Take a Deep Breath

I don't know what it is about coming home, but I feel like I morph into an entirely different person every time the pressure in my head adjusts from the higher elevation of the mountains to down here in the city where the smog is thick and the heat makes the pavement boil. Suddenly the patience that I strive so hard to let control me vanishes, and all my determination and ambition fades away like the end of a flower's life. Maybe it's just that it's hard to transition from a fast-paced, high-expectation situation to one that doesn't have a schedule, and you don't have responsibility or activity except what you make. I don't like this person that I become. I've never thought of myself as someone who works better under stress, but maybe that's who I am after all. I think of those days when I would cram in the endings of projects and write papers in the dead of night as I struggled to finish school, and the nights when I fall asleep as one who has the responsibility of 4-10 little ones. Those are the days that I look back on with fondness--those are the days that I actually remember, while all the others just simply fade away as if they never were really there at all.
I feel so confused and alone inside. Will there ever be a time that I feel like I belong somewhere? Or is that just a curse I have to live with? It seems so foreign to me now, the thought that I'll ever belong with someone or doing something special with my life. I'm just stuck here doing what I've always done, restless in heart, mind, and body but too scared to move on...or to move at all. My parched heart croaks the word why again and again and some moments it's all I can do to not scream at the world and dig a hole to bury myself in. Some days these feelings rush upon me as depression, other times as resentment, others as anger, but what really is it? Insecurity? Lack of purpose? Loneliness? I don't understand, I really don't. But whatever this is, it makes me upset inside, and it drives me toward being a person that I don't want to be--a person that I've been before--a person that scares me.
"Hold My hand, and walk joyously with Me through this day... I am your Guide, as well as your constant companion. I know every step of the journey ahead of you... You don't have to choose between staying close to Me and staying on course. Since I am the Way, staying close to Me is staying on the course."
As I sat in my room this morning, I read those words, and a cool breeze washed over me. They may not be out of the Book itself, but the words portray the Heart of the One I call my Savior. I've tried to be patient where I am, and I've tried to be quote-on-quote good, but I fail every time because such things aren't part of my natural self. I can't do it in my own strength because my own strength is frail. When I was little I thought that there were some things that I would just never have a problem with because it wasn't me, but now that I'm older I realize that we all face the same things, and no one is exempt, even me. But it still hurts, and I still can't tough it out on my own, no matter how hard I try. But is that my problem? Is that the root of my insecurity, my not-belonging-ness, my failures? Have I been fooling myself into believing that I trust Him fully, when I really don't?
Jesus, help me understand.

At the Well of Beer-lahai-roi

Once upon a time there was a girl who grew up loving the mountains and the fresh air. She made mud "cakes" with her little brother and was fascinated by baby frogs and snakes. This little girl poured over her King James version of the Bible and never went a night without reading that precious book. But childhood days and rumpled braids never seem to last. As the days flew by, myriads of things changed in that life--and heart. And now here I sit, now only 27 days from 20 years old, and I wonder what happened to that little girl. I wish that somehow I could bring her back.

But time doesn't work that way.

Today I struggle. Every moment I struggle, whether it be to live the faith I claim, or to flee the wrong that my baser nature craves. No one will ever be able to convince me that the battle between wrong and right does not exist--I've been cut too deeply to believe that the knife isn't real. But despite all my struggle and all my pain, the One who demands all of my heart and all my devotion walks with me through each day. It is so easy to focus on a part of who God is, say for example, His justice, and forget that He is also a God of love. This God that demands my all made the tiny blooms of the plant that was waiting inside it's seed, waiting for me to give it water to grow. He made that beauty--a flower so small that we deemed it appropriate to name it a forget-me-not. And yet God sees even its tiniest bloom.

It reminds me of the story of Hagar in Genesis chapter 16. Hagar was a slave of Sarai, the wife of Abram (later called Abraham, who was the father of the nation of Israel). Now Sarai and Abram could not have any children, and they had been given a promise by God that a great nation would come from them. But they were old, and though they had believed God once, His words became less real to them every passing day. In those days, it was acceptable in the people's eyes to have children by their servants, so, Sarai gave Abram her slave Hagar to have a child by.

I can't even imagine what that would have been like. Here Hagar is, serving her mistress, living comfortably in her master's house, and then she is told she will be used to give Abram children. If I had been her I would have protested vehemently, but, as the story goes, Hagar became pregnant. When she realized that she was pregnant, she "looked in contempt" on her mistress Sarai, and Sarai was angered. I don't know about you, but when I am angry I lash out, and that is exactly what Sarai did. Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her. And the angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur. I wonder if at this point Hagar is just wishing that she could die. Here she is, first a servant taken from her homeland of Egypt, then given to her master, now pregnant, oppressed enough to run away, and, as a cherry to top the cake, what every runaway servant dreads--she's found.

But the angel of the Lord tells her to go back to her mistress and to submit to her. He also tells Hagar that she will indeed have a son, and that his name should be Ishmael. From him would come offspring without number, just as the Lord had promised to Abram, and even though Abram and Sarai had felt the need to take God's work into their own hands, God would be faithful to His promise. You shall call his name Ishmael, because the Lord has listened to your affliction... So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, "You are a God of seeing," for she said, "Truly here I have seen him who looks after me." Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi; it lies between Kadesh and Bered. And Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael. Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram.

God is truly a God of seeing. If I was a seminary student or a pastor I might delve a little more into depth about the implications of this story and all the things we can learn from it, but my little mind would just like to think on how my God is a God of seeing.

He sees all my pain and all the injustices of my life. He notices the tiny flowers that bloom and every hair that falls from my head. You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in Your bottle. Are they not in Your book? (Psalm 56:8) The Lord saw all of Hagar's secret pains, all of her problems, and her mistakes, but yet He had a plan to bring nations from her womb. God must have a plan for my pain as well--a plan for my moment by moment struggles. I can take comfort in the fact that no matter what happens, He sees--even if I am in the wilderness, alone and hiding at a well named Beer-lahai-roi.

I'd Rather be a Rock than a Wave

It's the first night I've been home in seven weeks, and I have a craving for coffee and pretzels. I've missed this house and my own bed, but at the same time I haven't. Isn't it strange how you can miss something but yet at the same time be relieved that it isn't there anymore? I'm not even sure I understand how that works.
Camp always has a way of changing me, whether it be my attitude, or my heart, or just simply my outlook on life. It's that spiritual "mountain" that lasts just enough to make you forget what a valley feels like. And I come home and think, "This time it will be different..." But I know deep inside that I'll see those valleys again. It took me a long time this summer to really latch onto the swing of hard work and making genuine time for God. More often than not I find myself depending upon what I feel about God, and letting that determine my relationship with Him rather than what I know to be true. One of my favorite quotes is from a beautiful lady named Elisabeth Elliot: Don't dig up in doubt what you planted in faith. I have to ask myself, is what I believe based upon what I feel, or the Word of God? If I wait to pray because I do not feel the Spirit moving, will I ever pray, or will I ever feel the presence of God? If I wait to study the life-giving words until I feel inspired will I ever open the Book at all? I know from past experience that I won't. I'll just simply let it be, and then I'll slip away until one day I have a reality check and realize that I've been groping around in darkness and not moving anywhere. If I never try, I'll never be able to succeed. It's easier to steer something that is moving forward rather than something that is standing still. If I love God, I'll make time for Him, but unless I make time for Him, how can I learn to love Him? Tonight I want to make a commitment to strengthen my determination to seek His face even in the times that I cannot see His hand.