Looking Back, Looking Forward

Looking forward.  Many people have recently asked me what I’m most looking forward to when I return to the US this week (!!!).  Oh wow, I don’t have enough Spanish vocabulary to even begin expressing all that I’m looking forward to when I return. 

Lord willing, I’m going to step off the plane Wednesday morning and go straight into the arms of my fiancé.  And stay there for a solid 5 minutes without moving.  I’m then looking forward to stepping out of the Charlotte airport and being greeted with a nice, hot summer day.  I’m looking forward to the independence and privilege of having and using my car whenever I want.  I’m so looking forward to being with friends and seeing my church family again.  I’m looking forward to hitting up all my favorite and sorely missed food spots.  After a couple years of transitions and moves, I’m looking forward to having an apartment to go to.  My home.  I’m certainly looking forward to planning a wedding.  And, oh yeah, I’m looking forward to getting married!! 

With so much to look forward to in these days ahead, I was struck with a thought recently.  How much changes in a year’s time. Oh how God works.  I remember well the turmoil and deep, dark mire that I was nostril-deep in around this time last year.  I wouldn’t even bring it up, but I truly think it’s a beautiful thing to sing God’s praises as we look back on His faithfulness to us.  He’s faithful, not to give us answers to all of our questions or give us what we want, but to give us what we need: his sustaining Presence and the hope of eternal purpose and life with him.  I can only fumble for words as I consider the confusion and disappointments of this past year, but I have an entry in my prayer journal that expresses pretty vividly where I was at one year ago today…

3 June 2013

Weary.  Oh God, I am so weary.  Disillusioned.  Hopeless.  Dark with no light at the end of the tunnel.  Discouraged.  Sick and tired of failure, “re-direction,” shattered dreams and transition…and truly no hope or expectation for anything different for the rest of my  life.  And that makes me even more weary.  Hurt.  Confused.  Emotionally stupid: my feelings are so vivid, but often so up-and-down, I feel less emotionally stable than a teenager.  I wish I couldn’t feel.  I wish I wouldn’t think.  The alone-ness I often feel can come when I’m surrounded by friends.  It’s these feelings of alone-ness and hopelessness that I cannot escape.  Can’t run away from.  Can’t avoid.  Can’t ignore.  And really can’t deal with.  I don’t know what to do.  I’m weary, God.  Deeply discouraged.  I have been given so much, blessed in a multitude of ways.  You alone are reason for hope, for peace and joy; and yet you’ve also blessed me with abundantly more than that.  YET still I am floundering.  So many things I feel so helpless, hopeless and incapable of changing.  And I feel paralyzed to make any major decisions.  I’m certainly tired of having desires.  I’m weary of pursuing what excites me, dreams and desires, only to see them stopped, taken away, or shattered before me.  I’m tired of the unknown: which truly seems like every aspect of my life.  I feel like a pathetic failure and a directionless, pointless, purposeless idiot.  What am I doing?  Why are you allowing me to live? And the hurt and aching in my heart – pain that will not be removed with wisdom or discernment of my next steps – is this hurt all my fault, too?  All because I allow self-pity, pride, and expectations of “my rights” to harass my mind and heart until I am miserable.  I keep thinking the oppressive heaviness is just a moment of weakness…if it is, I’m getting weaker and weaker.  I’m tired, God.  Surrounded by disappointment, failure, hopelessness, hurt, frustration, fear, anger, disillusionment, desperation and weariness.  I don’t know where to go from here in life – geographically, job-wise, relationship-wise, ministry-wise, financially – and I really don’t care.  I have no energy to form new dreams or have new desires.  I certainly have no enthusiasm at the prospect of seeing future hopes and desires fall to pieces in my hands.  I’m struggling to have enthusiasm in life and in you, God…and yet I know there is nothing else.  I know so much truth from your Word, Lord, yet knowing it isn’t changing my weariness, my hurt, my hopelessness.  This is where I’m at, God.  Exhausted.  So sick and tired of knowing, of desiring, of yearning, and yet not seeing. Not fully believing.  I need faith that resists the temptation to be CONSUMED with what I feel and what is surrounding me.  Because I’ve become consumed.  Overwhelmed.  Stricken.  Flailing and failing miserably.  I need help, God.  ONLY YOU can redeem this dense-minded sheep from the dark and oppressive pit that I’ve allowed myself to fall into.  Please, Lord Jesus.  Save me!

…And he did.  A couple thousand years ago.  And he is still at work today.

I can testify on this June 3^rd with joy that - just as God told Paul - His grace is sufficient for me, for His power is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Well, that’s it for this Monday’s post.  I hope to see many of you back in the US soon!!