sing along.

Here are some words that have been keeping me going lately…

“Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard, and you’re kind, amazing things will happen. I’m telling you, amazing things will happen.” -Conan O’Brien

I am the Lord’s servant, and I am willing to accept whatever He wants. May everything you’ve said come true.  – Luke 1:38

I’ve been honestly kind of proud of myself this past month.  I was extremely anxious and hesitant about moving back to Clifton, and starting classes again, but I don’t think anything could have been better for me.  This Fall was so strange.  Take my hair for instance- on October 23 I dyed my hair dark auburn from it’s natural light-honey-brown color, and I got bangs cut for the first time in my life.  I basically tried to enter in the witness protection program.  And that metaphor just keeps going.  I honestly think I was so traumatized and ungrounded from what I experienced over the summer and early September that I just didn’t want to be associated with that identity anymore.  I was so lost. I’ve never felt more abandoned and confused in my life.  I’ve never been left to decide the schedule of my day for such a long period of time, and that may sound like a dream come true, but it was truly a nightmare.  I don’t think I went through an actual depression, but I did shut down somehow.  I watched a lot of TV. A lot. Seasons upon seasons of TV.  My only solid memory of October is just watching TV.   In November I tried to get my life on some kind of track, and that just resulted in me getting really sick for weeks, and to top it off I had a panic attack while driving that still to this day is haunting me every time I get in the car.  December I just gave up all ambition to stay on a schedule. I stopped taking care of anything, I knew it would be over soon.  I sort of pulled the pre-emptive strike card on my home.  I knew that my time there was fading fast, so instead of treasuring time with my family, or security of my town, I just became resentful and angry toward it, to make moving away and starting all over feel less overwhelming.  But shocker! I still ended up having several break downs/ tantrums where I cried to my mother about everything I was afraid of.

But now I’m back.  And I can finally see this past fall objectively, from a distance.  I’m not sure what lessons I learned exactly, but I know that I don’t feel lost anymore.  I’m beginning to feel that sense of God directing me again.  I don’t know what toward, but I finally just don’t care about that. I don’t care about guessing what his next move is before he makes it.  I know what’s before me right now, and I feel this amazing motivation to just work my ass off and stop believing these terrible lies being fed to me by classmates, or relatives, or society, or history.  I KNOW THE TRUTH.  And I am SO glad.  As Brian Tome says, I’m in the “Lucky Sperm Club” and I’m just sick and disgusted with feeling so pitiful all the time.  Feeling sorry for myself didn’t do anything to change my situation.  I have ZERO things to be so pissy about.

Yeah, life sucks sometimes. Crazy, insane, unfair shit happens that plows us over. It makes everyday after it different and foreign. And to deal with it most of us go numb and get angry. We let each day blend into the next, while we build and and build frustration that we eventually take out on the people who are closest, and the most likely to survive our mean insensitive tantrums. When I think of all the times I went off on my mother, father, or even my Heavenly Father, I want to fall to my knees. But fortunately for me they love me enough to see what I was going through and bare it the best they could.

I take back what I said before about not knowing what lessons I learned.
I learned that when God wants to make significant change in your life, to change your soul, to change your attitude, He is going to strip you of every comfort or sense of purpose you’ve ever known. For me that was no longer receiving my worth from being a student, and employee, a roommate, or a daughter. I know being a daughter will never end, but I didn’t belong to my parents the way I did the last time I lived at home in high school. God broke up my heart. Just the same way a gardener does before planting new seeds. He broke up my heart so he could change me. So I would come crawling on my knees back to him. To the cynic, this might sound patronizing or mean for a god to do. But that’s a lie. God loves me so much, that seeing me slip further and further away from him broke up HIS heart. He knows his plans for me, and He loves me so much that He wants me near him all the time. He never left me unprotected, or in need of anything. He simply showed me even after following him my whole life, I still, still, still wasn’t putting my trust in him. I wasn’t putting my worth in him. I wasn’t honestly believing that He could show me love in ways that might differ from my plans. In other words, deep inside in a place I chose not to acknowledge I still wanted God to prove how much he loved me by giving me an awesome co-op job, or finally sending me a significant other, or somehow miraculously help me lose 20 pounds in a month. I neglected the most significant, extravagant love he shows me 24/7. Because on earth we call it “mundane”. “normal”. “basic”. “minimum.” Having the freedom to drive, bathe, eat, speak, sleep, relax whenever I want, with no fear of being kidnapped, beaten, starved, raped. I know these things exist, and that they break God’s heart while at the same time being a huge role of his love story for the world. But he has shown me extravagant grace and mercy by not including me with that chapter. I’m not saying God desires for evil to happen, I’m saying that we will all be rescued by him in his own time, and I believe he put me on earth to help do some of that rescuing for him. And that makes me so excited!

So back to now. I’m proud of myself for getting my shit together. I’m thrilled that the Holy Spirit encouraged me to do this by first spending time with God daily, and dealing with my struggles and stress with him directly, instead of only running to him in final desperation. He’s healed me in significant ways. He’s helped me be better organized, more punctual, and much much much more productive with my time. He’s given me a kind and patient heart for people and frustrations that would be easy and simple to dismiss or ridicule. And this has led, just in 4 weeks, to better sleep, better eating, better inspiration and creativity for school, and most importantly better and even new friendships.

I should really start journaling so I don’t explode in thought like this again, but I felt compelled to share authentically and honestly. Make of it what you will.

“Oh praise the one who paid my debt, and raised this life up from the dead.”