“I Need That Money” & Other Things That Sound Reasonable When You’re Hurting

God got on my nerves this morning.

Not because He was wrong.

Unfortunately, it was the exact opposite.

I was sitting in Proverbs 4 when the Holy Spirit decided we needed to discuss three little words that have apparently become entirely too comfortable in my vocabulary:

“I don’t care.”

Excuse me, because I have spent years perfecting that phrase.

Something disappoints me?

“I don’t care.”

Someone hurts my feelings?

“I don’t care.”

Something doesn’t work out the way I hoped?

“It’s fine. Whatever. I don’t care.”

Narrator: She did, in fact, care.

Deeply.

And this morning I realized that sometimes “I don’t care” isn’t maturity.

Sometimes it’s apathy.

And sometimes apathy is what happens when disappointment has lived somewhere so long that caring starts to feel dangerous.

That one made me put my coffee down.

Because I have experienced enough life to have a pretty convincing argument for why I stopped caring about certain things.

I have lost people. I have been disappointed by people I loved. I have trusted people who mishandled that trust. I have expected things that never happened. I have survived circumstances that made me think, “I will never let anybody make me feel like that again.”

So somewhere along the way, “I don’t care” started feeling like protection.

If I don’t care, you cannot disappoint me.

If I don’t expect anything, you cannot let me down.

If I detach before you have the opportunity to hurt me, congratulations.

I win.

Except… what exactly did I win?

Because apathy protects me from disappointment by requiring me to surrender expectation.

It protects me from rejection by requiring me to surrender vulnerability.

It protects me from being hurt by requiring me to stop being fully present.

That is a terrible insurance policy.

The premium is my heart.

And Proverbs 4:26 says,

“Watch the path of your feet,
And all your ways will be established.”
(Proverbs 4:26, NASB)

Watch the path.

Because I am going somewhere.

Every decision has a destination attached to it, even when I cannot see that destination yet.

We make choices, and eventually our choices start making us.

One decision becomes another decision.

One reaction becomes a habit.

One habit becomes a disposition.

One disposition becomes a way of living.

Eventually, I can look around and wonder:

“How in the world did I get here?”

Girl.

You drove.

And maybe that is why Set It Off would not leave my mind this morning.

Because when I think about Frankie, Stony, Cleo and Tisean, I don’t just see four women making terrible decisions.

I see four women with reasons.

There was injustice.

Loss.

Grief.

Poverty.

Desperation.

Doors closing.

There were circumstances that made their decisions understandable even when those decisions were destructive.

That is what makes the movie heartbreaking.

You understand them.

And somewhere underneath all of it is essentially:

“I need that money.”

And listen.

They did.

That is the uncomfortable part.

The need was real.

The desperation was real.

The circumstances were real.

The injustice was real.

But “I need that money” could explain the decision without making the decision wise.

Whew.

Because I have my own version of “I need that money.”

“They hurt me.”

“They should have known better.”

“I’ve already been through enough.”

“I was protecting myself.”

“I was angry.”

“They started it.”

“I had every right to feel that way.”

All of those things might even be true.

And I can still make the wrong decision next.

That is the part of maturity I don’t particularly enjoy.

Because sometimes I want my pain to acquit me.

I want the fact that somebody hurt me to automatically make whatever I did afterward understandable, reasonable and spiritually notarized.

Except hurt can give me context without giving me permission.

And I have absolutely used hurt as permission before.

Let me stop trying to make this cute.

I have been mean.

Not spicy.

Not “strong-willed.”

Not “I just tell it like it is.”

Mean.

There have been times when I knew exactly which words would hurt someone, and I said them anyway.

Times I withheld softness because I decided somebody didn’t deserve it.

Times I responded harshly because somewhere inside me I thought, “Well, look what you did to me.”

And because I could explain my anger, I thought I had justified my behavior.

My emotional version of “I need that money” became:

“I need you to understand how badly you hurt me.”

So I made decisions from there.

Sometimes the decision was anger.

Sometimes it was shutting down.

Sometimes it was withholding.

Sometimes it was saying something sharp enough that there could be absolutely no confusion that I was upset.

Sometimes it was deciding I no longer cared.

And whew.

Pain can make some terrible decisions feel incredibly reasonable.

Proverbs 14:29 says,

“He who is slow to anger has great understanding,
But he who is quick-tempered exalts foolishness.”
(Proverbs 14:29, NASB)

Being slow to anger does not mean I stop feeling anger.

It means anger doesn’t get my debit card, car keys and decision-making authority.

And whew, have I given that woman some authority.

Because sometimes I wasn’t responding to what actually happened.

I was responding to what happened, plus what I assumed they meant, plus what somebody else did seven years ago, plus three imaginary conversations I had in the shower.

Now everybody is in trouble.

And this is where restraint has become such a big part of spiritual growth for me.

Restraint gives wisdom enough time to ask:

Was I actually wronged?

Did I misunderstand?

Am I responding to this moment, or every moment that resembles it?

Is this discernment, fear, pride, offense or an old wound wearing a new outfit?

Because my feelings can be completely real while my interpretation is completely wrong.

That does not make my feelings stupid.

It means my feelings need wisdom before they get authority.

And that brings me right back to apathy.

Because I am starting to wonder how many times I have said, “I don’t care,” when the truthful sentence was actually:

“I am disappointed.”

Those sentences produce very different lives.

“I don’t care” shuts the door.

“I’m disappointed” tells the truth.

“I don’t care” creates distance.

“I’m disappointed” acknowledges there was hope there in the first place.

“I don’t care” makes me feel powerful.

“I’m disappointed” makes me vulnerable.

And I hate that one.

Because disappointment requires me to admit I wanted something.

I wanted the relationship to work.

I wanted the person to understand me.

I wanted them to show up.

I wanted the opportunity.

I wanted things to turn out differently.

I cared.

And maybe healing is not learning how to care less.

Maybe healing is learning how to care without allowing disappointment to determine who I become.

Because apathy is sneaky.

It doesn’t always announce itself as bitterness.

Sometimes it sounds calm.

“Whatever.”

“It is what it is.”

“I don’t expect anything from anybody.”

“I don’t care anymore.”

And I can call that peace when really I have just stopped allowing myself to hope.

There is a difference between peace and emotional resignation.

One says, “God, I trust You with the outcome.”

The other says, “I refuse to care about the outcome because caring has hurt me before.”

Those are not the same thing.

Proverbs 4:23 says,

“Watch over your heart with all diligence,
For from it flow the springs of life.”
(Proverbs 4:23, NASB)

God told me to guard my heart.

He never told me to bury it.

There is a difference between a fence and a wall.

A fence says, “There are boundaries here.”

A wall says, “Nobody gets in.”

For a long time, I think I mistook some of my walls for wisdom.

They weren’t.

They were disappointment with excellent branding.

And this is why my ear matters so much right now.

I feel fragile in this season.

Not incapable.

Not weak.

Fragile.

And when something is fragile, you become intentional about what touches it.

Which means I need to become extremely intentional about what reaches my ear.

Because whatever consistently gets my ear eventually gets influence.

Influence shapes perspective.

Perspective affects interpretation.

Interpretation influences decisions.

And decisions have destinations.

Proverbs 13:20 says,

“One who walks with wise people will be wise,
But a companion of fools will suffer harm.”
(Proverbs 13:20, NASB)

Everybody cannot have my ear right now.

Every conversation cannot have my ear.

Every opinion cannot have my ear.

Every offended version of me cannot have my ear.

Even people who genuinely love me can give me advice through the lens of their own wounds.

And if I am fragile, I cannot afford to let somebody else’s unresolved pain become the narrator of my life.

I need voices that pull me toward wisdom, not just voices that validate whatever I currently feel.

Sometimes I don’t need somebody saying:

“Girl, you’re right.”

Sometimes I desperately need somebody who loves me enough to say:

“Girl… absolutely not.”

Because agreement is not always wisdom.

And this is where Joseph gets me.

Joseph had plenty of opportunities to become apathetic.

His brothers sold him.

Potiphar’s wife lied about him.

He was imprisoned.

The cupbearer forgot him.

If anybody had biblical permission to cross his arms and say, “You know what? I don’t care anymore,” Joseph had a very respectable application.

Yet when two prisoners needed their dreams interpreted, Joseph still used his gift.

That part wrecks me.

Joseph was disappointed and still available.

He could have heard “dream” and immediately said:

“Dreams? Oh, absolutely not. Last time I got involved with those I ended up in a pit. Y’all be blessed.”

And honestly?

I would have understood.

But Joseph didn’t allow what happened to him to determine what could still come through him.

He interpreted the dreams.

He served in the place he probably never would have chosen.

And that decision became part of the road that eventually put him before Pharaoh.

Joseph did not choose the pit.

He did not choose slavery.

He did not choose the false accusation.

He did not choose prison.

Yet inside circumstances he did not choose, he kept choosing.

Integrity.

Service.

Wisdom.

Faithfulness.

Availability.

His destiny wasn’t built from one giant cinematic decision.

It was a compilation of smaller ones.

And suddenly I’m back at Set It Off again.

Because that movie is also a compilation of decisions.

One decision led to another.

Then another.

Then another.

And eventually, the women were standing inside consequences that were much bigger than the decision that started everything.

“I need that money” eventually became a road.

That’s what Proverbs 4 is making me confront.

Every decision is putting my feet somewhere.

So maybe the question isn’t only:

“Do I have a reason for feeling this way?”

Maybe the question is:

“Where does this response take me?”

Because I can have a legitimate reason for being angry and still choose a response that destroys something.

I can have a legitimate reason for being disappointed and still let disappointment harden me.

I can have a legitimate reason for protecting myself and accidentally build a prison instead of a boundary.

I can have a legitimate reason for saying “I don’t care” and eventually become someone who actually doesn’t.

And I don’t want that.

Disappointment has carried me long enough.

It has influenced my expectations.

My reactions.

My relationships.

My willingness to trust.

My willingness to hope.

My willingness to say what I actually feel.

It convinced me that caring less would hurt less.

Maybe it does.

It also costs more.

So I am learning to guard my heart without hardening it.

To feel anger without letting anger drive.

To acknowledge disappointment without letting disappointment decide.

To be honest about hurt without using hurt as permission to hurt somebody else.

To pay very close attention to who and what has my ear.

And to stop saying “I don’t care” when what I really mean is:

“I cared enough for this to hurt.”

That sentence feels terrifyingly vulnerable.

It is also true.

Because I am going somewhere.

And I do not want to arrive there as a woman who became so committed to protecting herself from disappointment that she also protected herself from love, correction, hope, relationships, growth and purpose.

Set It Off showed me something uncomfortable years later.

“I need that money” was real.

The pain behind it was real.

The desperation behind it was real.

And the decisions still had destinations.

So do mine.

Pain can explain how I got here.

My wounds can explain some of the decisions I’ve made.

My feelings can tell me where I am.

None of them get to decide where I go next.

That’s wisdom’s job.

So before I react, detach, shut down, get mean or throw out my beloved “I don’t care,” I need to give careful thought to the path of my feet and ask:

Where will this decision take me?

Because I am going somewhere.

And this time, I want wisdom choosing the route.