When I was younger, I used to reach the end of my rope, despair, distress, collapse, can’t take it anymore, give up hope, snap, fall apart, and crumble. Little did I know at the time, that is actually very wise and healthy. Naturally I didn’t see it that way, I perceived it as yet another epic fail on my part.
The thing is, another word for “crumbling” is actually surrender. A big part of faith is learning to let go and let God. When we can surrender all, submit to Him, things just have a way of working themselves out.
I can laugh at my younger self for not seeing it, for being a bit blind, short-sighted, but I would go right to God in complete despair, and usually anger and frustration and say, that’s it, I quit, you fix it or let it all fall apart. Makes no difference to me, I’m done.
And the Lord would just say, Finally! What took you so long?
I would of course, collapse over a series of trifles. Yes, complete trifles, but it didn’t feel like it at the time. Car won’t start, kids painted the carpet with nail polish, power bill bounced. Little did I know that crumbling, falling apart, collapsing at the foot of a King, having a complete breakdown, was actually preparing me for those times when it wasn’t going to be about trifles at all.
Crumbling is power, crumbling is strength, crumbling is perseverance. When we are weak, He is strong. When we can let go, God can take over.
I mention this because I bumped into a couple of girls doing just what I had once done, beating themselves up for falling apart, telling one another to be strong, and I so wanted to say, No! Be weak! Collapse early and often! Go to the foot of the King in complete hysterics, regularly! But of course that all sounds rather cray-cray in today’s world.
What kind of a woman runs about trying to tell her sisters to embrace their weakness, to glorify in their softness, to nourish complete dependence on the Lord?
“Strength through weakness,” sounds like something out of a George Orwell novel. It just flies in the face of today’s culture of self-esteem, of strong, empowered women who can do anything. I feel like a bit of a wet blanket saying, no you can’t! Don’t be ridiculous! Don’t be deceived. The world will just crush you. You will wind up looking like piece of road pizza or a Flat Stanley. The world will take you down and take you out. You will be smooshed, you will be like a noodle going through a pasta machine.
In the name of all that is good and golden, do not even try to lean into your own strength! I’m chuckling here because I come from a time where that wisdom was still known or at least whispered somewhere in the shadows. Today everybody must be a winner, women especially, almost possessing super human strength. Sometimes in the churchian world we’re also “supposed to be” blessed, fine, rejoicing in the struggle, and looking good while doing it, too!
I’d like to pause and thank the Lord for always making sure I’m looking good in the midst of the hurricane, because that part is totally true! Mostly true. Just kidding. My favorite is when my hair has been sticking straight up and the sweater I snatched out of the dryer unbeknown to me, has a pair of undies stuck to the back of it.
A bit funny, but humility is also strength, because pride will just wear you down.
So, 3 cheers for the practice of surrender, of falling apart, of crumbling. Women especially, have incredible resilience, endurance, in part because we are more flexible, because we can bend like the willow tree when storms hit. Willows seldom ever break in the wind, and if they do they just reroot themselves before you can even get out there to pick the darn branches up.
To “crumble” is actually to just hold your hands up like the branches of a willow tree and to surrender all to the wind. It is not an epic fail at all, it is our design. Often we have to come undone in order for Him to come inside.
It’s actually the Apostle Paul who really celebrates this truth, who teaches us, “But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
See, there's this thing called biology... 
This is a touchy subject for me, personally, because this kinda touches on the one moment in my life when I was at my lowest and turned to God and felt denied. Some on the dark side might have jumped at the chance to lure me on board and become a stormtrooper. But, I sucked it up, picked myself up and said I have to keep on going only because I cannot do myself in like these scary other folks are doing. As with any time I felt abandoned by a friend, I had to get over it and figure out the next step. I’m not good with figuring out steps without directions. So, I just picked a direction and started walking, stumbling for a while. I wander the deserts and the filthy streets filled with lost souls who I stop to chat with for a while. I lift people up where I can and tear more down than I care to count just by opening my mouth.
I try not to fall so far or hard as I did back when. I fight to stay afloat and not surrender in hopes of some angel saving me. I keep in touch with the higher power(s) sort of like a pen pal. I should probably keep the details between me and the on high.
I look at life like this. If someone wants to wipe me out, it will happen when it happens. Until then, I do what I can to brighten lives, interact with good people where I can find them, and hope I don’t tarnish them. I have plenty of doubts and questions about this life. And, I really should do what I can to put them out of my mind, cast off expectations and hopes and focus on the long road ahead, thinking of life like some Michael Landon or Bill Bixby series in which I keep moving with little on my back and moving though lands and lives, helping where I can. [Not that I’ll pack up and become a hitchhiker today or tomorrow, but…]
I think what you are getting at is actually humility before the presence of a higher power. If the power is noble and benevolent, your humility earns respect and sympathy. Through humble crumbling at the mercy of a good power, you find their strength at your side.
If the power is corrupt and sinister, you become a pawn but don’t know it. You follow a road map to self-destruction and slavery, and abuse. You think you’re just doing what is available. Years later, you may dismiss being part of some corrupt business because you earned stardom and want to stay in the light. But, you were played, once, if not still.
Yes, it does sound crazy to tell someone to crumble. Yet, a healthy cry on a sympathetic shoulder is cathartic like a healing rain. It’s the lack of sympathetic shoulders that contributes to harbored pain and swollen dams ready to flood and destroy. But, don’t crumble so completely that you self-destruct. That’s key. Suicide will not likely be spared by the person on the side of the road or rooftop like in movies. Did anyone save Robin Williams or Chester Bennington when they crumbled? Who caught their tears or pulled them up from the ashes of despair?
I might sound like I’ve lost my faith or given up on God. But, I’d rather say, as I did, we’re just different friends now. And, being a guy who’s still open to “anything is possible,” I keep my eyes and ears open for the cosmic signs that cannot be explained any other way than something from another plain. There is a higher power. It’s just still unclear who’s running the show and how. I’d rather do what feels right than play a game as those in places of earthbound power tell me as those rules fluctuate too often and often rub me the wrong way. So, I do what I must to get by and get along but keep my ears open for other guidance.
If giving everything to God was the way, then I think I should have had more help that day. Not seen my parents walk away or those in charge treat me like a prisoner. And, that pitch about “God helps those who help themselves” would be utter rubbish because you’re letting God do the work. Maybe God is like a long distance relationship partner for everyone, and we have to pick up half the slack, half the tab. He/She expects us to go Dutch but just isn’t the best at communication with his/her partner. Isn’t that human? And, we were made in his/her image. So… You do the math. 🙂
Even if I did lose my faith, it’s just a bump in the road. He/She will know if I’ll rebound, if I’ll return to the church the way I was as a kid or if I’ll be the next poster face of self-destruction and tragedy. Who knows. I just do what I can to stay in the light, not necessarily the spotlight.
I think it’s hard to tell women what to do at this time. You’re right when you say building them up too high will just result in them getting torn down. Again, I hear Linkin Park, that song about building it up and breaking it down. That’s the cycle of this commercially driven, evil illusion prevalent in our world. It’s deceptive and unsettling and makes people question faith and benevolent guidance; it makes them question schooling and career paths. Yet, we can’t tell women to stay meek and weak or fail gloriously because men are just as capable of gaining ever more speed, strength and ego over them. They’ve been at it a long time, now. [I say this as a man who feels as much a woman without the mindset that I need a sex change or to look like a woman. I just feel…half-and-half, somewhat even or balanced with past life possibilities I’ll save for another discussion. 🙂 ]
We need to bolster anyone who’s feeling repressed or suppressed if we are to all be thriving and equal. But, if we are just another animal species worth no more than the sparrows in the bush, then it’s truly survival of the fittest, and you’d better watch out for yourself as the stampedes come and go so you don’t get trampled. Find food and shelter and hold out; find a mate, make babies and keep the family tree going. Or, be the good Samaritan and serve your fellow humans as well as you can without being a slave or soldier of someone else’s fortune.
Okay, I just need to stop talking cuz I am on fire with thought! 🙂 Crumbler out.
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I love this comment, writingbolt. Well done. You are on fire, but you’re on fire with some good stuff.
“But, don’t crumble so completely that you self-destruct. That’s key.”
Indeed. I think however, those major crashes can be prevented by crumbling sooner and more often. One thing that worries me is that in a society of winners and of fame, like Robin Williams had, there is little room to be weak. People find themselves surrounded by others trying to build them up and piggyback off of their success. I wish Robin had someone in his life to say, “listen in spite of what the world is saying about you, you’re actually bloody pathetic, depression, divorce, drugs, alcohol, suicide. You need to surrender all and invite the Lord in.”
It’s kind of sad, I think if you have something everyone wants a piece of, it’s unlikely anyone would ever speak the truth to you.
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Possibly. But, again, how do you ensure the average person or every person can give themselves to such safe crashes like regular exercise. Some can’t wrap their heads around exercise. Some who do exercise regularly can’t wrap their heads around slowing down and sitting still for an hour. I begin to think as humans we are just prone to be off-balance and are tortured like Sisyphus by convincing ourselves we have to stretch the taut rubber band of fate toward balance.
All other people aside, I don’t have the support system to catch me when I crash. As I said, when I let go utterly and turned to God for a way out of the pit, I felt I got a slap in the face and, even if God did give me some kind of righteous fury to fight back to the living, I didn’t feel like a kind heavenly hand shown some light on my path. It was a very grim, infuriating path I had to walk back to “semi-stable.” And, my family became an enemy.
What I don’t get is why Robin would do himself in after so long and after drifting out of the spotlight to what I thought was a safe zone. He wasn’t complete rubbish waiting for his agent to find him work. He could have done just about anything. He had range. And, he wasn’t pressured to succeed. He wasn’t the firebird on a chariot that Jennifer Lawrence has ironically become while playing a character just like she fears (and turns to vodka). He was a bit “out there” and misunderstood and had his drug use moments, I think. But, he was in what I thought a safe place when he ended it all. And, Bennington, I think he just panicked for some existential reason about where his future was headed with all the kids and him losing interest in being a screaming rock star. He lost his pace and crashed too hard.
I feel that piggyback feeling sometimes in my own life. People play me up to be smart and talented, hoping I’ll be something big someday. I could get carried away with that and try to live up to the expectations; I think I did that and then crashed hard when I felt I was struggling or failing. If I don’t go with that support flow, though, it feels like I’m the rock star trying to tell the fans to stop shouting so loud so I can get some sleep.
Wait, what? Tell him he’s pathetic and list his mistakes? How’s that going to help him avoid suicide? No, I don’t think going to him with the Bible at his door is going to save him. That’s…Bible thumping. That’s soliciting in a religious crusade. And, I don’t think he was very in tune or pro-God/pro-faith. He was very scatter-brained from a lack of a good foundation and being heralded for being wacky and spontaneous. Like Marilyn Monroe, in a way, he was pushed to keep re-inventing himself, and he didn’t want to be one of those actors who always gets the same roles or sounds the same on screen. He wanted to be Meryl Streep, but it got out of control.
Anyway, it’s in the past. He left, already. The train is gone. His humor will resurface in someone else who’ll likely have to deal with the madness, too.
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“And, I don’t think he was very in tune or pro-God/pro-faith. He was very scatter-brained from a lack of a good foundation and being heralded for being wacky and spontaneous.”
Exactly, he lacked a good foundation. How can we give people a good foundation without bible thumping? How can we show people how to lean into God, without showing them who God is? I don’t think we can. I’ve yet to see that work.
What is really a hard for people is feeling disconnected, set apart, different from all the others. Then comes all the expectations from people. Our world tends to enforce that concept, we’re supposed to be rich, famous, smarter than everyone else, but nobody can live up to unrealistic standards. It also tends to isolate us from all the other people who are actually just like us.
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Uh, you show them how your life is lighter and more balanced–if it is–without telling him “My life is better than yours right now, and you should live like me.” People unfamiliar with religion/faith are not prone to accepting it so easily until they are “broken,” until they have “crashed completely” and “don’t know where to turn.” That’s how evil forces prey on people, too. So, get there first, you evil and good doers. Whoever gets to that sad soul first gets to add them to their side.
But, preaching the “good word” and using religious terms? I’d try a different route. The good Samaritan didn’t spread the example of kindness or generosity by preaching. He/She taught by example.
Robin really needed more hugs and understanding, though, even I have a hard time figuring out what I could have done to help him. From all I heard and knew of him, it seemed he was a challenge. And that scares me to the core because people compare me to him.
If the apostles and all the other “fishermen” divided the fish and loaves while giving a hard lesson about the right and wrong with God, I doubt as many would have tried or accepted the food. They’d probably say, “You know what? I’ll just look for scraps elsewhere.” Instead, I imagine, it was the general need of the crowd and the gentle way they were gathered together–and somehow got along–that everyone was able to share the food, learn and still have leftovers. [Or, that whole story was just another metaphor for living a more giving lifestyle written by someone as clever as the author of the Book of Genesis.]
Yea, if only all of those hip hop musicians would stop wearing and pitching all that GOLD talk. 😛 It is the only reason I have to get mad at Bruno Mars. The guy’s got enough talent to compete or outdo Michael Jackson, but, instead of rhinestones, he’s pitching the trend of gold and cash.
I think it’s funny if people are being pushed to be smarter yet make countless mistakes that become so costly and bring the world right back down. [Though I do not feel like laughing at that.]
In short, we all need group therapy. There’s the lifestyle and career path of the future.
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I recall a time of crumbling in my own life. I also recall that a preacher looked out, right at me and quoted this during his sermon:
I was crumbling when he quoted that, and it was then that I came to realize just who could put me back together again. Good stuff, IB
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Amen, Wally! It occurs to me that I seldom trust anyone who hasn’t crumbled at some point, and that is even more true when it comes to pastors. I think the Lord trains us and part of that training unfortunately, is having some idea of what it is like to be the brokenhearted, the blind, the bruised.
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That’s a great point IB. One really has to wonder about those “perfect” people. Are they really? Or are they living a facade of perfection?
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Exactly. If they have never cracked over everyday defeats as you described in your post, they cannot be trusted. They have never come to the end of their own merely human resources.
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And the very good news is that Jesus said in verse 20 “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
Thank God for healing of broken hearts and setting the captives free!
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Oh Amen Michael!
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Amen, Michael! Well said.
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Yes! This is REAL motivational inspiration. Not that vapid positive I-am-the- –
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Center-of-my-universe bullsh#!%
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Hate typing on phone. Sorry. See? There ARE some things I just can’t do.
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Little tremors at a fault line now could prevent bigger, deadlier earthquakes later. Ask a Californian which one they’ll take. 🤷♀️
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