Never Will I Ever
Caid has been bothering me about my “Never will I Evers.” He says they have to go. I feel like my “Never will I Evers” are justified, and part of who I am. They are reasonable, and I feel safer with them. He says they limit what God wants to do in our family. What Caid doesn’t understand is how I got my “Never will I Evers” in the first place. I am not sure if I really understand why they are a part of me either. I should explain.
My “Never will I Evers” are the things that I tell myself consciously or unconsciously that I will never, ever do. Perhaps it is from experiencing or seeing someone experience something really bad—and I want to protect myself. Perhaps it is simply being judgemental, thinking I would never, ever stoop that low. For me in particular, I have a bunch of “NWIEs” about money. And they keep coming up to control my life.
**
I grew up in white suburbia, but was never really a part of it. I felt left out and rejected. I was on the poor end of middle class, and I felt ridiculed for it. Although no one ever said anything directly, I internalized the constant feeling of being pat on the head and condescendingly hearing, “Awww, how cute, you poor thing.” I realized I would never really fit into their world, and so I decided I didn’t want to. I rejected “them” in retaliation. Or perhaps in premonition.
At 14, I discovered the wide, wide world of the inner city. Of those struggling to get by. Of abandoned houses and cracked sidewalks and broken swingsets. It was a breath of fresh air from the curated perfection. I was accepted. I was admired. I was needed. Around this time, my father got a new job. For 10 years he’d worked his way from minimum wage to just over $10 an hour for our family of four. It was backbreaking and heath-stealing work.
With this new job, we could now order pizza without having to search the cushions for change. The first thing my parents did was to pay off our house. Then they began to give more. We didn’t change our lifestyle to fit more income: we changed our amount of giving to others.
As I began to realize the realities of people outside of my little middle class world, I began to realize how much I’d been given—and how much I had. I saw the beauty of limiting yourself (when you have an abundance) in what you own and the simplicity and freedom it brings. The less you live on, the more you can give.
As I continued to work in the inner city, I began to see something that saddened me: many people who started off with a desire to serve and give backed off when the giving got hard. They gave up when given the chance to do something else. They got sucked back into middle-class life and the routine of “more.” I learned a valuable principle: the farther you are physically from seeing the problem regularly, the easier it is to forget. Isn’t that what priviledge is: being able to forget?
I knew that Jesus was our example (as a Christian), and Jesus constantly was “stepping down.” He stepped down to come to earth. He stepped down to be born into poverty, illegitimately. He stepped down to wait His own ministry until he was 30. He stepped down to call the uneducated to be his followers. He stepped down to heal the sickest, dirtiest, poorest, hardest part of society. Yet, as His followers, I didn’t see many people stepping down: stepping down the stuff ladder. Stepping down the standard of living ladder. But I wanted to. I wanted to live in the beauty of simplicity, intentionally, so I could give more to others.
I went to Brazil. In Brazil, as a lower middle class American, I was seen as (and comparatively was) rich. It wasn’t just about the money amount that I had access to, it was the power that came from being a white North American. I realized even more the importance of living in community with those I worked with, and how even when I tried so hard, I would still be the outsider. Because at the end of the day, I would always have food. I would always be taken care of. And there was always the opportunity to run home to the safety and care of my family in America. I hated these walls that were permanent dividers between me and my Brazilian friends: but I also needed them, and clung to them.
All these factors (and many more) led to my creation of my “Never will I Evers.” My inner (and sometimes outer) dialog of things I would never have, do, or be: a mixture of self-protection, rejection, retaliation, self-limitation for the sake of simplicity, generosity, and somewhat blinded attempt to scale the walls between me and these amazing people I’d met, and loved. I had good and bad reasons and intentions all mixed together into these “NWIEs.” I felt hurt and self-righteous whenever anyone poked them, or doubted the validity of my NWIEs. Not only that, but my NWIEs became part of who I am, part of my identity.
Now I am married and my husband is pushing these NWIE buttons and saying my limits limit him because we are connected. That actually makes a lot of sense. I have to dig into them one by one and figure out what my NWIEs are, how they got there, if they are worth hanging on to, or if they are just broken pieces of me reacting to things that have no place in my life.
Let’s begin.