Tears came to my eyes for the first time in months...many months...the other day. Thursday I believe. I sat there in my car on my lunch with the same heavy feeling that has been lurking in me for quite some time now.
"I just want to be my happy-go-lucky self again..." I prayed to God.
Maybe two tear drops fell...but no more.
Then when I went back to work and expressed the same thought to a good friend...nothing. Not even one tear.
The thought, or word, hadn't even entered my mind until my mom asked me: "tired or depressed?"
Exhaustion. I had originally thought. But I'm honestly not completely sure. All I wanted to do was sleep the past few weeks. I didn't want to be at work, I didn't want to hang out with my friends. I didn't want to talk to anyone. I'd wake up in the morning to my alarm, wishing I could just go back to sleep...finally tear myself out of bed when it's already too late...go to work and just pray my day went by quickly so I could go home, be alone and go back to sleep.
I had never been like that before. And I honestly hate even admitting that it was the reality I was living just a few days ago...
Usually I need a decent amount of alone time, but only a few days a week - not every single minute of every single day. And usually I love people! I love community and I love my friends and family...but I was in some illusive state where I just wanted to be alone. It's not that I loved being alone...I just preferred it over being around anyone else. I was still miserable when I was alone, but I didn't have to put the effort into acting like I wasn't.
And I was extremely irritable. I wasn't emotional at all - instead I was emotionless. I was just...whatever.
Nothing really excited me. And I had to force myself to act like I cared about certain things and certain people...
I was so tired. But finally, thankfully, by God's grace, I was so tired of it. Tired of being so tired.
So I prayed long and hard for God to show me my heart and why I was so lost.
I don't care if I have to cry myself to sleep every night for the rest of my life. If it means I'm feeling again, I'll do what it takes. Even if I have to feel every hurt and heartache that has ever been mine. No pain compares to the state of numbness.
And like He always does - He answered me.
I have faked having a cold heart towards certain things for so long that it actually came true. I've tried to protect myself in the wrong way by acting like I don’t care, that it was like God finally said "alright dummy. But this is all you from now on - since that's how you seem to want it."
The problem with having a cold heart towards some things is the frozenness somehow leaks itself into every area of your heart and before you know it - you're Elsa the ice queen. And you've ran away to a far off mountain, built yourself an ice castle to lock yourself in and created a huge ice monster to keep everyone out. The only difference is, you don't have perfect hair and your life is not a musical, you don't even have enough energy or joy or emotion or care to sing in the shower.
For some reason you have instilled the belief in your mind that you can't allow yourself to feel one thing because then you'll feel everything.
You've been so obsessed with faking it like you're okay alone, that you finally do evolve (or digress) to this state of autopilot where every day that’s what you make yourself to be - all alone.
I thought my denial of the things I wanted was me protecting myself. A sign of strength. When in actuality, I think it was a major offense to God. Telling Him, "who cares if one day you have something incredible for me. I'm much safer and better where I am now." I’d mock His future gifts while throwing His present ones back in His face by saying He couldn’t do any better.
"If we give way to self-pity and indulge in the luxury of misery, we remove Gods riches from our lives and hinder others from entering into His provision.” - Oswald Chambers
I masked my self-pity with flippancy and what I had originally intended to be my safe haven, slowly and powerfully turned into my battleground. A battleground filled with my own sin and neglect. A desolate, burned down field, created by all of the fire I had fueled in myself. I had become my own enemy.
I wasn't just removing His riches from my own life - but from others lives as well.
Have you ever been around someone who is so negative that you can actually feel their poor attitude start to wear on you? For once in my life, I had allowed myself to become this person. Because of fear and insecurity I removed my faith and eyes from the throne of God - telling Him He wasn't doing things right, and I started down the path of self-destruction.
The honest truth is that I had lost my "happy-go-lucky" self not because of anything other than than the fact that I had suppressed her. She believes and feels things that require hope and selflessness. She sees possibility where others see statistics. She sees potential where others see failure. She believes there is something greater out there - greater than anything anyone has ever known. Because she has to. She was created that way. For whatever reason, she was thread with beliefs and convictions that point her to things that others may see as foolish and naive.
She hopes all things in God.
She believes all things in God.
She might fall at times but when she hears the whispers of ridicule towards her, she stands back up, holds her head high, tightens her grip on God's hand and presses on.
I don't care if I believe in the impossible by the worlds standard. The only thing I care about is whatever truth God has given me - no matter how impossible or crazy others might think it is. I just want God.
“To the faithful you show yourself faithful, to the blameless you show yourself blameless, to the pure you show yourself pure, but to the devious you show yourself shrewd. You save the humble but bring low those whose eyes are haughty. You, Lord, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light. With your help I can advance against a troop; with my God I can scale a wall.” Psalm 18:25-29
“If we are 'out of our mind,' as some say, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you.”
- 2 Corinthians 5:13
God please - let me be nothing other than out of my mind...
"Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
