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.
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