Sunday morning, I was ready for Church. There was a part of me that wanted to go. I
didn’t. I sat down on the floor in the corner of my room and I wrote this.
Why? Why was I struggling like this right now? Why was I in this place
that I couldn’t even really describe? What was this discouragement that I felt
and this weight of responsibility weighing down on me?
I knew there where people that looked at me and saw something different.
I couldn’t be failing them. I was
different. I was full of the love and joy and hope of Jesus. I was born to show
this to the world and to express the love of God.
Then where was the Joy? Why couldn’t I feel any of it right now? Why
couldn’t I feel anything? Anything but tired. So tired all the time. A deep,
deep tired that seemed to seep through my body soul and spirit and land with a
resounding thud in the depths of my core. I didn’t want to fake something so
amazing as the love and joy of God, but I wasn’t feeling it right now. Not in a
way that this world would understand anyway.
This depression had been apart of me for as long as I could remember.
This tiredness was something that I had been working my way through for years.
Trying always to keep the Joy that God’s love was suppose to give me. I
couldn’t today. I was barely making it
through my short work shifts before going home and collapsing to sleep for two
to three hours. Eat, sleep and work.
That’s what I was doing. Surviving. Barely.
I don’t survive well. I never have. I have never been able to live a life just to
survive. I am a thriver. A person that
needs to be working toward a cause. I need a project and a goal. Something greater then myself. I needed God’s direction.
So, what’s happening here? Where is this deep tired coming from?
I sure don’t have all the answers, but I believe for me it started with
expectation.
Expectation from myself of where I thought I should be in this world by
this time in life. You know, the life with a carrier, married, with a
family. That’s what most people my age
where doing.
Expectations of what I believe others think I should be doing. Yeah,
Pretty much the same thing. Married, family, good job. At least settled in one
place with a plan and a goal as to what would be happening in the next few
years. Haha.
Expectation of what I think God believes I should be doing. Even just
writing that makes me cringe. What am I
thinking…I know that God loves me and created me for a relationship with
him. He knows exactly what I’m going
through and how much I’m struggling with life right now and He doesn’t love me
any less.
What a load of crap, All of it!
Here’s what I know for fact…
You’re career position doesn’t define you. Duh!
Money won’t bring you happiness or joy, Only God can do that.
Being married or in a relationship doesn’t “complete” you. That’s apart
of God’s job as well.
Emotion is healthy. The lows don’t
define the highs. Usually low’s follow the highs.
Rest doesn’t mean your being lazy. Rest was created as a way to keep your
body healthy and strong.
I did a self-evaluation this week, and by my own standards, I failed
miserably. I found myself as Elijah did in 1 Kings 19 exhausted and just
wanting to be done with it all.
I needed rest. Rest is a gift from God. A treasure that few of us
understand or realize how badly we need and desire it. We push ourselves to be, to accomplish, to
grow, to become, to live. When what we really need to do is STOP. Stop trying.
Stop moving and just sit and rest.
When we do this, God will meet us there, It the quiet moment. That is where His Joy becomes full
again. In 1 Kings 19 it talks about how
Elijah was going up the mountain to find God.
He went through an earthquake, a hurricane, and a fire and still hadn’t
found God. After all of this was over,
there was a small whisper, a gentle and quiet voice. The voice of God coming to Elijah with
encouragement and strength.
If your like me, and you have been searching through the hurricane and
the fire and earth quake for God, let’s stop.
Let’s sit and rest and let the still small voice of the Holy Spirit wash
over us. Let’s just rest and be in the center of His love.
Let’s let go of the “responsibilities and expectations” that have been
placed on us, or that we have put on ourselves, and lets rest in the quiet.
Let’s be ok with the low after the high. Let’s be ok with not doing some
of this stuff that we have deemed essential and spiritually acceptable and
let’s start letting God renew us in His quiet gentle way.
And above all, lets be real. Real with our issues, real with our pain.
Real with the fact that following Christ isn’t always cherries on top. Let’s be
as real with the low’s as we are with the highs.
We still know where our strength comes from. We aren’t failing anything.
It’s in times like these that God is working for us. The times when we have no strength left and
we end up fighting ourselves, God is stepping in and saying to us. I’m right
here leading you beside a quiet river, “making” you sit down and rest. I will give you future direction, but only
when you’re ready, only when you rest and are healthy enough to stand up and
move forward.
It’s all apart of the journey.
Be ok with the quiet, rest.
