To Feel Known and Complete: Expression of Thoughts

Why is it, this fall, that I seemed to always have a thought on my mind that I wanted to tell someone? Or that I wanted to have someone very specific to tell? Sometimes I didn’t want to listen to others so much—I only wanted to express myself and have those repeating thoughts in my head heard and gone.

I suppose this feeling isn’t that new to me. After coming to college, I started to analyze myself in a new way. The question “How are you?” was a frequent occurrence during freshman year. As I made good friends and saw them regularly at Bible studies and church, the question was coupled with a loving expectation that I would be vulnerable. It became a pop quiz I needed to be ready for. It was a quiz I didn’t seem to have so often at home, or at least a quiz I didn’t take so seriously at home. As a freshman, I wasn’t ready for that question. But I kept working to be ready. This fall, I analyzed myself enough that I was ready to answer the question. I was waiting to answer it.

And if I was not asked, if I didn’t find the right place to express the thought, it stayed up in my head to the point where it became painfully distracting to hold it in. Sometimes the self-focused thoughts distracted me so much that I forgot to listen. How sad is this? There had been a time when thinking wasn’t painful and listening was enough. But I felt as though I was failing a basic expectation if I was not ready for that pop quiz. I felt I must always be ready for that quiz, even just for the sake of knowing myself. Always waiting for that question. Always waiting to express myself.

The Desire to Express Thoughts and Feel Heard

Due to these unwanted habits, combined with my unique brain and its response to my environment, I would often find myself stuck in my mind. My brain dedicated itself to self analysis. It was like I was held in captivity by my thoughts. It seemed that the only way to escape this captivity was to express the thought to someone else.

I found a desire for someone who hears. Someone who will not be annoyed by a random text—they’ll even be delighted by it. Someone who reads it and understands and shows this in their soon reply. Who makes the annoying thought go away. Who replaces it with a sense of being known, loved, and cared for—any time of day or night. I had this hope that if I lay out my insecurities on the table, they will shrivel up and die in the sunlight. Sometimes I reached out to a good friend and it worked. Sometimes the insecurities didn’t die right away.

Even as I journaled these thoughts on December 7th, I was searching for this feeling of being expressed and understood. I typed out my feelings on my phone’s journaling app as I rode a shuttle to the airport. Lately, I find that I more and more frequently write both in my physical journal and my journal app. When the thought should not or could not be shared with a human, it goes in my journal. Sometimes it helps. Sometimes the desire to be heard remains.

The Desire to Find Completeness

I guess what kept me writing that journal entry, despite the fact that it was long, was some kind of desire for completeness. I’m a firstborn, and consequently, a perfectionist with obsessive tendencies. I can’t leave a task incomplete or it will haunt me forever. I’m the same way if I have a conversation with someone and then remember something later that I should have mentioned. It haunts me. So when I journal or share with someone, my goal is to fully express the thoughts swimming through my mind in a way that is coherent, connected, and unified. Most of the time, I still find myself wanting to go back to edit or add something later.

There’s one more struggle to mention: putting man above God. I love my brothers and sisters in Christ. I love that God has so graciously provided them as a physical reminder of His love here on Earth. And in one sense, it is perfectly healthy to experience God’s love through the church: through people who hear, listen, understand, respond, and care for me even when I am needy. It is my joy to be there for them, and it is their joy to be there for me. To not reach out to my friends for help would be to steal their joy, as my discipler, Lydia, has told me. It is good for us to be honest with each other so that we can better show God’s love to each other.

And yet I know that these good friends could never be a replacement for God. It is tempting to talk instead of praying because these friends are so tangible. It seems attainable to feel fully expressed through sharing my thoughts with them. But ultimately, God must be first. Why? Because He is the only perfect source who can provide this sense of being complete and known.

I hate to be reminded that I can’t find Completeness and Wholeness or a Sense of Being Perfectly Heard and Known. These things are not attainable through my own power or even with the help of other humans. But the truth is that this desire can only be fulfilled through the Lord my God.

A Hope to Be Known and Complete

I know the One who Listens. I know the one source of Completeness and Wholeness. He’s the One who knows me inside and out, because He carefully formed and knitted me together (Psalm 139:13-14). I know the One I can always talk to, always pray to, who will never be annoyed or push me away. In fact, He loves to be there for me in my annoying neediness. He hears. He doesn’t pick apart and criticize what I have to say (or not say) the way that the voice in my head does. But rather, He is a Great High Priest who is able to sympathize with me, having fought the same battle with the mind and the flesh that I have (Hebrews 4:15-16). He invites me to find the acceptance and the warm embrace that I desire in Him.

And yet, it’s not that easy. He is a Holy God, and I am unworthy of His love. Sometimes I wonder if the Father is under some kind of divine delusion if He really sees Christ’s righteousness when He looks at me. But to think that would be to forget what Christ did: He paid it all.

And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. – Colossians 2:13-14 (ESV)

It has been a battle for me to fully grasp the meaning of the gospel. My pride was broken and I didn’t want to hear it. I wanted to hear God’s voice in response to my prayers, and yet I didn’t always want to read His Word that He has miraculously provided for me. I often read from it when I felt that I was “supposed to,” yet my flesh failed to embrace the beauty of it. My flesh fails to remember the gospel. 

But when the smallest reminder of the gospel sneaks into my heart … I know it can’t be ignored forever. It’s far too big for that.

The gospel is my hope. Christ died and rose again so that we could have a relationship with God. Like the psalmist, Asaph, we can know God and be near to Him. We can find comfort and refuge in Him right now (Psalm 73:23, 28). Beyond this, we have the hope of seeing God’s glory and perfectly knowing His love one day in Paradise (Psalm 73:24). He hears me, knows me, and will make me whole.
And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. – Philippians 1:6

What Do You Think?

Please share your thoughts in the comments! I wasn’t sure about posting this blog post, but if it is an encouragement to just one person, that makes it worth it.

Back in high school, I used to share a lot more about my walk with the Lord through blogging. It was very fruitful for me to talk about what I was thinking and feeling, and to try to encourage others through that. In college, I’ve obviously had less time for the blog. But I’ve also found that the things I’m thinking and feeling are just more difficult to express as blog posts.

However, I would like to try to blog more about my honest experiences. Writing this, I was reminded of how my thinking doesn’t just impact my writing, but my writing impacts my thinking too. It is edifying and encouraging for me when I write to you all. So I hope to blog more, but I guess we’ll see what happens. I would invite you to join my newsletter if you would like to tag along for the ride.

My brother (Michael) shared this YouTube video with me after I wrote this. If you can resonate with the feelings described in this blog post, I would recommend this video as some very good food for thought.