Once More at a Loss

I have been wondering why I haven't been writing as frequently, or rather, really at all. 

I think I have figured it out though.

Writing, real writing, has begun to terrify me.

When I am pouring my heart out on a page or crafting a poem I am also simultaneously burrowing deep into myself. So deep that often times I struggle to find my way out of the trenches. I enter an existential crisis where nothing becomes certain and every moment, every instant of my life is isolated and scrutinized. 

I furrow into this deep funk where I feel completely separate from myself and entirely alone. And each time I crawl into that hole it has become harder to emerge from.  

And so, I am finding myself immeasurably stuck. What I love to do has become something that I cannot afford to do. My writing is no longer a way for me to process my feelings in order to overcome them, but rather a way for me to eternally and invasively probe every thought until it is in its very nature a feeble question. 

So what now?

I think for now I must wait. 

I must wait until I have someone who I know will be able to pull me out of that place. I must wait until I am no longer scared to pick up my pen. 

I am still considering all of the things I used to be able to write about, I am just not expressing them in the same way.

I think for now I need to explore with other people, people who are not just on the other side of the internet. I think I need the human contact and compassion and while I know most of my readers are people who I intimately and personally know, the majority of you are not physically here and I need that right now. I love you all, even those of you I do not personally know who have just stumbled upon this blog somewhere along the way, but I think that is all I can do for now. 

An All Too Familiar Feeling

I was sitting in my living room, taking a lunch break while in the midst for preparing for my final, and hardest exam. I quickly went to check my Facebook to see what menial changes had occurred since my last check in hours previously.

But I got the opposite from menial. I got earth shattering.

Like a stone dropped in still water, tragic events cause ripples. They spread throughout the surrounding area, and they take time to settle back to stillness.

A gunman had entered my beloved high school, and my school was on lock down.

My heart sunk in the seemingly impossible reality of it happening, yet again.

Plop.

I was only seven when Columbine High School fractured the idea of school being a safe place. My meager memory only recalls flashes of the chaos and the fear surrounding me.

But still I remember it.

And it was not too long ago that movies, a typical medium for escape from the harsh realities of the world, met a new reality of brutality.

And once more I remember waking up the next day to a string of worried text messages, because I was at one point in time, going to see that movie in that theatre.

Chaos bewildering and fear engulfing.  

The ripples are still spreading. 

And so as I sat, watching a live streaming of the streets and brick walls I knew so well, I was overcome once more by the palpable terror and confusion.

How could this happen at Arapahoe? Who would do this? Why?

There are no answers. There are never really any answers.

But in each of these aftermaths there is another consistent, accompanying all of the horror and havoc, love.

But these people are just part of the ripples. Instead of just a single ripple caused by the stone there are a hundred little ripples that flow into the one big one big ripple. There is more to healing than just the individual level.

After each shooting, after each instance of violence in this community there has been an overwhelming response of love, and compassion.

Facebook has now blown up with prayer requests and the warrior's emblem.

We have once more come together as one.

We have all become warriors.

We fight.

We persevere.

Because

A Promise

I haven't really written in a long while. At least, I haven't really written here.

It isn't because I don't have anything to say. I think, rather, it is that I have had too much to say, and no way to determine where to start.

But there are a few of you faithfuls who keep checking, who haven't given up on me. And I want to thank you for that and let you know that I haven't given up on you either.

I try not to make promises, because, as a friend pointed out to me recently, they can be quite dangerous. But I am going to make a promise to you now. I finish my exams on the December 14th and I promise to have a new post up by the 16th at the latest.

I have no idea what it will be about. I doubt it will be any good. But it will be there none the less.

Bottoms Up

Something has stricken me in this Easter season.

"Then Jesus went with His disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and He said to them, 'Sit here while I go over there and pray.' He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with Him, and began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then He said to them 'My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.'

Going a little further, He fell with His face to the ground and prayed,

'My Father, if it is possible, may this cup of suffering be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will'"

Matthew 26:36-39

Jesus prayed for His suffering to go away. He asked for the pain to be taken away. But He was strong enough to do the Father's will regardless of His want. 

I've always had a hard time praying for myself. Praying for the pain to go away. For some reason it made me feel guilty or as if I didn't trust Him. But if Jesus can hate the pain, if He can ask for it to be taken from Him so can I. 

I just have to be as strong as Him if the Lord has a different plan.

"He went away a second time and prayed

'My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be 

taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.'

I can ask for the pain to go away. I can hate every second of it. But I won't get mad at God for making me drink it. 

I guess my only response can be bottoms up.

A distinction to be made

I've learned that there is a difference between being weak and being weary.

To be weak is to not be strong; liable to yield, break, or collapse under pressure or strain; fragile; frail.

To be weary is to be physically or mentally exhausted by hard work or exertion.

But here is the critical distinction between the two: when you are a Christian, you always have strength within you, for 

The LORD is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation (Psalm 118:14) Therefore, we cannot be weak when we are with The Lord. It is impossible.  We can however be weary. But we can take heart, for

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

(Matthew 11:28)

So the next time you feel like falling, like your legs cannot hold you up any longer, or as if you do not have the strength to go on know that you are only burdened and weary. But you are not weak. You are never weak. 

But those who hope in the Lord

    will renew their strength.

They will soar on wings like eagles;

    they will run and not grow weary,

    they will walk and not be faint.

(Isaiah 40:31)