Inconsistent

On being a person who doesn't know everything (although I act like I do)

Content warning—religious/scrupulosity intrusive thoughts

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I am a current leader in my church. I take my kids on Sunday. I especially love the mom’s group. 

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A decade ago, in the midst of despair, I heard God whisper (or so I thought), a new word over my life: encourager. Since then I’ve become a teacher, a mother, an OCD coach. 

Encourager seems fitting. Did God bring me here?

I share my words, my story, my intrusive thoughts, and I’m met with whispered confessions and recognition: me too. 

A friend says my work is helpful. Another says it resonates. Does it resonate too much? Are we the same? 

“I’m asking my therapist about OCD.”

“Do you think you could coach me, too?”

“Tell me more.”

Did God bring us together? 

Did God let us suffer alone? 

I step into a river of momentum–my story, my skills, even my unabashed honesty, my willingness to name and write and share feels purposeful. 

A decade ago, in the midst of despair, I heard God whisper (or so I thought): I don’t want to fix you, I want to love you. I struggled for years with a treatable disorder. 

For such a time as this? If God’s here now, where was she then? 

Where was God when I was consumed with listing, naming, evaluating, reviewing, replaying, repenting of my every sin? 

When a known fault felt safer than a surprise mistake. When reassurance of God’s love made the onslaught worse. When affirmations only sparked the question, What if I’m worse than I know? What if I have secret sin waiting to jump out and assault me?  And I can’t repent because I missed it and what if that’s a sin, too? 

Better to stay hypervigilant. Better to stay in a safe prison of self-punishment than to risk an unknown sin. 

God?

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I criticize the Sunday school of my upbringing, but I don’t ask my children’s Sunday school teachers now how they talk about Easter, about sin, about death and resurrection, or why good Friday was good. 

I just send my kids back and hope no damage is done. 

From the pulpit, my pastor says, “I may be getting this wrong.”

I exhale the breath that I’ve been holding in. I cling to that humility. Maybe we’ll be okay here.

I cannot inoculate my children from shame, from perfectionism, from the disorder patterned in our DNA. 

What can I do? 

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“Can I whisper something in your ear?” my four-year-old asks at bedtime. “Am I going to die?”

Tears prick at my eyes and I try my best to steady my voice. 

“Yes, baby,” I say. “I know it’s really hard to think about, but yes.” 

I want to reassure her about Heaven. I want to tell her God is in control. I want my certainty to spill onto her, but all I have are questions. I squeeze her tighter instead. 

“Can you whisper to God to make me not die?” she pleads. 

“Yes, baby,” I answer before I sing her to sleep. 

***

Our six-year-old throws up in our bed in the early hours of Easter morning.  When he wakes still feverish and pitiful, I think about the service I don’t have to attend, the questions I don’t have to ask or answer. I press a cold washcloth to his forehead, and I breathe a sigh of relief. 

***

In the obsessive-compulsive cycle, reassurance can be a compulsion. Even self-reassurance. I so badly want to know that I’ve made the right choice. That all of my actions align with my values. That I’m not a hypocrite. Sometimes I’m scared I care more about convincing myself I’m a good parent than I actually care about my kids’ wellbeing. (I can treat that like an OCD thought too and reply “Maybe.”). While reassurance can fuel the cycle, I allow myself some affirmations, some reframing. 

I am a human. 

I am a person who’s allowed to be inconsistent. To not have it all figured out. I am a person who’s allowed to not know everything. 

I am a person. Just a person. 

Inconsistent.