Stumbling

I just finished reading "How Coffee Saved My Life" by Ellie Roscher last night.

Sometimes it seems like certain songs or books or movies come at the perfect time. Like for instance, I'm currently listening to "I Found My Way Back Again" by Nevertheless. A lot of times I feel like a hollow shell. I feel trapped in a little hell. Some days, it's just an accomplishment knowing I've made it through the day and still want to make it to the next day. The past 2 months were way more reminiscent of last spring than I would've hoped. I started back to school and wanted to just quit everything. Things weren't better. Problems hadn't really gone away. The same discontent resurfaced.

I know I've made people angry, I know some people just want me to get over it, but I'm just trying to be okay with emotion right now. I'm trying to be okay with feeling angry now and then. I'm trying to be okay with feeling sad now and then. I'm trying to just be okay with myself. And it's a day by day process. Some days I taste hope again. Some days I can smile and laugh and I can push away old scars that want to open up again. Some days I can't. Some days I can't snap out of it and I need to resort to survival mode.

Sometimes life really is just about survival.

That's where this book has helped me a lot. It's a memoir about a girl who lived in Uruguay for a year. She had the expectation of being this great missionary to help out people living below the poverty line. Little did she know her year would become about survival. She suffered various physical ailments while in Uruguay, she struggled a lot from not being able to keep up with the language, and most of the time it was about taking life day by day and trying to conquer every emotional, physical, and spiritual battle that surfaced. She learned that it's okay to fail now and then. There's no way to avoid failure. The real battle was whether or not she let a daily failure keep her from trying the next day, and then the next day, and then the next day.

I'm getting there. It's so hard not to quit all the time, but sometimes just slowly forcing my feet along is all I can do. It reminds me a lot of workouts this summer. Now and again it's like I'm soaring with a faith I don't even know. It sweeps me up and carries me far past what I could've imagined and dreamed. But a lot of the time, reality smacks me in the face and all I can seem to focus on is just making sure I keep placing one foot in front of the other. If I learned anything this summer about running, and if I learned anything the past month - it's that struggles get easier when you've got someone next to you. I often feel guilty for burdening my friends with my problems, but it's cool to see the friends that still stick around and still offer a laugh, a smile, or a hug even after you've unloaded all your woes on them. It's moving to me to watch my friends quickly offer a helping hand, or $200 in cash, or several hours of their time that they could be sleeping just to talk and listen when I need it.

If college has taught me anything, it's taught me that true friends really are gems in the world. It's hard, and I mean freakin' hard, to come across people that care deeply for one another. I'm so richly blessed to have the few true friends that I do have. And I hope that I can start to snap out of this depression that's eating me up so that I can be a better friend to the people that have been taking care of me.

I know I'm headed there, but I don't know how long the process will take. Most of the time it's all about the process. I just keep trying to remind myself that no pain or suffering is for nothing. Something will come of this.

I'm going somewhere.
I'm going to do something that matters.
I'm not going to save the world, because it's already been done.
I'm only going to make what I do matter.
I'm going to try to take care of myself. This is going to be extremely hard for me. Because I'm not very good at this... like, at all.
I'm going to try to stay in the sun more. I want to be in the light. I don't want to stay up to all hours of the night like my habit is. I want to enjoy sunlight more.
I'm leaving the city after I graduate. I don't know where I'm going. But I want to learn more about the world. I want to learn what it's like to not be an American. I want to get away from the fast-paced everything... So I can learn what other cultures understand that we need to understand. And also, so I can learn exactly how blessed I am by living in this incredible country.

To put it in words better than my own:
"Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us. No statement says all that should be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession brings wholeness. No program accomplishes the church's mission. No set of goals and objectives includes everything. This is what we are about. We plant seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities. We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builders and the worker. We are the workers, not the master builders; ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future that is not our own."
- Archbishop Oscar Romero

The State of Things

It's been year in the making/ In my skin, I'm shaking from the cold/ I am tired from the taking/ And my heart won't stop breaking/ And I know, I know/ Moving forward/ Can't be this hard.

They say time is a healer/ It's more like a concealer for a scar/ Cause it never really leaves us/ It can always find us where we are, we are/ Who thought, it could/ Ever be so hard?

There's so much I should have said,/ When time was wearing thin/ You're not here, but someday I know/ I'll see you again.

I'm just tryin' to find out/ Who I am, on my own/ I had you right beside me/ Now you're gone and I know./ I had you right beside me/ But now you're gone, you're gone

When the room clears, I'm still here/ Who am I when I'm Alone?

Poetry

I found this in a journal earlier today and thought I'd post it:

Inside I am screaming,
Outside I am weeping,
Why am I prisoner to thought?

Did you not create me,
Bless me,
With a heart in my head?

Don't abandon me, O God
For without You I will die.
But please make yourself known
Whenever I cry.

I am blessed with life,
And a beauty I do not see.
Break down these walls, God.
Help me be free.