i haven't had much to say lately...
i really don't know what to write most days. i'd rather just go to bed. there are some thoughts swirling around occasionally, but when they do i don't have the gumption to bother writing them down. maybe i should. make it more of a discipline...open journal so to speak.
yesterday i was feeling a little blue. i realized much of my life is spent simply reacting to my world. this is a bad thing. i go to work and do what i need to do to get through the day, looking forward to august when i will be finished with roofing. always looking forward to that break around the corner...that day when my life will move from this feeling of in-between limbo to some kind of permanence. i go home to my wife and son and do what i need to do to keep them happy. i go to rustle and some days i feel like i am just looking for something to do to fill my time.
this is not how i want to live.
i want to look forward to what i can create. i want to make something happen. i want to be proactive, creative, active in participating with God in making my life what it needs to be, in doing what i need to do. i want to be actively working to make our home a wonderful place where karen and gabe can thrive. i want to be a positive force for good in my workplace, grateful for a job, grateful for each day i get to live. i want to come to rustle ready to give my all in loving and serving, passionately doing what God has created me to do best, knowing that i am doing what i need to be doing. i don't want to sit around and let life happen, i want to make life happen.
but i don't. why? when will i start? what am i waiting for?
this sucks. God help me. someone help me.
we had some questions we had to answer in group a couple months ago that relate to what i am thinking about today as i prepare for sunday. it's about choosing our travelling companions wisely, about the influence that environment has on us, about developing intentional relationships that help us move toward wholeness.
i had a really hard time with those questions. i don't easily open my soul to people to let them help me grow. i keep my tender parts buried deep inside me, preferring to expose easily dealt with cracks instead. i don't share my real thoughts and fears and struggles with very many people. in short, i need to find some travelling companions.
it's not that i don't have any. it's that i don't let them get inside me.
where do i go when i feel depressed, afraid, sad, insecure, unfinished? i go inside myself. lot's of good help there you can be sure (insert sarcastic grimace here).
wonder bread.
someone give me a kick in the ass.
5.25.2007
inside my head
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6 comments:
God questions - need God answers. He has promised to answer. Keep seeking.
I've followed your posts for a year - and uphold you and yours in prayer.
i can't kick you cause I'd need to kick myself too. I like how you put this struggle...I think in a lot of ways I'm kindof in the same boat. Sometimes I come across as a go getter because I'm always so busy. But I need to be busy to feel good about myself. THis is not healthy. I too want to be proactive in choosing wisely what I do to actively accomplish goals that God has led me to accomplish. Many times right now especially as a new mom, but also since I'm an eternal college student, I too feel in limbo and just like I'm living day to day to get by, survive, please my family, get done what needs to get done. Where is the passion?
I too miss good fellowship where I can feel safe to open up completely to somebody. I've been misjudged too many times. I've closed up my inner battles. The other day, I shared one wiht a friend in a God-ordained conversation and the Lord used her to encourage me as she'd dealt with the same thing. If I hadn't been brave enough to share and risk that part of myself, I wouldn't have been encouraged. It's hard to know when to risk transparencya nd when not to. Espeically as a pastors wife. I don't really have anyone in the church i'd completely open up to. Maybe this is my fault. I don't know.
Well...your post has gotten me thinking. Thanks for sharing brother.
Ditto wonder bread.
p.s. sorry for all the typos. Having a hungry baby doesn't allow for many backspaces.
This is a big topic, my brother. It's one I think we all face at some time or another. This may be "off," but I think we can start with two places.
1) The Lord. And don't even discredit this as some kind of Christianese jargon that leads to nothing. Frankly, if our faith is impractical in these types of situations, then we have a lot of soul-searching to do. For you, you've asked the Lord for help, so you've already taken this step.
2) You don't need a "kick in the ass;" you need a wake-up call. People who live in limbo often have surrounded themselves with things and ideas that are "good enough" for now, but really, their eyes are closed to this reality as they drift off into dream world (or daydream world), a place possibly known as Shangri La or paradise. Of course, we don't think of Shangri La; we only think of being able to run through the park with our family, everyone smiling happily. We think of driving to work with that hopeful feeling for the day and driving home with the feeling of satisfaction, having tucked a feather into our cap. We want to drive down the road, into our driveway, park the car, survey the home and yard with an "Ah....," and go inside for that idea we played out in our minds all day long. The problem here should be obvious: when we live our lives in the "good enough" and dream for what we wish would be, then we live in two different worlds. This is NOT an easy thing to deal with, NOR is it an easy thing to resolve. Because resolution of these issues means opening our eyes to what's really going on and STAYING THERE. I'm not talking about settling; I'm talking about working with what you have toward your goals. Our lives aren't perfect, nor will they be, but the only way to improve them is to start from here with a clear view of what "here" is. If you go home and wish your child were happy all the time, then let go of the idea that you can "make" him happy with things or false amusement and consider how he feels loved and fulfilled. Pour into that. If you and Karen are at each other, consider that maybe unhappiness isn't the problem. Maybe it's a matter of two people feeling like the other person should be fulfilling our needs, when we fell in love during the time when we focused on the other person's needs. Find out what fulfills Karen and do it, even if you don't get the response you're looking for right away. If you're doing it for the response, then it's not really about Karen in the first place. As for your job, I don't think there is a job on earth that makes people feel fulfilled all the time. I'm very fulfilled in my present position, but there have been many times in which I've wondered why I'm here or why I dread going to the church. I only ever come out of those times when I wake up, realize my predicament, and choose to change the predicament. I know, it's easier said than done, and none of us really has control over things like family and jobs. I think that "control" word is a lot of what I'm getting at, though. In our dream world in which everything is painted blue and coming up roses, we are in control. We are content with the "good enough" life for now because we keep hoping that we'll eventually gain enough leverage in real life to begin to control the "good enough" and turn it into the "good life." To reiterate the problem with that, people who do that aren't living life now. Even if you do get the leverage for control, there tends to be a gap between when you stopped living in reality before and when you begin living in reality to try and control it. That gap will always mean that our reality falls short of the dream world. We'll always have the nagging unfulfillment, the fear of being hurt by those we love, the questions about whether someone will eventually get fed up and ship out (in a friendship or something closer), etc., etc., etc. You keep talking about how hard it is to open up your soul, how you keep the tender parts buried. As the king of those who have done that, let me tell you it is NEVER easy. When I leave my tenderness, my soul, my everything buried, then I am leaving myself buried. I am not contributing myself to my work, my family, my friendships, or my church family. I am not contributing myself to anything in my life because I am buried, living in the dream world where things are so much better. That also means that it is only my outside shell that is left to run the rest of my life. My outside shell is given to my wife and kids, so they get a shallow me. My outside shell is given to my job, so they get the uncreative me. My outside shell is given to my church family, so they get the religious me. Meanwhile in dream land, there is a tension because reality and dream land are totally different. I needed to wake up, realize that my life doesn't suck but that I can contribute MYSELF to it in order to help things get better. I needed to offer MYSELF to my wife, MYSELF to my kids, MYSELF to my job, MYSELF to my church, MYSELF to God. The depths is where we really live, so if that's not exposed, then we're never ourselves, are we?
You say insecure, afraid, sad, depressed, unfinished. You're right on. We HAVE to face those things head-on if we have any hope of getting to the other side of them. Hiding (or hiding your depths) is NOT an option if you want to move forward. Maybe - just maybe - exposing yourself, at least to Karen and some friend(s) who love(s) you, will help bring healing to the cracks and wounds inside. When something in the darkness is exposed to the light, the darkness has no more power, right?
Okay, this has been long and ALL OVER THE PLACE, but I never do well when people I love suffer through things that I've suffered through before. You are a wonderful brother, a beloved son of the Most High, a good dad and husband, and otherwise just a great human being. Why, then, should you go through this? (Maybe we should connect soon.... I'll have to see if I can't find your number, but it's most likely still in the bottom of a box until next month, when we're done house-sitting.) (Lynn)
hey everybody,
thanks.
hope you find a way through angela.
lynn, in your words i hear some good truth about living my real life now, about giving myself to the people and tasks i have now, which is what i'm wanting to learn to do. good stuff.
prayers would be appreciated. thanks anonymous.
You always have my prayers. I understand your struggles and I will lift you up to the One who knows you best.
Becky
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