La Lluita

                                                            (For those who don’t know, La Lluita is Catalan for The Struggle. Moving on)

My dear readers,

How I wish I could write to you of happy times and blissful thoughts. Of joy and blessings and sunshine and rainbows. But I don’t believe in lying, and putting on a front is both a bad and dangerous thing.

My how these days are filled with struggle. Like the fog and gloom that has covered Kansas City for the past 2 days, the struggles of the day just seem to hover around and not lift.

It’s the holidays. A joyous time of giving and togetherness. And I am happy and excited for Christmas this year, it should be a blast. But it is also a hard time. As much as joy causes my heart at times to soar, memories fall and stifle me like a heavy blanket. Uncomfortable and ever present.

There is no ‘home’ to go back to for the Holidays. My family is scattered to the wind, and I don’t know how long it will be until I see them again. Months, years? I do not know. It’s hard to find the time and money to go to South Dakota, Indiana, and Pennsylvania in the same year.

I walk on wounds that seldom prove to slow me down/I laugh this constant pain away so you can’t tell/But there it lies under the smiles, it drains me mile after mile/But seldom proves to slow me down~Rise Against-Hairline Fracture

Strange how the lyrics from a Chicago Punk band can so perfectly encapsulate the last 7 months for me. The common understanding of my behavior is that I’m oddball and slightly off the wall. I’m really just trying to survive to a point. Hiding. Suppressing. Nobody likes a killjoy.

And now, new struggles have been added. I’m working hard to get a raise at the start of the New Year that will allow me to move out on my own. So I can have my own place to go back to. Where I live. Alone. That thought scares me. I don’t want to be myself. I know me. And that’s worrisome. I don’t know how long I can do that before I crack completely. It’s a terrible conundrum. I need to get on my own, but I don’t want or need to be alone. And there is no light at the end of the tunnel there. For the first time in a long time, I’m slightly afraid of the darkness ahead of me.

Even though God has been drawing me more tightly to Himself and growing my faith, it has opened new doors of struggle for me. Just this morning I was reading in Luke, and it says ‘out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.’ And I’ve been wondering all day, does what I say really reflect what’s in my heart? No, it doesn’t. It’s a struggle to remember grace. That its not on me anymore. It’s so hard, especially in winter. All the sins of my past haunt me in the shadows of the night, and I spend many nights in trembling and prayer.

This is why I cling so tightly to the promise of the Kingdom to come. Why I desire to be with Jesus more then I desire to be here. There are still a couple things I want to do. Get married, raise Godly children, but I’ve come to the point where if I died now, it would be more then alright. Jesus is better. He is gain.

And yet, there are moments like last night. It’s been a roller coaster these past couple years. But I believe it is changing. 2011, I was surviving. 2012 has been enduring and establishing. I look towards 2013 with great hope. I cannot help but feel that it will be a year of growth and thriving. How I hope it is so. The darkness will lift and pass. The struggle will not go away, but will not always stay so prevalent. Good things come to those who wait. And I will wait.

Oh, my God! He will not delay, my refuge and strength, always! I will not fear, His promise is true. My God will come through, always. Always~Kristian Stanfill~Always

 

 

My Problem With Christmas

I get told I’m a Grinch on a regular basis. People are really surprised by how much I oppose anything Christmas before December 1. Especially since so many people get so excited about it…as soon as November starts.

It’s not that I don’t love lights, and the music, and the movies. I do, I really do. The giving of gifts and the food are great. But they distract me from what I love. Jesus.

Christmas is a time specifically for celebrating Jesus. Where we celebrate his birth, and by extension, his fulfilling of all the promises of his coming, and his eventual death and resurrection that are his proof that he will keep his promise that he will return one day and bring the Kingdom with him.

But my heart gets distracted. How easily I turn away from him! I look at the lights, and hear the music, and watch the movies, and I get the ‘Christmas Spirit.’ But I don’t want the Christmas Spirit. I want Jesus! And sense my sinful nature constantly wants to turn away from looking at Jesus, this time of year is rough. It’s all too easy to turn away and look at everything else and only passingly remember that, ‘oh yeah, it’s about Jesus’ when we pray at Christmas dinner.

I want more then that! I want to wake up praising him for coming to die for this worthless sad sack of humanity, and fall asleep praising him for his true promises, looking forward to the coming Kingdom.

My longing is to have a Christ centered Christmas. To have a celebration of him above all other things. To truly celebrate him as pre-eminent. And I hope that flows into my life throughout the rest of the year.

More and more I’m seeing how God is worthy. He’s showing me how great his promises are. And I long more eagerly for the coming Kingdom. After all, that’s what Christmas is really about. Christ was born as a man, yet fully God, to die on the cross to pay the penalty for sin, was raised from the dead as the conqueror of sin and death, and is coming back to establish the Kingdom and restore all things. That’s what I’m striving to look at the Christmas. And if I come across as ‘anti-Christmas,’ so be it

The Shadow Proves the Sunshine

Readers,

You know that I place honesty with you in high esteem. I aim for nothing less then brutal, straight forward, gut wrenching and heart breaking honesty, that some of you might be helped and encouraged. So I’m going to be honest with you again. It might make you squirm, be uncomfortable, and you might not understand it at all, but I still hope it helps. I hope it helps you down the same path.

I have another confession for you, reader. I have been battling depression for the past six months. Most of you know why. For those who might not, my father passed away in May, two days after the eight year anniversary of my mothers passing. It has been a brutal year, and the holidays are not helping.

It’s like being crushed and left adrift. I feel superimposed on everyone’s life. Like a wallflower. Silent, not attracting attention, just kind of there. And Sundays are the worst. I see everyone together, and I know that can’t happen for me. My siblings are scattered and my parents are gone. I see everyone with their spouses and fiances and boyfriends or girlfriends, and they’re all so happy and content and whole. I struggle with that.

Please don’t think that I’m not finding any form of contentment in Christ. I am, truly, but this is my weak spot, and its raw, and the enemy assaults it without ceasing, even as I rip the idols down and look towards Christ. This isn’t even wanting a relationship anymore. This is just wanting to have someone, anyone, who I can be close with again like I used to be. A friend that I can hang out with, talk to, and do stuff with again.

The attacks are craftier. I don’t have parents to turn to for advice and support. That’s gone. And I miss it so much! But I won’t ever have it. It’s lost to me, and that hurts.

Some of you who might be reading this and who have seen me since May might have noticed this from me. But then again, those who know me best aren’t around me anymore. But I have gone completely apathetic and malaise to pretty much everything. Everything but the Gospel. And that’s just because I don’t really freakin care anymore about anything but the Gospel!

The verses I have been most wrestling with are in Philippians. Chapter 1:21-‘For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.’ Oh, how living is letting me know Christ more fully! But to die, I would be free, no more sin, no more hindrance, nothing but knowing Christ fully and completely. This leads into verses 22-24-‘If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account.’ My soul groans, and I have cried out before, ‘if there is nothing left, take me home!’ I do not desire to linger. I want to be with Christ. I want to be full and made whole in Him. But for whatever reason, it is better I remain.

I am learning, though. I am trying to comprehend what God says in His word. He is my father now, and I am his child. He is bruising me, and weakening me, and I will diligently seek His purpose in it. He is using my grief and suffering to bind me and heal me. One day, He will mend me and make me whole. I must, as George Whitfield said, ‘repent of the sin of unbelief in my belief.’  Its hard to see the end. It will get worse. The holidays will see to that. But it will also get better. The joy will grow ever deeper roots.

Even as the attacks on my heart and soul grow more intense and hit deeper, the root of my joy, and my contentment in Christ grows stronger. It’s a myth that finding more joy in Jesus will always dis-spell  depression and sadness. Sometime they work in unison. As I sink lower, I cry out the louder and cling the tighter. I have never experienced such deep, bitter sadness and strong, unwavering joy. But as one tries to drag me down, the other is pulling me up, proving itself as my Rock, my Fortress, my Salvation.

Dear reader, pain is not bad. Hurt is not bad. God may well be rooting you so firmly in the joyous all sufficient knowledge of Himself that you cannot be shaken. That no matter how badly it hurts, you will always come back again. You will not be lost to it. There will be joy again, and joy more deeply then you could have known otherwise.