Pleasing

“And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love, and I am very pleased with him.”  Matthew 3:17

I remember as a child, wanting to please my parents by doing well in school, doing my chores, and following the rules.  I did not always meet my own expectations.  As we grow and mature, some of us become “people pleasers.”  We focus on meeting the needs of others at the expense of ourselves.  When I married Dave, while I was independent in my ministry career, I deferred to Dave many times in decisions.  I ate what he liked and made meals based on what Dave wanted.  When I went to the grocery store, I purchased mainly items that appealed to him while buying only a few food items I liked.  I made the choice out of love.

Sometimes in marriages and relationships, one person’s preferences are dominate.  It is not that one does not have an opinion but prefers to defer to the other.  Sometimes this is done out of sacrificial love, and with the truth that it does not really matter.  Other times it is done to please the other person and we lose ourselves in that person.  Decisions while discussed and shared, are made based on the other person’s perspective.  In some marriages, the two have become like one and share the same views or as one widow states – “We just shared a brain.”

When our spouse dies and decisions are left solely to ourselves, it becomes difficult to make even the simplest of decisions like what to buy at the grocery store.  We had become accustomed to deferring to our spouse or getting their input in decisions.  We may have lived our entire married life focused on pleasing our spouse.  It just became natural, and it developed into our way of life.  The person you deferred to may not have been your spouse, but another family member whose opinion and views took precedence in your life.

Now in our grief, we may be trying to please everyone else.  Our family does not want us to be sad and cry, so we hide the tears from those we love.  We attempt to grieve in a way that will not make others feel uncomfortable.  We listen to the advice of others and go to activities we would prefer not going.  We put on the social face when all we really want to do is to be home alone and rest.  We want others to be happy and have a life, so we keep our grief and feelings inside to please them.

Who are you trying to please?  It sure is not yourself.  You may even think you should be better or farther down the road with your grief.  You are not even meeting your own expectations of yourself which makes you feel worthless and question whether you are even really trying.  When you try to make decisions for yourself, you realize you do not know yourself or what you like.  So where do you start?

I found that I had to start at my foundation.  I heard the words The Father spoke to Jesus after his baptism – “This is my son, whom I love, and I am very pleased with him.”  I am God’s child.  God loves me.  God is pleased with me.  This is my foundation.  God is the only one I need to please, and that happens by me loving God and staying close to him.  You will never please everyone nor is it your responsibility to please other people.  You need to be genuinely who God created you to be.  And as you do, you begin to see yourself as valuable and a person of worth who has opinions, preferences, and capable of making decisions. 

I find myself being more straight forward and not agreeing with everybody just to please them.  I have made many decisions which were not understood by others, but they were what I chose to do at the moment.  While I am respectful toward others, my life is not about pleasing other people.  I have to live my own life.  It is the life I have, not what I wanted, but what I currently have.

Grief changes us.  We may have been a “people pleaser” all our lives, but now it seems to require too much effort to please others.  Our priorities change and we recognize we are the only ones who know how we feel.  Our purpose and focus changes.  It is not selfish to care for yourself.  In caring for yourself, you find your true self.  The person who God loves.  We slow down and uncover the foundation of our lives.  You are a child of God.  God is pleased with you when you rest in His presence.