Tears, Fears, and Three Musketeers

Tonight I went to the meeting at my church discussing dreams and ideas for the future in how our church can be involved in addressing the reality of human trafficking in our community.  The director of End Slavery in Tennessee was also there, as well as the director for the Center for Social Justice at Trevecca Nazarene University.  It was a great night of education and the sharing of talents.  I walked away feeling pretty good about what took place, but I had a lot of mixed feelings.  In fact, on the way home I found myself crying, and I was trying to figure out why.

For one thing, I often feel very alone even though I have a lot of friends here in Nashville.  However, the kind of connection with someone that I really need is something that takes time and the right people coming together.  I just haven’t had that yet.  I realized tonight the enormity of God’s calling on my life and how little I really know about it or understand it.  I also realized that I can’t live the life that God is asking me to live alone.  I’m good at doing things myself and I am a very independent person.  However, this is something I simply can’t handle.  Tonight is almost too much to bear.

I am finding myself stuck between the lies I have always believed and having the courage to step out and believe the truth that God tells me.  It’s much safer and more comfortable to believe, “I can’t do this,” and not do this than to step out and say, “I can’t do this, but God can,” and continue on in doing it.  I’m so overwhelmed by this whole step that I took in moving to Nashville that I feel no one else really understands and I am not sure that I do, but I know it is exactly what God wanted.  I have tried to be obedient in every aspect of this move and in networking with people here.  I think I am still in this emotional floating state where I can’t believe I’m working at a bank, in a Masters program, pursing an internship with a social justice organization...etc.  My life has literally been turned upside down and shaken like a wooden rollercoaster ride.  Now I’m lying on the ground waiting for the world to stop spinning.

I think what I needed most tonight was someone just to come up to me and give me a big long hug.  However, I don’t really know anyone here in Nashville well enough for someone to do that without being a little creepy.  I’m not one to let someone into my own little world, and I’ll hang out with people, but heaven forbid they ever step in the door of my heart and really find out what my life is all about.  The truth is, I can’t even handle my passions.  They overwhelm me.  I live life in a constant fear, and I desperately need help grasping some sort of sanity, but I can’t let anyone close enough for that.  Not many if anyone in the world can handle the intensity of my life.  I’ve seen it time and time again when people want to get to know me and when they get close enough they realize what they’ve gotten themselves into and quickly find the exit door.  Those that try to tell me otherwise simply haven’t been close enough yet. 

Tonight I have been plagued with demeaning voices going on in my head and spirit.  By the time I reached my apartment from leaving the meeting, I felt like I had just been stoned and left for dead.  All the voices that I had once been enslaved to came back to visit me tonight.  It didn’t take long for me to recognize Satan’s all too familiar voice.  I entered a whole new realm tonight of warfare, and I know that this is going to be a difficult night.  Lord, please give me courage.  This darkness is too much for me to handle.  I was enjoying the reprieve that God had given me for the past few months from the oppression.  However, He has lifted His hand once again and is allowing this for a time.  As a kid, nighttime was a nightmare as demons came out to play.  As a high school and college student, I was physically attacked.  During that time and since, my health has suffered tremendous strains.  The past couple days I have been in a lot of pain, and I am starting to understand why.  This is where the rubber meets the road; this is where my faith meets its test.

I have known since I was young that God has a big plan for my life.  Others in my life have tried to downplay that, and I have struggled immensely with loneliness in my calling.  It seems to me that a lot of the people in my life have very low expectations of me.  However, I intuitively understand God’s expectations of me, and they are much higher than I ever believe I can achieve.  It has been a struggle living in Nashville so far in the sense that everyone still sees me as the new girl.  People think I have great ideas, but there is a level of disbelief in their eyes that this crazy girl will ever do anything she talks about.  I feel the natural need to prove myself to them, but I also have come to know that I should not see it that way.  However, in the search for someone who might truly believe in me, I have struggled to give myself wholly to only seeking the ultimate approval of God. 

I guess the feeling I have is severe loneliness.  I want so desperately to have friends that I can not only stand behind, but who also stand behind me.  I think my Sunday School class is definitely a group that could become that in the future, but so many people in this world are only seeking to get their own needs met.  I have tried to live a life that seeks to meet others’ needs above my own, but in the process have no tools or ability to meet my own needs.  I often marvel at my apartment.  I have a couple scattered pictures hanging on walls in my living room.  The rest of the walls in my entire apartment are empty and blank.  I have junk scattered around in various places and every time I attempt to clean, things just pile up again.  I realized tonight, I have virtually no food and this is entirely my own fault.  I have money.  I have a grocery store.  For some reason that I have yet to identify, I have not yet put those two together to solve my problem.  There is something inside of me that is broken.  I am fully convinced.  I have recently discovered that it is ok to put ketchup on french fries, and the very concept still leaves me dumbfounded.  I have no idea how to see my own needs.  I don’t even know what those needs are.  However, I do know that it’s not normal for a girl in her mid-twenties to be living in an apartment with no decoration and visible chaos.  Sometimes I wonder what a profiler would diagnose me with if he were to walk in my place right now.  I wear makeup now and I style my hair.  That’s a step in the right direction.  However, I need to take further steps to get rid of this apathy that has become so routine.

I don’t really know what I expected life to be like, and I don’t really understand what all is happening in my life right now.  I feel like a leaf perpetually tumbling through the air and never lands.  I am at the mercy of something too big to control and I feel helpless.  I feel completely inadequate for everything that I am doing with my life right now:  my job, school, internship, social life.  When it comes down to it, all I really want to do is spend a day in bed, because I know I can handle that.  When I was in Indiana last weekend, I couldn’t wait to get home and sleep in my own bed.  It’s like my source of comfort.  Now watch, my apartment will burn down tonight just because I said that.

I don’t even know if any of these ramblings make sense.  I think I just needed to talk to someone about it.  I don’t know who I can talk to, so I talked to my blog.  It’s late, but I have to make a dessert for tomorrow night’s party, so I’m off to the grocery store to get some ingredients and probably a great big Three Musketeers.  Maybe I’ll get a bag of them.  That’s what I want pretty badly right now.  Thanks for listening, if anyone reads this.