winter

Tonight, Reader, is a cigar and easy-chair kind of evening... as was last night.  After a horribly traumatic week of pms (including not just the first meltdown of my previous post but another meltdown a few nights ago, as well as biting Halley's head off a number of times for minor infractions like leaving dishes in the sink so as to block my attempts to fill the humidifier... seriously, I can be such a grinch sometimes.  And grinch wasn't exactly the word that went through my mind just then...), the last two nights I've basically come home at the end of each day to hibernate.  Tuesday night (despite the horrible mood I was in), I made enough chicken soup to last me til the end of 2011.  So both last night and tonight the pattern has basically been the same:  warm up soup, make hot chocolate, eat dinner while reading Wednesday's copy of the New York Times, make cookies / practice / listen to NPR.  All in the stillness of my quiet little apartment.  These are the winter memories I long for each January.  I love hibernating, especially when I have the house to myself and I don't feel the loneliness of my solitude.  Seriously, it's the best.  Too bad nobody's here to appreciate the improved mood I'm experiencing... let's not kid ourselves though, perhaps in reality its for the best :)

And I could talk about my last meltdown for a second, but I won't.  Because it's too stupid to even post on my blog now.  But at the time, it was monumental and absolutely horrible and emotionally paralyzing.  Satan is such a grinch sometimes.  Instead, I'm going to talk about the things I've been realizing this last week, namely that I've been really apathetic about my relationship with the Lord the past month and a half or so... and I don't know if you've noticed, but you can always tell by the state of my blog where I'm at with God, which is kinda creepy, but nevertheless, it is what it is.  And when I sat down to write tonight, I had no intention of my post taking this sort of very real and raw turn but it has and so I'm going to go with it... 

Anyway, the apathy:  let me just be honest with you, Reader (and with myself) right here and now.  Daily worship and time in the Word recently has just been too painful to enter into because then I actually have to deal with the issues I'm struggling with and encounter them in a meaningful way.  This is why I hate change... the process is so incredibly painful.  And honestly, I don't even think I've scratched the surface of all the change that's taken place in my life in the last six weeks, let alone the last six months.  It has been... too much.  Too much to deal with in any sort of real way, and by that I mean, coming to the Lord with it because I still have to face it all again and again each morning.  There's a huge part of me that, as dysfunctional and sinful and unhealthy as it is, has just needed to find a way to ignore the painful reality to some extent, despite the fact that it stares me down in the face every freaking day, daring me to try and stand up against it.

It's like this:  I know with all my heart that the salve I need in order to deal with my reality properly can only be found in Christ.  But in order to get to the salve, I have to encounter the pain first.  I want the salve... without the pain.  But that isn't really possible.  So I've basically chosen not to come before the Lord at all for the last month or so, especially since my painful situations haven't gone away and there aren't any easy answers to be had.  Reader, if you have never experienced anything remotely close to what I'm talking about, just imagine what it feels like to lose a loved one -- you miss that person desperately and love them, but even the thoughts of them are so painful that you choose not to think about it or engage emotionally in the pain of the reality.  That's what it's like... sorta.  So much has happened, so much has changed, and yet not changed... there is so much pain in just living right now that it's hard to encounter the God I love.  Although he holds the keys to life abundant, it's hard not to feel defeated, even in the life he graciously extends.  We're not in Kansas anymore.  This is what being a mature believer is all about:  sometimes you just have to fight, and you have to fight alone...  No one can go with you into the fray and sometimes the battle lasts a long, long time.  And it always feels so much more difficult because the one who can go with you, who promises to always be with you and never forsake you isn't exactly human, so it's easy to feel like you're completely on your own, even when you intellectually and spiritually know you're not... it's easy to fall into functional independence, which can be another battle in and of itself in addition to the pain you're already facing.  So yeah, each day presents another chance to fight... you choose to enter into the pain and encounter the God of Creation, bringing all of it to him or you choose to disengage.  And it's a hard choice because ignoring it is way easier.

But maybe this is a good sign, even the fact that I'm realizing all this... maybe this means that I want to feel alive again, even if it means fighting and dealing with a painful reality each day.  Dave Cover once said that we weep our way into eternity... yes, even as believers.  I couldn't agree with him more.  Come quickly, Lord Jesus.