February 18, 2014
10AM and I finally get up in some semblance of being awake. I feel like the scales have tipped and I'm no longer "kind-of" in one of my funks - but just in one full blown. I feel like most people think Christians are supposed to be immune to certain diseases and mental illnesses like depression - OCD - anxiety attacks... like we're supposed to have some kind-of Holy Spirit guard that keeps us from falling prey to them... or maybe that's just my impression.
I don't even know if it's depression I struggle with - maybe I do a disservice to people who actually struggle with that by saying that I do... Maybe I just suffer from overthinking and giving up on life. Just being lazy or weak.
All I know is that there are some mornings I wish I didn't have to wake up. When getting out of bed feels like a monumental task - let alone doing anything productive. When being alive seems pointless and death sounds so much more appealing.
I gave up on suicide a long time ago. For starters - I don't think I have the guts for it under normal circumstances - it's only when I'm distraught and going out of my mind in the pain of living that those thoughts even become possibilities... but it seems like a futile gesture anyways, and one that only leaves pain and distress for everyone else - almost the ultimately pointless and cruel action to take against others in your last action in life...
But there's a way of life that is living death... and even though I'm pretty high functioning and will do what needs to be done to keep face and go to work and carry on as usual - inside there's a deathly silence... a complete lack of interest - an awareness that everything is an act - a ridiculous parody that we keep playing.
I feel like many of us are only pretending at life - going through motions because "we're supposed to" but never stopping to ask who said we "were supposed to" or ask why we are going through these motions. Follow the reasoning back far enough in any action in life and I feel like there are more blank voids left behind the question of WHY than any substantial answers.
All these melodramatic and deep thoughts that bubble to the surface when I sit here - brooding - typically lay with one eye open - sleeping (kind-of) while watching me as I go through my day - and mostly there is just cavernous space and silence and that echoing futility.
Why bother?
Why am I here?
Why am I doing this?
What does it matter?
Mostly angry and frustrated: Why am I alive? It feels like a waste of breath.
Why do humans exist at all?
It feels like a waste of existence.
It's strange that I never think that of the world or any other creature in it. They exist because they exist - and their existence alone is good... But for some reason I think and believe that humans are supposed to have some purpose. Our existence is not purpose alone - reason alone - to exist. Maybe it's because You created everything and saw that it was good - but when you created man - you saw that it was not good that he was alone.
Of everything you created - the only thing that was not good was man alone... created in Your image.
Pointless outside of relationship...
And that's what rankles...
Since having Apple there are times that both Jason and I will stop and marvel over her. Just that she exists - just at how pretty she is - how soft her fur - how she is ours - and she's just a PUPPY for crying out loud.
... And I'm jealous.
Because I want someone to do that to me.
Touch my hair when I'm sleeping - splay out my fingers - marvel over my existence and the wonder of life...
We lose that sense of others when they're no longer babies... we lose that kind of love when we're no longer babies.
Infancy love - I feel like - is the only time we get close to even understanding how you love us - how we want to love others...
Marveling over mere existence... marveling over the life that makes us alive.
Who loves like that outside of mothers with their children? And is there a point at which we outgrow that even with our moms?
When they stop creaking open the door to peek at us sleeping and marvel over our creation? As though they can't believe we really exist?
I'm not even a mom - but I've held babies and felt that wonder.
But I've rarely, if ever, loved or looked at another human (older human) that way. Occasionally - at times - I might look at Jason and marvel that he's with me. That I was lucky enough not just to find a man who would treat me well - but beyond that - honestly try to love me.
Because to be honest, we all suck at that kind-of love.
I don't look at other adults - even most snotty nosed kids - and marvel over their existence.
I'm not captivated by the fact that they are alive -
I don't hang suspended out of time - caught up in the wonder that they are alive - reach out and touch their cheek in disbelief that they are really there - that they really exist - that they are almost so wondrous as to make me question their very being.
Most of the time I am resigned to others' existence... and just trying hard not to wish they DIDN'T exist at all.
But I want to be loved like that - at least sometimes - at least once in awhile. I want MY existence to captivate... I want just the fact that it's me and I'm alive - I want a human to marvel over that.
You are loved like that - You told me last night when we had this conversation and I was in tears in anger and frustration with you - I love you like that.
But I want a human to love me like that.
But one does...
Why isn't that enough? I want more than Your Son to love me like that - I want someone I can see - I want someone to bear up that love as evidence to me that my existence and being has meaning and purpose - when I begin to lose sight and faith that it does.
I want someone to touch me with wondering trembling fingers at the mere fact of my life - when I feel like I wish it would just blink itself out of its miserable existence already.
Maybe that sounds narcissistic - maybe really creepy and needy... maybe I've just deluded myself into thinking that's how we all want to be loved so I can feel better about my own need... But really.. who wouldn't want to be loved like that?! Really - honestly - not just melodrama or play-acting-at-life kind-of love... But truly - really - what if we experienced that kind of wondering - enraptured - "you-do-nothing-but-exist-and-I-marvel-over-you" kind-of love... not just as babies - but throughout our life.
Everything sounds so tinny to me - so over the top - and over done... It's such a melodramatic thing to chew on... why can't I just go on with life and do something - it would be better spent than wasting my time brooding over this one thought - why would it be better? Who knows!
Because this is futile... this is weak... this is pathetic... This is an excuse to staying hold up and static and stationary and never making my life amount to anything.
And anyways - I fail at loving like that - and yet wish and long for someone else to love me that way.
How backwards is that?
That's how you tell us to love.
That's how we're supposed to love one another -
love people outside the church
love people inside the church
love the world.
With that trembling, marveling over their existence -
And I cannot love even one person -
I cannot love even myself -
with that love.
I feel like I have to fulfill some purpose - some reason - some meaning for my existence...
My existence is not enough.
It's not enough to garner that wondering love.
But I am faced with the futility of that because that love isn't predicated on anything BUT existence.
You exist... therefore I love you.
... therefore I wonder over your being.
... therefore I marvel over you.
What do babies do honestly to make us love them?
It makes no sense... it's a completely irrational - completely instinctual love.
We can't make it happen - though we can play act at it -
... which I feel like is so much of our lives -
But that kind-of wondering love - I recognize the difference of it in myself. It rises up unbidden... that awe just catches me off guard sometimes - when I want to hold the baby (or the puppy) whose existence has recalled that feeling in me so close as to almost wish I could take that love in as a part of me and carry that wonder around.
.... And I want to be loved like that...
I feel like I'm obsessing over this one issue and saying the same thing over and over - but it's like I'm hoping if I keep hitting this over and over - maybe it'll reveal some secret to me... How I can believe in that love for myself... how I can learn to love other people in that love... how I can somehow teach or maybe garner in some way - that love for myself...
But it's all futile because I don't know how that love happens - where it comes from - why or how certain existences trigger it - why I can't hold onto it forever - why it fades away.
But I know that in times like right now... today when I want my existence to stop - it's the kind-of love that I want... maybe even desperately need.
So that... what?
So that I guess I can go back to playacting with some semblance of normality?
In the belief that the actions matter - that my life matters - that what I do matters - because I exist... because I exist - it matters - because just my existence is a thing of wonder and beauty - without anything else having to be added... it changes everything else that is added.
... On one hand - I know this (that my existence matters) as an item of belief. On the other I feel like I am doubting it at the very core today - and everything just seems to be reinforcing that doubt... even the truth that there is nothing I do to deserve that love...
So either you believe you are loved or you don't. And today I don't... or at least - today I want proof to believe it which I know means that I don't honestly believe it - and I don't know how to honestly make myself believe.
Stuck in upon circles and circles of futility and I am sure people are wishing I would just shut up.
I know I am...
Psalm 94
Am I resisting Your Spirit Lord? Maybe a little.
I sometimes feel like I open Your Word as a last resort when I have exhausted my brain with my own thoughts and there is this kind-of cryptic message with a theme that is right there if only I am willing to work for it a little... and I am not.
There are obvious conclusions my mind jumps to - that my foes and enemies are these thoughts that ambush me and besiege me inside myself - You rise up in defense and anger against Satan and the lies he keeps bombarding me with - without let up - without breath...
That You hear
That You see
That Your steadfast love holds me when all I can see is how I am slipping further and further into this living death.
That though the cares of my heart are many,
your consolations cheer my soul.
That you are my stronghold - the rock of refuge -
And that You will wipe out this darkness that threatens to swallow me whole and leave me empty and soulless - an automaton shell...
That You will conquer and redeem and set me free... And maybe a part of me wants to believe it - and maybe a part of me does believe it - and maybe I'm TRYING to believe - but mostly right now my questions is: Then why don't I see Lord?!
Why isn't it happening?
An you say - it IS - it is happening - right now - and I don't believe you.
I don't believe Your Word can set me free because what I want is for a human to.
What I want is for someone to come in and love me... to understand what I need without me having to tell them or show them or explain to them - or do anything but be.
To do anything but be. loved.
What I want is for someone to confirm to me that IS my identity. Whitney, you are beloved - you are beloved because I love you - I love you - just for being - I love you - and I couldn't love you, as a human, I couldn't love you like that - you KNOW I couldn't - because you know YOU can't - you know I couldn't love you if I didn't believe that I also am beloved... Beloved for no other reason than that I am.
That's what I want... for someone to come show me that...
Maybe that's what your church is all about. That's why we're all still here on Earth... because it was not good that man was alone. Man's purpose was not just existence - but beloved existence - and we needed divine human love - we needed the divine to invade the human - to have our identities: beloved - to be "good." To be complete. You made us so... or maybe that was simply the nature of being created in the image of God-Who-Is-Love...
It wasn't enough for divine love ALONE - we needed divine love invading our own flesh.
We needed each other --> Your Son --> Each other again in the Church.
That's what the Gospel is all about...
... but it still doesn't help Father - that what I want right now is help to believe.
Pick up your mat and walk - I hear you say -
Touch me first Father - please...
I want to believe... but I am really struggling -
I just want something to hold onto...
Something to to soak in...
I don't want to go back out - I don't want to go back to play-acting-life - going through the motions I'm supposed to (like showering and eating and caring for others). I want proof Father - I want proof... and then I want to stay here for awhile...
Get up and walk in faith my child.
I know it isn't easy -
I hear - I see - your private grief...
I know...
and even now you are finding in yourself the strength to get up - and wash your face - and go have lunch with your husband in the faith that the money will work out - But it hasn't been Father - it HASN'T been working out - I know. I know. But baby... today I need you to keep walking in faith... I need you to keep walking in the faith that it will work out. And that you will be okay. Because you are Beloved.... and you need to go see Jason so I can show you that right now. Because I am giving you strength to do this - even this much - right now.
Can you do it? Just this much? Can you do it for right now?
... Ok... I will try. I feel bad that I need so much just to get up and wash my face and leave the house - and buy fast food for lunch with my husband...
It's a pathetic existence Lord - that I need so much help just to do this much...
It's not... It's good... I know you can't see it - but I can. And it's good. Your life is good.
Ok... I'm sorry.
Don't be. You are my Beloved.
All I want you to do is be. loved.
Are you ready?
I think so... Give me a second.
Ok.
Okay. Let's go.
