The Journey!

Admin retreat wrecked me. It brought me back to a place of where I spent basically all of last summer. A place of not wanting to actually deal with the things going on in my heart (which is what this book is all about, right?). It's a place of anxiousness, of fear, of unforgiveness, of feelings of worthlessness, of pain, of brokenness, and of anger. It's a place that, unfortunately, I've grown too accustomed to and often times I don't even realize I'm there. It's a place that is extremely emotionally unstable...and truth be told, I don't know how to get out of it.

And after the retreat, I was thrown back into the rhythms of life and school, and didn't allow myself to really process all that we had talked about...and I still haven't really. I feel like I don't have time to stop and sit and just be with Him. Huh, that sounds a little familiar, "I sometimes find myself too busy to spend adequate time nourishing my spiritual life" (67). Do I actually have the time to do that? Probably. Why don't I do it? Right now it's most likely because the things He's stirring up in me are things I don't want to deal with. 

And like I mentioned at the retreat - much of that stuff has to do with my dad. (It's funny - if you know me even a little bit...and read Micaela's post - you might have thought it was me until you got the name at the bottom. Much of the situation seems the same. But that's beside the point.) I don't want to deal with 

1. daily forgiving him
2. acknowledging and dealing with anger towards him
3. the anxiousness I feel any time I talk to him
4. the pain associated with the current (and past) relationship I have with him
5. how to continue to love him despite the way I feel towards him

Two sentences that really ring true, specifically in this relationship are "I withhold forgiveness to those who sin against me, avoiding or cutting them off when they do something to hurt me." And "I subconsciously keep records on the love I give out." (67)

Man, that's ugly stuff - that's my dad I'm talking about and I hate that those things are true of how I feel. That's not how it should be. I've gotten to a point of feeling numb in my relationship with him. We get in fights to the point where he tells me not to talk to him again...and then a week or two later he calls me like everything is fine, and then it happens again 3 months later. I seriously feel like I've been on an emotional roller coaster with him for the last year and a half and have never known how to deal with it, so usually I run from it. And now it doesn't even phase me. It's painful when it happens, but I know that it'll be fine in a few days so I don't let myself feel it.

All of this I feel like this book has touched on. Being numb to emotions, pushing anger aside, acting like everything is fine. These are things that have been true of myself since high school. I started hiding my emotions when my parents split during freshman year and have continued to do so to this day. And I think I've gotten pretty darn good at it, if I don't say so myself.

But I know it's not healthy. It's never been healthy. During high school, I had a deep burning desire for people to really ask me how I was doing, to pull the emotions out of me (and there were a few who could). Even then I knew what I was doing was not how I should have been dealing with the circumstances. And now, I live with two girls who are not Christians, and I have placed an expectation on myself that I have to have everything put together "because I'm a Christian...and that's how life works" (WHAT?! NO!). Because of that, if things aren't all put together, I act like they are. And I still long for people who I can be real with (and don't get me wrong...I do have those people here in SLO, I just don't live with them). 

So...I really don't know where I'm going with this. It turned out to be a place for me to begin processing everything that God is doing, and is basically word vomit onto the blog - sorry if it's all over the place.

When I started reading this book I felt like the biggest "emotional infant" and even though I only scored in that range on one section of the test - I know that God is going to be growing me a ton in emotional maturity over the next few months with you guys...but only if I let Him. And if I'm being honest with myself in this moment...I don't want to let Him because I know it's going to be painful. 

I'm going to need you guys. I'm going to need you to continue to encourage me to let God work in me. And I wouldn't want to journey through this with anyone but you guys.