Disclaimer: I often post personal things, but not like this. My goal in my postings is to help those who read it by being open and honest about my struggles and pointing to the joy that comes with knowing and following Christ in some way. This post was originally created as more of a journal entry that I wasn't sure whether I would post or not because I feel it is more raw and vulnerable than I have been in my other posts. It is strictly a flowing out of my own thoughts and feelings to make sense of them in light of the gospel. This is an area I would like to grow in more, but I hope that what is here can still build you up in your faith and, if nothing else, let you know that you're not alone.
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Process... I don't have time to process. But every time the tears well up in my eyes in public, whether it's in a conversation with someone or during a prayer or song I'm singing, I realize how much I need it. When I don't have much time to think things through, the only times I can think about things is when a sensitive subject comes up, and this is usually in public.
Go, go, go. That's what these last few months have been. So I'm making time to process. I need to be studying for my Greek midterm, but since I have already done some I've decided that I need this more.
"How are you doing?" A common greeting I hear when I see acquaintances in the hallway or coffee shops. I know it's just a greeting, but it makes me think about how I really am... And when I think too hard, I realize I'm not doing very well. I think the only things keeping me from crying more is the fact that I'm going all the time and the sweet times of prayer I have on my morning walks to school.
It's not that everybody is mean to me. It's not that most people aren't friendly when they see me. The thing that hurts most, that makes me feel most alone, is that when I feel most alone, I don't have anyone I can go to, who's physically here, who I know will want to hear from me and I won't feel like I'm bothering. It makes me miss all those who used to be there for me but can't anymore.
I was talking to Darcy, the woman who interviewed me initially to come to Bethlehem. I unknowingly sat next to her at lunch, which was a blessing. I told her it would feel like a fire, but a desert is a more accurate picture because it has the connotation of inherent loneliness.
O Lord, how long?
Being a transfer junior means that I missed out on being a freshman, surrounded by a group of other students who are new. It's hard being dropped straight into a group of students who have been here for two, three years, already. They have their group of friends. Their way of life is pretty set; they have their routines.
One of the things I have done since I can remember is try to be invisible. For the last almost 3 months I haven't had to try. It's like that game I used to play when I was younger about where I would go around in an invisibility cloak and we would pretend the other players didn't know I was there unless I gave myself away by sound. If only it was that easy. I feel like I have to fight to even make my voice be heard above the other, more familiar ones. Some times it seems like there is not room for a stranger in an environment of friends. It's ironic, but I'm finding that the thing I have always tried to be is now my greatest fear.
I think I know what it is. I think I am finding out, slowly and painfully, that I have been so used to getting my worth from the people I am with, from the friendships I have and from how loved or "worthy" I feel in specific friendships. This all comes from the huge transition of being in a relationship to not being in one.
November 3
I do not see myself for who I am in You. Consumed and overwhelmed by what my peers think of me and feeling as if I do not fit into this new world, I find myself in a hard place. This is not the essence of my feelings at the moment but I hear that thoughts tend to entangle as they are written down, so, I write. My thoughts are fuzzy and disconnected right now. This is how they are when I do not have time to process them. They are clear as mud until I see them before my eyes, out in the open. That's when I can make sense of them.
Feeling as if I don't fit in is a blessing, I hear, because this is how the Christian life should be. Yes, this world is not my home, and becoming comfortable in it is a great danger to my effectiveness as a follower of Jesus. But I long to feel at home. I long to feel needed, wanted. I don't want to go through my days feeling as though I constantly want to be somewhere else... I am not sure what to do. Lord, would you bless me with contentment?
I have found solace in little these last few months. I try to look to friendships to give me worth, only to find that they are non-existent or don't live up to what I was expecting. I try to look to the feelings of being loved, only to find that most around me are so busy that they lack the time and energy to care. I even have, despite my resolve and deep desires, looked to the excitement of interaction with the opposite sex and fantasies of what could come of those interactions, only to find that the overflow of these thoughts and energies solely and specifically placed in this world of imagination breed awkwardness in interactions, leading to less than satisfactory feelings immediately afterwards. I try to look to the beauty around me in nature, only to be reminded by those around me that the beauty will not last, that soon it will be winter and the vivacious colors of fall will have dropped to the ground, yielding to the barrenness of branches foreshadowing the coming cold that will make it's home in this city. I look to many, many broken cisterns, and I'm sure, more besides these, only to find that NOTHING SATISFIES. It has been frusterating, expecting and hoping to see some light at the end of the tunnel of this discontentedness only to find more of it. It's frustrating until I realize that this may be what my Savior wants. Maybe this is what I am to find in the desert of isolation, the overflowing oasis of life-giving restoration that can only be found in my Loving Father and Faithful Friend.
Lord, my longings lead me astray! Lead me to the Rock that is higher than I, for I am too weak to climb to You on my own. Allow me to make sense of my feelings and turn my energy towards a healthy life of prayer, rather than to the empty things that I default to to satisfy me. "O God, O God, please save me from myself."
I'm thirsty, God, I'm thirsty
From drinking what destroys me
I'm pouring poison in my cup
I'm hungry, God, I'm hungry
Consuming what controls me
Somehow it never fills me up
Everybody says we're all so different
But everybody knows we're all the same
We're all trying to find a pill to numb the pain
Something's got to change
