Some days, no matter what you do or how hard you try, it's just really hard to keep going. The simplest things seem so difficult to do... Your heart feels heavy and even the air is thick, like pea soup, and hard to breathe... Ugh. I hate days like this.
I have a pile of work on my desk. I have a thousand things going on this weekend. I've been busier than usual, just running nonstop for days on end with projects and deadlines and homework and housework and...blah blah freaking blah. Life is going pretty well, but today all I want to do is crawl under the covers and sleep until this feeling goes away. What makes it harder is that I cannot identify what, exactly, this feeling actually IS or why I'm feeling it. It's annoying! There's nothing really "wrong." I just know there is a deep sadness hanging over me like a black cloud and it's hard to shake. I'm doing all the same things I've been doing; I pray, I read my Bible, I journal, I try to lend a hand when God puts things in my path. But nothing is working, at least not yet. I don't give up, but I've never been very patient or good at waiting. (Which is why I NEVER pray for patience, ya know? If there were such a thing as a "trick prayer" that would surely be it!)
I get a little scared whenever I get like this because it's too much a reminder of how I felt all the time B.C.: "Before Christ," meaning prior to recovery and a new walk with Christ. Even as a Christian for 14 years, an underlying sadness was ever-present with me, like a burr under a saddle, at all times, no matter how happy I might have been in the moment. Needless to say, it SUCKED. That is no longer true. High drama and clandestine depression don't plague me like they used to. Most of the time I am truly joyful--and anyone who knew me before knows what a huge statement that is! So in addition to having to experience this feeling, there's this idea in my head that I shouldn't be feeling this way, which brings out the guilt and the perfectionist in me. Crikey! Talk about a drag! Perfectionism is SUCH a waste of time! It still gets the best of me sometimes, I suppose; I have difficulty with the monotony of daily life and just being human. I do NOT miss the drama, don't get me wrong. It's just that there was so much of it for so long that it is sometimes just downright odd to not have it! The highs and lows occupied all of me, and I do mean ALL of me. Now, most of the time, life is like a lake in the early morning before the boats and skiers get going--smooth as glass, not a ripple in sight. Quiet. Still. Calm. And I like it, I'm just not used to it yet, you know? I guess it makes sense, since I lived 38 years one way and only two the new way. Amazing how much time you free up when you turn your back on that way of life and walk away.
Still, the mountaintop experiences with the Lord are so amazing that having to come back down into the valley for a time is more of a chore than it used to be before I reached a new level with God. Like flying coach your whole life, then suddenly and unexpectedly getting to sit in first class, only to go back to coach. Let's be honest, that sucks! If you never fly first class, you never know what you're missing! To have to go back and sit in row 199 only makes me long for row 1 or 2 even more.
I know that I know that I know that I'm saved, that God loves me, that I'm changed and better and I really have gained solid ground that can't be taken from me. I'm praying through this and trying to understand why it has to suck so bad to be human sometimes. I tell myself the truth, do the next right thing, all that recovery and Jesus stuff that is usually so much easier than it is right now... But right now it is HARD and this stupid malaise just won't go away... And my mind, acting as my worst enemy instead of my greatest ally today, starts nitpicking, looking for all the loopholes. Instead of the usual confidence in knowing the truth about loopholes, today they look more to me like industrial-strong rope tied in nooses. I feel like just one misstep and I'll trip and fall.
I guess this feeling is scary to me because most of the time, I FEEL like a "new creation." Literally. The person I used to be and that old life seem a million miles away, almost like it happened to someone else. But on days like this my old life doesn't feel like it's that far behind me at all, almost like it's STILL happening, even though I know that isn't true. And my stupid brain, still fighting off bad programming, starts questioning and second-guessing and considering words like "fugue." Damn, fugue is a scary word! I don't like that word. Then come the what-if's: What if this really is a fugue, and I wake up and all this good stuff really didn't happen? What if I wake up and I don't even remember what it's like to be peaceful and have joy?! Etc., etc., yada yada yada.
So I soldier on and tell myself the truth. All that is a LIE from the pit of hell, because anything that produces fear isn't from God. FEAR is nothing more than False Evidence Appears Real. But it is NOT real. So I know this feeling will pass. I know it's "going to" be ok. Man, I used to hate it when people said that to me. In the back of my mind I'd always think, yeah, well when is "going to?" Like being on the interstate in a torrential downpour, a tsunami of rain coming down so hard you can barely see... You know it will eventually stop but it just blows to be traveling in those conditions.
Good thing I've learned that emotions have no intellect or reason. They are just feelings. They have only the meaning I give them; no more, no less. Otherwise, I might just spiral into some ridiculous, self-destructive, existentialist nonsense and I'd have to start all over again. But that was the old me. The New Me hunkers down, batons down the hatches and waits out the fog, even wishing there was a storm! At least that would be exciting. There's thunder and pouring rain and darkness, but at least when the lightning flashes there's enough light to see for a moment. In the cold, dense fog, it's easy to get disoriented. Plus it's just that ugly gray. Yuck.
Bottom line, today I just feel heavy, like I've gained too much weight in my soul, you know? But at least I KNOW that and can recognize that I'm "feeling again." LOL! There I go feeling again! But at least I'm feeling! And it's not random with no purpose, because I know that God never wastes a single second. I've been a bookworm my whole life, from a very young age, and one of my most favorite authors is Agatha Christie. I'm reminded of a quote of hers: "I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable... but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be ALIVE is a grand thing." True story there.
Having a heart of stone means you don't have to feel like I do today. I was so terrified of feeling this way that the majority of my life has been spent trying to avoid it. The problem with a stone heart, though, is that you don't feel ANYTHING. Sure, you protect yourself from the fugue and the ICK. Yet those same walls that protect you from the bad stuff keep the good stuff from getting in, too. Stuff like love and happiness and wonder and peace... That's not a price I'm willing to pay anymore. I don't have to be afraid of feelings because they are just feelings. And I don't have to be afraid of my past, either, because in Christ that old me and that old life really ARE as far away as they feel most of the time. This new me and this new life are no fugue that I'll awaken from but have no recollection of. The "new creation" living a new life is as real as the feelings I'm having today--even more so, actually.
So while it still is a scary thing and it just sucks to feel this way, now I have Christ. And He makes all the difference... which is why I feel so incredibly, intensely, monumentally SORRY for people who just refuse to get it. It's so SAD to allow your fears and resentments to lead the way, so afraid of being wrong that you remain trapped in the blame game, never taking responsibility for yourself. Anyone who lives like that will never be a "new creation" because taking responsibility is a requirement. As bad as it sucks today, trust me, it's been a LOT worse! Before I had nothing more than this feeling. Now I have Jesus. I no longer trust solely in myself, my experience, my own limited knowledge or my feelings. ESPECIALLY not my feelings! The ruler of all time and eternity is watching out for me. My trust is in Him. It's okay to be scared. And it's okay to feel whatever this crapola feeling is I'm experiencing today. Because that comes with the territory when Jesus changes a heart of stone into a heart of flesh. A flesh heart comes with the full-on human experience and allows one to be and to feel and to LIVE in ways that just aren't possible otherwise. I guess you gotta take the good with the bad, yeah? Otherwise you are stuck with the fear of fugue and a stone heart. That sucks WAY worse than this feeling. I'll take my new flesh heart any day and all day Sunday.
To have a heart of flesh is to be truly ALIVE, and that, as Christie so aptly put it, is a "grand thing."
I know I'll get there. Some days are just harder than others. But I'm alive, I'm here and I'm hanging in until this fog passes and the sun shines hot and bright again.
Thank You, my precious Jesus, for a new me and a new life. My very worst day in Reality is worth more to me now than all my best days in Denial, put together and wrapped in a bow. Thank You for my heart of flesh and all that comes with it, good or bad, because to die with You is far better than to live alone. Amen.
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