Anyone Else?

Initially Written 12/29:

Lately, I’ve felt directionless and a little discouraged….well, I’m actually pretty embarrassed to admit that I’m a lot discouraged. I can’t seem to find my footing. 
The majority of November to now has been a dark, blur of time that has been characterized by a lot of questions, a lot of loneliness and a lot of doubt. 

Is this what people call the Dark Night of the Soul? 

I can confidently say, I’m on the tail end of the hardest part. Call it intuition or call it a choice to not be a victim of my circumstances, either way I’m not interested in letting my relationship with God be soured by fickle emotions and fleeting fears. Not again.

I had my first true encounter with feeling vehemently enraged by this pandemic today and it came out of nowhere. I was so angry that it was disrupting so many lives. I wasn’t angry I had been preemptively removed from the mission field until today. What a delay lol  But it didn’t stop there, anger came out from everywhere I was looking, especially inwardly. I was so angry at myself for not caring to learn how to do more things to help people when I was younger, I was angry at myself for not knowing how to walk in grace, I was angry at myself for not knowing what it is I want to do in life, I was angry that I had failed romantic relationship after failed romantic relationship, I felt like a failure. 

I reached out, but the comfort from people was temporary.

Community has always been a helpful solution, but this time it wasn’t the same.

I found myself in hot, angry tears. Angry at myself for not using this anger as energy to get up and do something, to alleviate some suffering in the world and to just jump in the game and help the world move along a little bit. I didn’t know where to start. I was paralyzed with fear and anxiety and I was ashamed because,

hadn’t I learned all of this already? Hadn’t I already learned to walk through this with grace and love and peace? 
the spiral started again and I was just mad over nothing.

I didn’t feel like myself at all. Definitely not like the hopeful, joy-filled woman of God I know I am. I couldn’t trace where she’d dropped off either. Was it November? Was it during the first round of the pandemic?

I stopped, took a breath, showered and I texted some friends and asked for a night of fun because I was coming up from a deep deep dive into the depths of my soul and I needed fresh air outside of the waters. I forgot I was allowed to ask for that kind of thing, it’s almost harder to do than asking for a shoulder to cry on for me. I’ll dog-ear that for my future therapist lol

 

We laughed and played games and it lifted some of the weight from my shoulders.

 

Did you know that when you start to spiral like this in your mind there’s a 99% chance you are believing one of these three lies:

1. I am helpless

2. I am worthless 

3. I am unlovable

“The enemy wants to bring you so low that you stop helping and bringing good into the world” Jennie Allen spoke these words into the speaker of my room via the audio book of “Get Out of Your Head“. 

If you have never heard of that book and find yourself in spirals like mine frequently or just recently, my sweet friends Katlyn and Shelbie recommended that book to me and I would highly recommend it to YOU.

I am not any of those things that I was angry about. I am deeply, passionately and exuberantly LOVED. I’m trying to just rest in that. I don’t know why it’s so hard to do.

Don‘t mistake my ability to be honest with an ease in doing so, this is hard for me to type and broadcast but I want other people to have solidarity. Especially other racers and Christians who can kind of see where they are at but don’t have a bigger picture quite yet.  

So,

If this is where you are at – I’m walking this with you, and I know that goodness is all around us. Clarity is coming, and we are being asked to have blind faith – take a step in the dark and see how Jesus holds us up. The biggest task we have is to learn to give ourselves grace, to live an honest life and to love as hard as we possibly can. I’m tightly embracing you. 

I found my old sermon notes and noticed a circled and highlighted quote from my pastor:

“It’s never too late for something but it could be too early.”

I sat with the book of Joshua after I typed the first section of this, as I had scribbled the reference down next to those aforementioned notes. The correlation was to the Battle of Jericho and the length of time it took for the walls to come down. I imagined that, even in the most trusting of moments, there were thoughts running rampant that probably sounded like “can’t we just do something now?” or “are we not enough? did we fail? it’s been 6 days?” Quiet moments in between the action, I thought, can either foster divine inspiration or breed hopeless doubt. But to have the faith to keep marching on is the whole point.

I then remembered a blog that seemed pretty similar to this that I wrote as we were in our very first country in January 2019:

Why Does God Wait?

 

It gave me a chuckle and a warm embrace from Allison then. We take forever to learn lessons, huh? And that’s okay. It’s my own race!

Anyway,

I’m praying Romans 15:13 over myself and everyone that may be reached by this

 ‘May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.’

 

 Re-Visited 1/12:

I knew that I wanted to sit on this for a minute and I’m glad that I did. 

I decided in this time to re-read the books I devoured earlier in the summer. I had really deeply connected with “Everybody Always” by Bob Goff and at the time felt confident that I was in step with the biblical values he was speaking through those pages. 

As I listened, I was stricken with the realization that I had strayed very far from not only those words but God’s word. This is my humble and public penance for being so self-absorbed and not even being aware of it. And I, for the first time, met myself with incredible grace. Not a self-beat down in sight, PTL!!!!!!!

The following two quotes I wrote and then re-wrote…and then RE-WROTE in my journal like I was in 6th grade detention:

“No one is remembered for what they only planned to do”

and this doozy

“He lets us get lost for a while if it’s what we really want. When we do, He doesn’t pout or withhold His love the way I probably would if someone completely ignored me or walked away from me. Instead, He pursues us in love. He’s not trying to find us; He always knows where we are. Rather, He goes with us as we find ourselves again. In this way, we have both a little sheep and some shepherd in us too. God isn’t constantly telling us what to do as we search for ourselves either. He gently reminds us who we are. He continues to rewrite our lives the way I rewrote my book—in beautiful and unexpected ways, knowing the next version of us will usually be better than the previous one.”

 

I’m tired of chasing something that’s going to change anyway – I’m attached to the most secure strings on the coolest, safest, biggest parachute of all creation why not live a little and enjoy the ride? The rest will come as it passes. God and I have some cool plans for 2021, I can’t wait to DO them 🙂 I hope some of you get to jump with me in them too.

 

Thanks for reading, friends. 

 Let me know your thoughts or your own personal testimonies for this season either below or however you want to reach me. 

(enjoy this fiery sunset from good ol’ Rowlett, TX while you’re at it)

 

OH ALSO PRAYERS! Some of the squad I launched with this very day last year has relaunched to spread God’s word during this crazy time!!! They landed in Guatemala today so please keep them in mind and let me know if you want to donate and I’ll direct you to their pages. 

I love you all, dearly dearly dearly.