Why Will You Finish?

On the shield we wear, the work we make, and the practice of being seen.

When I tell people I cry at least once a day, they look at me with surprise. Sometimes shock. Sometimes concern. I know what they are responding to. They have only met one of me. The one who is warm but somewhat unreachable. Confident. Unfazed by things. They have not met the Nicole who weeps.

Yesterday, on a Zoom call with a friend helping me on a project, I cried. I had been fine before it happened. Then she asked one simple question, and it unraveled me. There are questions that ask, and there are questions that find you. Hers found me.

I did not want to cry in front of her. Even with a screen between us, a digital shield of sorts, I knew that by crying she would see me. Not my presentation. What lies underneath. And what lies underneath is what I have spent my life keeping out of view.

So why is this such an uncomfortable thought for someone who cries at least once a day? Because I cry in secret. In my hiding place. I cry to God. I bring him my burdens. And even when I am not, even when I am only singing a simple praise song, I find myself weeping. Open. Completely. No shield. Just me, and the baby I actually am.

In that place, I am not a woman of thirty eight with a list of accomplishments. I am a sheep. Often lost. Grateful when the shepherd comes to find me again, brings me back to the fold, nurses me back to health, sets me in the direction he intended. Before God, I am not a person with a resume. I am a creature with a need.

I wonder what would happen if I came into the world like that sheep instead of presenting like something bigger. Perhaps the life I am chasing is the one I am hiding from.

I am a work in progress, as we all are. And I wonder if that shield, the one I wear into rooms and onto Zoom calls, is the same shield that keeps creativity from reaching me. We cannot create from behind armor. We harden. We replace wonder with process. We turn the playground into a project. And we lose the essence.

On the call, my friend pulled up slides on how she would guide me through this season. The first slide showed a coach and a basketball player. The coach was shouting, probably telling the player what to do, how to play, how not to lose. The second slide was a life coach. Simply listening. A very different approach. She told me she would be the second. Even if what I thought I needed was the first.

It is funny how we forget what we preach. How we become what we hate without realizing it. We hand the whip to the hand that should be holding our own. Because I wanted an outcome, a result, a product, evidence of my creativity in my hands, I had forgotten the spiritual part. The practice. The wonder. The fun. The play. The light. I wanted her to be the basketball coach, shouting at me until I got it done. But how harmful that would have been. I would have resented the process. Resented her. Lost the essence of why.

Is the why the outcome? Or is the why obedience?

When the why is the outcome, every obstacle is a failure. When the why is obedience, every obstacle is the road.

I am in a season of significant change. From the outside, it looks the same. But nothing is. Friendships have shifted. My relationship with God has deepened. I have leaned into community more than I ever have. A few days ago, I woke up and felt the Holy Spirit say something so clear, in direct opposition to the negative thoughts I had been carrying about my future. I knew he had more space to speak to me now. Now that I was not as distracted. Now that I was starting to be in real relationship. God is not quiet. We are loud.

A painting of me by David Olatoye.

Then things began to fall into place. Helpers sprang up. Time opened. Distractions slipped away. I knew I needed to take the moment and move with momentum. But I am also tired. The tiredness of waiting. Of not seeing. So I am holding on to that whisper. To hope. And I am making an active effort to show that I believe, because belief is not what you say. Belief is what gets you out of bed. It recognizes the tiredness but knows that rest is not surrender. Rest is the other half of motion. When you are recharged, you go again. And when you arrive, the suffering, the obstacles, the everything will be proof of His glory.

It is impossible for me to separate the presence of God from the practice of creativity.

Impossible, because I realize now that all I have is because of him. The question my friend asked that unraveled me was simple. Why will you finish this time? And I said, because of God’s grace. I could not tell her I would finish because I was more disciplined. I could not tell her I would finish because of all this creativity. I told her I would finish because God was going to help me. Because I am not my own.

And so I cried. I let her see my cracks. Not the finished, polished version of me. Just me. A girl, her realisation and her freedom.

xoxo,

N.