These past few weeks have been all but absent posts. Since Mo and I broke up, everything's felt askew. That's not surprising: she was such a big part of my life for so long, it'd be weird if I could continue on in unbroken rhythm. I miss her, I really do. But things have been unraveling, and I've been finding my center again, so that's good. This past year has been a cycle of stress, and I can't help but wonder if that played into the decision I made to break up with her. It's been one thing after another, and God knows I'm not the best at dealing with stress, and it could very well be the case that breaking up with her was my own attempt to lasso the stress, to try and deal with it. If that is the case, it didn't work, and there's a lesson in that. I've never been good at dealing with stress, especially over the last year, and I think that's because up until recently, I didn't really have a lot of it. Sure, there was the usual stress that comes with everyday life, but I was never a "stressful" person: that's the last word people would've used to describe me. But that's changed, and the switch came back in May of last year, that damned lymphoma scare: those stress wheels started rolling, and I haven't been able to gain control of the damned thing since.
I've been asking myself, "Where's all this stress coming from?" Not so much what am I stressing out about, but why, now, am I being stressed out? Those things I stress about were always there, they just didn't stress me out. Questions about what I want to do with my life, who I want to be, what I want out of my time here, those questions took on a new importance after last May. Time hadn't been of the essence, but someone telling you that you've probably got 4th stage lymphoma and perhaps little time left makes time itself seem so much more important. Now those questions that had rested so easily in the back of my mind as I lost myself in my friendships and relationships, my games and play, come to bear on life in such a pressing way that they weigh like an anvil on my chest. I don't have all the answers right now, and with time leaking away, that creates more than a mountain of stress.
And I don't deal with it very well. I sabotage relationships, isolate myself from other people, I do nothing but get stuck in my own head with no way out. Stressing over my future only erects roadblocks to that future, especially when my main method of dealing with it is immature at best. Often I wonder how things with Mo would've panned out, had I not been consumed by stress, had my perception of my life not been skewed. I really do believe that things would've been different. But that's neither here nor there. You dig your hole and you sit in it. Story of my life.
But things have been getting better. I've started praying a lot more. And by "a lot more" I mean "I've started praying." I hadn't for so long. Oh, I'd try, of course: but my own cluttered mind always got in the way, or I felt as if I were just speaking (or thinking) to the wall. What I've found, carving out time to pray and meditate, is that the stress dies down. And dying down is putting it mildly: I had the first peaceful night in a long time after spending a considerable amount of time in prayer. I'm writing my prayers down, kinda like journaling to God. It sounds amateurish, but it's a way for me to be disciplined, to formulate my thoughts, to set them before God. As I've been doing this more-and-more, I'm finding myself re-centered. I'm discovering myself, and God, all over again, and in a refreshing, rejuvenating, hope-inspiring way.
Harking back to the stress, as I've been praying and meditating, I'm finding deep-seeded insecurities that not only harbor stress but fuel it. There's the insecurity, for instance, over my status before God. Am I in? Am I out? Does he like me? Does he not like me? I almost feel like that little girl in the flower patch plucking petals off lilies. As I've grown more conscious of my sin, the wickedness in my heart, I've sunk deep into a legalism that says my status before God is determined by the efficiency of my obedience. Knowledge of my glaring inefficiency has done nothing to make me to rely on God but, rather, has made me distance myself: I'm not worthy, so why even try? And then, of course, comes the thought that because I'm so bad, there's no way he would call me his child. And if that's the case, then I'm pretty much on my own. And from someone who grew up all his life thinking God had a plan for him, that God had everything under control, that God had his back, well, that means the entire foundation, the bedrock, the hope and endurance that has sustained life has been shed like an old garment. That creates a whole new mountain of stress, and as I've been immersing myself in scripture and in prayer and meditation, God's been speaking to that insecurity, condemning those damning lies that have had me in their grip for so long. It's freeing, really: I can call myself a beloved child of God, an heir, a member of the family, with all the benefits and privileges therein. Not because I'm good enough (that's laughable) but because of what Christ accomplished, fully and finally, in securing forgiveness and redemption. It's because of Christ that I can come in confidence before God, and it's because of Christ that God looks upon me not as a miserable wretch but as a child whom he loves, cares for, and provides for. And with that comes hope: the hope that God isn't done with me, that his promises remain sure, and everything that's transpired over the last several years, all those insecurities and the issues and the doubts, all of that was factored in when he promised, "Everything will be okay." This is all part of a journey, the shitty parts and the wonderful parts, and I should be thankful for both.
These past few years, ever since graduating college, I've been confused as to who I am, who I want to be, what I want to do. All of it started, really, when I began questioning God's love for me. Hindsight is a bitch, and I'm seeing that so much is tied to that doubt, that doubt that (a) God really does love me, (b) that I really do belong to him, and (c) that he'll take care of me. Getting back in church, taking time to pray, step by step bringing myself back to the center... That this is right and real is made all the more clear to me because it feels natural. Living out-of-step with God for so long (not in the sense of being heinous or anything like that, more-so confused and lost and disconnected from him) has felt unnatural, has bred anxiety and paranoia. I went from being plugged into the author of life to disconnecting myself. I don't think that at anytime I "lost my salvation", because if that were the case, then why would the Spirit be there, all through it, in the quiet moments and in the loud as well? If I were a lost cause, why would God go through such lengths to bring me back to him?
All this to say, I feel like I'm making a breakthrough. I've been trying for so long to "get my life together": to formulate a vision, to act it out, to get out of this rut and move forward into something better. But for all my striving, my stressing, my worrying, nothing's come of it. I'm learning that movement may not happen when I move forward but backward, by reclaiming that life I once knew, that life I want to know again, the life that's characterized by peace, joy, contentment, and hope. I'm learning that movement may not come by my own efforts to "take control" but by allowing God to shape me and mold me into who he wants me to be. I'm far too stoic to start singing "Jesus Take The Wheel," but you get the idea. Reclaiming my life with God is freeing, liberating, refreshing; and it's hopeful. It gives me hope that things won't always stay the same, that movement's got to happen sometime, and that there's an end in sight to this stagnated, sub-par life I've been living.
This has been a rambling post, and I'm not really sure if anything I wrote make sense.
But I wanted to share what's been going on with me in these weeks of blog-dom silence.
Next up: the 15th week!
No comments:
Post a Comment