need to ramble

While in general this blog is dedicated to posting creative items such as photographs or music, I need to do a little processing.  "Lost", "transition", "confusing", and "unsure" are words that seem to be attacking me right now, moving in on my soul like the people trying to hand you fliers on the UA mall.  Even though you hold your phone up to your face, pretending to be talking to someone, or having your headphones blaring, they still try to talk to you, convinced whatever flier they have is insistent in your life.  These 4 words, and everything associated with them, keep trying to be a part of my soul; and conversely I think I hear God combating them.  When I hear "I'm lost. I've made a mistake.  What the heck am I doing with my life?  Who should I be helping?  Why am I so selfish and spend so little time with people?", I hear God fight back, "No, I took you to this place. You are following me.  You are not perfect, but you are walking, struggling to be on the path of obedience to me, learning how to love me and those I love."  Now that I write this out, this conversation between myself, maybe Satan, and God probably takes place multiple times throughout every day...and it has for a while now.  

Was it always this way? 

No, upon pulling away from the Navigators this battle began.  The guilt of no longer helping everyone, or meeting people's needs, has plagued me.  "Was it better before?", I wonder.  I know the answer is no.  I was tired, burnt out, very entrenched in Christianese society, but all in the name of proving myself to God and those around me, who I desperately longed to approve of me. If they did, then what? It meant I was loved? I was worthy or valuable?  

Love is a very confusing thing to me.  Being the emotional woman that I am, I tend to rely on feelings and my own interpretations of reality, which is very inaccurate most of the time.  "What is love?", I wonder.  Eric said last night that part of love is sacrifice.  If you love something or someone, you give to it or them.  This definition scares me because I think it highlights my selfishness.  What do I sacrifice for?  That is a scary question.  "Jesus gave the ultimate sacrifice."  is a phrase heard often in the Christian world, but I struggle to be sure if this really means anything to me.  As a Christian, I should care.  The fact that Jesus died, willingly giving up his life because he knew I would be damned without him dying, should mean something to me.  I wonder if it does.  The past few years have been devoid of much passion or excitement in my walk with God.  What about the rest of my life?  My family wasn't much for emotional connections - we didn't really have them.  So I know that that contributes to my lack of zealousness for Jesus, but still, I wish I cared more...  

I think that is at the root of the 4-word attack. I hear, "You don't actually care.  You don't actually love God or people."  And then I get lost,  like right now, in this hopeless haze of wondering if I actually contribute anything to the kingdom of God, what my purpose is in life, am I moving toward that purpose?, and what should I be doing better?!....of feeling the pain of transitioning communities, of losing friends, of feeling alone.  

Then God, like now, comes in with his sword drawn again. "You do move toward things - music, painting, people, me.  Again, you don't do it perfectly but you are doing it.  I brought you into a better place.  This is where you need to be.  You know me more, and you are moving toward me in a new, better way...in a way where you are trusting me, not just fighting off my disapproval by doing a lot."  He is right, of course.  I have an amazing community surrounding me.  People who invite me to hang out with them, play music with them, eat with them, watch their children, pray, have Bible study, and just live life together.  I am so grateful for them.  But I also note my hesitancy.  I think I've been very self-protective for the last several years.  I've been seeing how upon getting hurt, I close up my heart, completely disillusioned as I never thought I could experience extreme pain from those I love.  I have been learning this is inevitable.  The CS Lewis quote "Love anything and your heart will be wrung." echos in my mind.  Again, I am tempted to lose hope and stop offering myself, just pulling back in this cynical, intellectual, witty mask that I wear to avoid being exposed and feeling pain.  Then, I assume God again, brings a memory from Indonesia back to me.  We were sitting in a team meeting and Daniel began to describe a scene from movie "The Passion of Christ".  He described the part where Jesus is carrying the cross and falls again.  Somehow his mother gets through to him and he says "See mother, I make all things new."  I'm not sure why, but God has used that clip over the last year to give me hope.  That he can make all things new.  That my heart won't be wrung forever.  That it is worth it to offer myself and enter in.  

I think I have been very afraid to enter into the Village after the Navigators.  I was so confident when in Navs of what my purpose was, where I was going, who I thought God was...well sort of...I at least don't remember this dark, achy-ness constantly lingering around me.  Maybe it was me putting my hope in people, in approval.  Maybe people were telling me more often what to do, or giving me tasks - which I wanted and asked for...it was more spelled out for me and therefore less dark and confusing.  It's not a bad thing, I just think my doing, approval-seeking sinful self thrived in it, and I didn't rely on God or who he said I was, but everyone else...which is the very reason I began to pull away. To stop relying on people or things I do to tell me who I am, or who God is, or what God thinks of me.  And well, I guess it worked, but I guess I expected the process overall to be less painful, less hazy, over quicker. Also, I think in the non-college, non-college ministry world, it is just slower paced, not as dramatic (in both the bad and good ways), and simpler.  I always thought I wanted that, but I think I am addicted to drama, to the quickness of it all, to the pace of the crazy, American world we live in.  And then I expect God to perform like that, to answer me like that, for the phases of my life to run like that....they don't.  I get disappointed and begin to demand, lose hope, stop trying.

My pastor said that the Resurrection of Jesus is our anti-depressant.  The fact that Jesus rose from the dead means that he can raise anything from the dead, including my soul that feels like it's rotting and eating away any good that once existed within me.  But again, I deceive myself.  There is nothing good in me!  I think this season of my life God wants me to come to grips with that - to really see and know I have nothing good to offer anyone without him.  Jesus is the one making my rotting soul into something worth while.  "Beauty for ashes", he's been saying for 3 years now.  It seems that he does know what he's doing.  I get this mental image:  I'm in a pool.  I'm the swimmer and God is the lifeguard.  God put me in the pool saying "You're not going to drown.  I'm going to teach you how to swim."  And rather than being patient as he teaches me little parts along the way, I keep throwing myself into the deep end, lashing about, and half-drowning, all the while insisting I don't know any better.  

I'm glad God is so patient.  I'm glad he has so much vision to see what we can become.  I'm glad he is faithful. I need to stop joining Satan on trying to drown myself.