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| Why Do You Continue To Do It?"Do you enjoy thinking about her?"
"No."
"Does it hurt after?"
"Yes."
"Then why do you continue to do it?"
Quote from a book I am/was reading. I like it. It is an interesting question that I wrestle with occasionally. Not necessarily always a her, many times it is a thing, that thinking about is never the best option, but I continue to anyways. And it is happening again.
Not that I am surprised, in fact, a week or two ago this very fear was on my mind. But now I am home and alone and I am wondering. The bottom of my fears? That I matter very little. I wonder, as I sit here not knowing what to feel or think, whether I am missed. Do they feel the same that I do? Did I mean as much to her as she did to me? When I sit here and it is nice to remember with a smile, though it always hurts after, did I matter at all to them. Do these same memories and photographs evoke any similar emotion as they gaze upon them? And in the end did any of it matter? Lastly, how bad is it that this is all an issue of my pride?
It shouldn't matter. Why do I care if I am remembered? Do I really long for personal recognition and glory that much? Or am I simply begging for validation both for what I feel and what the last seven weeks have meant to me. I can't even comprehend it yet. I am still processing. But I know it mattered. It had to. It did to me at least. But did I ever matter to them? To what extent. I am horrible at reading people. The last few people I thought cared about me more than they really did left me, shall we say fragile, emotionally as I recognize just how bad I am at reading people and how they think of me. Perhaps I was just wrong again.
I don't know. I feel quite exhausted still...emotionally and mentally and spiritually. Though I feel fine physically. Of course I would much rather be dead physically and okay in the other area, but life is never that nice to me.
Does it hurt after? Yes. So why continue to do it? I don't know. My only thought: because it is worth it.
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| Same Story, Different CastGod, give me strength. Do not let me be led astray by sadness or
pain. Help me to endure in love and in your strength. God, thank you
for ingraining your word into my heart, for putting it deep within me,
hiding it in my heart that I may find comfort in it. God I pray that
going forward you would impress this truth upon my very heart and soul
that I would feel it with every breath, not just know it but to know
the truth of it in everything I do. God, be my portion and my strength,
my shield and my comforter. God I know not your will. I only know that
it is good. I know your love for me is greater than I can comprehend,
and if I had nothing other than the grace you freely gave on the cross,
I would lack for nothing. God, if this desire for a relationship, a
want for closeness, a longing for love, God if this is something you
want me to sacrifice, to give wholly to you something that I have
withheld, then Lord take it. It might very well be the thing I desire
most, more than any sort of money or job or safety, and God if that is
not your will for my life, then that is fine. But God whatever your
plan is, I know I cannot do this alone. If this is what you require
then take it. I give it freely, but not on my own, for I am weak and
pathetic and cling so fully to the tattered edges of something that
glittered as it caught my eye. But God, all you offer is so much more
than that. Lord give me the strength to endure. Lord give me healing as
I attempt to tear this out, this thing that was so ingrained in the
deepest part of my heart and desires. God take my whole life, every
bit, because if you are not in it it is so empty. And I am so sick of
feeling like this. God I thank you for the strength you gave me and
give me every day to endure. I thank you and love you and pray for
continued strength through the next days and weeks. Give me peace and
patience. Lord let me seek you before all else. Heal and restore my
heart and give me love. Thank you for you love. Thank you that it is
more than enough, that it is over-abundant. Amen. | | |
| Be not so long to speak...."What, rouse thee, man! thy Juliet is alive,
For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead;
There art thou happy: Tybalt would kill thee,
But thou slew'st Tybalt; there are thou happy too:
The law that threaten'd death becomes thy friend
And turns it to exile; there art thou happy:
A pack of blessings lights up upon thy back;
Happiness courts thee in her best array;
But, like a misbehaved and sullen wench,
Thou pout'st upon thy fortune and thy love:
Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable."
Okay. Romeo and Juliet. I love it. This is a passage that always strikes me. Romeo kills Tybalt and is banished. He is miserable, equating banishment to death. Then Friar Lawrence says this speech to him. It kills me sometimes how stupid Romeo sees. It also annoys me that I can see myself in him. I can think of a list a million items long of reasons I ought to be happy at every moment. Instead I, like a misbehaved and sullen wench, pout on my fortune and my love. Foolish, I know. Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable. How true is that? If we ignore the many blessings that are around us, if we ignore all the amazing things that ought to make us smile and appreciate all we have, if we are too sullen we will die miserable. And when people try to help, we sometimes cannot see past our own foolish pain to see the light of their truth. We respond with what is admittedly one of my favorite lines "Be not so long to speak, I long to die!"
I can imagine God, talking like the friar when I am being a misbehaved wench:
You are alive and healthy, there art thou happy?
You have a loving family and amazing friends, there art thou happy?
You have shelter, security, and peace, there art thou happy?
And so on and so on. Every blessing, great and small. There, art thou happy?
And of course, more than any of it, and really the only one that matters, the only one I can't taint with my mind.
I sent my Son to die for you, to save you. There, art thou happy? Art thou satisfied?
And that is the one that kills me. I hate it when I see the depths of my stupidity and sin. I wonder when, exactly, Christ stopped being enough? What happened that my happiness depended on something or someone else? It happens. It does. I admit that, because I know it has happened before. But of course, nothing ends up working or making me happy, and so I begin to see the truth. I begin to see what is really satisfying.
There, are thou happy?
I think so.
And really, it is about time.
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| OblivionOblivion, defined as the quality of being completely and utterly forgotten. I have realized, and decided, though perhaps not in that order, that this might be the thing I fear the most.
Existence is a funny thing. We exist. Or at least, we exist as far as it matters, so for the sake of this, and of life, we shall concede that we do in fact exist. But what does that matter. If we are forgotten, completely, then did we truly exist? It a few generations, will all trace of me become forgotten, eradicated, turning my life into, what? What does it matter.
What is worse, if I leave a room, and at the same time I leave the mind of all those who have ever known me...if at any given time no one in the world is thinking of me or anything I have done, then at that time do I exist in any way that matters.
I am afraid to be relegated to oblivion. I don't know why. But I have always said I would rather someone know me and hate me rather than they not know I exist. Why is it we need validation of our existence?
I heard a story once: A man was hiking when he falls and breaks his leg. He is laying there for days, he knows he is near to death. He is going to die. Then rescuers arrive. They take him on a helicopter to get him to safety, to try and save his life. As they are flying the man looks down and sees a majestic mountain; it is Kilimanjaro. He looks down and says "That is where I was headed."
I hate that story. People only seem to look to the past right before they die, as if they are searching frantically for some proof they were really alive. Maybe that is all life is, our attempt to prove we exist. When we die, they say life flashes before your eyes. One last chance to live it all again. One last chance to convince yourself you lived, you did, and maybe you even mattered. But in the end you are forgotten, given over to oblivion as the world marches on without you.
"The bottom of my fears, is that nobody just disappears. That'll be the death of me; the day she's just a memory."
If we forget, totally and completely, every trace gone, then tell me where the significance is to any of it.
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| Total DepravityI really need to grasp the totality of my depravity, and really the sinful nature of man as a whole. I was thinking of this today. I feel that it would be something good because as it is I get lost sometimes. I forget that I am capable of nothing good apart from God. I get mixed up, thinking I should be able to do better. I cannot. I cannot do anything but sin on my own. Whatever does not come from faith is sin. When I let myself get so distanced from God that I feel nothing, then everything I do is sin. Eating a sandwich is sin. Now, this seems like a downer, but it really isn't. Because all I need to do is proceed in faith. Then everything will be glorifying. Eating, walking, writing, everything, so long as we go in faith, is good. And it is not of us, but of God, His power manifest in us. I don't know. This had more substance in my head several hours ago as I thought of it.
Right now I am trying my best, but I am realizing I have been trying on my own. Like I needed to do something on my own. I feel, at times, like I need to get myself to a certain point, then I can go back to God to fix the rest. This is foolish. I am not going to be able to get myself on the right track. God needs to do everything. All I need to do is trust in Him. It is hard. Right now, it is tough to describe how I feel. Alone, or lonely, which are different as well as the same. Afraid, anxious, and at the same time careless. Apathetic while remorseful. Pathetic but full of potential. I am at odds with myself. I am a divided man. All over the place. Although I am at a much better point than I was a little while ago. I feel like I am at the point I end up at a lot. That I would just like to go. Get in a car or on a plane and leave it all behind. Everything, everyone, just be gone. Maybe come back. Maybe not. Start all over somewhere new, and pray that doesn't get messed up like this one did. I think that says something about me, that I would do that if I could. Am I that pathetic, that sad that there is nothing here that means that much to me? There are, or it seems like there are, but really, and I hate to say this, I have had so many illusions of something real, so many things I would never want to leave, but they all end up nothing, or just short of it, or maybe they implode and make everything worse. I don't really like this maudlin side of myself. Mostly because I fear it is my true side, the real me.
A broken spirit and a contrite heart, these are things God loves. I am broken in spirit. The problem is that I am not offering that to God to fix. I am trying to fix it in a fun variety of other things. Am I worried? Not really. I trust God and I know I will end up where He wants me, and so there is peace in that. But I am concerned, because there are things in my heart that I am feeling that I do not like and that scare me at times.
I don't know where I am going with this.
I'm sick of feeling so alone.
Pathetic.
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