Note: I'm not being overdramatic.
After weeks of trying to figure out what's going on inside of me, why I'm responding the way I'm responding (or not responding), why I'm feeling the way I'm feeling, why I'm doing the things I'm doing, I finally had a break through. Although I wouldn't really call it a break through, because nothing really broke. This whole process would be much more effective if it would.
I'm scared. Not the run-as-fast-as-you-can-and-hide kind of scared, but the kind of scared that makes your eyes dart from side to side as you hesitate, catch your breath, and try to play it cool. Except I'm not playing it so cool.
I'm scared because at this point I've given all I know to give, only to realize that this isn't even it. This is just training. This is just preparation. It's been real. It's been good. But this is just the very beginning, and the thought of something more intense than what I've experienced already makes my insides tighten; my head becomes a cyclone and I lose all sense of feeling.
I'm scared because up until this point my life has been pretty set. The last 17 years of my life I've gone to school. I've written papers I haven't wanted to write about subjects I didn't care to write about. I've frantically thrown together research projects and presentations to get them done in time despite the wars raging in my heart, less I be penalized for lateness. I've read books with deadlines from perspectives I would rather have avoided. I've sat through lectures I haven't heard, engaging when a statement or point caught my interest. I've given my time, my attention, my money to years that have shaped me, challenged me, forced me to grow, think, reason, question..
fight with and for my own reality, for what I know is true despite other perspectives, all of which I can take in, respect, ponder, and quietly discard if/when I realize what's real and what's not. There was a time in my life when I bought into ideas and beliefs simply because they were there, because they were presented to me and I wanted to believe them. I'm not that person anymore. I don't want someone else's thoughts to be my own. I can't accept something just because it's what someone I respect told me. There are things I hear that my heart sigh's easily and says, yes, yes.. but then there are things I have to take and ponder, question, fight with, figure out through life before I can accept them or reject them. I think one of the scariest things about our society is our willingness to take hold of something just because it's what someone else said, because it's what our role models, teachers or mentors believe, because it's what we think we should believe or adhere to. Don't get me wrong, there are times when Faith leads us to believe for that which we can't otherwise know or understand. In those times Faith itself is the factor that stretches beyond mere acceptance or adherence..
Which scares me as well. Because Faith makes me believe for things any sane person wouldn't believe for. Faith is what keeps me holding out, waiting, pressing forward for impossible things. Faith is what keeps me in this when everything in my flesh tells me I'm done, I can't do it, I'm not strong enough, I'll break..
If I do it right, I will break. I've come to the end of myself a dozen times, and I have yet to get there..again. I fight within my soul, duking it out with my spirit, daring myself to fail, daring myself to let go, daring myself to step it up, to walk in what I know I should be walking in, to live the life of color my heart caught a glimpse of once upon a time and now can't let go of.
I'm scared to live in color. I'm scared to go for the rediculous..alone. I'm afraid of what will happen when I really let go of it all. There's a whole lot more to let go of now. I thought I'd given it all; I had never been asked to give my entire future. There was always something at least some-what set up for me.. and now here I am, left alone with my insides, left alone with my future..left alone to sort out what stays and what goes. It doesn't matter how anyone sees me when I stand here alone. It doesn't matter who I've made anyone believe I am. It doesn't matter what sort of things I've said or done..none of it matters when I stand here, entirely alone. With these crazy beliefs, these rediculous dreams, these strange ambitions, these now-familiar longings, these pulls and swirls..
Perhaps the scariest:
I made a choice a long time ago. The choice said God, I'll go wherever you send me. Jesus, I'll do whatever you tell me do..
and now here I am, with the scariest thought of all..
that He will speak. One of these days He's going to tell me, and I'm going to go, and I'm going to do. And in the meantime I just have to wait and believe that when He does, I'll be ready: fully prepared and entirely lacking; equipped and at the very end of myself..
(hmm..)