Fractured

God obviously has a sense of humor.  After all, he did create the duck-billed platypus, and the Bible even tells us that The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord ridicules them. (Psalms 2:4)  I’m not sure if God’s sense of humor is sarcastic, witty, dark, or a blend of all the senses of humor.  I do know, though, that the way He deals with me makes me laugh a lot—not always with humor, though.

God is like a really practiced comedian.  His timing is always perfect.  He sends me into the strangest places at the strangest times when I am completely unprepared.  I can almost feel him smiling when He does it.

My mind is a very crowded place.  It’s full of thoughts and fears and second-guessing and if drives me near the edge of insanity.  I find myself just on that precipice quite frequently, barely holding my thoughts and my emotions at bay while they strive to consume me.  It’s miserable and it’s outright overwhelming.

I found myself there again, quite recently, fighting one of those battles in my mind that most people don’t know I’m fighting.  I was very much in my head—I’m there a lot.  I was struggling and contending and trying to figure out God’s plan for my dismay.  I was battling on the verge of hopelessness and helplessness when God did a thing that He seems to do to me quite frequently.

He passed somebody right in front of my eyes.  He brought somebody into my vision who was obviously hurting and in need.  He brought that person to my attention in a way that I couldn’t ignore.  Honestly, I tried to.  I wanted to ignore it.  I was too busy with my own burdens.  I didn’t have space for anyone else’s.

But God grabbed hold of my heart and pointed it directly in this person’s direction.  I could feel that tug there, and I wasn’t allowed to look past it.  I didn’t have that luxury, the luxury of intentional ignorance.  So I stood up and I started walking, walking toward that person, albeit a little begrudgingly.

I’m pretty sure I could feel God smiling, maybe even laughing.  He had taken me out of my funk and pointed me right at someone else’s funk.  It made no sense.  It never makes sense.  But still I found myself closing space.

It was a hard battle and I’m exhausted.  I can feel the emotion creeping in.  I had a shot.  I had a real shot.  I had a chance at gold and missed it.

I was so close.

Tournament days are unpredictable.  Sometimes there are lots of opponents in my bracket, and sometimes there are only a few.  Today was somewhere in the middle—a few but not a bunch.  Every one of them was talented, though.  All of my matches that day were hard matches.  I won a couple, then I fought for first place.

I lost by an advantage.  I hate advantages.

There were several chances to win. I could have done a few things differently.  I was too tentative at the beginning, not motivated enough at the end.  I gave him too much respect.  He’s not better than me, but he was better than me today.

It’s frustrating, if not demoralizing.  I can feel my mind drifting into self-condemnation as it begins to replay all the moments I could have succeeded if I’d only done right.  There had been multiple chances, and I’m frustrated with my performance.  I’m about to start travelling a dark internal path when I hear a voice cut through my self-destructive reverie.

“Joel,” I hear one of my teammates shout.  “I’m up in five minutes.  I need a coach.  Can you come corner me?”

I’m an absolute mess.  I know this about myself.  I spend more time in my head than anybody else, so I’m rather familiar with what goes on in there.

It’s not good.

I struggle every day.  I struggle with my faith, with my behaviors, with my impulses, and even with things as simply complicated as my forward-facing persona.  I’m not the person—or the sort of person—that people seem to think I am.  I am much worse, a whole lot worse.

Everything about me is fractured.  I can’t find a way to seal the cracks back together.  My insecurity and my shame are constantly finding preeminence in my fragile identity—sometimes violently overt and, at other times, so sneakily and diabolically that I don’t notice until it’s too late.

I don’t have anything to offer to anyone else.  I don’t have anything to give.  I’m barely holding on to this hollowed out version of who I’m supposed to be.

Yet God still sends me to the aid of others, despite all my brokenness.  I don’t know why.  It’s a risky proposition.  If I were God I wouldn’t send me to represent Him to anyone.  I’m a terrible representation of God.

I’m not God, even though I like to pretend sometimes, and He seems to think differently than I do.  For some reason He keeps putting me on mission.  I’m a mess and I’m a wreck.  I’m a mere shadow of what I’m supposed to be.  I don’t typically feel like I have all that much to offer.

But God keeps telling me I’m wrong.  His logic makes no sense to a guy like me.

Because God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength.  Brothers, consider your calling: Not many are wise from a human perspective, not many powerful, not many of noble birth.  Instead, God has chosen what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen what is weak in the world to shame the strong. (1 Corinthians 1:25-27) 

I lost two fights in a row.  I had taken a beating during the first loss, but the second one had been close.  I had a good chance to win, but I made a tactical error in the end that cost me the fight.  I do that sometimes.  I make stupid choices that cost me fights.

I was despondent, as is the way of fighters and losing.  Fighters are supposed to be upset about losing, and I was doing what I was supposed to do.  I was being upset.  I was angry at myself and every time I looked in the mirror I was reminded of my failure.  My opponent had left a few marks there, and the sutured laceration on my cheekbone was starting to show signs of healing.  But it wasn’t healed enough that it didn’t remind me of that loss.

I was angry at the referee—he had really messed up a couple of things.  I was angry at my opponent’s coaches—there had been some shenanigans to the way this fight was matched.  I was a little bit angry with my opponent—he had been willing to accept the less-than-honorable terms that his coaches had procured for him.

Mostly, though, I was angry with myself.  For weeks after that fight I would waken with a jolt.  I’m not sure if they were dreams are just the symptoms of an overactive mind.  I would be at work with my mind seemingly elsewhere when the weight of that loss would appear out of nowhere, distracting me from the place where my mind was supposed to be.

At one point, my supervisor (a man who I had a deep love for) approached me and asked, “Joel, are you sure you still want to do this?”

I wasn’t sure.  I was bad at it, apparently.  For as long as I had been training, I should have been better.  I should have been tougher.  My cardio should have been enough.  But it wasn’t.  It wasn’t enough.

As soon as my face was acceptably healed (my doctor was actually annoyed that I started training to soon), I shouldered all of those burdens and drove back to the gym.  I didn’t know what else to do.  I didn’t know where else to go.   I wasn’t sure I wanted to fight anymore, but training was a compulsion to me.

I wandered through the door, into the dressing room, then to ringside with my gear.  I was ready to do whatever was required of me, but I wasn’t feeling great energy.  My despondence had not been willing to let go.

I was staring off into space while I wrapped my hands when I was approached by one of the team’s fighters—by the team’s best fighter.  He was fighting on high-profile cards and had a shot at making it to the most notable stage in the MMA pantheon. 

And he came to me for some reason. 

“Joel,” he said, “I’m putting together a fight camp and I need you there.”

Why? 

It’s a natural question from a guy carrying a couple losses.  Why would he want me in his fight camp?

“This guy is good.  He’s a big deal.  If I beat him I’ve got a title shot for the next one.  I need as many good fighters in my camp as I can get, and you’re one of the best we have.”

Here I am in my own dark place, wrestling with everything about my fractured faith, and God has the audacity to turn my eyes and whisper in my ear, “that person is hurting. Go help them.  God be me to them”

It only proves that God has a strangely twisted sense of humor. 

Who am I?  I have nothing to offer.  I wake up fighting the same demons that accompany me to bed.  I’ve been fighting them for years, and have found little (if any) relief.  And yet God decides something different on my behalf.  He decides to send me to someone else who needs something I have to offer.  I have no idea what I have to offer.

The demons are still there.  It seems like they always are.  But my Creator tells me that we’re going to push them back for a moment.  We’re going to remove them from preeminence and put somebody else’s troubles in their place.

I’m not sure how I’m supposed to do that, but I’m sure I’m supposed to.

God has given the unimaginable honor of representing Him.  He has imparted His image onto me and allowed me a place in His kingdom.  He has given me the privilege of shining His light to others.

Like the man made of dust, so are those who are made of dust; like the heavenly man, so are those who are heavenly.  And just as we have borne the image of the man made of dust, we will also bear the image of the heavenly man. (1 Corinthians 15:48-49) 

I don’t think I know how to be God’s image to someone else.  I’m struggling to trust the image that is God within myself.  I’m the guy crying out for God to come rescue me, and now he wants me to move to rescue someone else.  He is sending my fractured reflection to shine some impure light on someone who needs to see Him—and see Him through me.  I’ll never understand why God would recruit and imperfect reflection like me.

My competition days had come and gone, and I hadn’t made a trip to a cage for years.  I’d never really stopped coaching.  I’d just dialed back my efforts.  I would work with some of the kids and teach an occasional class, but I wasn’t as committed as I had been in the days when I was averaging six days a week on the mats as a teacher.  In some ways it was relieving.  My minimal investment resulted in minimal stress.

One of the aspiring fighters approached me, almost timidly.  “I’m going to fight in two months,” he told me.  “I could use your help.  Would you be able to coach me?”

It’s hard to say no to an appeal of that nature.  Of course I said yes.  And we started working together and was I suddenly remembering the joy of training fighters.  A couple other students started to show up, too. They wanted to learn to fight.  I was having fun.  It was a strangely good time.

But I’m the kind of coach who can’t work from the side of the mats.  I need to be involved.  I started wearing gloves again.  I was jumping in for extended rounds.  It was vitalizing and revitalizing.

Then, with the help of a couple other teammates, I came to the conclusion that I was already putting in the time, so I might as well taste competition again.  I started putting myself back onto the mats and testing myself.

I was texting a tournament director about my registration a few days ago.  I had to fix something because I’d pushed  wrong button somewhere on the form.  He’d know me back in the days when I was actively fighting.

“Got it fixed,” he said.  “And, just so you know, it’s really good to see you back in competition.  It seems like it’s really good for you.”

Yes, it is really good for me.

There is this strange, inexplicable thing that happens to my anxiety and worries when I move toward the pain of others.  It’s not that they decrease or fade—they’re still there waiting for me.  I wish I could say that my service to others was a thing that made my worries disappear, but they don’t.  My anxieties are always lurking at the corners of my mind.  They don’t just go away because I choose to help somebody else.

But when I move into somebody else’s pain, I have to make a choice.  I can’t hold on to my pain while I hold on to somebody else’s.  I just can’t.  It’s not possible to hold both.  Making the choice to embrace another’s struggle is difficult, because I prefer my own fears.  I’m familiar and comfortable with them.  I know them and love to give them space in my mind.  I love to give them attention and focus.  I love to give them my energy and my time.

But when I step outside of my anxiety and into the anxiety of another I am forced, if only for a moment, to deny my personal struggles my personal efforts.  I have to make the choice to focus my efforts into the pain of another.

The lack of air suffocates my anxieties, if only for a moment.

But that doesn’t matter, because when I’m on mission I don’t even notice.  I’m too busy centering my efforts on the wounds of someone else.  I don’t forget my struggles, but for a moment I rob them of oxygen.  They suffocate just a little bit.

Now we who are strong have an obligation to bear the weaknesses of those without strength, and not to please ourselves.  (Romans 15:1) 

The image of God is a weighty burden to bear, and I bear it poorly.  It is a gift that God imparted to me.  He gave me the privilege of Him and told me to go show Him to others.  He shined His glory on to me and told me to shine it on those around me.

I’m a shattered surface.  I’m a broken representation of God’s glory.  I’m fractured and flawed in more ways than even my active imagination could identify.

Still, despite all my fractures, God sends me in his stead.  He sends me to be Him to someone else.  He honors me with His presence so I can be His presence to others.

I don’t know why.

It doesn’t make sense.

I don’t have anything to offer.

I don’t know why God would send me.

But I’m not God, even though I try to be sometimes.

To this day it’s still one of my core memories, a weekend that changed nearly everything about me as a fighter…

I’d signed up for a four-day seminar with one of the most notable fight teams in the world.  I couldn’t afford the seminar, because I didn’t have any money, but a friend had made a deal that included me cleaning the mats before instruction started in lieu of payment.  That was an easy trade.  I was more than willing to trade a little easy labor to train with world champions.

The first session was on a Thursday.  I had the day off.  I went in and cleaned the mats about an hour before things got started.  They were fully sanitized when instruction began.

The first session lasted more than three hours, and it was really good.  The material blew my mind.  It made sense to my body.  I logged repetitions and assimilated concepts that I hadn’t considered before.  When the night ended my brain was full of new ideas and I was satisfied with my attendance—especially considering the cost I paid for admission.

I was walking toward the locker room when I felt a tap on my shoulder.  I turned to see one of the fighters who had been teaching the seminar standing there.  He was a heavyweight champion in the (at the time) second-largest MMA promotion on the planet.

“You come spar?” he waved me over.  “Come spar with me?”

The seminar was over for the night, but he wanted to get some rounds in.  He was a whole lot bigger than me and whole lot better than me, but I absolutely was not going to so no to the chance to spar with a world champion.  So, I sparred with him for almost an hour.

He destroyed me at every turn.  He proved how much better he was.  I gave him everything I had to offer, but I couldn’t even touch him.  I was having fun, but I couldn’t imagine he was.  He mopped the mats with me for about an hour while everyone watched.

When our time was finished I thanked him profusely for his time and turned to walk away.  I’d made a few steps when I felt another tap on my shoulder.  I turned to see the literal heavyweight champion of the world standing there.  He had taught the majority of the seminar that night.

“That guy says you have a good guard,” he said, pointing his teammate.  “You come spar with me now?  We all have fights coming and we need to spar.  We’re travelling and it’s hard to find good sparring partners.  We’d like you to train with us after the seminar every day this weekend, if you’d be willing.”

How could I turn down the chance to train with world champions?  Of course I said I would.  They were all bigger, better, and stronger than me, but I was going to give them the best I could.  I didn’t think I had much to offer, but they seemed to think that I did, so, of course, I was going to give them my energy.

Despite my imperfections, I was going to help.

We all, with unveiled faces, are looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory; this is from the Lord who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18)