long day

"If I must boast, I would rather boast about the things that show how weak I am." (2 Corinthians 11:30)

It's been a long day. Today Powderhorn opened for the first time this season. I swung chairs, ran the lift, and shoveled snow. I worked from 8 am until after 4 pm. Needless to say, i'm pretty tired, though not precisely exhausted, just stiff. I am enjoying my new job for the most part.

I've felt torn a lot lately. In some moments i feel more whole and resolved than ever. Other times i simply feel ugly. I don't want to whine or complain. I don't want to "accept only good things from the hand of God and never anything bad" (Job 2:10b). I don't want to give up but at the same time i don't know how to go on.

I have been trying so hard to find a monologue (from Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing or Chekov's the Sea Gull mainly) and nothing fits. Everything is about love or controling others or giving up because you've failed at all your roles in the past two years. I feel defeated and weak because i haven't even really tried acting. Every time i do try i get nowhere. I'm exhausted and don't know what to do. Should i stay here? Go to Biola (if i can get into the Film/TV/Radio program, and that's a big if)? Quit college entirely? I am poor and helpless: fighting to better my financial and spiritual and emotional and intellectual situation has not helped anything. Indeed i often feel as if i am only making things worse.

I am so humbled. I am fully aware of my incapability of doing anything on my own, of being a huge failure without God to hold my hand and guide me every tiptoe of the way. I don't know what He's doing. I don't know who He is anymore. I don't know how to serve Him. I fight against my self defense nature: should i be selfish or selfless? If no one will defend me, then why should i defend myself? I really am a wretched creature, maybe i should start acting like it.

But of course i'm speaking nonsense. Of course i should be selfless and stop thinking of myself so much and be a servant to all. But i am incredibly afraid, more afraid than i have ever been before, and my greatest fear is that this fear with remain until i die... a thorn that will not be removed. I long far too much to be given gifts from God that are good for boasting about. It's not that i want to boast about them, i just want to feel supremely blessed, to be considered better because i have suffered so much, and thus validated. As i have said many times: i am a fool. I feel a kinship with Paul: i have spent so much of my life trying to serve God by the Book letter for letter than i could boast about it. But i found such service and pride to be meaningless... because i had the wrong motives.

"I have plenty to boast about and would be no fool in doing it, because I would be telling the truth. But I won't do it. I don't want anyone to think more highly of me than what they can actually see in my life and my message, even though I have received wonderful revelations from God. But to keep me from getting puffed up, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from getting proud. Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said, "My gracious favor is all you need. My power works best in your weakness." So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may work through me. Since I know it is all for Christ's good, I am quite content with my weaknesses and with insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong." (2 Corinthians 12:6-10)

The hardest part for me is that last verse: it is my heart's cry but i don't know how to live it. I don't feel so pure anymore. I've been working so hard at being real and genuine that my sinful nature has gotten too strong (mind you, i could still boast about my holiness, but i have still fallen from where i was, and what would it gain me or anyone else to do so?). And i don't feel so strong anymore. I'm afraid to be weak, my weakness overwhelms me and i don't feel that it has brought me much strength. And of course i'm not so glad to be experiencing the insults, etc., at the moment.

I've said before that i almost wish i could sin on purpose just to give God a reason to be mad at me. I'd never do it purposefully, but maybe i've done it inadvertantly. I don't know anymore. I'm so confused. Where is all that He promised me? But more importantly, who have i become? When i look in the mirror i don't usually like what i see, and i'm not talking about things merely at face value. My life has been torn apart, my heart broken, and a way-too-large part of me doesn't know how to trust God anymore. More than that, the faith of a mustard seed hasn't been anywhere near enough for the past seven years.

And that's what it comes down to for me: it will be seven years tomorrow. My life doesn't show any hints of improving drastically, which mean life might as well continue as it has been, at a snail's pace clawing my way up a precipice. I speak with such dramatic and extreme language, but that is how it feels to me. I am not joking when i sing songs that say things such as this:

"i couldn't face my life tomorrow ~ without Your hope in my heart i know ~ i can't live a day without You ~ Lord, there's no night and there's no morning without Your loving arms to hold me ~ You're the heartbeat of all i do ~ i can't live a day without You" (Avalon's Can't Live a Day)

and

"i don't want to go somewhere if i know that You're not there ~ cuz i know that me without You is a lie ~ and i don't want to walk that road ~ be a million miles from home ~ cuz my heart needs to be where You are ~ so i don't want to go ~ without Your touch ~ without Your love ~ filling me like an ocean ~ cuz Your grace is enough ~ enough for me ~ to never want to go somewhere if i know that You're not there" (Avalon's I Don't Want to Go)

That's why i've said that i feel like i'm dead. If He's not filling me up then what is there to live for? If i am not serving Him then what am i living for that's worthwhile? I have failed Him. But He has failed me, too. He promised. I've said "Lord, here am i, send me" (Isaiah 6:8) and He has said no (or perhaps wait would be more accurate) over and over and over again. Is it my fault? Am i doing enough where i am? I try so hard, but the answer is always a resounding no. A no for seven years.

I am crazy, an absolute fool. How can anyone believe such unbelievable promises after seven years of no?!? I must have misheard, i must have gotten the wrong message, He didn't mean that. But He did. I know He did. I cannot let go of it. It is slowly destroying me, eating away at me. Taking the knife out of my side has not healed me. I am destroyed if i let go and destroyed if i hold on so i am simply destroyed.

I hate that He's made me love Him so much. But is it enough love? I have a large cross, do i have the strength to bear it? I still can't answer that question. I do not expect this to be the last night of my hell, there have been too many hopeless anniversaries for that. I do not even know what i'm supposed to be doing here. Should i have hope or despair, faith or doubt, action or wait??? What am i supposed to get out of this? Anything??? I sometimes wonder if i have not met my Imzadi because he is not ready for me yet but can that apply to this, too? Is the world not ready for me? It never will be!

I am nearly twenty-four. For the majority of the population that may seem like nothing, but to me it seems like a lot. I used to count the days as a sort of backwards countdown to hope, but now they are merely a specter looming over me. I have let God slip away from me. I do not know if i have made the right choices in life. I have tried so hard without avail. I have been far too selfish.

What else can i say? I am too tired to try to apologize enough, explain enough, analyze enough. Digestion will not bring me any closer to an answer, only God can give me the answers and hope that i seek. I am afraid that once He does talk to me, all i will be able to say is, "I am nothing--how could I ever find the answers? I will put my hand over my mouth in silence. I have said too much already. I have nothing more to say" (Job 40:4-5). Of course, maybe that wouldn't be a bad thing. I just don't know.

~2326