anonymity

1. The quality or state of being unknown or unacknowledged.
2. One that is unknown or unacknowledged.

I didn't get paid on Thursday as i was supposed to. The Wednesday before timecards were due i asked my boss if they were available for me to fill out yet and he said no, come back next Monday. I came back Tuesday and could tell right away that i was too late. It doesn't say on there what day the cards were due, but it's due in the morning (at 9 or 10 as i recall), which means they didn't get the cards to my boss until Thursday or Friday but they expected us to fill them out and him to turn them in by Monday morning (as they're due on Monday or Friday morning, depending on the pay period, as far as i have been able to determine). That is insane. Some of us have this little thing going on called school and a big thing going on called homework. That Monday was 10 days before the next paycheck was due, you'd think they could have either gotten the cards to us in a timely manner or set a reasonable deadline for us to turn them in. It wasn't like i could come in on the weekend to fill mine out and i didn't have time on Thursday or Friday to make an extra trip, now would i try when i was told to come back on Monday at the earliest.

But somehow i knew this was going to happen. My entire last paycheck, i was spending a lot of money (for a change) so i could fulfill the requirement of my BMG membership and cancel it. I got eight CDs for under forty bucks (which is definitely a blessing of sorts) and didn't buy myself anything that wasn't necessary: food and gas and $10 worth of yarn (my only other splurge, but right now a necessary stress reliever). I haven't bought any new clothes since last December for crying out loud and am in bad need of some warm clothes and new pants. But i kept telling God that i was am trusting Him to make sure that i get paid on time (because the last thing i want is to have to fall back on my parents again), and i've been trying so hard to be optimistic and not mad at Him and not depressed (even though i'm sick and school is way too much for me to handle with my workload) and what happens? He lets me down. So instead of providing for me i have to be a burden to my parents at a time where i especially want to be on my own so i'm not bothering them with stuff like this. They really don't have the money to spare either because one sister is getting expensive dental work done and another was just tested for a learning disability similar to dyslexia and my brother just had to go the the emergency room and get stitches.

So as soon as i find out that no, i'm not paranoid, i really am getting screwed out of a paycheck, i have to go do a physics lab for two hours. It was all i could do not to cry in the hall as i waited for the teacher to unlock the lab (late, as usual). I was just sitting there, trying to pray, but i couldn't because then the tears and anger would come. I wasn't sobbing, i wasn't trying to vent, but the tears wouldn't stop, they kept rolling down my cheeks. Then i go inside and discover that my nice calculator fell out of my backpack (i think in spanish, but it wasn't in lost+found or the classroom). So i just sit there and try to focus on my work and forget this gaping hole in me that's been ripped open for the upteenth time.

In Church this past Sunday i read in 2 Chorinthins 1:3-7: All praise to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the source of every mercy and the God who comforts us. He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When others are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us. You can be sure that the more we suffer for Christ, the more God will shower us with his comfort through Christ. So when we are weighed down with troubles, it is for your benefit and salvation! For when God comforts us, it is so that we, in turn, can be an encouragement to you. Then you can patiently endure the same things we suffer. We are confident that as you share in suffering, you will also share God's comfort.

So at the beginning of this week i felt encouraged, resigned to doing whatever God's will is for me. And what do i get? I seek His will and He still doesn't show me. I trust Him and He still doesn't come through. I need gas to go to school, i need to pay for my car insurance, i would like to be able to start buying Christmas presents for my family, i would like to be able to buy some hoodies (at Ross if i have to) so i can be warm when i work out in the cold, but do i get any of that? If i weren't living with my parents i would have no food, no shelter, no gas, and probably no clothes. I listen to this wonderful Christian music that speaks about God's unfailing love and then He lets me down again. I go out on a limb because i love Him so much and He cuts the branch out from under me.

How can He be a loving God if He doesn't come running to me when i call, as He promises to do in the Scriptures? How can i reconcile the reality of my life with the reality that i know to be true in the Bible? Either He is lying or my entire life is a lie. "So tired of the straight line ~ that everywhere you turn ~ are vultures and thieves at your back ~ storm keeps on twisting ~ keeps on telling the lies ~ that you make up for all that you lack" (Angel, Sarah McLachlan).



I can't not believe in God. But how is this possible? I have given Him everything, begged Him to show me if i'm sinning, who He wants me to be, what He wants me to do, and there is no answer that i can hear. The one answer He gave me before this darkness began i am now apparently barred from. I have cried out to Him in the dark, begging Him to calm the storm, but He doesn't. I try to accept that, ask Him to give me the strength to get through it, but i don't get strengthened, i get weakened. I just want to love unconditionally, be used to change peoples' lives, to do His will, to take up my cross daily and follow Him, but i don't know how to anymore. I am so paralyzed and bound hand and foot in the dark, that i don't even know how to breathe or cry or hold on anymore because all of these simple actions are a battle in themselves.

I've been playing this game online called Mozaki Blocks. You put blocks in a square. They are different shapes so you try to fit them together like in Tetris. Each side of the square is a different color, and you're trying to get blocks to form bigger blocks and to get from the small square in the center to the wall that is the same color. When you go up a level the colors on the outside change color and if blocks are touching the way they change color, too. But the blocks in the middle, not touching a block touching the outside, they stay the same color. I finally figured out that i needed to build from the outside in instead of the inside out, that way my work wouldn't be ruined every time i got to a new level. But as the levels get higher there are more colors, two to some sides, then two to every side, and it's impossible to get past like level five or six. I think i got to seven once but i didn't even get one or two matches (and by that time you have to make about twenty to advance a level).

I sometimes wonder if God is the cage i'm in. The cage keeps seeming to get smaller and smaller, closing in on me. My voice bounces back, echoes, and i don't want to talk anymore, or cry, i just wish i wasn't me in a way. How can one person feel so much love and pain and betrayal and devotion all in the same moment? But i just wonder: am i building from the inside out or the inside in? Is God the walls holding me in, or is he the square in the center, that perfects the puzzle no matter what color you are? I feel like i'm a jumble of squares that are all in the wrong places, that are touching the wrong walls or blocking the center so i can't make the ends meet.

How do i fix that? I can't. I can only start over. I don't want to start over, i've tried starting over and it doesn't work. Moving to CO didn't help, moving to VA didn't work, moving to NC didn't make things better, and moving back to CO didn't change anything. It doesn't matter what i do, i'm still helpless in the dark. I can't turn my back on God and i can't make Him listen to me. A part of me thinks: if nine years of prayer didn't work, why will ten? I gave up all my hopes and dreams, i did "learn to love the dreams that He has dreamed for me" (I Will Listen, Twila Paris), so why won't He fulfill those dreams? If He doesn't want me to be here then i wish He would move me. If He does want me here i wish He would comfort me, talk to me, use me. So many other people are praying for me, too, why should their prayers go unanswered, too?

I'm not trying to wallow in self pity, or be lazy, i'm humble, i want to be used, i want to work, i want to be blessed and encouraged so i can encourage others. But the encouragements people try to give me seem so hollow now; telling myself the same thing for six years straight (almost seven) has not made it any more true, irs made it less because it still hasn't come true. I hope it hasn't made it less true, but how can i know? Every time i put my hope in God He pushes farther away, farther down.

If He doesn't want me, who does? I've become a fool for Him. I'm twenty-four, single, a virgin's virgin, living with my parents, virtually unemployed, high school dropout, finally going to a state college (when i should have already graduated), can't get cast, can't get to Denver or Las Vegas for an audition, can't get anyone to read her blog without being insulted, can't finish writing a story or book or get published, can't get her wisdom teeth out, can't get contacts or a new pair of glasses, can't lose weight, geeky, lost, loser. I have a snowboard but can't buy gas to get to the slope. I have a car but i can't get its title so i can't get it registered. I probably won't be able to get a job at Powderhorn even if i try.

I just feel like Satan is winning with the whole world. Even if it is a lie... God doesn't talk to me, He doesn't bind Satan, He doesn't do anything that i can see. I'm blind and deaf in the dark, straining to see a flicker, straining to hear a whisper, and the silent dark bears down on me, drowning me. What's so wrong with being depressed when you give everything you have and you're still just out of luck? Not that i believe in luck, but you know what i'm trying to say. (Like anyone is going to read this.)

I feel like i don't exist. I feel like the world is fake, that it exists only to spite me. But i can't not trust God, i can't get out of this myself, i'd be a fool not to go to Him on my knees anyway. He gave everything for me, so i have to do the same, right?

But worst of all, i feel like this hurts my witness. Why would anyone want to be a Christian after reading about what i've been through? Earth seems so much realer than heaven to a lost soul, and i have hell on earth (what is hell if it isn't separation from God?). Why would they want that? Why would they want to be like me? I try to read His Word, and i believe His promises, and i weep because they aren't coming true, being fulfilled, or real in my life anymore. Will they ever be true again? It's hard to remember anything but the dark.

I don't want to be depressed. I don't want to be ineffectual. But people don't see me. God ignores me. There's nothing i can do. I can't find Him, run to Him, hear Him. I wait, but i hate it, i hate waiting. How am i to comfort others if the prophecies He gave me don't come true (1 Corinthians 14:1-3)? How am i to love others when the greatest love of my life has been lost? I am helpless without Him, and i refuse to seek help in anyone or anything else. So what in the world am i supposed to do?