Silence Isn't Always Golden

I disappeared for a while. 

When I'm really upset, hurting, tired or I'm just not right, I get quiet.  I just shut down. Unfortunately, I let that happen with this blog lately too. I got quiet when I probably should have been expressing how I feel and what's going on. I'll try my best to do that now though.  

I've been having a rough patch. Life hasn't been all that easy these days. It's not for lack of faith, family or friends. Those have been going relatively well. 

I've been reading more and more of God's Word each day. I finished Genesis, Exodus and I'm halfway through Leviticus.  I also finished Matthew and starting Acts. And I've read about the first 20 Psalms.  And that's been really great for me. I don't always read every day, but I try to keep on track.  My family and friends have been great too. Each of my parents came to visit me in February on different weekends. I think they've been worried about me. And the Bible study I've been doing with my future roommates has been uplifting and really enjoyable for me.  I love exploring the Word with them and learning more about each other and God through that. 

Even as I'm typing now my eyelids are so heavy. I'm not able to fall asleep or stay asleep without taking sleep aids. I constantly feel tension. In my body. In my head. I had no interest doing my school assignments. It's a chore to interact with people. I feel like I have no energy at all. Basically long story short, I'm in a very awful living situation with my roommates. They've put me in some of the most horrible situations I have ever been in in my life this past month. And it's been slowly draining me until now I feel almost completely empty.  

It's an interesting dynamic. And I haven't cared enough to examine it too closely until now. It hurts me to watch people fill themselves with destruction. Alcohol. Sex. More alcohol. So much so that it affects me and drains me. And I don't want it to. I'm starting to realize this is an issue and a problem far beyond myself and my abilities. I'm possibly going to be seeing a counselor soon because I'm exhibiting symptoms of PTSD and I can't seem to shake it off. 

It took me about a month to come to that conclusion. And in that time I have allowed it to drain my energy without me even realizing it.  I've been focusing so much on others and their issues while I've been ignoring myself and my own issues.  I've been very, very quiet.  

And I haven't been writing as much. I think when I write, I learn about myself.  So when I stop writing, it means I don't want to learn about myself at that time.  I haven't wanted to look at myself too closely this past month because I subconsciously knew I wouldn't like what I saw, at all. I'd see a girl that's trying so hard to keep it together but stumbles constantly and cries behind a locked door. A girl that feels and cares way too much while people take advantage of that. A girl that wants to be a leader and role model for friends, but can't seem to get a grip on her own life. 

February has been tough for me. And I shouldn't have tried to hide it or pretend my life was just fine.  I have weaknesses, and it's okay to show them. I have breaking points. I've experienced sadness, depression, despair and utter exhaustion this month.  I saved my roommates life one night and now I'm treated like less than dirt in my own apartment. Day after day I deal with passive aggressiveness. It's taxing on my mind, body and spirit.

I think I tried to deal with all this on my own at first. After about a week, that wasn't going to work. So I started praying about it, which I should have done first. I wanted answers. I wanted solutions. And I got really frustrated when I wasn't getting them. 

I kept asking God - please make me not care anymore.  Please let me stop feeling this way. I don't want to care or feel anything at all. Make them stop acting this way. Make them realize how stupid they're being. 

And nothin. They kept treating me like dirt. I kept being upset and having an unreasonable amount of anxiety. 

It hit me one day. I'm trying to demand answers from God right now. I'm not even trying to seek God, Himself, who gives the answer. I insisted He should give me an answer to all my pitiful prayers. But that isn't the purpose of prayer. The purpose of prayer is to get a hold of God, not the answer. 

All the time, God is working in my everyday life, events and the people around me. I just stopped trying to see it lately. I was praying for God to stop the anger, pain and hurt. I wasn't trying to know Him better at all. God is in the most ordinary things imaginable in my every day life.  Depression turned me away from that. It made me forget that. But when God steps in, He inspires me to do the most simple things. Like, spend some time with Him. Just getting to know Him. And that simpleness saves my sanity. 

If I was never depressed, never despaired, never angry, hurt or in pain...then I would not be alive.  If I didn't have the capacity for depression, I wouldn't have the capacity for happiness. 

A lot of times, I wish I could change things I did in the past, and I end up despairing over it. I wish I could have reacted differently, called 911, my landlord, someone that could have helped me with my roommates. In my despair, I end up ruminating on it. When I despair over lost opportunities, God reminds me that that opportunity is lost forever and I can't change that. But I must get up and go on to the next thing with Him.  I have to learn to let the past sleep, but let it sleep in the sweet remembrance of Christ. And I cannot let it affect my invincible future with Him. 

Disappearing, being quiet, silence, avoidance, sleeping, praying only for answers. All ways I've tried avoiding my issues. All ways have failed. And I'm not going to do that anymore. Even though each day is a struggle to live in this apartment and face the day...I won't be silent about it. 

This blog post makes it sound like my life is totally depressing and awful. Which is not completely true. I do find great joy in God's Word each day, interacting with my Christian friends, being an OPA and a new nursing major. Those are all wonderful things in my life. But I have been carrying this heavy burden of my living situation for so long now it's starting to affect these wonderful parts of my life. And that's not okay with me. Which is why I'm choosing to address it now and get some help with it. 

Lucky for me, for all of us, I have a God that is mighty and powerful in all my weaknesses. And He cares and loves me enough to be there in my every day life, even when I don't care enough to seek Him out. 

Silence isn't always golden. Sometimes it's scary. Sometimes it's a mask. An escape route. A way to pretend everything is okay when in fact it's all falling apart. In my case, it's been all of the above. But not anymore. 

"To you, Lord, I called; to the Lord I cried for mercy:"What is gained if I am silenced,if I go down to the pit? Will the dust praise you? Will it proclaim your faithfulness? Hear, Lord, and be merciful to me; Lord be my help." You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, that my heart may sing your praises and not be silent. Lord my God, I will praise you forever." Psalm 30:8-12  

Heart's Desire

 Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Psalms 37:4

A commonly quoted verse. 

And I had no idea what it meant until this week of my life. 19 years in the making. Not what it really meant, at least. And I'm sure I still don't completely understand it. But I may have a better idea now. 

I got into JMU's Nursing School. God is so good to me. So, so good. Beyond good. All the praise is His! 

Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. There's so many layers to this verse. What does it mean to take delight? What kind of desires are we talking about here? Seems kind of selfish right?

I'm not quite sure what taking delight means for everyone, or what it means in the context of when David wrote this. But for me, taking delight doesn't necessarily mean excitement, happy times or sunshine all the time. To me, it means calmness, completeness, satisfaction and being filled to the brim, but still wanting more. And only God can give this kind of delight. For example, I don't always look forward to reading His Word in the morning with a kind of bouncing off the walls excitement. It is morning after all. But after I spend time in His Word and with Him in the morning, I feel calm and satisfied in Him. And I want to keep spending time with Him all day. That's taking delight for me. I'm thankful that He is a God of delight, who delights in me, as I delight in Him. It's a beautiful thing. Not to say I'm the perfect example, I'm definitely not. But that's one way I delight in the Lord. I can also delight in Him by spending time in fellowship with others, worshiping Him, serving Him, loving others, dying to myself, talking about Him, praying to Him etc. The list could go on for miles.

What kind of desires are of your heart? That's a tough one. And I think God is kind of tricky here (is it ok to say God is tricky?).  God clearly says desires of your heart. Not your flesh. Not your mind. Not your plans and dreams. But the heart. And who knows the human heart better than the One who made it? God says to take delight in Him and He'll give me the desires of my heart. This is where He's tricky. If I am truly delighting in the Lord, and He is satisfying my heart, what other desires could I possibly have besides Him? 

...Maybe God was saying, just try it out for a bit. Try delighting in Me. Then maybe you'll see, I do satisfy every desire of Your heart, all by myself. You don't need that job promotion, pay raise, new boyfriend/girlfriend, good grade on that test etc. Those are things we think we need. But God knows us much better than we know ourselves, and thankfully He doesn't always listen to us. He knows what we need. And it's Him. It always has, and it always will be only Him.

The human heart is a complicated matter. God has richly blessed me in the month of January, 2013.  He has given me the opportunity to be an OPA and start nursing school in the fall of 2013.  And there is nothing I did to deserve that. And that's why I struggle with that verse. Take delight in the Lord and He will give me the desires of my heart. So is any of this a fruit of delighting in Him? I have been delighting in Him in more ways and much more often than I ever have in my life. But I think that implies I had something to do with it. And I don't think that's the case. This is purely God's blessings raining down on me. A torrential downpour, really. And I'm really enjoying dancing in the rain with Him!

But God ALONE can satisfy my heart. He ALONE knows the desires of my heart. And sometimes, ok most of the time, I don't have good desires. They're mostly selfish, ignorant, foolish. I'm finding more and more as I truly delight in Him, the desires of my heart drastically change. My desires are less for myself, and more for God, and God alone. The things I thought I needed are slowly but surely fading away. Yes, God has granted me these wonderful life blessings. But if my heart's desire isn't truly after Him, then what's the point in living? There's no point in these blessings if they're not for a purpose to bring about God's kingdom.

Maybe sometimes as I delight in God, the desires of my heart here on earth naturally come with it? To be honest, I didn't realize how much I truly desired being an OPA or getting into nursing school until it happened. As long as I don't start thinking these things are happening because of my own hand. Now that would be foolish and ignorant. Sure, I put in hard work and effort. But millions of people do that everyday and come home hungry with nothing to show for it. This is truly a blessing. Nothing else.

~"Christian workers FAIL because they place their desire for their own holiness above their desire to know God."
~Oswald Chambers 

It's easy to praise Him in the goodness and blessings He gives. I'm so thankful this is one of those times! A time when everything seems to be going all right. A time when He showers me in an abundance of blessings. Easy times. Thank the Lord for those. And praise Him for giving me the desires of my heart here on earth! It's quite overwhelming.