Beware of Orange Barrels…

When I was in college I had a crazy dream.  In the dream I was in the main library and everyone was staring at me.  I looked down and realized I was totally naked!!!  Naturally this made me VERY uncomfortable; I frantically looked for something to cover myself with.  There was nothing in the library, so with infinite dream wisdom (haha) I ran OUTSIDE where a road construction crew – all men, were working on the road.  When they saw a naked co-ed running down the street naked they did what all normal men would do, they stopped working and watched!!  As I stood there in a panic I noticed about half a block down the street there was a blanket laying on a bench.  Immediately in front of me there was a cumbersome orange construction barrel.  In that moment I had to decide if I should endure one more minute of embarrassment and run for the blanket, OR if I should hop into the cumbersome orange barrel.

One option would cover me immediately and make me feel better NOW.  The other would require a few more moments of discomfort, but would ultimately allow for ease of movement and not cause any chaffing between point A and point B.

Naturally, I chose the barrel…

The dream ended with me very awkwardly lugging a giant orange construction barrel around, smashing my toes every time I stopped…  Sore arms… Skin, raw from the fiberglass…  But hey!  At least I wasn’t naked anymore, right??  So much better than a blanket…………

That is exactly what we do in life.  We rush to cover up our mess and end up with something that is not ideal.  That concept covers every area of our life.  You feel raw after a bad relationships so you rush the healing and dive for the first man that pays you any attention – he is an orange barrel.  You are overweight and you know that you need to workout but you had a really stressful day so instead of taking a walk to de-stress you grab a bag of chips and plop on the couch – food is an orange barrel.   You never learned coping skills and have a toxic relationship with your mother, you used to lean on the high certain drugs gave you to numb the emotions long enough to tolerate her, but this time she was too much, so you went ahead and took the pills – drugs are an orange barrel. We are faced with putting in the work to heal and cover ourselves the right way,  (through honest assessment, acceptance of how we are contributing to the problem, hard work to re-wire mindsets, and insisting on healthy boundaries with ourselves and others), or dive head first into whatever situation makes us feel better in that moment, ultimately distracting ourselves from healing…

Being vulnerable scares us, we don’t like the core of who we are to be left out in the open and most of the time we are willing to do whatever to feel better NOW – even if it means it will cause us more pain in the long run.  We worry that our raw nakedness is ugly.  We don’t want people to see that!

What if people seeing our nakedness is the only real way to truly cover ourselves properly?  There is something deeply healing and therapeutic when you allow people to see you, when you stand there and say yep!  This is me.  Emotional stretchmarks, psychological cellulite and all!  You don’t necessarily need to stand naked in front of the emotional equivalent of an entire road construction crew…  But finding someone that you let in is crucial.

I encourage you, instead of diving into the closest barrel, find community!  Be honest with someone who will love you and encourage you to walk down the mental, emotional, and spiritual streets of your life “naked” for just a few more steps!  Those relationships will lend themselves to true healing and you will end up wrapped in a blanket of wellness that will better serve you than whatever quick fix to emotional wellness that you find laying around.  And maybe, just maybe, that community will bring the blanket to you and you won’t be naked for nearly as long as you thought!

Definitely beats squashed toes and a fiberglass rash that comes from an orange barrel…

James 5:16 – 16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

Hebrews 10:24-25 – 24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, 25 not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another