i have some changes to make

aaaannnnddd they won't be easy, but they remain necessary.

i HAVE to find a community to become a part of. I mean, one that resonates with who I am. I love my home church and I can give there and I can serve there, but at the end of the day I need people who are like-minded individuals, who I can be with and challenge and serve and be challenged and be served by. I need more people in my life with whom I can be absolutely honest and still be absolutely loved. Sometimes "home" isn't the best place for that. I feel that I need to give back to the community that has given so much money and energy to me. But I also feel that I need to have another place where I can just be on level ground with everyone and no one is asking me to be the leader-- I need a place that lets me be an equal-- equally frail, equally fallen, equally insecure, equally broken and in need of hope. My soul necessitates it.

i HAVE to stop giving in.

i NEED to decide, consistently, that who I am in Christ triumphs over who I am in my own eyes. That he has borne, once and for all, the weight of sin. He will not do it again. And I can not do it. There is nothing left to be borne. All my trying and trying to earn his approval just break his heart.

i have just recently been reminded of how insecure i am. I mean, really. I think that at some point when I get really excited about some new idea or task, I temporarily forget how insecure i am.
but then i have one slip up.
i neglect one item.
i forget someone important to me.
i act in the opposite way of everything i've ever wanted to be.
i give in to lies, doubts, temptations.
i disappoint someone.

...and all of a sudden, my enthusiasm has been shown to be a foolish mistake and all the energy that moments ago believed ardently in a cause, is turned to instead fuel hatred, mockery, condemnation.
My acheivements i've always found it hard to acknowledge. but my failures-- i record those each permanently. and i read through the whole list again each time a new one is added.

i'm screwed up. and i'm a sorry excuse for an example, most days. i know that better than anyone. and yet there's also a part of me (so often standing in a shadow) that knows i am not these things. i am not what i see so easily. i am not my failures. i am forgiven. i am guilt-free. i am stumbling into what it means to be holy.

i NEED to believe truth.

i MUST stop self-medicating my life, getting just enough of this or that to deaden my sensitivities to the things that i used to breathe: Hope. Redemption. Forgiveness. Grace.

i MUST come to a place where I let myself be loved. Really, really be loved. Where i stop trying to discern the hidden agenda. Where i stop trying to talk myself out of some potentially great relationships because i'm worried that the more people i love, the more people i'll let down.

i have to find a community to be a part of.
I need a place that lets me be an equal-- equally frail, equally fallen, equally insecure, equally broken and in need of hope.
My soul necessitates it.

I've got a heavy heart today

Lack of sleep?
Onset of entirely non-seasonal, sporadic depression?
Overwhelmed by current financial crisis?
Overwhelmed by 4 classes to begin and finish work for in 1 month's time?

Anxious about visiting my friend for the first time in five years... as we head off to his mother's wake and funeral?
Anxious about his family hating me for taking him away from them during this time?
Anxious about meeting his friends and re-playing PA all over again, where I just really want to go home?

Sinking feeling that I've lost a friend and I don't know what in the world to do about it, because he says nothing's wrong?
Worry about camp and its future?

Scared that something will happen to my family while I'm gone and I won't be able to be there for them?
Scared that life will start to change and I won't be ready for it?

Terrified that my life is really going to amount to nothing-- what do I have to show for almost 25 years on this planet?

Frightened to try new things because I'm terrified of failing?

Shame that I've neglected my walk with God?
Shame that I'll never find another community I can be vulnerable with, and I'll find myself alone and trying to be strong, but just living a thinly veiled lie?
Shame that guilt and suffering motivate my walk with God rather than love or passion.

I don't know...
I feel like I'm living in a dark cloud and it's seeping in through my pores...


Good things happened... changed my flight. I'll be there for my friend. Flights back are looking reasonably priced. Hung out with Rich on Sunday. Hung out with internet-stranger friend Henry today during my layover. Slept two hours on the plane.
I need something. And I don't know what it is, but I need it soon.

If I stand, let me stand on the promise that you have brought me through... If I can't, let me fall on the grace that first brought me to you. If I sing, let it be for the joy that has born in me this song... If I weep let it be as a girl who is longing for her home.

I can be a real jackass sometimes

I hate that about myself.

I think that, sometimes, there are things about other people that I don't know how to deal with. I don't know how to deal with their loss or with their pain or with their moods or their confusion. So... I act like a jerk. Mostly this is just with the people that I'm really close to.

But... it occurred to me last night that I might take it too far. Yes, i want you to get help for your problems. Yes, i think that you're making yourself live in misery because you won't really deal with what's going on. Yes, that sucks. So... I'm going to be a jerk to you and maybe you'll decide I'm right?

I think my logic is flawed.
But, perhaps even more pressing, I think that I do it because it allows me to convince myself that I don't really care about the other person.
"Fine, have your shit and don't get help-- whatever." And I try to convince myself (under the guise of "tough love" or something equally eye-roll inducing) that what he/she/they need most is someone who's not going to lie, someone who will give it to them straight.

I can be a real jerk.
I hate that in myself.
And I'm sorry to you. And you. And you, too.

I don't know how to make him see in himself what I see

It might be my lot in life, surrounded by people who shine brilliantly, but walk as if they were clothed in shadows, as if they need apologize to others for existing.
I love my friends, and i see beauty in them. I see honesty and determination and courage and grace and trust. I see people who aren't going to give up on me, people who want to make the world a better place, want to give hope to one more person, want to see people cry less and work together. I see the frailty of humanity grasping for something better, reaching for something that's worth living for. I see people who give me a reason to believe that the world isn't full of selfish bastards, but contains some of the most vulnerable, struggling, *real* people I could have imagined, and I get to call these people friends.

But they... (not just one or two, but "they" as a group that includes too many of them) they don't see these same things in themselves. Oh, they see the cracks that prove they're broken, but they don't see the light that runs out of those cracks and reminds me that all is not loss. They see the pain, but they don't see that they themselves are part of the reason I don't hurt like I used to, part of the reason I'm able to live with the suffering for one day more. They don't see that they are an integral part of why I can keep living. Of why, no matter how hard things get, I always remember that I'm not alone, even in the darkest moments when I feel that the Creator has forsaken me. They don't see that it's my relationships with them that allow me to feel love, and it's that love that provides the bandage and salve for the wounds I've been given by others and dealt by myself.



They don't see it, and I don't know how to let them.

I don't know how to love them *for them. I love them for me... I love them because I can see past the imperfections that are all too glaring in their own minds. Because I see how much they are worth and know how important they are to me, and to others.

I love them.
And i don't know how to make them believe me when I say that.
And it makes me sick.

She's going to die soon

Talked tonight with one of the closest friends I've ever had, certainly the most consistent one my life has known. His mom is dying, has been for a while; he left work today to go and be with the family.

I was supposed to go out and visit next week, just hang out with him and catch up in person.
But now we aren't sure how much longer she'll be alive.

When he first told me she was sick, I vowed to myself that I would do whatever I could, even if it involved emptying my bank account, to cross the country and be there with him during that.

Now, it looks like that just might happen. And I feel as adamant about it now as I did then.

i don't know why God gives us the grace to be able to sit with one another during times of crap, but he does. I'm grateful for it. And I don't know what my friend needs right now (his emotional life has always been complicated... in that over logical, emotion-who? sort of way) and I don't know if I can make things any better, but God help me do my best and try.


Heavy heart tonight.

Wish I could be there right now for him. But I'm not the one who knows best. If he feels that I wouldn't be a hindrance there, I'm still flying out. Just waiting for the word.

Love.