Too many questions, not enough answers. True in my second meeting with Ryan yesterday, still true in my meltdowns with Christian this morning.
I feel paralyzed. I try to pray (even inside my head), and not only do no words come, but it feels like a chasm opens up at my feet. I prefer the previous feeling of talking to a wall.
And now, quite suddenly, I morph from the 'girl who thinks too much,' is too introspective (particularly regarding myself), to the 'girl who doesn't see herself clearly and keeps avoiding looking at herself.' Imagine my surprise.
Too many questions, and no clear answers to be had. Tripp's today are predictably vague and particularly unanswerable by me:
1) Where have impatience and disloyalty gotten you off God's path?
2) As you have been waiting, what new things has God taught you about yourself, himself, life in this fallen world, sin, and his grace?
No clue, Paul.
Then I'm supposed to find myself in the story in The Silver Chair with Aslan, Jill, and the stream. But isn't it Aslan I'm supposed to be seeking, and not the things he can do for me? I thought Aslan was the stream. Where am I in all this? I'm trying to talk to the damn lion! And paralyzed not by fear of the lion, but by things I can't even find within myself...
Then (having failed at Projects 1 and 2) I move on to Psalm 77. Pretty sure that what I'm supposed to see is HOPE. Even when Asaph felt as if God had abandoned him, he looked back and remembered that God promises to walk with us through (not around( the hard stuff.
That's all well and good, but all I'm seeing is "my soul refuses to be comforted" and "I am so troubled that I cannot speak." That's what makes me cry. That resonates. God's faithfulness to the Israelites doesn't seem to translate to my reality.
Have there been times in my own life when God has stepped in that I can look back to for encouragement? Sure. But what's on the surface today is all the scum Ryan dredged up yesterday, trying to "unpack" every time in my world that I have felt most anxious, all the times I've been hurt, damaged, forsaken. Small wonder that I've buried so much of it. Also not rocket science that scaring this stuff up might interfere with my sleep or make my outlook rather dismal.
When those dark feelings started to engulf me last night, what was my first response? To CALL OUT TO GOD. And I found a block there. Not that God wasn't listening, but that I was without words. All the words seemed to plummet into the chasm at my feet. There was no way around, so I just stood at the edge of the blackness, waiting for the words to come. But when I tried to explain that this morning, I'm told that my first step should be to repent for not running to Him. I did! Who's the author of the chasm? Probably me, but that doesn't mean that I know how to fill it in.
I know I can't just avoid the hard stuff. But (as with the white noise) it's insanely difficult to look directly at it. "Pray!," you say. "Ask God to help! Ask Him to come find you!"
The only answer I can give is that I'm trying. He knows where I am. And that right now the only options I see are to wait at the edge or to walk directly into the pit. (After all, theoretically my words are down there...)
So I wait. And I ask for help. And I confess my unbelief. And I fail at my many and assorted homework assignments, that are meant to make me see more clearly but mostly so far just seem to muddy the waters. And I do what I'm told, and I answer honestly, and more often than not all this honesty just ends up making me cry.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Monday, January 25, 2010
January 25, 2010
Read Psalm 27.
New year, new journal.
Unfortunately, I seem to have nothing to say. But my 'assignment' is to try to get how I'm feeling on paper, so I can get a clear view of the terrain of this particular part of the wilderness rather than running screaming and just getting lost in another part.
It comes in waves, like a seemingly unbreakable cycle. Whether this free-floating anxiety is the "wilderness behind the wilderness" of depression, sickness, pain, and insomnia, or just the flip-side of the depression coin, it feels like there's an elephant sitting on my chest. I can't quite breathe, and I want to climb out of my own skin. My body is working way too hard, fighting an at least invisible and perhaps non-existent enemy. As if whatever energy I manage to find is all getting used up in the wrong places. To feed the elephant. But if I starve it, I'll just crash, headlong into the other side of the cycle.
I don't want to feel this way. But I don't know how to make it stop, or even how not to let it control me. And yes, I've prayed about it. I'm trying really hard to let go, to trust, to 'wait for the Lord'... but trying really hard gets me nowhere. The options are:
– God doesn't know what's going on, or doesn't care,
– God can't fix it,
– God chooses not to fix it, or, more accurately, is engineering this whole disaster for my own good, as part of His greater plan.
[Here's an aside from me today, April 15, 2010 – the 'disaster' I recall referring to is the combination of the pipes in my house freezing in early December, which I couldn't seem to get a handle on or figure out how to get fixed, and what I perceived as an 'ultimatum' that I had to start counseling with Aaron or Ryan, which made me feel like Christian had given up on me, that I was no longer worth his time, that all the talk of "I am so thankful for you" had fallen by the wayside in light of just how messed up I am.]
Believing that the correct answer is the last one is small consolation (or none at all) in the moment. And telling me to 'choose to be encouraged' does nothing to dislodge the elephant. If you're stressed to the breaking point because you're crippled by stress and anxiety for no apparent reason, where does it end? Again, I can't breathe.
Yes, I see that financial security is an idol for me, a trigger. Yes, I know that I instinctively run into myself when I feel threatened or insecure. But self-awareness doesn't seem to get me any further than trying really hard does.
I need a starting point. I need a guide. Because right now I'm just lost.
New year, new journal.
Unfortunately, I seem to have nothing to say. But my 'assignment' is to try to get how I'm feeling on paper, so I can get a clear view of the terrain of this particular part of the wilderness rather than running screaming and just getting lost in another part.
It comes in waves, like a seemingly unbreakable cycle. Whether this free-floating anxiety is the "wilderness behind the wilderness" of depression, sickness, pain, and insomnia, or just the flip-side of the depression coin, it feels like there's an elephant sitting on my chest. I can't quite breathe, and I want to climb out of my own skin. My body is working way too hard, fighting an at least invisible and perhaps non-existent enemy. As if whatever energy I manage to find is all getting used up in the wrong places. To feed the elephant. But if I starve it, I'll just crash, headlong into the other side of the cycle.
I don't want to feel this way. But I don't know how to make it stop, or even how not to let it control me. And yes, I've prayed about it. I'm trying really hard to let go, to trust, to 'wait for the Lord'... but trying really hard gets me nowhere. The options are:
– God doesn't know what's going on, or doesn't care,
– God can't fix it,
– God chooses not to fix it, or, more accurately, is engineering this whole disaster for my own good, as part of His greater plan.
[Here's an aside from me today, April 15, 2010 – the 'disaster' I recall referring to is the combination of the pipes in my house freezing in early December, which I couldn't seem to get a handle on or figure out how to get fixed, and what I perceived as an 'ultimatum' that I had to start counseling with Aaron or Ryan, which made me feel like Christian had given up on me, that I was no longer worth his time, that all the talk of "I am so thankful for you" had fallen by the wayside in light of just how messed up I am.]
Believing that the correct answer is the last one is small consolation (or none at all) in the moment. And telling me to 'choose to be encouraged' does nothing to dislodge the elephant. If you're stressed to the breaking point because you're crippled by stress and anxiety for no apparent reason, where does it end? Again, I can't breathe.
Yes, I see that financial security is an idol for me, a trigger. Yes, I know that I instinctively run into myself when I feel threatened or insecure. But self-awareness doesn't seem to get me any further than trying really hard does.
I need a starting point. I need a guide. Because right now I'm just lost.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Lost in the Wilderness
I've spent more than a week agonizing over this assignment, and these are the first marks I've managed to put on the page. Where do you begin your wilderness story when you're still lost within it? But with the understanding that one must begin somewhere, I'm prepared to give it a shot, in hopes of not losing any more sleep over the project...
Everybody's wilderness looks different. For some it feels like life is just crumbling around the edges. For others of us, it's more like a chasm opening at our feet. Even if you manage not to fall into it, pretending it isn't there is like trying to ignore the elephant in the bedroom. Occasionally you get too close to the edge and fall in. Sometimes you intentionally walk into it, because you're being chased by something big and it seems like the only way to escape.
I suppose “the wilderness” is as old as original sin itself. After all, the first thing God did once we turned our backs on perfection was throw Adam and Eve out of the Garden, into the unknown.
Everybody's wilderness looks different. For some it feels like life is just crumbling around the edges. For others of us, it's more like a chasm opening at our feet. Even if you manage not to fall into it, pretending it isn't there is like trying to ignore the elephant in the bedroom. Occasionally you get too close to the edge and fall in. Sometimes you intentionally walk into it, because you're being chased by something big and it seems like the only way to escape.
I suppose “the wilderness” is as old as original sin itself. After all, the first thing God did once we turned our backs on perfection was throw Adam and Eve out of the Garden, into the unknown.
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