Grand Canyon, Day 1

 

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

This blog, forgotten, set to private, and password-locked, came to my mind a few weeks ago.  I was remembering our life in the desert, and wanted to re-read this old memory blog, so I set about figuring out the password, trial and error style.  I cracked the code (obviously).  Then I spent an evening reading through old posts, totally surprised at how much I had forgotten.  And as much as I enjoyed reminiscing, I was troubled as I read. And the troubledness (not a word, but let's just let that slide by so I don't have to open my thesaurus tab), hasn't left since.

I am troubled by how much I have changed.  

Now, I am certain that some changes in me are good ones.  For example, my heart and life now are less like the roller coaster of that young Christian, who was trying to navigate the boulders that life threw at her with more zeal and guesswork than knowledge.  

I am now less afraid when scary things come because I have lived a little more and watched the Lord care for us in His faithfulness.  Every day, He has shown up and provided all we needed for our spirits and physical selves, and all the worrying amounted to no good.  So I fret a lot less now.  

I'm less a perfectionist with my home and kids and my perceived image to the outside world, and tend to have a better perspective when it comes to things that matter and things that don't.  That's good, too.

So I don't mean to sound too hard on myself, but can't shake the truth:  I've lost a lot over the course of 5 years. A lot.  Please don't mistake me--I am so pleased with where this wonderful life God gives, has led.  I am grateful for my marriage, children, friends, and the work that has been set before me.  I am not talking about the other people in my life--this is only about me lacking the fervor I used to know.
  

I used to lay my heart out on the table for all to see and tried to be as transparent as possible; now I am closed off emotionally and concerned with sounding overly sentimental.  *Full disclosure, I was going to say "cheesy" but realized how childish it sounded, so I went ahead and opened up that thesaurus tab and decided on "overly-sentimental."  But it does fit better, so let's go with it.

I used to wake up every day with a mission in mind.  I was a passionate person.  Passionate about loving my husband well, training up my kids, being a good steward of my money and my time.  I was passionate about the Lord and His Word and was always looking for an opportunity to encourage other women.  I prayed before going into stores that the Lord would let me smile at someone who was having a hard day or bump into someone who needed a friend.  Those were good things.

But I found that sometimes my passion was misdirected and clouded out good judgment.  As we sought, God taught.  I saw that my life was out of balance and that I was emotionally led and lacking in knowledge.  Lots of zeal, but not so much in the 'knowledge of who God says He is' department.  I started focusing solely on things like the study and obedience of God's Word and the importance of proper order in the body.  I neglected praise, worship, rejoicing, and prayer.   And without ever realizing what I was doing, I destroyed the feeling side of myself altogether.  

I quit everything that nourished my soul, save rising early and reading the Bible.  

I quit listening to music because so much of it has incorrect doctrine.  Over time, I quit singing and worshiping the Lord altogether because I didn't know what was real and what was silly emotions or made-up hype that I learned from other people.

I quit meeting with other women almost entirely because I wanted to avoid the "sticky" issues that come up. 

I quit writing and blogging because I became very concerned about what people I knew in person would think of seeing my heart laid bare.  Most people don't tell the whole, honest truth with everyone they meet.  Most people small-talk.  They chit-chat.  They don't pour out their deepest joys and heartaches in everyday conversation. 

I quit reading Psalms every day, seeking out instead Scripture that teaches His commands and precepts. Rejoicing in the Lord was something I did less and less.  But a person needs the whole Word of God to be a whole person, and I suppose the mistake was that I traded one extreme for another.

I quit asking people what the Lord was teaching them, and quit telling them what He was teaching me.

I quit quiet trips to the beach to pray, quit keeping a prayer and praise journal, quit reading books that encourage women in the Lord.  

I (without meaning to) quit amazement over God's goodness, provision, grace, teaching, and love.  I stopped walking around completely overwhelmed and overflowing with everything the Lord was doing, and I somehow (how?) got used to His goodness.  Possibly this was just a side-effect of all the other things I quit doing.  But also I think I became aware that most people didn't do things like walk around telling everyone they bumped into how amazing it is that God helped the washer to work for just one more load so they could get the towels done!

Basically, I quit everything except rules, doctrine, duties, and checklists.  (And now that old dreaded feeling of someone misunderstanding me floods in and I feel the need to stop and clarify that I know that correct doctrine is necessary and more important than me feeling fulfilled or being expressive.  Rules are not bad. Checklists are helpful.  Duties are real and each person has their own God-given ones.)

But I'm telling you, I've made a mistake.

Unknowingly, I have become dull these past few years; a woman who is quite toneless.  I know my role in this life, and I'm living within that role because I love my Lord and I want to please Him in all things.  I love my people.  I love that I have a better understanding of what it means to walk with the Lord, and I'm pleased to not be tossed about by every wave of doctrine or Christian book or man's opinion.   I love to obey His rules and meets my obligations.  But I gotta' say, I'm just not all in it anymore.  If that even makes sense. There's another side of this coin that has been long neglected.

This post is now an incredibly wordy attempt to say this:  In an effort to stop being emotionally led and to be correct in my understanding, I cut off a wonderful element of life.  That is, the element that contains delight, zeal, rejoicing, awe, celebrating, affection, and also things like sympathy, care, warmth, and enthusiasm for doing good works.  I'm now a relatively apathetic person, if I'm being honest.  And that is the point of this post, so I'll go ahead and say it.  

And the scariest thing is that I didn't have a clue I had changed until I took some time and remembered how I used to be.

That reminds me of the Bible, and how it always says to remember.  Remember what the Lord has done. Remember how He brought you through.  Remember this day, remember that you were once a slave, remember His wondrous works, remember His commands, remember His mercy, remember His power, remember, remember, remember.  Over and over.  

I'm sure there are a lot of reasons that the Word is so saturated with commands to "remember," but the thing that I have been living for the past two weeks and the thing that has happened with me is that remembering has hit me hard with longing for those lost things. I see how far I have come, yes. But I also see where I have gone off track.  And I realize that this whole concept is so similar to examining ourselves.  Let me just say that it is my experience that there is a huge difference between examining myself to see if I am in the Way (do I meet the criteria) and realizing that I have lost part of my self.

I am asking the Lord to help me in this.  To allow me to be whole-hearted in this life once again, passionate and zealous for what He says is good.  To renew me and remind me of my mission so I can attack it and run it with endurance.  To help me to remember how to worship and praise Him and to know what is pleasing and acceptable to Him.

This blog will no longer be set to private.  I'm going to make time for writing again.  See if I have anything to say.  I went through old posts and deleted a lot of things that were written in ignorance. Hopefully I got them all, possibly I missed some things.