Discouragement is something that affects everyone. No person of a specific race, gender, orientation, religion or philosophy is exempt from feeling crushing angst while pouting around an empty living space. Thus, when someone inevitably encounters a discouraged friend, they try various ways of making them feel better, be it in the form of kind words, alternative activities, or listening.
In the Christian culture I have been a part of for the past six years, one refrain always stands out to me. It is common in those times of great discouragement and struggle to hear the phrase (or something akin to it), "If you are struggling a lot now, it is only because God has something great prepared for you." This also takes the form of, "Satan isn't going to attack you so much unless God has something big planned for your life."
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If you are not a Christian, you may have heard some kind of an equivalent.
Now, I am not saying that these statements are without help or use. I know a lot of people to whom they've been a great encouragement. I am also not saying they are untrue. At the very least, the statements pertaining to Christianity draw on Scripture passages such as 1 Corinthians 2:9 and Romans 8:28. I affirm the truth of those.
As for their secular equivalents, humans are capable of some amazing things, and often our heroes have achieved those amazing things amidst intense hardship (George Washington, Vincent Van Gogh, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King Jr., just to name a few).
Nonetheless, these statements meant to be encouraging, often mean trouble for me.
As someone with abounding struggles with addiction, mental illness, sickness and shame, I have often heard those kinds of phrases. They did, and do, help me for a time, especially to help me realize once again that I have a purpose.
Afterwards, however, they start to weave themselves into my thought patterns and suddenly, I am the college senior unable to decide between post-undergrad options because I don't feel as if the things I want to do are significant, and the things I think are significant are not the things I want to do.
I am not saying this is a normal experience. One of my professors once explained to the class about a girl who constantly received compliments regarding her appearance, which actually exacerbated an eating disorder because of the standard she felt she had to live up to. Perhaps my experience is not normal—really, I don't have the data to prove either way—but it is my experience.
As I continue to venture out into the future, one of the places I am daring to go in my mind is a radical place of self-confidence and trust in God—not others.
At the end of the day, their words come from kind, but limited hearts. Their phrases are sentences, and not prophesies. I don't have to live up to the standard set by them, because, really, they are not the ones who get to set the standards.
It is hard getting to that place of confidence and acceptance. It is even more difficult to stay there. But, for now, I am getting used to the idea that I don't have to keep trying to do amazing things—I can follow God with what I have and let Him decide what He wants to make of it, however big or small.
