anxiety and why i shouldn't stay up this late...
on the heels of my last two posts comes a confession that i must speak aloud before it ruins all this lovely progress with its corrosive fingerprints.
i'm terrified.
the more i say here, the more i'm realizing how much i have to live up to. all these words sound nice, it's lovely to talk about shedding bitterness and donning hope. but the truth is, bitterness is a warm cloak, hope is threadbare, and these plains are cold. i don't want to make any more mistakes. i don't want to let anyone down, i've done so much of that. i don't want to give yet another black eye to the image of a God that i've only ever wanted to live up to, only ever wanted to serve well, despite my belief in my inherent lack of qualifications or ability.
but i also know this is the fear that freezes me in place. it's the fear that makes these plains the frosty, barren places they are. it must be okay to fail. i must still love myself at my worst, otherwise how will i ever really love myself at all? if i only love myself at my best, i'm really only loving the output, loving the results, not my self.
and now already, even in this very post, i'm adding to the list of things to which i'm making myself accountable but to which i still don't believe i can aspire.
the terror grows.
"God, give me the strength to serve You. grant me the grace, the humility, the trust, that i need now to be what you want me to be, to be what i need to be. to be Your son the way You forsaw from the beginnings of time. i want to come back into your arms, but i'm terrified of letting You down again. i just want to make you proud, Father. just once. to KNOW that You were looking down on me not in disappointment, but in jubilation. smiling. Your word tells me you rejoice over us. make me something worth rejoicing over. i don't want the ring, the coat, the fatted calf... i just want to feel Your arms around me again, and know that it's where i belong. i'm scared. i don't really know you at all. but if i'm still allowed, i want to. please, give me the courage to follow You this time, instead of the world that i fool myself into loving. thank You for loving me despite who i choose to be, and what i choose to love."
some lyrics i wrote on a walk home one night.
because i know that You've got plans for me,
to prosper, not to harm,
but that all sounds too grand for me,
and causes me alarm,
because i'm not sure you'll stand for me,
when i've lost all my charm...
but please take one more chance on me,
and hold me in your arms.
that's it.
goodnight.
posted by Corus Aquilo @ 1:26 AM
3 Comments:
i'm happy that your lost notebook has brought a revelation of hope and not a destruction. i'm not - as it were - happy that it was lost. i can vaguely imagine what it must be like to lose something that, if nothing else, took so much time to build... and even if it's a sand castle that the water washes away, it's difficult to watch something like that disappear into the river...
it donnes on me that you've done this before with something far more personal and time-consuming and life-changing. i find no sense of irony that you are so unwillingly forced to say goodbye to these things..
.. and yet i can't help but feel inspired that you are capable of moving forward and - at the very least - making humble attempts to understand God in the whole process. i would like to think i would remain faithful, and yet i cannot imagine that i would.
.. that is not to compare you directly to job, or to say that i think you are necessarily being tested for your righteousness. you say that at the heels of this words comes a confession, and i will believe you.
what i am trying to say is that regardless of the circumstances (requiring confessions) which have brought you to this reality, you maintain your identity as a child of God.
to take a step down into temporal reality... i'm sorry that i am, for the most part, school-driven for the next few days. i still offer my friendship, but i won't help but be distracted.
having said that, i have to go 'study'... riiight.
but just know that i'm doing my best to hear your words. i don't always understand them - for various reasons... parts of the puzzle pieces are missing.. sometimes you use words that i don't understand, and when i look them up i fail to see how they fit into the sentence...
your lyrics are beautiful, thank you for posting them.
i hope to see you soon, because i am much more communicatively advantaged while speaking than in writing.
If we are to believe the scriptures, I think that much of what we endure can be nothing other than a spiritual testing. Satan comes before God and asks permission to test Job, to see if he can undermine his righteousness. While I admit this part of Job sounds apocryphal, I think it probably operates in more or less this fashion. God allows Satan to be in control of this world, but he maintains the greater control.
Shawn,(shaun?) if this notebook really was standing between you and God then I have no doubt that he allowed you to go through this trial of letting it go in order to secure a greater goal in your life. Rejoice in the fact that you came out on top, but be humbled by the idea that you may not win tomorrow. With God's help you can and will.
I'm sorry it took a few days for me to digest this, I appreciate these glimpses, someday we will have to become real-life friends, and not just blog friends. Do you play chess? We should go out for coffee sometime and you can beat me.
I don't often remember to pray. It is a battle that I gave up long ago. But I am trying to take it up again. When I do, you will certainly be in my prayers.
Love Scott
scott... been missing you these last few weeks... hope it's nothing serious...
i play chess poorly enough that we might just be able to duke it out over the honors of losing... and as such, it might be fun.
as little as i believe in prayers sometimes, i thank you none the less for yours... the only things i have ever seen work even momentarily have been on account of prayer, although seldom my own... strange how that works out...
anyway, actual real-time friendship sounds like a worthwhile undertaking... i look forward to it.
and to jordan... appearances can be deceiving... do not imagine that all the things i say and wish were true about myself become true through that wishing... i am trying, but most often more out of duty than desire. and even in that, i fail more often than i succeed.
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