It's amazing how a song can capture how you're feeling at times. I am struggling right now. Sometimes I wonder how much instagram kills my joy. Wow, three completely disjointed sentences, but they are what I'm feeling right now. Maybe that's part of it, why I'm not feeling so good right now, that things are disjointed. Just a shower of problems or fears that doesn't go together but just rains on me.
To start, I think the idea of instagram is far more dangerous than I've ever thought before. I was on facebook and kept scrolling past awesome pictures of friends and complete strangers smiling and doing exciting things. That's all I see every day as I scroll on facebook is the smiling faces of people enjoying life, and they're edited to look so nice and perfect. Well, at times I look at my life and wonder why my life isn't like that. Now, when I actually think about it I realize that nobody's life is like that every day and those pictures are probably just a good moment among many bad ones, but sometimes I forget that and today was one of those days.
So, today has been a rough ride, trying to figure out life. Looking to the future and what am I expecting to do and what I'm hoping will happen has been full of unknowns. I've had dreams and lost them a long time ago. I went on for the longest time without dreams, figuring living life as it comes means you can enjoy it even if it takes a bad turn because you are excited for what is happening instead of what you're hoping will happen. Then I found my dreams.
Gradually I have opened the dust covered box I stuffed my dreams in so long ago and have been remembering and finding them one by one since. So, when I look at my life and don't see how it could ever get to what my dreams are is...not something I can put to words. It's hard to be disappointed when your expectations are to do your absolute best in the moment you're in and with what you have been given. Once I looked ahead, planned ahead, and set a bar that I hope for the possibility of failing can be shattering.
So, I get to writing tonight and start listening to music. I play song after song and it's just background sound for what I am putting down in black and white. Then, one stands out. It was one I'd played several times already and hadn't hadn't hear what was said till then. I think it was partly that I process life as I write, my experiences, struggles, and hopes working their way out as I write. So, when I had sufficiently processed my day I heard the line, "Hope is our four letter word." It stopped me in my tracks. For those of you that don't know, the term 'four letter word' is a euphemism for sayings something's a swear word.
That resonated throughout me and I couldn't get it out of my head, "hope is our four letter word." I kept writing for a few minutes and then stopped and opened this post, knowing it was time to share what was on my mind. Right now hope to me is something disgusting, a swear word. And the irony is that it's made even more personal because I try my very best not to swear and never have; I also believe hope is essential to life and have likely encouraged people to hope or told them they need it. So, that hope has become a swear word to me now says so much, that so many things are wrong right now.
I believe strongly that to fight an enemy you have to know who or what it is and now I can put my finger on the problem. Now I'm trying to work through it, bringing it before God and asking Him about it. He has been talking but right now I can't understand Him, I can't hear Him...and that's another unusual thing for me that makes me wonder what's wrong right now. So, combine that with Ecclesiastes and trying to figure out what I'm worth and it's pretty close to what life's like right now.
Wow, I will never cease to be amazed at how much it helps to say it, bring it out into the light and see the enemy's face. I'm not feeling as bad as I was this morning or through the afternoon, praise God. But there's still a lot to work through. However, I am honestly happy I am struggling with this right now because I know when it's all over that I will be more mature and closer to God because I had to go through it. And that's half the battle right now, being thankful for the problems He's put in my way. But I'll say this, it's been as I'm writing these very words that my joy has returned and a smile has crossed my face as I think about my savior and how He works the bad into my good.
Now I just have to learn that my need to write about things to work them out isn't a curse but how God made me. Once I get over the fact I feel like a failure whenever I simply can't explain to most people what's wrong or what I'm going through, then I believe I will be closer to who God's made me to be. Remembering he made me and made me special is something I think I will always struggle with and thus means I'm always working on doing better! So long for now, time for me to get back to writing my book ;]
Seeing the Enemy for Who He is and Taking Steps to Fight Back,
Joshua
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