Monday, November 8, 2010

Band-Aids

I want to write today, about what, I'm not really sure. We'll see what spews out.

I'm honestly spent emotionally. I'm not used to feeling so deeply, so often. I hate the false pretenses emotions provide. It's a constant battle of truth versus what I feel, trying to see what feelings are substantiated and what I should just let dissipate with time. And it's gotten to the point where I just don't question, and my emotions are having the run of everything. It's ugly, tiring, depressing, and it's not doing my mascara any favors.

I was graced by some Truth today, the freeing kind, the kind of big revelations followed by a quirky happy dance. I didn't really dance, but the freedom was there. The cycle of expectation has been running alive and well in me recently. This cycle has become a familiar companion to me, but for your benefit here's what it looks like;
Expectation placed---expectation not met---frustration added to expectation---disappointment settles in---rejection replaces disappointment---and so on.
The most manipulative part of this little sucker for me is the fact that it allows me to place external blame.

It's not MY fault so and so didn't do such and such. I deserve an apology. They didn't apologize? Oh well, I'm the better person anyhow.

Every once in awhile I catch myself talking through the cycle, and can follow with due apologies and a loosening on my tight grip. That was today.

In light of this, I spent some time sitting with the Lord. It was a time where a little healing took place.
I'm prone to placing Band-Aids on my wounds.  My Band-Aids include car rides, Starbucks, and conversations with the people I love. They are things I immensely enjoy, and in the proper context provide comfort, and rest to me. But when used to cover up something that needs much more attention, I'm screwing myself out of true healing. It's easier to not have to go through the process, but in the end, it looks a whole lot worse than before, and takes longer to heal.

I want true healing. I don't want to fear that kind of pain. I don't want to paste on a pretty smile when things are eating me up, and I don't want to vomit emotional distress on everyone either. There has got to be a balance between thinking and feeling, where both are appropriately embraced, and neither exacerbated. Lord doing I'll find it.

And what matters is the nature of the change in itself, not how we feel while it is happening. It is the change from being confident about our own efforts to the state in which we despair of doing anything for ourselves and leave it to God. --C.S. Lewis

Amen brother.

Deep breath. Release.

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