I know it’s been a long time since i’ve written anything. After my last triathlon i knew that i had some medical issues that need to be resolved before i will feel completely comfortable training again. I finished, but with such a slow time that i felt like a failure. I hadn’t trained enough, i hadn’t felt strong in the weeks leading up to the race, and i am fairly certain that i have exercise-induced asthma that was destroying my runs.
So i considered taking this blog into another focus. I was feeling overwhelmed by what has happened politically and wanted to write some sci-fi related Christian apologetics, but something was stopping me. I didn’t want to offend anyone. That is basically me, i don’t mind sharing who i am or what i think but i don’t want to be attacked for it. That tears me up inside and makes me feel worse, sometimes i think it would be better to be ignored and safe, other times i hate being ignored because what makes anyone’s opinion or behavior more important than mine? There’s this pull i struggle with, i feel completely worthless (this is what i was taught since the age of two by family and the public alike) but i also know that Jesus sees something in me. I live by the Golden Rule, but in my work and life it seems like there is no one who will afford me the same courtesy. Customers are rude to me, coworkers don’t pull their weight, and i generally feel this heaviness that even if i go in with a good attitude or come out with a good attitude that people are just going to unreasonably blame me for things that are completely outside my control while i am giving everything i have to making this a better situation. Work is a battle every single day and when i praise my own work i feel like a fake. I feel like no one appreciates the blood, sweat, and tears that i am pouring into this. The amount of money i’m making at this job each year keeps shrinking.
Add to this the trauma of going through college and high school. People would disparage me and/or my faith daily. Some didn’t know that what they were describing fit me to a t, others would look me in the face as the venom left their mouth. I have lived my entire life in this cloud of feeling disconnected from the rest of the universe and helpless to do anything about it. It’s like i can’t touch the people i love, the people i want to be friends with refuse to look at me, and most people just turn their back on me unless they can use me. There have been very few exceptions in my life, and all of them are lost to me now. I spent my entire childhood searching for my future husband, for friendship, for belonging. The only person i ever had that in was Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, and i devoted my whole life to Him, and then He went silent.
I don’t know if people can grasp what this has done to me. It’s like having a part of myself torn out and removed out of reach. I always knew that all my success is rooted in Him, whenever people praised me i knew that it was God working through me, and all the things i had going–good grades, athleticism that surpassed my limitations in vision, musical and theatrical talent–just vanished. It’s not like i was suddenly stupid (though that’s what having Bell’s Palsy felt like over a decade later), it was that all the things that i had built towards were slowly taken away from me one by one. All of it. A part of me had known this was coming, that i couldn’t deal with the stress anymore, and things were at a tipping point, and i told God that i understood, i wasn’t the kind of person who is going to get scared off when things get hard, that i am willing to live with abandon for Him. But when He “left” everything got exponentially worse. Everything i have tried to do i have been a failure at, everything i had has been taken away from me. Except my family, which makes sense since, as much as i love them, they are part of my torture (this is like Job’s wife surviving to nag at him).
I grew up in spiritual and emotional darkness, i thrived under the light of the Holy Spirit, i placed all my hope in Him. I saw the dark but was not afraid of it while God was with me, and i had brilliant dreams of how He would use me, i was so positive about the future, i could not wait to grow up. I trusted Him with every part of my being. And then i was practically grown up and went spiritually blind. I cannot see/hear/feel where He is leading anymore. Part of my competitive and committed nature was thrilled by this, that i am blessed enough to be trusted by God to be tested to this degree. But the test didn’t last for days, weeks, or months, it lasted years. It lasted over a decade. At first i was more annoyed at having to wait that discouraged by it, the harder the task the greater the resulting blessing i supposed.
But as the years past by i felt a bondage growing in me. Every time i try to serve Him, i fail. There is always something in the way. For instance, a relative recently told me that i had no interest in college when i “finished” high school. One relative continually drives into me that i have insufficient ambition and am not trying hard enough. I don’t feel like either of these descriptions of me are fair. I desperately wanted to go to a Christian university but the financial aid was non-existent. I applied to a film school a few years into college and, again, there was no financial aid offered. I considered applying to another film school but it was another situation where one is in school full time with not enough time in their schedule to work and do school. I felt that God was calling me to become an actress in CA while in high school and no one in my family supported me, in fact i was actively discouraged from pursuing this goal. I have wanted to be financially independent since the age of 14 and at no point have i been able to manage this, i have spent my entire adult life living with some form of family, sometimes paying rent, but always in dead-end jobs that keep me in financial bondage, bondage that has only grown worse since attending college.
After the Bell’s Palsy, i was forced to give up. The one thing that i thought i had left, my writing, was instantly stolen from me. I couldn’t write anymore. I couldn’t memorize anymore. And my physical appearance was just…it wasn’t bad enough that i had inexplicable gained weight just before turning 18 and inexplicably couldn’t lose it after trying to for more than a decade, half my face didn’t work anymore. I had a headache for a month while my brain freaked out, trying to communicate with itself, with myself. I still can’t write fiction without starting to fall asleep or just being being blocked entirely.
I can see clear events where my life got worse and i let a little more go. Not a good letting go, a loss of faith and hope. I read my Bible, i believe it, it isn’t true in my life, i despair. I recently remembered an Avalon lyric “I know that me without You is a lie.” I feel like my entire life is a lie that the universe is collectively telling me and forcing me to be instead of who God has called me to be. But i don’t know how to fight against it anymore, i have been fighting my entire life and am now imprisoned, destroyed, corrupted. I don’t see a way out. I feel like i have tried everything and am caged and dying. Not because i want to die, though sometimes it seems like death would be easier. I want to live. I want to serve Him. I want to feel Him again.
I have lost a lot, but the thing that matters to me the most is that i’ve lost God. Oh, i intellectually know that He is here, that He’s everywhere, that He will never leave me or forsake me. But that isn’t what i see/hear/feel. I feel destroyed, and i don’t trust Him anymore, even as i know that He is the only thing i need, the thing i want the most. If He doesn’t want me to be a mother, actress, writer, fine. All i ask really is that He show me what His will is then (He doesn’t) and hold me, go with me, lead me, carry me.
I often wonder how people seem to be oblivious to the fact that i am internally screaming out in agony most of the time. Any time i try to function like a normal human being i feel like i am failing and hiding who i really am, essentially lying. I don’t like being vulnerable and open about the physical, spiritual, or emotional traumas that i have endured in my life because i feel like it gives all of the power to the enemy. I know that God can rescue me, or even lead me to still waters; the trouble is that He hasn’t, He doesn’t, and a part of me is beyond terrified that He never will this side of Heaven.
~ 