Just a Reactionary

I promised deep, overly personal writing and here it is.

Hi.

I have been walking thru a weird but, I think, good tunnel with God. Post-break-up, I have been trying to keep busy. Keep my head up. Keep the TV watching and crying to a minimum by watching TV with people and crying only in the bathtub at night. I have been engaging in the typical extreme behaviour reactions that characterize my very life. This includes pledging nunnery and joining eharmony. Immersing myself in social events and sleeping until 2:30pm on beautiful Saturdays. Beating myself up and numbing myself. Swinging between the two attempts at control that Jan Meyers called me out on in her book, The Allure of Hope, which, I think along with The Ragamuffin Gospel, must be close to canonized into holy scriptures by now. Jan is buddies with the Wild at Heart crew. And I have to admit, have always had a wildly divided heart toward those books. I think I know why.

The trecherous prescription is waiting and hoping. Despite the past and the bleakness of the earthly future.

That doesn't seem sufficient enough for me and certainly feels like someone let a rabid wolverine with a sledgehammer loose in my ribcage. He's trying to play me like a xylophone from the inside, and God seems to say: "Feel this. It's good. It's how I made you. To feel appropriate emotions."

I say: "Ugh."

So I know I'm not the only person with dissappointments. So that is why I blog. Maybe I am not the only person who needed to hear this. My pendulum freakishly swings. I do stuff extremely. I always have. A person finding themselves in my shoes has what Jan calls three options, or what I have been calling "three doors."

Door number one: I'm going to kick sorrow's ass if it kills me. Or you. Or I'm gonna beat myself senseless so God doesn't feel the need to arrange my life to punish me this way. That means clean up. It means CLAMOUR. Re-double ministry efforts, service projects, find out what needs to be fixed, focus on self-improvement. Surely all these things will get you what you want. Invite people places. Be less weird. Your pain must have a reason. You are flawed. Change you.

The second door is also extreme. Accept despair. Lower expectations. Avoid being dissappointed. You don't deserve anything better anyway. Shut your heart down. Drug the wolverine. Take away his sledge. You want TOO MUCH. Change your want.

Or. The sucky awesome option of door number three. The only real one anyway. The other two hopefully are short-lived dissatisfying fixes. (Sadly I think they can easily become hotel rooms we check into and never check out of). Door number three is to feel the reality of the pain, but not to doubt the goodness of God who allowed it. And keep hope alive while walking in the tension that your desires may not be granted in this life. I am just talking about my chronic single-ness and lack of direction in life here. Some people have much worse lots to apply this thinking to and I. CAN. NOT. IMAGINE. some of them. We were all made for more than this. But we are ALL loved and seen, just as we are, right now. You are loved AND you don't desire enough.

I read this paragraph about sixteen times the other night.

"I see you. Your loveliness is intoxicating Your heart is full and substantial, and I am drawn to know you. I see your confusion, stubbornness, and darkness, and I will not back away. You are not too much for Me. You are deeply enjoyable, and you are safe here. There's so much more of you I want to know; I can't wait to know all of you. And you can never know all of Me. I can't wait to shelter you and release you to flourish."

I read it a bunch because it's really hard to believe when you are not thrilled with your current circumstances. I read it and acknowledged that I do believe it, yet I still groan for fulfillment. I acknowledged that this part of the deal just bites (and snarles and plays chopsticks on my ribs).

My mama helped immensly today by telling me something that I wasn't even aware that I needed to hear from her. She was telling me that she wasn't dissappointed in me. I am not sure how long I have wanted to hear those words but I so did need to hear them today.

Its ok if I never get married or have babies or if no one ever "gets" me.  I will always want that. But it's ok if I do not get it. It's ok to be sad about it. But I will not check out of life or into a clinic for depressed spinsters, or onto a singles cruise (not more than once anyway). And I will not be angry with God. Much. I will confess my Anger, my Envy and let them go. Daily.

Jesus is great about tending wounds, by the way. Just incase you are in need of wolverine wound care. So if you see me and happen to find me lingering near doors one or two. Remind me that 3 is the magic number.

Sucky number 3.