Turtle upside down in my shell

For the last several days I have been feeling kinda down. Sunday and Monday I just felt stuck, like a was once again spinning my wheels and getting nowhere. When I was asked what was going on, I had no words to explain it. I knew something was off but didn't really know how to put it into words.

When I went to see my counselor on Tuesday and it all came to a head. It wasn't that he told me something I had never heard before. There's just something different about hearing the same thing from your counselor that your friends have told you before. Maybe it seems more likely to be a possibility when a professional counselor "pegs you" the same as your friends did.

I'm not ready yet to go into a lot of detail on the issue, but it all has to do with my faith struggle. As I was told last night, the closer we get to the "real issue" the more uncomfortable it will become. I guess then that we are getting closer and it really sucks. So, for the last few days I have retreated back into my shell, but this time turned upside down. There are people in my life that care about me and want to help me journey through this. Yet I won't talk to them about what's going on. I think that if I do it will make "that which we do not speak of" a reality.

I don't have homework this time. My counselor could tell that I was uncomfortable with the session and he just wants me to pay attention to my thoughts in the next couple of weeks. So, that's what's going on. I wonder if maybe the more I talk about it, the easier it will be to admit it and work through it.

God Loves Me

"Jesus love me this I know
For the Bible tells me so"

That's what I know today....that's what I believe today. God loves me. He doesn't give me any answers. I still don't want Him close, but I know He loves me. I watched a good movie tonight. The plan was to go see a movie where I didn't have to think. I get so tired of thinking that sometimes I like to do things where there is no thinking involved. The movie was The Game Plan. If you haven't seen it, it was actually pretty cute. For those of you who haven't seen it, this may spoil part of it, so you might not want to read further until you see the movie, if you care. Anyway, I made it to the last 10 minutes of the movie without much thought.

There's a point in the movie where the little girl leaves to go back home and her dad lets her go. He doesn't chase after her. He ask a football buddy of his what he is suppose to do. He is heartbroken over the loss of his child. His friend says, that the only thing he can do is to make sure she knows that he loves her and nothing will ever change that. The hope is that one day his daughter will come back to him. Her dad doesn't chase her, she has to decide if/when she wants to come back to him.

Parallels? I think so. Reminds me of the Prodigal Son. Jesus never chased Thomas. He didn't spend all of His time persuading Thomas with His words that Jesus was who He claimed to be. He showed him that He loved him. Hum...

God loves me. I'm not sure that I love Him. He still loves me. I don't want Him close because it scares me. He still loves me. I don't trust Him. He still loves me.

That blows me away.

Trying to Answer a Hard, Honest Question

Last night I found myself asking the question, "Do I love God?" I want to, I honestly do. But, right now I don't know that I do. I know that He loves me, but it's hard for me to love Him as much as I think I should when I am scared of Him. I guess that's where grace comes in. He loves me even though I can't say that I love Him right now.

Man, that's hard to admit. In fact, that's so hard, that I can't really say anymore. There's nothing left to say after that.

I did finish my homework, so we shall see tomorrow how it all goes.

Loving God

Here's a question:

Right now, do I honestly love God?

I'm afraid to answer that question honestly, so I'll just put it out there for now.

More later....

It's Been Awhile

As some of you have noticed, it's been a while since I last posted. Honestly, I haven't allowed myself enough time to sit down and post anything in about two weeks. Life has been busy, somewhat due to my own doing, but not all of it. So, here's an update of the latest...

I was asked today by BJK what I am learning. I am learning that nothing much has changed. I am learning that a large part of me desires intimate fellowship with God, but an equally large part of me is scared to death of that intimacy. My counseling assignment for this time, due next Tuesday, is to find a Psalm that expresses my faith struggle. The problem that I keep running across is that every time I find one that I think I can use, in that same Psalm there is always a part of praying to God, either when the Psalmist is being honest with God, expressing praise or trouble. That's where I get stuck. Because I am not there, I have to move on to another one. It's a good thing there are 150 Psalms. I think I am just going to have to piece a couple of them together to make my own.

I asked a friend of mine the other night, if it was all worth it. Sometimes, lately, more times then not it seems like it's just not worth it. Many days I wake up feeling discouraged. I know I'm not where I should be, but the road just seems so long. The last two nights while listening to sermons by Louie Giglio, I found myself honestly wanting to "wake up," to just let it all go and let the love of God be enough. What was so incredibly frustrating about that was the feeling that there is a huge wall that prevents me from the goal which I know is out there.

I just got off the phone with another friend of mine who told me that the wall is going to have to come down brick by brick. It's too big to go around, to high to go over, it can just come down one brick at a time. That seems so tedious to me.

There are things that I am thankful for, one of those being the ability to not have to worry about sleep anymore. Thanks to the invention of modern medicine, I can sleep soundly no matter what's running through my head. And yes, after two weeks of being on the medication, things do start looking better when I've had some sleep. So, maybe it's partly true when my mom used to tell me "get some sleep, things will look better in the morning." It's off to sleep I go. I think tomorrow on my day off I will work on my assignment and hopefully go ahead and finish it. We shall see what it looks like when this "combined" Psalm appears.

Basically, I'm just ready for enough to be enough and this struggle to be over. If only it were that easy.