point. The End.)

*My childhood best friend, Emily, and I did in fact consume an alarming amount of these candies.