Just be

As mentioned in  my last blog,  Just Write, I haven't felt like I've had anything worth writing in a while.  My mind is everywhere- sometimes empty, sometimes cluttered with thoughts.  In addition to feeling like I have nothing to write, I've been feeling like I have nothing to give. 

This isn't a self deprecatory/fishing for compliments statement.  I know that if someone said that to me I would probably respond with some cliche like "Oh now, everyone has something to give.  God made you special and He loves you very much and He has a purpose for you. Hang in their champ."  True as it may be, I'm learning more and more that sometimes, we really just need to learn to shut up and not give advice.  Sometimes the best encouragement, is silence.

I know that I have a purpose.  I know that I have gifts and abilities.  It's hard to describe this funk I've been in other than to say I just feel spent.  I'm not necessarily more tired physically than normal, I'm not depressed.  I just feel, indifferent.  Jaded maybe.  A little apathetic.  I feel like I don't process emotion anymore.  Like life is just life, and it comes and goes one day at a time, and nothing really matters.  Life has highs and lows, good times and bad, but it's ultimately temporary.  It ultimately doesn't matter.  When life has trials and heartaches, which it often does, part of me hurts, but part of me has this apathy disguised as strength that it doesn't matter.  It's not a big deal.  Dust your shoes off and walk on. 

I guess I feel like feelings are overrated.  How are they helpful? People don't really want to hear about other people's feelings.  They say they do, and they might obligatorily offer a shoulder or an ear.  But few people actually know how to use either of those helpfully.  You have the people who offer a shoulder but then have to rush off to another activity, or are clearly uncomfortable once you are on their shoulder.  You have the people who offer an ear but who are multitasking the whole time or their mouth continues to interrupt their ear as they share examples from their own life trying to connect with you.  It's understandable.  It's human.  We like to think that we like to be there for one another, but at the end of the day, I think maybe that's not a burden we are meant to or equipped to handle.  I'm not saying it's bad to have friends- I think it's necessary in life- but maybe we are too dependent on friends.

I'm learning more and more each day that there is a reason that God is God and peers are peers.  How can you help someone who is drowning when you yourself are drowning?  It's impossible.  How can you love someone perfectly, when you yourself are not perfect.  Life is busy.  Life is messy.  And people are disappointing.  I may never understand how or why God chooses to love such a heartbreaking people.  I may never understand how or why God finds infinite time to spend with me and to know me.  But He does. 

As I am preparing for my mission trip, I am constantly asked by people what I will do while in the UK, am I excited, am I ready.  Honestly, it worries me that I'm so jaded.  It's difficult for me to find the time and energy to love people in my own life, let alone to love people in a new country that I've never met and will only know for 2 weeks.  What do I really  have to give them?  What do I have to say?  What can I offer?

Maybe that's just it.  I have nothing to offer.  I'm not special because I'm a missionary.  I'm not any holier or more pure.  I'm not some magic cure for imperfection or anything fancy.  I am not a better person than anyone else, and I have nothing to give or say to anyone.  The only difference between my messy life and anothers, is that I have Jesus to love me and help me through it.  I have someone to help carry the burden. I have someone to carry me.  I have someone in my life who never disappoints.  Who always loves me.  Who knows me and still wants to spend time with me.  And that's something worth sharing.

Friend, if you can at all relate to me, if you have ever felt tired, weary, discouraged, empty, faithless, etc.  Maybe we need to stop dragging ourselves through with our own limited strength.  Stop turning to other people who lead to more disappointment.  Stop turning to family, friends, movies, alcohol, sex, work, etc.  Turn to the only one who has conquered this world.  The only one who truly knows us- truly loves us.  Maybe we need to simply abide in Christ, and trust that good fruit will be produced. Maybe we need to just be.

Just Write

It's been a rather long time since my last blog.  I switched gears and focused on my AdThoughts blog for awhile, but honestly I just haven't felt like I've had anything to say.  I know the rules of blogging say you have to be consistent, relevant information, engage your readers, rah rah rah.  So I've sat down several times in the last month and tried to think of something worth saying.  I tried all of the creative tactics to find some new inspiring perspective, I read the news to see if there was anything I could have an interesting opinion on, I watched movies for hidden deeper meanings, I closed my eyes tightly and hoped for brilliance to pop out in a little thought bubble to the top right of my head.  But nothing. 

I started thinking back to why I started this blog in the first place.  It came out of a random conversation I had in college.  I was walking to my car after a late night of studying in the Library and this guy came up to me and said that God told him he needed to talk to me. Being on a Christian campus that had several Pentecostal or charismatic minded believers, I assumed (like many other ladies on campus would have I'm sure) that this was going to be the typical "God told me that we should date."  In which case I typically responded that that was dandy and he should keep praying while I wait for God to deliver me the same message.  I'm nothing close to resembling a Pentecostal and have some definite skepticism when it comes to God telling people things- I've seen more often than not that be an excuse to justify an opinion- but God didn't tell this guy to ask me out.  God told this guy to tell me to write. 

As I'm standing there trying to process this, trying not to laugh, and trying to keep my skepticism in tact, this guy is fervently beseeching me to write anything and everything.  My thoughts, my dreams, my random ideas.  He was absolutely 100% convinced that God had gifted me with the ability to write and that I needed to bless the world with that gift.  Go forth and write blessed one.  Just write.

I mulled it over in my head, thought through his words and whether or not they had any merit.  If I ended up writing a best seller would it really be because God wanted me to or would it be self fulfilling prophecy because this kid told me that God wanted me to?  Why wouldn't have God just told me directly?  If God wanted me to write something I'd be happy to. 

I may never  have answers to these questions, but these words "just write" have been bouncing around my empty mind for a few days now.  I tell people all the time to just write whatever comes to mind.  Why is it so difficult for me to do that lately?  Sometimes I feel like it's because nothing comes to mind; other times I feel like it's because everything comes to mind and there's no way to make sense of it.    In any event, my next blog is going to be just that.  Just writing.  My thoughts, my life, what I can make of it anyway.  No clever metaphors or motifs.  Just a messy string of thoughts and events.  Who knows; if God does just want me to write, maybe someone somewhere can be touched by my words.  Maybe there will be a connection.  And maybe I'll finally discover a theme or something worth reading, if I take the time to just write.