Friday, 04 July 2008

  • This Will All Make Perfect Sense Someday . . .

    . . . I'll be a-okay.

    The Price is Right is like a time warp. Virtually every memory of staying home sick (or perhaps not so sick) is peppered with watching over-enthusiatic housewives and college students maul Bob Barker while trying to recall the price of dish-washing liquid or an electric fireplace. I was fairly adept at talking my way out of going to school, so from kindergarten to this morning, I have possibly hundreds of hours of viewing under my belt.

    Of course, it's summer right now, so I had no obligations to keep me from the Consumer Reports-inspired hysteria. In fact, I was not yet out of my pajamas. It could be a tribute to the idleness of summer, or a commentary on what happens when you have no discernible goals or agenda for a few months. I am not sure exactly what I should be accomplishing at twenty-two. This is, not unexpectedly, a phase of life that is leaving me less than enthusiastic.

    A gray, misty gap exists between college and, well, everything else. I've completed one year out in the real world, and when I finished, I was alarmed to realize there was no longer a checklist and/or timeline to work off of. This is indefinite and sometimes infinite-seeming. I've slowly started my master's (four credits, woo hoo) but feel no burning desire to complete it quickly. My house is decorated in dorm-room chic because I don't want to buy "real" furniture until I have a "real" house. I even have some of the same dirty laundry.

    In Breakfast at Tiffany's Holly Golightly describes her feelings thus: "The blues are because you're getting fat and maybe it's been raining too long, you're just sad that's all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you're afraid and you don't know what you're afraid of." It's especially bad for me in the summer. I get so bogged down in the nothingness that I can't move. I think the technical term for this is inertia. Or perhaps laziness. There are so many things I could be doing. I could volunteer at thousands of places that are short-staffed across the metro. I could take classes. I could pick up cliff diving. I could learn to play an instrument.

    Or I could fix my relationship with God.

    He and I bounce back and forth so often. I am terrified of not being in iron-grip control of my own life, even if it is nonsensical to not trust the creator of the universe. He has to break my fingers to get me to loosen up on an inch. Often the process is so grueling that I just give up all together. I'll be on a mountaintop, talking intimately with the living God, and some trigger will cast me back down in the valley unable to even look up at the ascent. Usually I feel like I am just too weak.

    I know that this lead weight holding me down is a combination of my own rebellious temporal nature and the Adversary playing on my natural tendency to look down instead of up. But sometimes it feels like my neck is bent at a permanent shoe-gazing angle.

    Psalm 9:10 says "Those who know your name will trust in you, for you, LORD, have never forsaken those who seek you." I know that all of the Bible is the Truth, so this is true. God will never forsake me. Even if I spend years rolling around down here avoiding looking Him in the eye. I just keep holding on to all these hurts and disappontments and fears when I could be having the most fulfilling life with God.

    Trusting in God will not only make my life much more worth living, it would be the greatest act of worship. I would acknowledge Him as Lord and tell Him that yes, He is the Creator and He loves me so much that He always has the best in mind for me. He will keep me from slipping back and back into sin if I will only let Him catch me when I fall instead of hitting the ground running.

    I don't know. I'll get it someday. Everything will be a-okay.

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