February 27, 2012

I have to write because I'm going to fall asleep. I am so exhausted in nearly every way. I went to counseling today and it was not the usual light and happiness it has become. I just had too much on my heart. I feel like what joy I had at the beginning of last week has been stolen and now instead of gaining it back and being shown mercy I'm being called into a place where I have to reconcile a lot of things. For instance, I have always hated the type of person who uses their anger and other emotions to manipulate and control the emotions and actions of others. I hate that person so much that I have an automated response system that quickly shoots up a wall that separates me and keeps me safe from that person and their manipulative emotions and actions. Then just yesterday I had to own, not even just owning, that's one whole other thing. I had to come into a place where I confronted the possibility that I was that person sometimes. Now I'm owning it and it really hurts. I don't want to be that person and now I have to, or I get to be, "not" that. Use my words and control my response and ask questions I guess.

I just came into knowing about this woman named LaRae Quy who was an FBI agent for 25 years or something and she has a blog and she loves the Lord and she makes all these bullet points and has a plan to help you be more positive and proactive and therefore successful in whatever it is you choose to do, which hopefully for you is to "live your life on purpose" or something. She says you can't control what happens to you sometimes but you can control your response by moving toward the challenge and "leaning into it," and there are these other bullet points but the idea is that you can learn mastery of the unknown and that's supposed to help you overcome your fear. You can predict how you're going to respond. I imagine that advice would work for me, for undercover intelligence agents, for snipers, and really anyone who leaves their house for any reason and so I've decided I like this LeRae Quy and her blog, which is called Your Best Adventure, a title I also like.

Today just doesn't feel right. I feel like I'm indeed living in a tension. It's funny to think that what I keep hearing about Lent not being a comfortable time and how it's dark and how God wants us to be revealed as people might be actually happening. And it's actually uncomfortable. god isn't completely silent right now and I'm moving towards my challenges and observing my disciplines but that definitely does not necessarily bring comfortability like it usually does. It turns out life is hard even when you're doing everything you can to turn your face toward the light. I'm a little fearful of how God plans on making me realize I'm going to die someday.