Getting Deep

Some words I've been sitting on...

Oh, hey.

I wanted to write some follow up words on my last (was it really in April?) post.  I'm doing much better, and I'm thankful to kind friends who expressed their concern.

Something's been bothering me, though.  I wrote in my last post that I wasn't giving up on God because I was stubborn.  Those words have been eating at me since I wrote them and I have to ask your forgiveness.  Stubbornness can keep you religious, sure, but it won't get you any closer to God.  I'm not sure it has much to do with us giving up on Him anyway; I think it's more that He doesn't ever give up on us.  The second reason my stomach churns with these words is that my problems are really so small.  Not small in comparison to others.  Sweet friends who have seen the worst life has to offer are always quick to remind me there is no value in that comparison.  No, I mean they are so small compared to the bounty that surrounds me daily.  Grace and love and good gifts.

Moving on.

I am feeling better and it would take a long time to go into the details (although, feel free to ask me), but I've been seeing a nutritionist I met through some oddly ordained circumstances and she's been helping me repair from the inside out.  It's been a long slow process (starting in February), but I started seeing big changes not too long after that last April post.  At a recent appointment, my nutritionist told me she believes we are getting really deep now, "deep into the caverns of your body," she said in a silly ghosty voice and we both chuckled.  She said we may be zeroing in on what's been holding me down for years (2005 was my first ER visit, but I don't think I was healthy for years before that).  Now my 'plan' is becoming quite focused.

The reason I'm telling you all this boring stuff is that on the same day I also had sort of a breakthrough in the deep caverns of my soul (insert silly ghosty voice here).

As I've been getting physically and nutritionally healthier, I've started to realize all the poor choices I made that got me here.  Not just the food choices...that was just the coping mechanism (sugar, sugar + some sugar).  No, I mean...trying to do too much.  Trying to do it all.  Trying to do it alone.  Trying to be loved (or lovely, which I thought was the same thing).  Trying to impress so that I would feel like I had some worth.  And all that pressure that motivated me.  These are the things that pushed me over the edge and will again unless I change.

I've been reading John again (a homeless man told me to) and watching how every time crowds were about to worship Jesus on the basis of his miracles, he fled.  He refused to be worshipped on the basis of the spectacular.  Satan himself tried to tempt him to do something spectacular to get everyone to follow him and Jesus said no.  I was listening to a sermon from my pastor and he was talking about this very thing.  Satan wanted to Jesus to come in strength.  Jesus refused and came in weakness.  Why?  Because he knew the way he would draw all people to himself, and it wasn't by a show of strength, but of seeming defeat.  He would be lifted up from the earth (John 12:32) (first on a cross and again when he resurrected and ascended); he wouldn't lift himself up on the highest point for all to behold (Matthew 4:5-7).  Jesus never questioned his place as the Son, and it has taken me decades to get to the place where I can accept and receive that I am God's beloved child too.  So why then am I still trying to do it all on my own?

This is where the rubber meets the road.  It's probably easiest to explain if I just write the prayer as it fell out on my journal page yesterday:

"Sometimes I go my own way because I don't know what else to do.  I have no direction and I doubt very much that You have a plan for my life because I hear and feel nothing from You in that respect.  So, I panic and (start to) despise my job because it's not what I feel made to do (whatever that is) and I stress about how to get out of it and I worry that will never happen.  If I could only hear or see something from You.  But I know it probably begins by learning to believe and trust that You do have a plan for me and I haven't fallen through the cracks...which is exactly how my whole life has felt."

When I wrote those last words..."learning to believe...I haven't fallen through the cracks...which is exactly how my whole life has felt"... I realized the nail had been hit on the head.  I was zeroing in on what had been holding me down years longer than any health condition or virus.  All my life I have been longing so intensely to be found and not forgotten or invisible.  For someone to believe in me or just to let me know it was okay to believe in myself.  I literally would hide in my closet for hours as a kid hoping someone would come find me.  It didn't really ever happen, but I think I'm kind of over the waiting.  I don't know God's plan for my life yet, or at least...not in the usual sense.  But I think my plan just got pretty focused.  I'm just gonna go forward on this journey of believing that He has one.