Just the thought of filling out another apartment application feels like a huge task. As I sit today, trying to pray, to sort through my thoughts, emotions, expectations, my current reality, I feel like I'm stumbling. Not sure where I'm going. Not sure what I'm looking for.
I watch the seconds on the clock tick by. And I realize again how fragile life is, that people - wonderful, good, beautiful people - die each day. Some naturally, some due to abuse, natural disasters, the reasons are endless.
In light of that, I realize that most days, I live as if I'll never die. I let even the most mundane worries take over my life, and when the day is over, I haven't lived. I don't know who I am, why I'm here, what my purpose is. It often comes back to purpose. I want to be useful, to be needed, to be "important."
Why?
The difficult part is that even in that emotional space, I can't really describe what I'm feeling. It's an amorphous longing, and all I can do is either cry, or just sit, staring at the wall, so desperate that I'm unable to move or think.
I'm lonely.
I think that's what I'm feeling, in a way that I haven't felt in a long time.
I hear this is part of the process of moving to a new country, starting a "new life." Living in a place without all of the markers that remind me of my identity, all of the things that make me comfortable, all of the things that numb me to the kinds of emotions that I find myself feeling now.
I'm not always like this. Actually, I'm not often like this. I've been keeping myself busy, partly because there is so much to do, but perhaps also because when I let myself go to this place of vulnerability and honesty, it's extremely painful. But right now, I can't pretend anymore. I don't like pain, and this kind of emotional pain is the worst for me. No bandages, no pills, no hot compresses... just suffering through it, hoping that soon some other emotional process will take over.
A friend here told me about a devotional that has been of immense help to her. I visited it this morning, searching for some kind of relief, or guidance, and found the two following thoughts:
"You cannot put too great a strain upon my Love and Forbearance.""I know no Joy such as the Joy I feel at the loving trust of a dear one."
I see two challenges here:
1) to trust God's strength and love enough to be completely honest, even to the point of (from our perspective) making "demands" of him
2) to recognize God's strength and love enough to then be able to let go of those demands (even when think that's all we have and we feel utterly helpless without them), to surrender our deepest selves, all that we are, to him
Basically, God is saying: "Trust me. With everything."
When I face God like this, the pain subsides a bit. Not entirely, but I feel better. I can at least get up and eat breakfast, and fill out another application.
