The Distance of Distance
Friendship is perhaps one of the greatest things in life. I am currently flashing back to the time I spent in Kansas, those seven great years that seem so distant. I had four best friends. They were amazing, and still are. The group of us resembled something you might see in a movie–one for all and all for one. Or something like that. I was the only one out of five that was not a true Kansan, however. I was a city girl and always have been. I had a preference for dolls, especially Barbies. My friends would choose bikes or something involving dirt any day. Slumber parties was the sole focus of my childhood years. There was nothing cooler than a slumber party, except for maybe going to the high school sporting events, which were the heart and soul of my small town. The best nights were the ones that involved a game and then a slumber party.
At these sleepovers, we would watch movies, look through high school yearbooks awaiting our turn, and giggle and eat and giggle some more. We would spread out blankets on the floor and all sleep in one big row, the five of us dreaming together about God knows what.
I kept a paper journal when I was around ten or eleven. It is hysterical and humiliating to go back and read it now. The cover has peace signs all over it. I bought it at Claire’s, every tween’s favorite store, and I loved it. It’s the only journal I’ve ever filled up completely. I wrote about my friends, mostly. I tried to sound older than I really was. I attempted to create drama where there was none. I wanted my life to resemble a Dawson’s Creek episode and was always slightly disappointed when it did not.
It’s been five years since I’ve lived in Kansas. It’s been two since I’ve been back for a visit. I was supposed to go home this summer, to see friends and attend a wedding. But I decided not to go. I made a pro and con list and the cons won out. But the list isn’t really important. It’s the change in all of us that sealed the deal for me to stay home.
Of those four best friends, I am now only close with one of them. The one I am close with is extraordinary, giving my heart joy and not hating me for changing my mind at the last minute. She has been loyal to me for these past five years, proving her love and support. She is what keeps me believing that friendships can truly last and be something amazing.
She asked me tonight why I changed my mind. I sensed anger in her voice, but she told her that wasn’t it. I still could not escape the feeling that I had somehow betrayed her trust, that I had hurt her. And I hate that. I know what it feels like to be hurt by someone you love and I hate the fact that I did that to her.
As I tried to explain my reasoning, I realized my choice all came down to the fact that Kansas is no longer home for me. This group of girls that I was once so close with are not really my friends any longer. Such truths are a fact that I have had a hard time accepting. As a kid at a sleepover, surrounded by my best friends, I did not believe we’d ever lose our way. I did not believe we would ever grow apart. Others, perhaps; but not us. Not our group. Even when I moved here we kept in touch for a time. But time seemed to fly by quicker and quicker, and the five lives that were once so much in unison were not any longer.
When I left Kansas the last time, I was able to leave knowing that I had a place there. Now, I am not so sure. I couldn’t stand the thought of being there for ten days, days full of uncomfortable silence and forced conversations about work, school, etc. So much has happened to them in the past two years, things which I have missed entirely. So much has happened to me in just the last year that they haven’t seen. I suppose my biggest fear is that they wouldn’t care anyway.
I believe that regardless of one’s schedule, you make time for the things and the people that are important to you. We have failed to make time for one another. Our importance to one another has all but been extinguished. This is normal for friendships like ours, but still sad, at least to me.
Lately, I have been longing for that sort of community again, that feeling of complete love and loyalty and pure, unfiltered joy. I miss that feeling of knowing you have a circle of people that surround you with love and protection. There is a cynical, adult voice in me that says those types of relationships are only in adolescence. I hope I am wrong.
My friend summed it up by saying that I would come to see her, but the thought of seeing everyone else is what scares me. And she is correct. I don’t feel like I mean much, if anything, to them anymore. And I don’t want to fake friendship for a week. And I don’t want to ruin what once was, to completely shatter those memories and images.
There was once slumber parties and Sno-Cones and the Lancaster twins. There was once walks around the track, trips to the park, and visits to Sonic. I have good memories there. I didn’t want to go back there and leave with bittersweet ones.
As I tried to explain all of this to my friend, it sounded like fluff, and perhaps that’s what is sounds like now. But it all feels heavy and sad in this moment, when I just so happen to feel like Kansas could not be further away.
Seeing Red
You say it’s not too late to come running
Oh, I have ran but it’s been the other way
And though it hurts more in the long run
It often hurts more just to stay
Faith breaks so easily when my heart has grown numb
When your glory becomes my routine
And doubt and tradition do not help love along
They act just as traitors, but unseen
Perhaps the reason you never hear me
Is because I never speak
You say your spirit knows each of my groans
When even I doubt what they mean
But I am too weary to groan anymore
To moan and to cry and feel guilt
Grace can heal, but it also must break
The impressive walls that I’ve built
You say that no one is ever out of reach
But I have reached, and just grabbed air
I have tried and tried, but have I really tried?
Or simply muttered these prayers?
Must a man get down on his knees
And sell everything that is his?
Is there mercy that is cheaper than blood?
That is somehow less costly than this?
And maybe the reason that you never seem to touch me
Is because I move away before you can
You say that my weakness can be made perfect
In the grandeur and strength of your hand
But I have turned your truth into clichés
So the power of your promises is void
Your love can save me, oh, I believe it can
But with love comes all self destroyed
My lips have praised and spoken love
I have raised hands in adoration
I have bowed beneath the image of your cross
Readily accepting your salvation
But my worship hasn’t gone to only you
Like a harlot, my lips have known others
Worship has often served as a distraction
As I crawled in bed with different lovers
Youdd think that whoring love away would make me sorry
Or make me feel like I am wrong
But guilt has a way of getting buried alive
The moment I think I am strong
And I have never been strong, but I pretend so well
It’s easy to fake, but it’s so hard to fight
When you’ve fallen in love with Love’s enemy
And broken the cords of Love’s plight
Though I often hate you, I desire to love
But through and through, deem myself unworthy
I try to cover up the scabs and the wounds
To myself less dirty
But there is a hope in me that just will not die
Though I have often attempted to kill it
I crave your arms around me, your kisses on my face
But, most of all, your forgiveness
I also posted this over at rhyming words, but it’s what inspired all the following thoughts so it gets to see the light of day here, as well.
I really do believe that all I want is to know is that God forgives me for all the stupid, selfish, mindless things I’ve participated in during my almost-nineteen years of life. I know that Scripture said He does, that He, being of perfect love, “keeps no record of wrongs.” I know that salvation is not dependent upon one’s worth, or else none of us would have it. I know that the moment I desired to accept the salvation of the Father that my sin, past and present, was erased. But even if God doesn’t remember, I do. He may punish me no longer, but I punish myself.
Yesterday I was on my lunch break at work and I had Blue Like Jazz thrown in my purse. I pulled it out and read through a chapter on grace, then got to the part that struck me most in the book the first time through it. Miller was saying that we will love God because He loved us, we will obey God because we love Him, but that we cannot love God unless we first accept His love. This is what I think my biggest problem is. It’s not my lust or my selfishness or even my mountain of sin; it’s that I cannot, or rather will not, fully accept the love of God.
I can’t get it through my head that God’s love is completely based on grace. It demands nothing of me, yet I get overwhelmed by what I can’t give. It asks for no payment, yet I count my pennies, ashamed when I come up short, ashamed that I, so proud and strong, need charity. But grace is just grace. To quote the song, it is indeed quite amazing. And something that I have not yet gotten the hang of. I’m not sure why I can’t just let God bury me in his love and acceptance. I’m not sure why it’s such a struggle. I guess I’m not quite sure how to accept the love of God.
Perhaps so much of the hardships I encounter in my “faith” are because I so often ignore the Enemy. I believe that Satan is just as real as Jesus is, but I so often overlook the Enemy’s voice. This morning in Sunday school, my teacher was talking about how often Satan whispers lies in our heads. I found tears welling up in my eyes as he talked about loneliness. When we feel that no one is there for us, that we will be alone forever, that we will never find anyone who will love us, that is simply the voice of Satan trying to doom the Bride of Christ. But I never see it that way. I see it as truth, truth which I grab such a hold of. I mourn and cry and pout and close myself off from those I love because I fear they won’t love me back. I do this because I believed the lies Satan was pouring into my head.
I have written so much here in this journal about my battle with loneliness, about how that is something I hate, fear, and dread. But I am loved. I do have friends. And no one is perfect, so I cannot expect them to be so.
It is sad to me that I listen more eagerly to the voice of Satan than I do the voice of God. The Enemy tells me that I am unworthy, unpursued, unpretty, unwanted. (Yes, I just made up some “un” words.) The Enemy tells me that I will never have love, never have the life I have dreamed of, never have the husband that has often filled my wishes. The lies of Satan have convinced me that I am not smart enough, not captivating, not anything that any sane person would want to be a part of. And I have held those lies. I have wept over those lies. I have let those lies act as a cage, with me perfectly content inside.
I feel so much like Morgan Freeman’s character Red in The Shawshank Redemption. He was a man who was serving a life sentence, but every ten years he got the chance to be pardoned. The movie spans several decades, so the audience sees Red go in for several parole hearings. He makes the same speech time after time, with no passion or belief in his words. He is not surprised to be denied parole again and again, and is even somewhat thankful to stay where he is. This I did not understand. I could not wrap my brain around the idea of someone wanting to stay in prison. But Red later explained:
“Believe what you want. These walls are funny. First you hate ‘em,
then you get used to ‘em. After long enough, you get so you depend on ‘em. That’s “institutionalized.”
The same is true in life. After believing in something for so long, you just get used to. I have believed for so long that I am not good enough, that I never will be. Not just for God, but for anyone. I have come to accept this idea rather than to fight it.
I want to learn how to accept the love of God without feeling the need to reimburse him. I want to know what that feels like to leave the walls of lies and doubts behind me. They have held me for far too long, and I am tired of them.
I Have Never Prayed a Lot
I am currently having a conversation via IM with one of my dearest friends. She is telling me how she feels restless, how she wants something new, how she is often sad and creates drama from nothing. And I am telling her that I am the exact same way right now. At this moment, the two of us seem to be emotional twins, with our feelings even beginning around the same timeframe. When life gives me lemons, I analyze them, as I shall do now.
Whenever I experience conflict in my life, I automatically assume that it has something to do with God. Not that I blame him; I dontt. But I assume that because of the conflict something between the two of us is not as it should be. It’s not as it should be now, so I think that explains a lot.
As I mentioned in my last entry, for some time I was doing all the things I felt I should have been doing in order to grow closer to God. I read my Bible. I even took notes. I prayed. I tried to listen afterwards. I attended church regularly. I tried to change my attitude toward people. I did what I thought was right and holy. And I felt nothing. I felt no different. I felt no worship. I felt no deity looking down on me or blessing me. I just felt tired and frustrated. I wondered why. I wondered why God was hiding if I was doing everything right. Then I remembered the piece of Scripture that says if a person seeks with all his or her heart, they will find God. And I was seeking, I knew, so I could not justify why I wasn’t experiencing something, anything.
Something sort of dawned on me last night, however. Yet again, I was reading Blue Like Jazz and something Donald Miller said struck me. He said something like Satan’s main goal is to get believers to become so obsessed with the traditions and obligations of faith that they miss out on the Jesus the faith is all about. I believe that is my problem. I read my Bible because good Christians read their Bibles. I prayed because good Christians prayed. I went to church because good Christians go to church. I felt nothing because my actions were simply routine, autonomous.
Then I started reflecting on the people Jesus encountered during his lifetime on this Earth. The people that bothered Jesus most, the people that hurt him most, I think, were the Pharisees. These people tried so hard to be religious that they missed the point. Jesus embraced the lepers, the harlots, the thieves, and the outcasts, yet he had little patience for Pharisees. The people Jesus loved were people who came to him with nothing but a little faith. He was their only hope, their only option. All they wanted was to touch his robe and all the Pharisees wanted was to prove they were worthy to touch his robe.
I was thinking that my relationship with Jesus should mirror the relationship I have with my friends. If my friends set aside thirty minutes and a day to talk and hang out with me because they felt they had to, that time would mean little to me. In fact, it would hurt. I would not want to spend my time with people who did not truly want to spend time with me. I would not be thrilled to get a phone call from a friend who called out of obligation or because that friend needed a favor. In my relationships with friends, I want people to be my friend because they want to. I want people to talk to me because they love me or miss me. I want people to spend time with me because they enjoy my company. I believe God feels the same way in regards to me.
I’m not sure this is the exact reason God and I struggle so much. I don’t know if my issues with God can be summed up in one explanation. But I believe this whole thing is certainly a factor.
The friend I was talking with said that she felt like she was missing something, like she didn’t feel whole. I too know that feeling. It often feels as if you are standing at this window, watching the world go by. And everyone you see is smiling more than you are, is laughing and seemingly content. And you begin to wonder what’s wrong with you, how you messed up. I think this is also another trap of the Enemy’s. He gets us to focus so much on ourselves. He gets us to experience guilt for sins long forgiven. He gets us to hurt over things that have yet to happen. He gets us to doubt that God has a sovereign plan for the life of his Bride. He makes Christianity so self-centered, so basic and routine. He turns the great mystery of God into a three-step plan. He takes prayer and makes it about what we want instead of what we need. He causes the Church to gossip and fall apart, heart by heart. Selfishness is the key to all sin, and Satan knows this.
To conclude this mess of thoughts, here’s a song by Sara Groves. It came on during my earlier conversation and I felt it fitting for the night.
I’m trying to work things out
I’m trying to comprehend
Am I the chance result
Of some great accident
I hear a rhythm call me
The echo of a grand design
I spend each night in the backyard
Staring up at the stars in the skyI have another meeting today
With my new counselor
My mom will cry and say
I don’t know what to do with her
She’s so unresponsive
I just cannot break through
She spends all night in the backyard
Staring up at the stars and the moonThey have a chart and a graph
Of my despondency
They want to chart a path
For self-recovery
And want to know what I’m thinking
What motivates my mood
To spend all night in the backyard
Staring up at the stars and the moonMaybe this was made for me
For lying on my back in the middle of a field
Maybe that’s a selfish thought
Or maybe there’s a loving GodMaybe I was made this way
To think and to reason and to question and to pray
And I have never prayed a lot
But maybe there’s a loving GodMaybe this was made for me
For lying on my back in the middle of a field
Maybe that’s a selfish thought
Or maybe there’s a loving God
Maybe I was made this way
To think and to reason and to question and to pray
And I have never prayed a lot
But maybe there’s a loving GodAnd that may be a foolish thought
Or maybe there is a God
And I have never prayed a lot
But maybe there’s a loving God
A Comforting Declaration
My mind is rather cluttered this evening. I am listening to Peter Bradley Adams, the male half of what once was eastmountainsouth. He soothes me, and I am grateful.
I feel as if I am one big ball of worry tonight. I’m stressed about a lot of things, some of which I know I shouldn’t be. A good friend of mine is getting married on Saturday. This week is also the week before finals, which means that school is intense, time-consuming, and difficult. With finals approaching and my friend’s impending wedding, I am worried I will not have time to get done everything I need to finish. I have a term paper to write, two essays for my history class, a group presentation, PowerPoint slides to organize, a bachelorette party to throw and pay for, a navy blue dress to pick up which I will only wear once, and somewhere in there I work and sleep. I wish I had a one of those punching bags boxers use; I feel it would be helpful in this moment.
I have a Word document open. I am supposed to be writing a research paper on Margaret Atwood. I have the title written, but that’s it. It’s due on Wednesday, but I need to get a draft done so I can edit it. Problem is, I have no idea what to say. I know that if I just start typing something will eventually surface but I felt like writing here instead of there. (I don’t write here enough. Maybe more in summer. Summer…how blissful you will be.)
I am probably stressing far too much over these things. I will get them all done, and all in life will be fine yet again. But tonight I am anxious for these next two weeks to glide on by.
………………………………………..
Something happened to me recently. I had a realization of sorts. For a while now, there’s been one particular thing that I’ve really struggled with where God was concerned. I felt this thing kept me from pursuing God with all my heart. I felt that this thing kept me from knowing God intimately, from following Him loyally. I just knew that if I overcame this thing, I would have the best relationship with God of anyone since Abraham. I saw myself as this all-mighty Christian, a prayer warrior extrordinaire, who could spew out Scripture like a garden hose spews out water.
Well, I overcame the hurdle I had been wrestling with. I defeated my demons. I stood tall and strong and courageous. And nothing happened. I read my Bible, I prayed more, I did the things I thought I was supposed to do. But nothing changed. I felt the same.
I have to wonder at God sometimes. It says in Scripture that when a person seeks Him with all their heart, they will find Him. I believe I was seeking with all my heart yet my heart still felt empty. I did not feel the hand of God; I did not hear a shout or a booming trumpet. I did not even hear a whisper. Was this my fault? Was I not seeking as I should have been? Was I failing still? Or was God simply holding back His presence?
I marvel at God. I marvel that there is a Being out there who defies what every human knows to be true. I marvel that this Being chose to make other beings so inferior to Him, beings so cruel and jealous and hateful. I am amazed that God, in all of His glory, chose to make an Adam and chose to make an Eve. He knew they would sin, that they would eventually break his heart. But He made them anyway. He formed them. And when they did sin, He covered them.
A thought recently came to me: When God chose me as His Bride, He knew how filthy I was. He knew about every lie, every selfish pursuit, every moment of vanity and lust…He knew me, all of me, past, present, and future. Yet He chose me anyway. He called me unto Him, claiming me as forever His.
I marvel that God chose me. I do not understand why. I am just a cowardly girl who worries over weddings and finals. I am unsure of where to go next, of what my next move should be. I dream big, often without consulting the One who allows me to dream at all. I want so much, and often include Him in so little. I stress and toss and turn over tiny, insignificant things. I often hate those He loves and slander those He upholds. I am not the Bride He deserves, and He is the Groom I would never be worthy to receive.
Yet I believe there is a great feast spread across the table. I believe there is life in store for me that is indeed great, though perhaps not what I have planned. I believe I will get through these next few weeks, these next few years, without drowning in life. I have to believe in these things or else I fear losing my belief in Him.
I do not understand God. But if I did, He would not be God. Though I often find it frustrating to not be let in on all the details, there is a small piece of comfort to know there is a God who is bigger than anything else, a God who, in His holiness and glory, saw me and declared me lovely.
