I Can’t
Now and then when I pass by a mirror I take a quick look back, sure I’d just seen my own eyes stare out from the shadows in that dark, hollow sort of way. The one that usually comes with a craggy finger that seems to lunge through the glass and jab me in the arm, wanting to remind me of some big pile of poo I thought had already been burned for fuel last winter.
I hadn’t seen those dead eyes in a while, leastwise not when I’d taken the second glance.
But it seems this week they started to leer at me again, just in a little different way. This time they had a little glint to them, and the taunting lips had an expanded vocabulary.
It took just one new word to hang me upside-down from my ankles.
Inept.
I’ve spent the last week drowning in the sea of my own incompetence.
And I don’t know if they can throw a big enough donut from the ship to rescue a person from that.
::
These are uncharted waters for me, ineptitude. I’m unacquainted with incompetence.
Now, before you denounce me as a delusional, arrogant fool with no grasp of my own abilities, understand this: The floodwaters that are ineptitude are not unfamiliar because I believe myself to be outstanding at everything in the world. It’s simply because I focus my efforts.
I only attempt what I already know I can do.
My mom and dad can probably tell you stories of all the things I refused to do as a child until I was convinced I could do it successfully on the first try.
I’ll save them the trouble: When I was four, I broke my collarbone pitching myself off the back steps while I hollered and beat on the door for someone to come open it.
Twice.
I hadn’t mastered the use of a doorknob yet.
Because I hadn’t tried.
Because I wasn’t sure.
Seems bone on concrete, hospital visits, shoulder braces and a lot of pain appeared preferable to failing.
At doorknobs.
So believe me, I harbor no illusions about my abilities.
I just don’t explore that which is uncertain.
Careful selection allows me to appear and feel competent by not ever exposing myself to the opportunity to be inept.
Until now.
::
I spent this week well beyond myself, stretched far past my limits. I was asked to do what was unfamiliar. And what was familiar, I was asked to do in a radically different way that provoked all my neuroses at once.
At times I dangled head-first over an empty well, held only by a frayed rope looped over a dead tree branch. I’m sure there were snakes and scorpions at the bottom.
And I could hear the termites chewing that branch.
With all the blood collected in my now-throbbing head, I choked out the words I never say:
I can’t.
But I always can. Somehow, some way, I can. If I didn’t know I could, I wouldn’t have been in that situation in the first place. I would have said I won’t long before it came time to say I can’t.
So with my proclamation of I Can’t defeat, I fell into a heap and waited for the scorpions to sting.
::
I experienced some unpleasant self-discovery this week in the midst of this dawn of my incompetence.
At the same time, I stumbled onto something rather remarkable.
I thought so, anyway.
I don’t feel anxious much.
At least not beyond that just-enough-to-keep-you-moving kind. (No worries, I have plenty of other issues to compensate for only low-grade anxiety.) But these salty waves of ineptitude, this admission of I can’t, in the face of what still must be completed competent or not, it undid me. And as suddenly as the lifeboat revved up and zipped away, I gave myself over fully to anxiety.
Fully.
And aside of being anxious seeming a lot like posting a billboard to announce I don’t quite trust You, God, I thought perhaps I understood why He discourages it so.
Because as soon as I reach my hand out to anxiety, anxiety owns me. Anxiety becomes my master.
A friend observed me under anxiety’s spell this week. Might have been the way I snapped at everyone. Or shut down completely. Or failed to think about anything but what I could not do.
Or perhaps she’s just wise and observant.
In her quiet way, at three minutes to ten one night when I was preparing for a long day on the road, trapped in a car with the body odor of these new twin companions, Incompetence and Anxiety, she sent me an email.
It was brief. Hotmail’s footer was longer.
Just this: Isaiah 26:3-4, she said.
I looked it up. I know better than to ignore her wisdom.
About the time I thought I was losing my mind, I was reminded of One who always keeps His wits about Him. And it looked like He could keep mine too.
You keep him in perfect peace
whose mind is stayed on you,
because he trusts in you.
Trust in the LORD forever,
for the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock. (ESV)
Perfect peace.
Captured mind.
An everlasting rock.
Never once did He tell me to quit. Never once did He tell me I had to do it right. Never once did He tell me to focus obsessively on the thing that caused such turbulence in my belly.
Trust in the Lord. That was all.
Think about Me, He said. Not about all you can and cannot do. Just Me.
I’m still not sure I can do it, this thing I’m trying to do. I still bite off I Can’t as though it’s a criminal act. But I have concluded I’m going to live.
I figure, I’m going to fix my mind on something.
It might just as well be an everlasting rock.
:: ::: ::
Photo: Broken Mirror 3 by Kat Jackson via Stock.xchng
Lyla, Honestly it’s hard for me to see any “I Can’t” in you. Seems you do so much, so well.
This really spoke to me. I find myself in those words of I CAN”T alongside the monster called PERFECTIONISM.
Great post, Lyla. I appreciate your willingness to open the, um, iron door and share more and more of your own life in this space. (That in itself can cause a bit of anxiety.) It’s a joy to learn and grow from you and your experiences, my friend. You are an extraordinary human being.
2010/06/04 at 8:36 AM
Lyla, I heard a lot of “I can’t, Mom” or “I can do it next year when I’m 5…or whatever age”!!! You amaze me with your “Can Dos”. I never imagined you’d be on rooftops with your son on the job with you. I never imagined you’d write a such a touchingblog about Adrian that would get so many responses. You have outdone yourself and proved you are a “Can Do”. You are “precious” in my sight…
2010/06/04 at 9:04 AM
“It might as well…” He is almost always the last thing I seek too, the logical End of my own fight to be “ept.”
I hope you weren’t hurt too much when you fell.
A friend of mine told a friend this weekend something that I can’t forget: “When you’re afraid, walk into the fear.” For me, that means walking into Him.
You go, girl. With the living thing. It’s a good thing.
2010/06/04 at 9:20 AM
Ah, Jennifer, there is really so much I cannot do. I prefer, though, the opportunity to be proactive and say “I won’t” rather than “I can’t.” Like nobody can see through that… I really need to get myself back to Ruth so I can stop cracking that door open, I suppose. But she has me swimming.
Mom, who’d have thought I’d even learn how to tie my shoes. Thanks for making me.
Kelly, not really hurt, and I’m not sure what’s even really driving this thing. Been climbing for a while and just hit the wall on it this week with having to do things differently — and then do the afterwork differently. It’s wrecked me, this “I can’t,” but He can. I know He can. I appreciate this thought on fear — also not something that normally I encounter (through careful selection again). But to choose walking into it draws deeper into that trust. He’s worthy of it. Why do I forget?
2010/06/04 at 9:43 AM
the word donut has been in sever post i have read today.
just thought i would throw that out there…
the doorknob thing… man, i think we can all relate to that.
love that story.
2010/06/04 at 11:43 AM
Lyla,
This post hit home – hard. How I have struggled with anxiety this past week – big time. More than I have in about 6 months… which is the longest stretch of no panic attacks I have had in years. I have been sick to my stomach almost every day this week.
I am going to “borrow” those verses from your friend as my scripture memory for the next 2 weeks or so…… I need to fix my mind on Him and trust Him.
I will write more about why eventually on my blog (probably not tonight as I am just starting to work it out) but suffice it to say, your post here spoke volumes to me!
I don’t avoid saying I can’t by saying I won’t…. I avoid saying “I won’t” by saying “I can’t.” I talk myself out of whatever is hard…. “I can’t get through this day, I can’t do this job, I can’t be a good mom….” and where does it get me? Keeps me from trying to get through the day, trying the job, or attempting to try to be a good mom…. and we have horrible days all around here.
If I say I can’t deal with the emotions I am going through, then I stuff them and never face them and then the come back up later and really bite me.
Thank you again for these thoughts. You’re right, when you give way to the anxiety, it owns you and becomes your master…. fear has held me stalled and silent for far too long, but even trying to break through it causes more fear and anxiety, because really if you can get through them at least in one specific area, it doesn’t have that hold there any more, and any holds it has anywhere else on your life are loosened as well.
Heather
2010/06/04 at 8:58 PM
nAncY, I like donuts. I should find those other posts.
Heather, this is what I’m hearing Him say: Think of Me. Really, when I see it like that, it’s not such a hard thing. Think of Me. Fill your thoughts with thoughts of Me. Those are good thoughts.
2010/06/04 at 10:13 PM
I did some of that this morning – gonna go shower off the half of my new garden that I am covered in and settle into my “God spot” to meet with Him some more and think more thoughts of Him. As I poured out my heart to Him during the early afternoon today, I found myself settling in better to the day. Less tense, less fearful….. and you are right, those are good thoughts, to think of Him.
“think of Me. Fill your thoughts with thoughts of Me.”
I like that.
I like that a lot.
2010/06/04 at 10:18 PM
Anxiety…I had no idea how much control it had of me until this past year when all my crutches got pulled away. There is such a freedom in letting go and trusting. When you realize how big and capable He really is it stuns you. I like those verses…I also like the song Blessed Be the Name of The Lord…my “mantra” has been “Still I choose to say Blessed Be The Name fo the Lord.” You have seen me post that repeatedly on facebook. He is making that my reality…Hanging over the well on a termite ridden branch and a fraying rope stinks and yet sometimes we need to be put there to be shown where we really are at. God’s light rarely shines on the pretty parts of us (are there any?) But you can know when he does that He is working on you and you are growing. That is a good sign. Thanks for sharing your struggle this week…obviously it touched many of us again.
2010/06/05 at 6:01 PM
Those crutches, I sure might not like it much, but I know I’m far better off without them. Forces me to trust Him more, which is always a good thing.
And thankfully, His light shines Jesus — on us, in us, out of us.
2010/06/06 at 12:07 AM
Sometimes, I find my “I can’t” means “I can’t do it as well as someone else.” I might can get the job done, but it won’t be up to my expectations…yet God called me to “do,” not to measure up what I think. I love your honesty here because I understand this anxiety.
2010/06/06 at 5:44 PM
It might as well be. Why, yes! That made me smile.
2010/06/07 at 9:47 AM
Oh, I know that craggy finger that “lunges through the glass.” Really good post.
2010/06/10 at 5:27 PM