Hmmmm. . . .

I just realized that I'm really good at keeping a lot of people out.

But then I'm also really good at being too trusting.

I'm my own paradox.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Those were my thoughts during a class of mine. I was sitting there and realized that while I do have several confidants (and levels of confidants within that), I'm also really good at keeping people at an arm's length away from me. I can name a few people off the top of my head that 1) seem like they'd be good confidants and/or 2) have offered to spend more time with me to hang out or get to know me or whatever, but I'm weary of such things with certain people. It scares me to be honest with so many people. It scares me that there are at exactly 4 people on this campus that I see on a regular basis that know parts of my past that most others don't know. But at the same time I'm OK with that; there are 2 guys that know and 2 girls that know and still love me and support me. Granted it's good for people to have someone to confide in, otherwise you'll explode, but other times I feel like maybe I'm too honest. Can you be too honest? I mean I don't tell everyone everything. . . There is 1 person on this campus that knows EVERYTHING. That means she knows probably 2 secrets that others don't. And honestly they're secrets I didn't even want to tell her, but they were part of the series of dots being connected when I told her a bigger secret. 

Anyway. 

I think part of me is scared because I lay my heart out on the table for people and it lays there: bruised, swollen, discolored, and seemingly held together by scotch tape and band-aids, and I don't want them to add to it's already deformed state. I'm being worked on by my Abba, and I know I'm in a restoration process right now, but the whole vulnerability thing still scares me. 

For now, as broken as my heart is, I know that God's cleaning things up and fixing me until I'm who He wanted me to originally be. And hey, I pretty much live by the same sentiment as Brad Davis shared in chapel years ago: "I want to tell stories of my own." 

You can't have good stories without  some good bruising. 

Abba help me to establish my own sort of boundaries. Help me to open up to those who are good enough, and guard my heart at the same time. Help me to not shut down those who don't deserve it. 

"Be confident of this... that He who began a good work in you will carry it on until it's finished and you're completed when Christ Jesus returns." Philippians 1:6