Jesus, My Coping Mechanism

Ever since I have gone back to school (if that’s what you can call dropping everything I thought I was going to do and switching majors and schools) for counseling, I have unearthed things I had never meant to.  There is something about putting your ‘all’ into a matter that makes things come alive to you.  I truly think that I have found my niche and that this is what I was created for, because I can’t help but let it consume my thought life.  Mix that with the supernatural events that have been occurring and you have a neon blinking light that says “Jordan Lee, Go This Way!”

But what is truly interesting about this whole thing is the fact that in the process, I have begun to see what I am studying portrayed in the actual people in my life…namely, myself.  For example, in the midst of a conversation with my friend, Olivia, the other day, I realize that I was, through the course of conversation, deflecting.  So I said it: “I’m deflecting now.”  Thank God that I have friends like Olivia who can deal with me during my self-discovery and understand that I am a verbal processor and some of the things I say are in complete rhetoric.  But it is events like this that are just a byproduct of what I am ‘filling’ myself with, if you will.  In that same conversation, I started seeing not only the fact that I was deflecting in that scenario, but that I deflect in many settings in my life this same way.  It’s a coping mechanism.

Avoidance and conversion are my two mechanisms of choice, with a particular specialty in rationalism.  I don’t like to handle something I perceive to be outside of my own values or tolerance so I avoid the issue altogether, or converge it into something else in order to make it digestible, and then rationalize it on the way down.  Furthermore, as I am noticing this about myself, I realize that a coping mechanism doesn’t actually benefit you in any way.  It, in fact, creates the pretense that the issue I am facing is dealt with, or more importantly, never coming back, but yet it always does.  Unless you actually face the issue that is staring you down, all the coping mechanism really does is delay your confrontation for a while.  You see, herein lies the problem: now the power of my coping mechanism is unveiled.  I feel like Dorothy unveiling the Wizard of Oz…it’s all smoke and mirrors and altogether disappointing.  It’s like my conversation with Olivia, the power of deflecting is rendered powerless to deviate me from the issue when I see it for what it is: the prolonging of that issue that I didn’t want to face in the first place.

How then, am I to cope? If my coping mechanisms no longer work to deter me from the stress of facing the issue, which I deem to be intolerable, how then can I ever manage?  The answer?  Jesus.  The Bible says that He died to take all of my cares and burdens and in turn replaced it with His load that is easy and light… manageable, tolerable, digestible.

I am not going to lie, the mechanisms I’ve implemented and practiced for so long aren’t going to just disappear like a cheap magic trick.  I have to learn to spot and disarm them when I see them, and that takes time.  But the greatest thing about my discovery is the point of this whole article – I don’t have to be alone while doing it.  I don’t have to go searching for these issues and exterminate them one by one like some freak Freudian self-help book would have you do.  The Holy Spirit, who knows me better than I know myself, will do it with me.  He’ll be diligent to spot things when I am not, and He will be the one to give me the grace to overcome them. Then He will show it to me in doses I can tolerate until the problem is actually extinguished.

I’ve rearmed myself...locked and loaded.  Now, when something comes up that I don’t want to deal with or don’t think I have the capacity to deal with, I’m going to stick the Name of Jesus in front of me and let Him deal with it, which works out nicely for me.  I guess you could say it’s deflecting 2.0, although there is nothing about this new software download that prolongs my issues – just deals with them because it won’t pretend to make my problems disappear, they actually will.

Until next time, I’m upgraded and integrating…