okay, i'm just going to write, okay? as rambling as it may be, i want to ramble to you. while sometimes i catch myself upon such rambling in emails to you, l, e, whoever, and turn to my journal where such thoughts and feelings' gushings rightful home is, right now, i need someone. i need a human being. i need a response. i want rebuke. i want truth. i want grace and love in human form. i want that connection between created creatures. i need you to be sitting there, reading this right now. even though it isn't coincident with me writing this, there is concrete meaning and significance for me for you to be doing that.
as i layed down on my bed, pulled the blankets over and curled, i thought about how reasonable the hour was and how i ought to be able to wake up at 7 without a problem. if i could just sleep. sleep. sleep. sleep.
denied. denied. denied.
eyes still open, fresh, mind clear. clearer than at work where it often gets so numbed.
the guilt upon my waning integrity. the frustration at myself for my pride that disables me from being a good subordinate. augh, the frustration of my lack of interest in developmental work. my concerns, hurts, from l's attitude and treatment of me today. my sensitivity to it. me taking it personally. so what if she may have been having a rough day, with the bride barely making budget, having to cut down costs, find alternate sources of funding? i'm not blameless. she can slander me. 1 peter 3.
but i am to submit to authority, unjust or not. 1 peter 2.
fine. but it's so hard for me. darn it! wow, what stream of consciousness i'm submitting you to.
thank God for your patience with me. the love he gives you that enables you to deal with all these words. look at the sheer number of words this email consists of! such feeling behind them though. at least they aren't empty. i'm feeling a lot right now. such jumbles.
i prayed and prayed. called out to God, really. arms outstretched. the entire image. but real. not in the least bit cliched because it was so real. i saw my faith waning, receding into a bread-shaped tunnel, with me desperately scraping, grasping at it. my arms stretching, elastically bending and snapping in frantic worry. my desperation for truth and faith in it. hope in my gut. more visceral than the core of my soul, where i know it resides, still. abides. thank GOD for that. thank you LORD for the fact that regardless of how listless and faithless i may feel, i still, at my core, have faith. really. i know God. i know the truth and i accept it. fully. it's my foundation. not even woven in or ingrained. it is. that much i can be certain of. BUT. there are crinkles. crinkling rice papery, filmy layers of doubt and uncertainty. such weakness of faith. me, persevere? perservere! He says. shouts. God's voice rings in my head, giving me a slight headache in the space between my brain and skull because his shout is so personally piercing. He demands that i persevere. but i'm curled in my bed, unable to sleep. straining for him because i feel so off and fjsdlkgjalkgjdskfm./ crumble like a dry, underdeveloped muffin.
what is this!? must i suffer through such listlessness and crumbly-ness to learn lessons? to develop character from perserverance in faith. to develop a reason for hope. to be rooted in the concrete security of hope in Christ. the hope God gave me already. before these internal crises sprouted into strangling vines. must it be like this? or are the 'lessons' my own rationalizations for what can be so painful for me. especially objectively. in the moment, i can waste time. tally around. slowly get through the busy work given to me. smear past the petty work given to me. the lack of brain muscle exercised when i used to have muscle cramps, both refreshing and painful, upon reading and analyzing and writing and feeling for people and thinking and counseling and being so pushed and stimulated. so alive! i want such movement again. really. and it cannot only be found in academia. there must be other sources... other stimuli. as meaningful, with different facets glimmering, shined well enough for me to peer in and discover something more, new, about the grandeur of God. who God is.
thank you Lord for this outlet. writing, writing not only to myself in my online journal but to a dear friend, dear source of love and grace, who i know will read every single word. i know that you, s, won't skim over this email. i know that you value my thoughts, as verbose as they can get.
thank you.
please pray for me. at this point, i feel subsumed under water, foam, foggy dust of my shame and guilt and listlessness. my lack of motivation to work hard. my inability... my lack of will to get up and DO the work. FOR GOD. strive and strive and truly work towards bringing glory to Christ. to live out what brings light into what can be this wretched dark world. augh. it's like we live in this guky, slimy, sewage, greasy goop, our limps sticking and pulling out yet weighed back into the muck. step, step, trudging along. sludge. augh. the more self-centered, inner-focused, eyes in, in, in, we are, the more we sink into ourselves. the more our flesh melts into that goop. the more the color of our flesh gets lost and fades between spreading inky darkness. what an image, no? but really, it's what i see. it's not even about the financial crisis, corrupt politics, the bombings and wars and deaths and the tearing apart of our ozone layer and too quickly melting of our ice, the dying off of animal species, the loss of beautiful dense forests, the dire achievement gaps in urban schools, the prejudice naturalized from a young age, the bitterness between parents, the fights and abuse, the hunger, the poverty, the dirtiness, the slime the filth the guck, the goop. well, perhaps yes, that is all what it is, because even as i wrote about it, they melted into the sludge. the sinfulness of man! the sin in this world. the evil and augh, darkness.
but GOd is light!
and He shines in us!
salt of the world
light of the world
i smack my lips and salivate just thinking about the flavor God brings to the world.
thank GOD we don't have to lose our senses in the nasty stickiness of that guck.
thank GOD that instead he brings delight and charm and hope and peace and everlasting joy.
thank GOD that he promises and calls himself faithful to those promises.
that God is good, all the time.
that God is faithful and strong. mighty and wise. knows all, created all, redeemed all.
through Christ.
thank God for Christ.
and yet! as much as i KNOW this truth, i'm still in my bed, yearning and struggling to grip God's truth, hope... my faith in that, close to me, melting it into my flesh.
i want to be INFUSED by God, you know? enough of this frustration. enough of these limitations and feeling gucked down to the ground. stuck.
i want to fly! i want to shoot out of that as all the slime melts and dissipates away. absolutely cleanliness. absolute lightness. i want that lightness. not even fluffy-light, but airier than that. soaring from the inside out, uplifted in all its transcendent delight. light. like light, but even that doesn't feel light enough.
only God can bring me there, and i'm called to trust. to hold onto my faith and persevere in it. to build my character from it. for hope. romans 5:1-5. fine. but it get so darn hard sometimes!
oh Lord, let me abide by this and keep it dear to my heart.
"1Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we[a]have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we[b] rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. 3Not only so, but we[c] also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us."
