train rides

I'm currently in the middle of reading four different books. Technically three because one is a children's book and I've already read it, but I keep re-reading it and will continue to do so until I feel as though its lesson has sunk deep within me. I am not saying I'm in the middle of reading four books to brag about how much I read, I am saying I'm in the middle of reading four books because it reveals quite a bit about the way I do life... easily distracted and wanting more than what is in front of me.

Earlier this year I made a commitment to not start a book until I finished the one I was reading, and I did real good for a while. But, like with most causes or good intentions, I'm great at boarding the train in excitement and not so great at staying on for the long haul. After a while the train ride becomes monotonous and what started out as new and exciting soon becomes normal and boring. The problem is, I all too often mistake the excitement that comes with experiencing something new for joy or happiness. I assume I have found what it is I have been looking for and with a new found feeling of fulfillment I claim it as my own. But what once was new can't stay new forever and when those feelings of excitement start to fade, so does my confidence in thinking I have found what truly makes me happy.

I start to look around the train and after searching all the cars I realize I'm not going to find what fulfills me on board. I begin to look out the window and become enchanted by everything I pass. With a hunger for more, I begin thinking about getting off the train to go somewhere "better" and I start to feel the excitement all over again. Once again, I forget that "new" does not mean that it is "better" and I begin planning my escape. It may be a big city with bright lights, or a dark forest with beautiful trees, either way, the newness of it entices me and I assume my happiness must be found there.

I've been hopping on and off trains for far too long now. I feel like I should be much older than I am to be saying that, but when the search for fulfillment begins at such a young age, as it did for me, you start to wear out long before it's your time.

A dear friend of mine sent me a quote from one of my favorite authors, Henri Nouwen, who also happens to be the author of one of my four reading books at the moment. It struck a chord with me because for a man who accomplished so much, teaching at Notre Dame, Yale and Harvard, working with the homeless and people with mental handicaps, for example (which doesn't even scratch the surface of what I find amazing about him), he still found himself coming up empty and unfulfilled.

At 28, with no claim to fame or even much to my name (I did not mean to rhyme, but I may send that as a lyrical suggestion to eminem), even after giving into the excitement of new train rides leading to new locations, new jobs, new schools and new relationships over and over again, each time coming up empty, I confess, I'm still hoping the right train is out there for me to hop on and I just haven't found it yet.

That's not what I'm supposed to say, right? I'm supposed to say I'm tired of train hopping and I give up searching for happiness and I surrender all. And yes, there is truth to that, I want to be at that point, I honestly and sincerely want to be able to say without hesitation that I am tired of hopping the happy train that leads to disappointment, but I'm not there yet. And so maybe I can't honestly say to the Lord, "okay, I surrender all" because I'm afraid of things I have seen on my train rides, and my perception of God is so skewed that I assume if I surrender all then He is going to make me do the very thing I don't want to do.

I have started to realize that my problem is not with my fear, my problem is with my understanding of who God is. I want to know Him more, the real Him, not the Sunday School Him, but I know that requires even further surrender on my part. So I may not be able to say "I surrender all" yet, but I can say, "I want to be willing to surrender all."

I want to leave with you with the quote from Henri Nouwen my friend shared with me. I hope it speaks to you as it did to me, but perhaps in a way that relates to you.

"Today, I realized that the question of where to live and what to do is really insignificant compared to the question of how to keep the eyes of my heart focused on the Lord. I can be teaching at Yale, working in the bakery at the Genesee Abbey, or walking around with poor children in Peru and feel totally useless, miserable, and depressed in all of those situations. I am sure of it, because it has happened. There is not such a thing as the right place or the right job. I can be happy and unhappy in all situations. I am sure of it, because I have been. I have felt distraught and joyful in situations of abundance as well as poverty, in situations of popularity and anonymity, in situations of success and failure. The difference was never based on the situation itself, but always on my state of mind and heart. When I knew that I was walking with the Lord, I always felt happy and at peace. When I was entangled in my own complaints and emotional needs, I always felt restless and divided. It is a simple truth that comes to me in a time when I have to decide about my future. Coming to Lima for 5, 10, or 20 years is no great decision. Turning fully, unconditionally, and without fear to the Lord IS."

Today, I am thankful that my worth does not lay in the right location, the right job, the right school, or the right relationship. Because of this, I am willing to stop and rest and not try so hard to prove to the world and to myself that I am of value. At least for today, for this moment, I am going to watch the train pass by as I rest in the truth that I am deeply loved already and my need to go looking for it is no longer.

true stories

It's quite curious to me how quick I am to stand up for and desire truth above much else, yet how slow I am to be willing to voice truth over saving face. The truth is my computer is on it's last breath, yes that's true. But to cite that as the sole reason for why I can't seem to continue to "truthfully" continue my story would be false. Do I owe anyone an explanation? No. Does it even matter for me to be telling my story on a blog? Probably not. But what I have found in the past is that regardless of the fact that others may or may not be listening, me simply voicing the truth is healing for me. And so here I go.

I can't bring myself to tell the rest of my story yet for a few reasons. The first would be the realization that as I go further into my story, other people's stories become involved; other people who may or may not be ready to tell their story or to have their story heard. I don't want to feed into my family history of hiding secrets so that no one thinks I struggle, believe me, I do, but I want to respect my friends and family who are going through their own healing processes. Truth is very important to me, I do not want to hide behind a smile anymore, so while I can be honest with where I am at, I realize not everyone is in the same place, and it may take them a bit longer to sort through their stuff before being able to be honest with where they are at. I wouldn't be very helpful to them if I was trying to rush their healing process just so I could share a great story on a blog. I hope and pray for healing in the lives of my friends and family, both immediate and distant, but I'm not quite sure it is my job right now to bring their struggles into the light.

While that reason seems quite good enough, it surely isn't what has paralyzed me in my writing. In fact, that reason makes me sound much nicer than I actually am. My rebellious side, which is more prominent, says "screw them and screw what everyone else thinks, I'm gonna shine some light all up in this darkness." Then I would take all the glory for being so honest. So yes, respecting other people's stories is a reason, but it's not the reason. To cite it as such would be to not take responsibility for where I am at in life. If I ever hope to become a better person, I have to start by being honest with where I am at.

So where am I at? (yes, grammar scholars, I know I'm not supposed to put "at" there, but guess what? I wanted to, so I did)

I am heart broken and alone. I am tired and emotionally drained. I am angry and bitter (if you couldn't tell by my comment above). I am cynical and skeptical. I don't trust anyone, and that is not an exaggeration. I know I have been the one to hurt others but I am so caught up in how much I have been hurt that I can't feel much else. I am sad and unmotivated and am pretty much ready to go to bed at night and just not wake up in the morning.

Now, before you call my parents or call some hot line for me or email me a bible verse, hear me out.

I am feeling and experiencing all of those things, yes, but I am okay, because it is okay for me to feel and experience all of those things. After a very difficult year, I would not be being honest with myself or with anyone if I wasn't feeling or experiencing those things. In fact, I would be void of emotion, completely numb.

Either that or dead.

If I expect my heart to be healed I have to start by being honest about its condition. It is weak and it is broken and there are days when it physically hurts, but I know that this pain is not forever. I know because it has been broken before and it has been healed before. I know because as surely as there are seasons of the year there are seasons of life. So yes, I have hope that as Sam Cooke said "a change is gonna come," but let's be honest, hope doesn't necessarily minimize the pain, nor do I think that it should. So when I say life is hard right now, I'm not looking for quick fixes or out of context Bible verses. I am just being honest with where I am at so that if God really is who He says He is, I can reveal who I really am and allow Him to fix, change, heal, or whatever it is He does so that He can draw me away from the pain I find myself in right now.

What comes after that? I don't know. Doesn't it seem like I should desire God for more than just making pain go away? Sure, I guess, but honestly, that is as far as I can see at the moment. To try and figure out how and why and what God is going to do once He heals me is to completely miss what He is doing right now. At this present moment, for me to say I desire God and God alone would be a lie. Do we ever just desire God alone while we live in our flesh? I don't know, perhaps there are some, but instead of trying to be like them, as I have before, I'm going to be honest with who I am and see what God does with that.

The trouble I find with sharing struggles or burdens with some Christians is that they so badly want to find a solution (they want to be God, just like I do) and when they can't find a solution they settle on the "fact" that you simply just don't have enough faith and you need to pray more. I don't even know where to begin on how damaging that "advice" can be to a person. To chalk up someones circumstances as a lack of faith is to assume one of two things: 1) that you are God and 2) that you are not God but you know the ins and outs of how God works and know exactly what He is doing in this person's life and based upon your full and miraculous understanding of God you have come to conclude that this person simply needs to pray more.

I don't mean to bash those people for giving such advice, I truly do believe that some people just want to find solutions for those they love because they don't want to see them hurting anymore. I understand that, I do. I guess what I am saying is that if you are ever on the receiving end of someones struggles, be quicker to listen than you are to speak.

Another trouble I find is this idea of story. Let me clarify... I love the idea of story, if I could be a professional storyteller, I would, but I hate that it only seems okay to tell a story when there is a clear beginning, middle and end. People love hearing people's stories when there is a happy ending and they can package it up and sell it in a book. Books about addiction, recovery, pain, loss, grief... everyone shares about their struggles after they have gone through them and are smiling on the other side. Why? Probably because that's when people want to hear them. I love hearing the recovered alcoholic tell his story, I don't like hearing the drunk say he wants help for the fifteenth time while I sit in disbelief and disgust in his choices. I admit, I don't mind hearing people's struggles when they talk about them in past tense. I have a really hard time hearing people talk about what they struggle with presently. I'm guilty of what it is I don't like, an unwillingness to walk through people's mess with them in the here and now. To take it even further, I determine how deep their mess is before I decide to wade through it, or even stick my big toe in for that matter. Maybe this is discernment, because I do think there is something to be said for that, but when all is said and done, mess is mess, and who am I to avoid someone in need because I think their mess is too messy. Too messy for what?

Perhaps I steered from the direction I was originally intending to go with this post. My intention wasn't to rag on other people in a passive aggressive fashion, though I suppose it could be interpreted that way. My intention was to be honest with where I am at. I am in the middle of telling a story of recovery with a "happy ending" while currently having a hard time in life. And so perhaps there are endings to seasons, but not really to our stories. I will keep telling mine, eventually, but know that it never really ends because life keeps happening. My heart will heal and this will be its own recovery story, but it doesn't mean I have recovered from grief and loss and pain all together. As long as I am breathing, I think hard times will come. But they will also go, and come, and go, and come.

Earlier this year I asked God to allow me to know Him more, to see His face and to walk hand in hand with Him. I thought that meant He would allow me to see and experience His wonders, all things glorious and beautiful. I thought of all the good things about God and thought by asking to know Him more I would get to know and see and experience some of those things. As the end of the year comes to a close I now see my own ignorance in my prayer. There is more to God than warm fuzzies and holy hugs, I knew that already, but I did not think of knowing God as knowing darkness, and seeing suffering in action and experiencing pain without a light at the end of the tunnel. I truly believe God answered my prayer, and is still answering it, but He certainly did not answer it in the way I thought He would.

To ask God to walk hand in hand with Him might not mean He walks you through green pastures, even if He's quite familiar with going that way, it may mean He walks you through the valley of the shadow of death, and you see things you never saw before, things you thought God would never associate Himself with. Lesson learned: be more specific when you pray. But I don't regret it. I don't regret that prayer and I am no longer angry at God for answering it. I thought my prayer was going to remove my pain, instead God walked me further into it, revealing to me the depth of it and allowing me to see what it would be like without Him. For me, to experience such pain is to know God more.

It terrifies me still because even after everything that was and is so challenging and difficult, I want to know God even more, but I don't want to hurt anymore. I think, however, that even though I want God to draw me away from my pain, He knows what I can handle, whether that be to take me further into it or to let me be still as I am.

I need to note that I am not saying that the formula to get to know God is to hurt severely. I don't think there is a formula. I think we have to allow God to be original in how He reveals Himself to each of us. I'm just sharing a bit of my story while I'm right in the middle of it.

I am hurting, but I am okay, because God has got me right where I am.

disclaimer

until i can either get my ancient computer, barney, fixed or afford a new one, i am at the mercy of library hours and good neighbors for typing out the rest of "the story." if anyone is actually still reading at this point, there is more to come, it just may take a while longer. thanks for your patience and your willingness to have read up to this point.