"No one dies in the last gust of the storm" (part 2)

I have a confession to make before I continue. I don't really like watching TV, but there are a few shows I really enjoy, and one of the is a FOX show called "Fringe." Its kind of dumb, and a little campy (a little bit of iffy sci-fi and some overacting), but its very entertaining. The main characters are all likable, and it has a great plot, which is engaging enough to make the show more than mindless escapism. I was watching the most recent episode, and one of the characters was ruminating on his father having gone crazy. "I always looked at my father's mental illness as something he did to us. I never though of it as something that happened to him." Hmmm. I think that fits somewhere in my life.

So what about today?

Today has been a very interesting day. I awoke finally feeling like I wasn't completely under a cloud, but pretty soon I could feel it looming, so I committed myself to a prayer project. I wasn't going to think about Heather at all. I wasn't going to miss her, I wasn't going to work through anything, I wasn't going to figure out if and what God was telling me about how it will turn out. Whenever anything remotely resembling one of those thoughts was in my head I was just going to pray until it was gone. And it kind of worked. There was a somewhat interesting consequence though. Whenever, and I mean every time the thoughts came back, they were always positive. They were always, "Oh, you weren't wrong" "She will be returned" so on and so forth. And then I just prayed those away. I really can't afford to think about it, at all.

And yet I don't feel like I can stop. If God is really telling me what is coming, if He's saying we will be reconciled, or that we won't, there is a reason for it. And I want to be in on it. But right now my eyes are murky and my ears just ring. So I have to ignore it until God gets fed up and clobbers me over the head. Or at least that's what I was thinking.

I am so incredibly thankful for Bonnie. She is an amazing person and has done more than I can say to make me feel a part of the CIL young adult group. And tonight was no different, though there were points that shook me up pretty good. I'll get to all this in a minute, let me walk you through it.

Last night as I was getting out of the car I told Nick that if we didn't meet with Aaron today God really might kill me. So as we were leaving from disc golf he tells me we're meeting Aaron at 5. Now I'd already been feeling like I needed church and worhsip instead of my GodWhy small group tonight, and already being over at CIL made my decision easier.

The meeting with Aaron went really well. I told him about God calling me to Bangladesh, and what we were thinking for the trip, and we also talked to him about the worship service idea. He was really supportive on both accounts but told us to play it cool and take our time with the worship service. After that Nick and I made a "to do" list for Bangladesh and divied some responsibility.

Worship tonight was more subdued than what I've grown accostumed to lately, but that was great, because it got me thinking. It got me thinking of what my best worship times ever were, and I realized a lot of them happened at Lake Champion, surrounded by 50 people I loved with Christ, with just a guitar and maybe a jimbay. No chairs, so you stood or knelt or laid down and cried out. And I got to thinking about the Thursday night times we did in college, and I had this thought. The success of the service we're looking at doing will everything to do with the presence of the Holy Spirt. It will succeed or fail based on God's work, and how much we chase Him in doing our part.

And as soon as that though hit me I began to recall what Bonnie and Rachel had said the night before. They felt like the needed it now. So if the need is there. If there are people who want to worship. If there are people who want that service, and a God who wants it to be, and people who want to bring those things together . . . why wait? Why not do it and let it grow, or stay and thrive, on nothing but God's blessing? Good freaking question.

After the service we were sitting around talking, kind of waiting until everyone got motivated to go hang out elsewhere, and I sit down and chill, and a few people come over, and then get up, and then its just Bonnie and me. And Bonnie tells me she has a confession to make. She's been reading the blog. She said she felt guilty after I'd mentioned no one around here reading it and said if I didn't want her to read it she wouldn't. But I've come to realize this isn't my project. God wants me doing this. So its not up to me who is a part of that.

A few of us go have dinner together, and then Bonnie gives me a ride over to the park to play four square. But we head to the wrong park first and kind of get talking, and then she misses the turn and we keep talking. And she was asking me about things with Heather, and the like. At one point she just has this rush, and as she fights back tears she talks about her and her ex fiancee and how sure she'd been, and this revelation she'd had. It was about how she knows she wasn't wrong, but that there could always be more. That now there was another path. At first she seemed to be saying one just led to the other, but as she talked more it came out as the path being adjusted.

When she first spoke I was really struck. I had this sinking moment where I was thinking, "Alright . . . that's it. God spoke and its done." I mean here this message just comes out of nowhere, to the point that when Bonnie was done she was surprised with herself for having said all of it. And it shook me. But as I thought more about it I had a realization, one of the type that involves something you already knew. God is never surprised. He didn't spew root beer all over when Heather dumped me. "Well crap . . . didn't see that one coming." Before He said "let there be light" He knew how that day would happen. And God's while our choices can equate to a different plan, God never says what will come and then changes it. Now I've come to realized I couldn't have been wrong about Heather. There's no way. There was too much stuff shouting and I was too with Christ too have messed up everything from when we met to when I moved out there. So what does that look like now?

Here's I see it. 1) Nothing's changed, this is just a season of our relationship that will end in reconciliation. 2) Nothing's changed, she was a path to get me somewhere else. This is the least likely because it asserts God essentially lying. It would mean that God says, "Here, this is your intended" knowing it isn't true. 3) Something has indeed changed.

The only times in the Bible God's plan changes is when people are punished for sin. And the only real example I can think of is Moses. Moses was supposed to enter the promised land, but he screwed up, and got kicked out. So . . . has my inheritance been taken away because of my sin? Because of hers? And if any of this is true, does it mean anything has changed?

And does any of this make a difference? No. After going through all that my mind is still pulled in every direction, and is no closer to seeing God in one. That we will be reunited and that will never speak again are both possibilities that I cannot grab to and recognize as truth.

But coming back around full circle, I was discussing what I mentioned earlier with Bonnie. One way or another is looks like God is trying to tell me where this ends up, which means He wants me to be doing something about it. And I was saying at the bottom of it, it really seems God is saying its not over. But that I couldn't give myself to that idea. Bonnie asked me why. I told her because I was scared it was my own desire, but deep down she'd struck a nerve. I can cover it up and say that, if God wants to heal me and move on I don't want to delay that, but what is it really?

I am afraid.

"You have to learn to never be afraid again."

Yeah. I am not there yet.

But how can I be? My assuredness of knowing God's will has been soiled and stolen. If I go against that will, surely there will be consequences. So I'm right to fear. Right?

This is the disaster that is my brain.

So what's the controlling thought?

Do I really trust God? I mean really, really trust?

I'm not worried about money. Sometimes I do, sometimes I cry to God about when He's going to step into that part of my life, but its not a constant worry, its not even common. I trust He will be there. I don't care about my credit score, I don't care about how big everything looms, my God is bigger.

But underneath it I can't shake that feeling . . . like there's something I'm missing. Is it that I'm not hearing Him? Is it that I'm not trusting? Is it that I'm not doing what I know I've been told to? Maybe its my unmedicated OCD. Maybe its not.

Through it all Job did not sin against God and praised His name. Will we be these people? God is great and mighty and good. When the sun rises tomorrow, there will be worship. Are you going to be a part of it?

Update: Another terrible post. Most of the points are not fully flushed out and overall its very disconnected. I want to beat the living bejeebees out of something, maybe I'll go spar tomorrow.

"No one dies in the last gust of the storm" (part 1)

That phrase came back to my mind this morning. And I'm not sure what to make of it. I received it what feels like a long time ago . . . and it feels like I'm still waiting to see the shore.

I should have gotten on here and written last night. I really should have. But I didn't, and so now I have a lot to say, and less clarity than ever. Kind of. Which is the story of my mind right now. My brain has no permanent residents, just thieving tourists. Jerks.

I didn't write last night because as I walked in the door I realized everything I wanted to write was depressing and miserable. So I didn't write. And I didn't worship, because I'd done that already and I was pissed at God for giving no visible comfort. And I didn't do much of anything. And as a result my mind just raced. And when I finally went to bed, I couldn't sleep, because my mind just kept going, and going, and going. When I transferred from private school to public school my teachers had me tested to be put in the gifted program and my IQ tested at 163. Average is 90-110 and Einstein was estimated at 171. Not only do I not feel like that is accurate, I feel like whatever is there is never good for anything except meaning it never stops. There's always another thought. Always another angle. It just never stops.

So what happened yesterday. I think it actually should have been a good day. I think I should have had wonderful things to write. I was feeling a little zapped from my sinuses and the medicine, so the day was a drag mostly set to the sounds of Before Their Eyes while rereading my favorite parts from Mutiny on the Bounty and Far From the Madding Crowd (perhaps the best fiction book ever). My mind was a mess, and my prayer journal reflected it. I won't go over the ground, its all been said before. Misery, blindness, supplication for comfort, for anything. Nick and Rachel pick me up a few minutes late and we swung by to get Bonnie on our way to Kairos.

I sometimes get upset with people because our society has lost its sense of wonder. People, myself included, pride themselves on a particular type of humor that involves understating or being unimpressed with an impressive feat. Historians find it impossible to believe that Xerxes could have had an army of 2 million soldiers, or that a few hundred Spartans could really have faced such overwhelming odds. Because we have changed our minds to reject what is astounding. By and large I thought I avoided this pitfall, but it turns out I am very wrong. I think my sense of amazement has died in the last few weeks.

Why do I think so? Sometime Sunday or Monday I was thinking of how I'd been looking for confirmation on some things, and it seemed God had not provided. And then I had a mini-revelation: I wasn't giving it enough time. So I said well . . . just wait and see, you don't need answers right now. Then on Monday night I felt it the first time. It was like I could hear it. "Tomorrow night at Kairos . . . there will be something." Now I'd also been struggling with wondering whether certain Scriptural revelations could really be considered interpretive. I mean, some things seem pretty clear cut right? And then on Tuesday I could feel it all tying together. "Go tonight, all these things will be spoken to." So I went.

After the singing portion, how did the service start? Mike brought up a young man whom God had prompted to leave his job and go serve. And the guy told a little of the story, and then Mike gave everyone the guy's email, and then he told us why. "Because at some point, he's going to doubt he heard right, and he needs to be reminded." I leaned forward in my chair when he said it. Really? I thought about dismissing it, but that nights entire message was about the supremacy of the Word. The reading was again from Revelation, the next sequential part, where John eats the scroll of scripture. That was the message. I wrote down this "quote": "Reality is not determined by how you feel, or circumstances, or what everyone around you does or says. It's the Bible." That's two weeks in a row God told me what was going to be talked about at Kairos before I got there, because they were things I needed to hear. The first because my heart was clinging to sin, and the second, ostensibly, because I was doubting and needed encouragement. But do I listen? Am I amazed? Am I struck by the awesomeness and left with nothing to do but adhere? No. I have lost my sense of wonder.

Another thing stuck out to me from the message, Mike touched on what he had talked about last week and a thought struck. The warning signs. God gave me warning signs about what was coming with Heather. He gave me multiple dreams. Were they indeed warning signs, meaning He didn't want it to happen, or were they visions of an inevitable. To Him those things are the same, but to me . . . its the difference between something that can be set right, and a consequence which may have no end.

The last point I want to bring up from yesterday should also be a reason for amazement, yet it only barely gets at me. Mike mentioned Jeremiah again. He was talking about how implementing the Word is hard and bitter, and how just like Jeremiah, you'll often find yourself as the only one. The one preaching against, to a nation full of people who don't want to hear it.

The other night, when God led me to the intro of Jeremiah, and told me I was reading about myself as well, there were two thoughts I had but didn't share. And one of them is relevant here. It was that same message of preaching against. And here it is echoed. Here there is confirmation. But what do I do with echoing and confirmation these days? Dismiss it. Its too loud to hear, and too bright to see.

On the way home I was fairly absent from the conversation, I was trying to keep my head in that place. I was trying to listen, I was trying to hear what was meant for me and what was my own creation. As we got near to dropping her off Bonnie gets my attention and says, "Don't worry, you'll get through this." All I can think when she says it is, "is that what I want? No. I don't want to get through this." I wasn't thinking I wanted to be crushed under the weight, just that . . . I didn't want to be on the other side of this and not have Heather. And that's how it sounded to me. What made that worse was that earlier in the day I got a message from Jill saying the same thing. "This is normal . . . after the miserable period it gets better?" Gets better? These things . . . all we are talking about is things being made better by the passage of time. Not God's miraculous touch, not restoration, not new 'wealth.' I don't want to get by. I've never wanted to get by. I want to thrive.

I'm still hurting because I love(d?) her deeply and its normal and it should hurt but . . . getting by? I heard the messages of the storm and the fire. I'm mining this for every bit of purpose and potential its got . . . and the past few days, since Sunday, its just felt done with. Like it had just become heartache with no purpose, and yet no healing.

Titles are important to me. For the songs and poems I write. For papers. For blog posts. So I was putting a little too much effort into summing up everything I was going to say in this post in just a few words as a title. And in doing so I went back through this notebook I do all my rough writing in for lyrics and poetry. Some other stuff is in their from at Lake Champion, but nothing big. Except. As I'm flipping pages I noticed a few lines in quotes, on a page all by themselves, so I stop and read. What I was looking at was a record of one of the many times God spoke through Heather through glossolalia and I understood. Part of it was speaking to her, to insecurities, and part was to me, a promise. That she was indeed mine. Great.