So today I'm sitting at McDonald's while my kids play in the Playplace after ingesting a healthy (irony!) dose of chicken nuggets and fries. If for no other reason, I love McDonald's for giving parents a place to sit with Wi-Fi and a giant fenced in playground that has no high places to fall from. In other words, McDonald's gets that sometimes parents just need a guilt-free break where both they and their children are happy and entertained. And just in case I need a refill, they're free. God bless you for that McDonald's!
Another reason I'm grateful is because some days you just need to be able to process. With a pregnant wife at home and three small children (so far...) getting away to do so is a tall order. So do I care that a creepy clown wearing too much yellow is staring at me while I do so (Ronald you've been wearing the same thing since the 60s, it's time!)? Um, heck no. This is the life of a parent.
Lately I find that most of my thought life consists of "why?" As in, why am I in Texas? Why did I have to move away from the home that I loved? Why am I stuck at yet another job that barely pays and I don't care about? Why would God spend so much time to build me up to not open any doors for me into anything I'm built to do? I hate "whys". Especially when there are no answers, at least no answers that make much difference. Unfortunately I can't escape them.
It's even worse when I check into my emotions. I have this incessant feeling of wanting to weep, and yet I can't actually do it. Somehow I know if I could there would be some release but the few times I've been willing to try and go deep, the tears never come.
Then there's the guilt. The guilt that I feel about the fact that I should be better than this. I should just be thankful for the fact my family is healthy and safe. Thankful that we have pretty much everything most people could ever ask for. I'm not lying when I say that I am thankful for that. Partly because I'd be stupid not to be, partly because I know what it's like to not have those things. And yet that thankfulness hasn't spread to my emotions. It hasn't taken away my questions. It hasn't changed the need in me for MORE.
I've never known a feeling quite like this. This lingering despair inside me despite favorable outward circumstances doesn't make sense. I want to dissect it to figure it out. But when I try it turns out not to be an autopsy of a past season but rather a painful vivisection where the patient is still alive, strong, and very averse to deep cuts. To cut deeply means to experience not only onsets of gushing blood, but also to encounter the kicking and screaming of someone desperately crying "STOP!!!" This is a patient who doesn't want to be cured. At least not until there's a diagnosis. But right now the diagnosis would be far too painful to get, requiring a biopsy without any numbing tools. The only choice at the moment is to live with the problem. It might not go away but at least it can be managed.
And manage I do for now. Day to day listlessly moving, looking for every instance of small joys and satisfactions just to keep going forward. The hug of my child, the victory of my sports teams, the dinner with friends, etc... These are the pills I pop. The pain I feel isn't so much gone but rather I've gotten more used to it. It's less now a frustrating new phenomenon but rather the familiar devil. I can mostly pretend it's long gone now. But when I actually look it's still there, a grinning sadist who keeps the dagger pressed in but always chooses neither to finish the job nor to pull back.
The one thing I know for sure about all of this is that now I can see clearly just how badly I was broken. Even the fuzziest eyesight sees lights and colors, and I believe that is what I'm starting to see. Legally blind but no longer in the dark, I can equate it to the person who was left at the altar by the love of their life. You still live, you can even find enjoyment in life. But rebounds are rebounds. Their fleeting pleasure may put salve in the wound but it still needs stitches. It still needs to heal over before you can operate at 100%.
Such are the feelings I find myself still facing.
And where is God in all of this? I know He's out there. I occasionally even feel His presence still. I hear Him saying He loves me. I hear Him saying it's going to be ok. As much as I'm capable I believe Him, although I'd be lying to say it's more than just an extension of my will. What once was so deeply ingrained in me as to steer even my emotions now is a fleeting thought I hold onto only by choice. Hope? I guess. If hope is simply choosing not to think of negative things then I'm doing better than before. But if hope is expecting better things to come than I am still sorely lacking. That kind of hope only awakens heartache.
What about faith? I still believe God is real. I still believe He's good. I still believe He even knows what's best for me and is somehow working that all out. What I've lost faith in is my own ability to have guidance for myself. I've lost the desire to have desires big enough that I need help to see them fulfilled. Dreaming has suddenly become a painful experience for me. Every glimpse I give myself or am given of the things I once loved to dream about just brings pain. As the lover watches his future leave with the turning away of his beloved, I feel the same. The last thing you want to believe is that you could ever love the same way again.
And that brings us to love. Even though I am currently incapable of letting it in, I still know I'm loved. I don't even know how, but I know. And while I don't really believe I will be able to love again, dream again, hope again as I once did, I can't ignore the fact that I've seen countless others restored. My heart doesn't believe it will ever happen again for me, but somehow I still know it will.
Which brings me to know that somehow, God is still at work in all of this. For I cannot feel any hope. I cannot bring myself to dream. I can't even face my emotions. I can't look at mountains without longing to go home, I can't think of the past few months without hating myself for risking it all. I can't look ahead in my life without thinking of how it all will come crashing down again if I even start to get excited. I fill my day with the distractions of work, football, podcasts, reading, movies and Playstation. Anything that means I don't have to look at myself or think about life. But amidst all this there is something still and small, inexpressible yet unwavering in me that knows, just knows, that this isn't forever. It's something that can only be God in me, for if it were only up to me it wouldn't be there at all.
The other day my wife told me that most of my blogs lately had been lifeless, and she was right. I'd been trying to dig up something that wasn't there. Trying to conjure passion that was really a flawed avatar of my real self. Now that I'm sitting here, processing at McDonald's (and just about ready for another refill), I can see why, and I really look forward to when it's over. I so look forward to finding joy in quiet moments again. I so look forward to optimism being my natural predisposition. I eagerly will embrace the moment I re-enter the feeling of hope, the actual joy of knowing everything is working out for the best. I so look forward to being able to love something so much I'd risk for it again. I miss that freedom, and thinking of these things even now wells my eyes up with tears. The missing of them is all I feel. But they will come back. Somehow, although I don't really believe it, I know they must, I know they will. I know they have to. Thank God for that.
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