Happy and Heartbroken

How is it possible to be so happy and heartbroken at the same time? How is it possible to cry with joy and thankfulness while wanting to cry over pain and difficult questions simultaneously? I don’t know how, but I feel the pull of both at once. There are so many blessings showering into my life right now, but there are so many other things going on around me that render me grieving.

An overwhelming amount of changes that I am afraid of are occurring, yet there are so many changes I am excited about. (I have always struggled over worrying about the future, probably something I will struggle with until the day I die.) This may sound oxymoronic but, although I am not traditional, I love traditions. I do things out of the ordinary, but I prefer consistency in some ways. I want something to rely on, something special to see and savor. I know that Christ is the only thing I can rely on, but I still have such a hard time dealing with change.

I miss the way my family used to go about the holidays. Those traditions have changed since my grandpas have both passed away and relatives my age are mostly married, starting their own families and even moving away. I miss the relationships I used to have with my friends. Those relationships are different now. Since graduation last spring, we have all spread out and we can’t just stop by and see each other the way we used to. Other friends are in relationships, engaged, married, having kids, moving, becoming different people. Overall, there is growing apart taking place.

In addition to the general change of life, there is the suffering of others around me that is burdening my heart. Family and friends struggling with or losing their jobs, husbands going to the hospital for heart problems, an adoption being reversed on a couple who fell in love with a child. I am definitely a fixer. I want to do something to make things the way I think they should be. To serve justice, according to me. But I am not the authority and I am not the Holy One who can make a perfect judgment. It is not within my control to fix everything for everyone. That is a humbling thought and certainly a difficult desire to harness.

Finally, there is the spiritual struggle of others around me. People I know who are so lost, empty and without hope. All I can do is point them to the One who comforts and fills me, knowing that, aside from prayer and offering my shoulder to cry on, there is really nothing I can personally do for them. (Again, with the fixing…) Children who have never heard of Jesus or, if they have, they think that He is dead, not knowing that He is their God, their Creator, their Father. That He is alive and He loves them. That He is with them and they don’t need to be afraid of falling asleep alone or dying. Trying to share that hope, but met with the inability to understand and discouraged by the continuation of that spiritual void.

And yet, despite all this, I am so excited about life and the opportunities that the Lord is opening up for me. Not so I can find success, wealth and comfort, but so I can be a blessing in the lives of others, bring Him glory in all that I do and allow Him to accomplish His will for my life. I am so happy about the refining and healing process He is putting me through, even though it is painful, so I can be who He wants me to be. I am so thankful for the answered prayers and the people He is putting into my life, right when I need them, so that I can see how He cares and provides for me, always.

Nothing is certain now, as far as the opportunities go, but He is leading me down a path that I know has been secured and blessed by Him. The refining and healing will surely be accomplished as I daily surrender myself and allow Him to shape and mold me like clay. And I must have faithfulness, relying on Him alone to supply all of my needs.

I rejoice in how amazing and merciful my God is for every moment that He loves me, for all of His unearned blessings and for never giving up on me. And I choose to trust Him with all of the things that are grieving my spirit because He is the Lord over all that burdens a human heart.

The Plight of Worry

            There is a season for everything in life. Some seasons are experienced more thoroughly or at more frequent intervals than others. I am facing a familiar sort of season in my life right now - one of change, to be very general - but am experiencing it in an entirely new setting.

            I know that it is pointless to dwell on and worry about the future because it does not “add a single hour to [my] life.” (Matthew 6:27) This has been a constant struggle of mine throughout my life, which I have become better about recently; I have accepted my present circumstances for the way they are and I am no longer agonizing over the many unknowns. In fact, I am rather excited about the prospective future by leisurely imagining its possibilities, as opposed to fretting over exactly what in the world will happen.

            In college, I honestly had no clue whatsoever as to what I would do or where I would go after graduation. During the first half of school, I didn’t worry so much, reasoning that I had plenty of time to figure it out and convinced it would “just come to me.” Junior year, as is typical for juniors, I panicked. Yes, I was one of the many who fell prey to the oh-so-common Junior Panic.

            Halfway through the year, I found a passion for a certain fallback plan. Over the next year, I acquired a new passion, which surpassed the first, and my plan changed. By the time I graduated, the plan attached to that second passion, which was to teach English overseas, simmered away as I rediscovered that teaching is not my gift at all.

            So there I was…a recent college graduate, my safety net and solid plans dissolved just as soon as I had managed to get out. No amount of planning or worrying about the future had done me any good. I was back at square one. I have found that you can plan your entire life and arrange your whole world, but that does not set your plans into motion. Anything can come up, rendering such things in life beyond your control.

            This brings me to my current season. After plenty of worrying over the summer, I came to find myself in a place I never could have planned. Astoundingly, the Lord brought me everything I needed at exactly the right time and not a moment sooner. Experiences. Opportunities. Relationships. Finances. Passions. Ideas.

            I am not yet settled and secure in the direction of my life. There are quite a few things that I am still experiencing, things I must learn before I may be solid in the sense of career and living situation. I find myself in a very sizable in-between stage right now, where nothing is sure, only infinitely possible. Nothing is predictable, only insecurely probable. There is no point in predicting anything, as there is usually something greater that comes along, seemingly out of nowhere, altering the entire situation and its previously assumed outcome.

            I am no longer a part of the life I once knew, a life that was all I knew, and I am at a loss at the life I will have, even one year from now. It is a life in which nothing is secure, in which I have nothing to cling to for assurance but my Jesus. I feel the thin wire that my life lives upon right now. Its fragility. Its vulnerability. If He so wills, it could all fall apart and be gone, but He is the One holding it all together. Again, I see how I cannot be the one to hold up my life. I have no control. I have no power.

            This period He has me in, I feel, is engineered specifically for the deepening of my reliance on Him and becoming exactly who He wants me to be. My focus has been narrowed to a handful of things that need a lot of attention, effort, and cherishing. I am planting now for the harvest so that I may be ready in those few, but important, areas when the time comes to move on from my present season.

            As I am focusing on a specific few of important things right now, there are other certain elements of my life that have necessarily been put off to be saved for later. Things I miss to the point of inner struggle and things I thought I was ready to experience that I am really not ready for at all. Sometimes I feel like such a mess, so far from being prepared, that I wonder if I will ever be ready enough to experience some of those things. But that is another thing I am learning…not to worry, but to trust that I will be ready for whatever I am being prepared for, all in perfect timing and not a moment sooner. And it will be beautiful.

Never Forget the New Song

"I waited patiently for the Lord; and He inclined to me, and heard my cry. He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay; and He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm. And He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God; many will see and fear, and I will trust in the Lord." -Psalm 40:1-3

To this day, I am still reminded that, by nature, I was an extremely happy child. However, when I was ten years old things started to get rough for my family. The worse things got, the more I held onto Jesus for dear life. The song “Hanging On” by Everyday Sunday soon became my anthem for getting by. 

We all have seeds of different emotions; we go through and feel each one from time to time. My seed of anger was so miniscule because of my strong inclination to be happy. My happy seed must have been enormous! And yet, as the years passed, and despite my determination to hold onto and follow Christ, my seed of anger was watered and I steadily became a very, very angry person. I did not experience the emotion of anger every moment of every day, but at my core I became a seether over many things. Most would have never known; I hid it well. Since I wasn’t naturally this way it took a few years to provoke this emotion out of me to such a large extent and it slowly made its way to the surface so that I could whip out fury at the snap of a finger in order to protect myself. A defense mechanism, I suppose.

Yes, I was angry. I was angry at my family, friends who rejected me, boys and occasionally God. I did not resort to everything under the sun to ease the pain. I really did try to give things to the Lord on a regular basis. However, I was still young and I did not behave perfectly by any means. I still made mistakes and I allowed my anger to get the best of me on countless occasions. Behavior of acting out that I am now ashamed of, although I don’t know that I would have done things differently with the way things were, being in the place I was at the time. And this anger, accompanied by some vividly foolish behavior, followed me well into college.

I look back now at who I was then, how I was. I can hardly believe that the girl I remember was really me. But then, I know that if I had looked forward in time to who I am now…I would not have been able to believe that either. I could not have imagined living in peace with my family. (I remember wondering how I was ever going to make it to my eighteenth birthday before moving out of my house.) I could not have fathomed living without the pain I felt everyday. And I could not have believed that I would ever know what it was like to live again without such anger. Living life according to my hurt.

The old blog from my freshmen year of college, which I included in my previous blog entry, was a milestone in my walk with God. I don’t think I had ever felt joy like that even when I was a child. I think that’s when the change really began in me, although the anger certainly did not go away overnight. It had been nurtured for too long and, therefore, had to be weeded and excavated out of me.

I have a label for each of my college years. Freshmen year was the most difficult year spiritually. Sophomore year was the most difficult year emotionally. Junior year was the most healing year for me. (Senior year was the biggest year for direction and self-discovery.) Over the course of junior year, it seems the majority of that underlying anger evaporated. By the year’s closing, I made final peace with my older brother who I hadn’t spoken with in almost a year. (This was not the first time we had gone so long without speaking. A few times we had gone longer.)

The Lord has done such an amazing work in me that I can literally mean it when I say that I am a different person. I am not who I was.

But here is the punch line…over the last year, the passion I found three and a half years ago, through my revelation, has waned. I have gotten to the point where I can talk about God, then come home at the end of the day and realize that I really have forgotten all about Him. I haven’t taken the time to consistently be in His Word, or even talk with Him, listen to Him and enjoy His presence. It’s been so off and on that it has lacked the depth I could have been experiencing with Him. I have gotten caught up with my days and become too lazy to devote my time to getting closer with Him one-on-one. I would feel guilty for neglecting Him and, therefore, neglect Him some more, doing the same thing over and over again without ever changing.

This last week, however, I have been getting this feeling…I’m just getting so tired of doing the same things. Living for myself. Reverting to bad attitudes. Repeating the same music over and over, the kind that only gets me down and takes my focus away from God. It’s true that whatever you put into your head goes down into your heart and comes out through your actions. I have gotten past the point of innocently listening to certain kinds of music. I got so addicted to drowning selfish and unhopeful music into my brain to the point where my uplifting music was not even appealing anymore. And that is saying a lot!

In addition, I have been thinking about my past self a lot lately and it really just hit me the other night. I remembered a story from the book Every Young Woman’s Battle. A woman had a dream that she was at her wedding reception. She went around the entire room seeing her friends and family, enjoying it all by herself. But then she realized, “Oh wait, where’s the groom?” She looked over and saw him standing in the corner in tears, looking down at the wedding ring on his finger. Forgotten. She had forgotten him. It was then that she realized that this is what she had done to God. He is our beloved whom we have forgotten.

The combination of growing weary from my empty behavior, remembering the change that God has made in my life, and thinking of this metaphorical dream…I was feeling troubled and I began looking for some verses to console me. But what I found instead were the verses above. Right then, the Lord really grabbed hold of my heart. I felt so ashamed. How could I have forgotten my God? How could I have neglected Him who has done so much for me? If I had not held onto Him as much as I did growing up, how much more angry would I have been or still be? How much more destructive would my behavior have been? Without Him the healing I know now would not have come. I would not be who I am today. The anger would not have decreased.

Today, it is so difficult for me to get angry anymore. It is not just waiting below the surface, waiting to snap up at any moment in self-defense. I feel how it has gone back down and shrunk, much closer to the way it used to be.

But how could I have lost my passion when I have this miracle to remember every day? I guess that brings me back to my problem of being too visual. I often forget what I do not see. I cannot see Him physically, but I can see the changes He has made in my life and remember them. I know that God wants all of me. Not bits and pieces, but my whole heart.

Please Lord, take all of my heart and don’t give it back. Help me to give You all of me everyday. Every moment of my life. Please don’t ever let me forget Your love or take You for granted. Guide my life in the way that will bring You the most glory. You deserve no less from me. Forgive me for my neglect of You, for my selfishness and misuse of the time You have given me. Make me faithful and continually deepen my gratitude for all Your blessings. Draw me close to You.

I know this is rather long and maybe tedious to read, but I hope and pray that we will not be satisfied with taking our God for granted. Who really wants to settle for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich when we have been invited to a tremendous feast with our King?

Control

I have a problem: I get so paranoid about things falling apart. I know it’s because things were falling apart for so long in my life that I’m just used to it. But shouldn’t I be over it by now? Shouldn’t I just surrender to the fact that things are out of my control?

One of my biggest struggles is to daily give my life to the Lord and rest in the fact that He is in control. It must be a daily thing. The thing about giving your life to Him daily and the whole idea of a living sacrifice is that, when you’re alive, you can crawl off the alter at any time and choose to cease giving up your life. I think a person can die for just about anything, but it’s living for something that is the hardest. It takes denying yourself, giving up what you want, giving up control. Not pitching a fit, but resting and trusting.

I have always been extremely academic. Not perfect, of course, but very involved. Since I have been home, I have come across all my old trophies, certificates, ribbons, student-of-the-month badges, and all the pictures revolving around such events. There are tons of things. I was really more into achievements that I thought. In actuality, I didn’t really think of it much. It all just came very naturally to me, like it was the obvious choice that I would aim to excel in this area.

Now, I’m starting to think that one of the reasons why I have been this way is because my studies were something I could control. Something I knew how to thrive with when everything else was so out of control for all those years. My family was in a constant state of falling apart and I was never sure how I was able to deal with it. Seriously. There were so many negative things I could have reverted to in efforts to deal with things. But now that it’s over, I think I’m starting to realize….that school was a drug for me. And now that source of control is gone.

I have no control anymore and I’m seeing the areas that are overwhelming to me now because of just how much I know I cannot control them. I cannot control the jobs I may or may not get. I cannot control the fact that my best friends are moving overseas for a year or more. I cannot control the fact that I don’t have my own place right now. I cannot control the cemented memories of the past. I cannot control the uncertainties of future relationships. And I cannot control change.

Change is so hard for me. Uncertainty is even worse.

I’m finding now that I’m just really appreciating the fact that God never changes. He is my constant and He promises that He holds my future. “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ says the Lord. ‘Plans for good and not for evil. Plans to give you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11) Lord, please take away my fear of uncertainty and help me to rest in the fact that You are vastly more able and trustworthy to control things than I am.

Nostalgia Overload

Nothing bad is happening but, for some reason, things feel really hard right now. I think I’ve been holding everything in life at arms length lately because I’m not ready for life to start happening again. I’m afraid of what will start happening once I open up to it again and that it will get out of control, that things will start happening that I don’t want to happen, that I’m not ready for. Realizations that will shock me about life after school that I did not expect and will not like.

One thing I think I’m missing about school is being comfortable living like a grown-up. I mean, I took care of myself completely on a day to day basis and now I feel like I have nothing to take care of myself for. I feel like I am mostly being taken care of now. In school, I knew how things worked. I got up in the morning and went through my list of things to do as best as I could. I went to class, I did my homework, I took care of business in the right offices, talked to my professors when I needed to, went to the store, worked, carved out some leisure time so I could be refreshed and think again. I got all my meals when I could get around to it and, rather than planning my twenty-four hours of every day around getting up in the morning and going to bed at night to get the necessary rest, I planned sleep around my schedule and, usually, only when I could afford time to pencil it in.

I knew how to operate in my world then. But what is my world now? I’m still trying to figure out what my world is exactly. What are the main components? I know one will eventually be a job, but I’m not even sure what that will be, which idea I should pursue. I know logically I should just apply for everything I can think of, but I want to find a field I like. I’m afraid of not finding anything, that my degree will not make a difference in this competitive world of work. But it is very possible the opposite might happen. I could be faced with choosing between a few things.

I think this sounds really shallow. Here I am complaining about identity and what my life is going to look like when I know there are so many worse circumstances that other people live in and wish they could escape. I should be thankful for having a roof over my head and for even having options. And I am, but I just don’t know how to operate this way when I lived in a mentally intense environment for so long. Really, I’ve been in school since I was five. I always had that path to follow. Now, for the first time, it’s not there. It’s all fair game. And I know the answer is not to keep going to school simply because it is all I have known.

Not to mention that all this time to think of other things is forcing me to think about things I haven’t wanted to deal with, random things that really are not even issues anymore but just come to my memory more often and cause for me to reexamine things in a different light, simply by being home.

Like my grandpa’s death a couple years ago. I haven’t felt like he’s really been gone because I’ve been away at school. I felt like he was just back at home where I didn’t get to talk to him. I was away from the place where I was used to his presence. Being home makes me feel like he's gone because I see the places we used to go, talk to the people that he knew and pass by things that will bring back a certain memory of him. And things like that are everywhere in the least likely places.

The same thing is happening with other countless things. Hurtful things, sad things, happy things. I’m nostalgic while I am both sad and afraid. I’m being overloaded with memories of the past while thinking about and figuring out my future. Of course, I know I don't have to figure everything out on my own. I know God has my life all planned out. I really just need to clear my head somehow.

Starting a New Book and New Life

Here I am, twenty-two years old, and I have just graduated from college. I have really only ever envisioned my life up until now. I've had ideas for life afterward but nothing tangible to expect. Only ideas. And those ideas were all part of a background to the ever-present pressure of school work, the relieving joy of friendships that were nurtured and the daily life within the moment of college. But that is all closed and finished now. There is nothing new to add to my college experience. "When I was in college" is a now a lump phrase for me to use referring to a part of my life that is past. Whether I am ready or not, I have entered the realm of ideas.

I had always thought that each section of my life was divided into something like chapters. Don't we all? However, I'm finding there is much more to life that cannot be so simplified. I think now that, all my life, I have been going through chapters within different volumes of one book, but now I am beginning a brand new book completely. This is unknown territory. I don't know how to work my way through this. I had worked my way through the first book to the point where I had finally gotten the hang of things, only I didn't realize I was coming upon the end of the book. I thought I was simply skipping over to a new chapter. No matter how much I tried to prepare myself, I was not completely ready for this. (It's kind of funny...I hate surprises, but I think the Lord loves surprising me and making me like it. Even though I feel unprepared, I know it's through my weakness that He shows His strength and accomplishes what I think is impossible.)

You know how it is when you finish a really great book? There may have been some unpleasant parts that you had to work your way through and there are other parts you just had to read over again and again because it was so good that you just wanted to savor it, so you could remember its initial affect on you forever. When you are finished, whether it is overall good or sad, it will stay with you. But you have a choice: waste your life reminiscing over the same story until you've beaten it into the ground where it has lost all of its sweetness, its impact, or begin a new story.

Yes, the old story will always stay with you in some way. It will overlap and you will take parts of it along as you begin the next book. Maybe it will determine how you approach the new plot. Now, it is alright to look over the old story on future occasions and find some more sweetness in it again. But it will never have the impact of the first read. It's interesting how we can dwell on the past in efforts to preserve its sweetness, but the very thing meant to prolong the sweetness is what kills it after a while. You only read a book for the first time once and, so, refusing to move on from it is to dwell needlessly. We cannot, therefore, live in the past. We must begin our new story when the time comes.

There are surely things that I am taking with me from my old story into my new story, my new life. As I am adjusting, I am working through some of those last experiences of significant impact. Some of these things have been so very difficult. Things I have never gone through before. I fear that right now I am experiencing a time of sadness over many things and dealing with some anger as well, moving on from things that I have lost, that I don't understand. I'm trying to hold onto the Lord right now and, even though I've been rather childish with Him, He has still given me comfort and peace, for which I am thankful. I don't deserve it. I know that He is the only thing that I can put my hope in to help me let go of the sadness over missing the good things, heal me of the pain over the bad things and bring me out of my old book into the new one. I will not remain in that story. I am gathering up my new bearing and beginning the first chapters of this new book. As of right now I am simply going. The direction will come in time, however the Lord chooses to reveal it to me.

For today, thank you for reading,
Alz