Hey. It's been a while.
It's been a while since my feet touched the ground. It doesn't really seem to happen often anymore. Now and then I stop, I see, I feel alive and okay. Only on occasion, now.
Most often of late, I've been...stranded. Spinning. Drowning and dying of thirst all at once.
To be honest, I have no idea what's wrong with me anymore.
I thought I might finally be free, you know? I had direction, and even though it was undefined, it felt like peace. A reason. A "purpose", though I'm finding I don't like that word anymore because it implies we have to be good for something.
What about when we're not?
What's my purpose when I'm isolated and falling apart and don't even remember what happiness feels like?
What am I good for when it feels as though every ounce of emotion I have ever felt has been spent?
When I'd rather just lay down outside and become a pile of dirt and let the grass grow over me forever, what's my reason for living?
Some days, I feel good. Other days, I feel nothing. And still other days, I feel nothing good. The good days are sometimes few and far between. And this is the life I've got. So...what now?
This is the part where people would interject their answers, telling me that God's got a purpose for it all, that I just need to focus on the good things, that people really do care and I should just reach out to them; and the fact is, every single one of those thoughts has already gone through my head a hundred times over, and unless I happen to be in the place to hear it, it doesn't change a single thing.
Because what we really need sometimes is not to feel better, or to be distracted from the pain that feels like the final nail in the coffin of a bitter existence. Sometimes happiness is not the answer to agony, anger, or despair.
Sometimes...we need to feel the full weight of it.
We need to feel it because, if we let it, it will lead us somewhere. Through the darkness, we come, not to the end of the road, but to the wounds that desperately need to be felt, because only in acknowledging that we have been hurt (by others, or by ourselves) will they heal.
The light of a bitter reality is still more healing to hurt than leaving it in the depths of our forgotten selves.
But oh, how hard this road is. How lonely it can be, if that's what it takes to unearth the unresolved pain. But how wholesome the moments of release are.
Purpose is not always the answer. If there is a purpose...it's simply to be, and to do so as sincerely as possible, even if that means falling asleep hoping we won't wake up again, ten nights in a row, or a hundred. Even if it means the screaming and the tears of despairing rage. Even if it means unjust irrational anger and rage toward someone or something we've been hurt by.
The point is not that our feelings are true, or right, or even lasting. The point is that we feel them, and that we are deeply, passionately honest with ourselves. We can't always give the weight of the emotion toward the person who caused it (irrationally raging at someone for the unintentional wounds they caused is not the answer), but we can always be honest with ourselves, and with the God who created our wild, chemical-filled, passionate minds and our tender, love-needing hearts that have suffered the nastiest of cuts and bruises. He can take it, because he will always give it a home and a redemption.
"I am not fine. At least sometimes, I am not fine." And I won't pretend otherwise. But my Father, he listens, and he loves me even when I am caught up in the smoke of my own despair and can't feel even a sliver of his love. And I want to feel joy at the things that he has given me, but that joy is some days nowhere to be found, and to conjure up something that isn't real and true is more a crime than to cry for relief at pain that never seems to end. Besides, like the poet once said, "The best letters are the ones written in tears that smear the ink."
So please, I beg you to feel the pain that keeps you awake at night. It is a hard road to walk, but "be still my soul; thy best, thy heavenly Friend, through thorny ways leads to a joyful end."
I'm fairly certain that these past seasons are some of the most painful things I will ever walk through, but I would not trade away a day, for these dark days lead to the brightest and most holy of places.
"Praise be the maker of my fate for the suffering he ordains."
