The Power of the Individual's Choice

I've got some thoughts ruminating about this...I think they're good thoughts. More to come soon. In the meantime be thinking about how you can choose to make this day better for yourself or someone around you :)

Untitled


I hate you because I cannot hate you

I hate you for all you’re not

And for all you pretend to be.

I hate that your yes means no

And your word is empty.

I hate your rage and childish bullying

I hate your lies, your hateful tongue,

Your words of pure destruction.

But mostly

I hate you because I cannot hate you.

I hate your two-faced, double standards

Your blatant hypocrisy

Your propensity to be right even when you’re wrong.

I hate your “I love you”s, your generous gifts

And all your symbols of proclaimed affection.

I hate that I believe you whether it’s true or not.

But mostly

I hate you because I cannot hate you.

I hate how much I look like you

And talk like you

And think like you.

I hate how much I can relate to you

And I hate that you can’t see it.

I hate how you think I’m someone I’m not.

But mostly

I hate you because I cannot hate you.

I hate that you’re the source of most of my tears

Yet also the reason I’m afraid to cry

I hate that you taught me pain is weakness

Yet have inflicted more than anyone I’ve personally known.

I hate you for every broken dream,

Wounded emotion,

And damaged perspective.

But mostly

I hate you because I cannot hate you.



Matthew 5:43-48

On "emo" facebook statuses and the work of the Lord… (from facebook)

So as I sit to type this, I’m debating about whether or not I should continue. How much of myself do I really want to put out there? But the internal conversation is brief as I realize 1) I don’t really care that much and 2) sometimes a little honesty is exactly what a person and the people around them need.

The past six months or so (wow, I didn’t realize it had been that long!) have been kind of rough for me as evidenced by the things I’ve chosen to share with you, the facebook world, through status updates, songs, etc. Funny how in our day those things have become such a reflection of our general states of being. I guess we’re living in a generation constantly seeking a medium for self-expression. There are few as useful as a tool that is almost always at the end of our fingertips in one fashion or another. It illustrates our strong and often unmet desire to be seen, truly seen. But anyway, I’ve used that tool in recent months to express a lot sadness and pain. It’s been a rough several months. Surely not even close to as rough as they could have been. In fact, I’m sure it’s not the worst pain I’ve ever felt, and likely not to be the worst I am to feel in the future. However, pain is pain and is thus noteworthy.

I’ve found myself on a bit of an emotional rollercoaster- one that seems to favor the lower end of the tracks. I didn’t know what a broken heart felt like before this. The constant ache, the double-sided coin of memory, and the inability to make everything go away- all foreign to me before this period of my life. There’s a song that says “The first cut is the deepest.” I don’t know if it’s true but I sure hope so. There’s also the carousel of emotion stemming from a broken past and a hazy future. The problem is that I’ve allowed it all to steal my focus from God and from the things in life that used to mean so much, and while I’m still “getting things done,” I have so little joy in doing them.

But the point of this is not to gripe about what’s wrong but rather to say that nevertheless, God is good. And He loves me. And He’s definitely still working on me. I’ve been learning that the weather has a significant impact on how I feel, so maybe the light I’m starting to see is being made a little more clear by the warm air on my face (sounds silly, but I’m really serious!). Regardless of the reason, I’m seeing light. Everything hasn’t gotten better yet, but the problems seem to be becoming more isolated. The bad is becoming more of a dark spot on the wall of my life rather than an entire coat of paint. Something I feel like God has been teaching me lately is that no matter what is going on, I have to praise Him and offer worship. The song, “Blessed Be Your Name,” has really been standing out to me lately:

“Blessed be Your name/when the sun’s shining down on me/when the world’s all as it should be/blessed be Your name./Blessed be Your name/on the road marked with suffering./Though there’s pain in the offering,/blessed be Your name./Every blessing You pour out, I’ll turn back to praise./When the darkness closes in Lord, still I will say:/‘Blessed be the name of the Lord...’”

I don’t get to choose when I praise or under what circumstances I want to be devoted. Devotion is devotion. Either you are or you’re not. I choose to be devoted. There really is nothing else for me. So in the midst of my pain and confusion and all the chaos of my life, I choose Christ. I choose the only One who can actually take on the weight of my problems and not only stand firm but also actually bring order. Do I know how to do this fully? No. Do I expect drastic shifts in attitude right away? No. Do I expect to fail frequently? Absolutely. But my God loves me, so I’m okay- even when I’m not okay.

A good idea?

Something I wrote out of frustration and just plain fatigue a few weeks ago...

"Who ever said love was a good idea? Of course, God ordained and defined love is good, it’s right. But this whole romantic love thing. It seems to be both one of the best and worst parts of life. Sometimes simultaneously.  The odds of two people romantically loving each other at the same time are slim to none. So that means that someone is going to get hurt. Someone is going to pine and wait with the hope that their someone will somehow magically realize this other person is clearly the person for them. But until then, they wait. They hurt and they wait. They cry and they wait. They move on, come back, and wait again. Sometimes that day comes. Sometimes it works. But usually, someone moves on perhaps to someone they’ll love more or perhaps to someone they feel is second best. I mean really, how often does it actually work out? How often do the people we love actually love us in return- in the way we want them to? It’s not very common is it? So why bother? Why do we put ourselves through this torture of waiting, wondering, hoping, crying, hurting, and ultimately just straight up lying to ourselves with the possibility that perhaps this dream will come to fruition? What’s the point?"

Helpful lesson of the day: Never give your heart away to someone who isn't asking for it. If you do, it will leave you really f-ed up for a long time.

Ooze

Two things: 1. I think I'm afraid to heal emotionally. I think I've come, on some levels, to identify myself by my pain and wounds and I'm really not sure who I'd be if they weren't there and if they didn't have such a grip on my life.
2. I think sometimes I need to let puss ooze a little. It's like there's an emotional infection inside of me and if I let it go for awhile all this puss and corruption builds up. So every now and then,  I need to press on it and let some of that flow out. That could be through a conversation or reading a book or something like the Emotionally Healthy Spirituality inventory I just took. Thinking about it a lot, gaining a little clarity, and sharing with others are all ways that I evacuate the wound. It seems lately I've been needing that a little more frequently than usual. It's like the infection is flaring up right now or something. I'm not sure what's causing that, but I find myself needing that outlet more often. I think I could really benefit from pouring some anti-septic in it to clean it out and bandage it up to help it heal properly. But that takes overcoming number 1. I'm not sure if I'm there yet. I want to be because I feel like I should be, but I still don't know if I can do it.

A new season and a new day

Out with the old, in with the new. That's what this new year is calling for. I've had a surprisingly unhappy past few months filled with a lot of sadness, confusion, pain, fear, and worry.  However, I've decided that I don't want to carry all of that into the new year. I don't expect that I can magically make it all go away, but I do think I can change my attitude, choose to think on different things or to think differently about the same things. I don't want to live my life depressed and feeling distant from God and people. That's what I've been recently. I don't want to lose hope or lose sight of who God is or the fact that He is in complete control of my life and I therefore have nothing to fear even if (though) my future seems shaky and uncertain. My life is not my own.

I think I need to spend this year really reflecting and actively pursuing healing for my past hurts. Too long I've allowed them to control me. Sometimes it actually feels good to indulge and just feel the pain, but really I just want to move forward. But I can't seem to because I know there's stuff there that I haven't dealt with. I've been coming to the conclusion more so that I am a VERY emotional person whereas I'd thought before that I wasn't. I think I just don't really show them very much. I don't understand them or really know how to express them. But I recognize that they often drive me and my actions or decisions. I want to let God into that deepest part of me, that part that I don't even know how to access myself. I often feel like there's this big part of me and my relationship with God that's missing. The part that cries and feels deeply. The part that's moved by others' pain. I want God to enter that part and to heal it and to be real to me there. I'm tired of feeling like I hit a brick wall when I get there. The past week or so has been bad. I hit such a low point. I did what I could to avoid being alone. Finally, there seemed to be no option and there I was alone in my apartment with not much to do. I just laid there and talked to God. It seemed as though part of me opened up. I think it's more like some of baggage overflowed. I prayed and cried, prayed and cried. I felt so lost and so not okay. I didn't even know why I felt bad, just that I did. I was able to talk to a friend's dad yesterday and that seemed really helpful. I didn't mean to get into a long conversation with him, but it just seemed to happen. For some reason, I just felt open where I think I normally wouldn't have. I think maybe it was God urging me to take the rescue that was in front of me. He encouraged me to get to the root of my emotional issues and really let God in there. That's what  I want to do. He recommeded a book that I think I may actually try and get. It's called Emotionally Healthy Spirituality. That conversation, singing hymns, and praying with and sitting in the comforting arms a friend seem to have helped so much. I believe God really does love us through the Body of Christ. I've felt considerably better since then. Tonight in church, I sang worship songs with more sincerety than I had in awhile. My mind was still wandering, but I was starting to remember the greatness of God and the beauty of His love and how wonderful it is that He says it's for me.

I've been asked to give my testimony at my young adult group this week. It can be about any number of things. I still haven't decided what to say. I want to talk about the past, but there's also so much I'm learning right now that I'd like to share. I don't know. We'll see. I have a feeling that by the time it rolls around, God will have done so much in my heart, it wouldn't have been possible to adequately prepare too far in advance.

Happy New Year friends! May this chronological marker double as a spiritual milestone in your life. Raise your ebenezer here so that when you look back you can remember that it was God who brought you this far.

Amen.