What is happening to me?

(Excert from my Journal 8 Nov. 2006)

It finally hit me. Everything finally hit me tonight. It started yesterday in Faith and Action when Mark handed our applications for the program back. When I read it I remembered how much passion I had before I came here. It struck me that I didn’t feel a passion for almost anything anymore.

Tonight Chris, from Invisible Children, came and talked with a couple of us. He showed this video twice and both times I couldn’t help but cry. All of a sudden I felt a hint of my passion come back. I want to do something for you God. I want to make a difference in this world for you. The girls got all excited because we could go on our roadtrip and show the movie at churches as we go. I got all these ideas about talking to my high school and taking the video to my church.

And then I got really upset for a lot of different reasons. I hate getting these great ideas and then it’s like the next morning Satan whispers in my ear how stupid that idea was. I don’t want that anymore. When I get an idea I want to act on it and know that it came from God in the first place. Then I got angry thinking about how unfair everything is and how selfish I am. I’ve been here for almost three months and I’ve been letting Satan feed me the lie that it isn’t that bad here! How could I think that?! The conditions here are terrible! They didn’t even have drinking water for over a week. It wasn’t until mom made a comment about one of my pictures that I even realized. It just isn’t fair…how did I get so lucky to live in a huge, safe house, but these people live in empty huts? And how can I be so selfish that I actually get sick of talking with the very people I came here to be with because I want to go and have fun?! I hate myself. I hate that my wants are always at the fore front of my mind. I hate it. And I hate that I’m so lazy that I can actually see myself going home and doing nothing besides being comfortable in my nice, big, safe house. And I hate that sometimes I just choose not to care. And I hate that I have so much stuff, that makes me feel no better about myself, but I still can’t let go of it. I mean I am in the middle of poverty, but thinking about what I want to buy when I go home. I hate myself but what can be done? There are these few times that I see myself for who I truly am, but then I explain my thoughts and feelings away to make myself feel better. And it sucks. Why can’t I care for someone other than me?! What are you doing to me God? What do you want from me? All of me? I want to give it so badly, but I am so scared. Who will I be if I let you take control? I want to die to my stupid self, I do really, I do.

I have spent so long trying to fit in, but you want me to stand out. So many years buying the right clothes, but you’d take me in rags. So long trying to make people love me, but you know me for who I really am and love me anyway. So long I’ve been running, but you just want me to stop and turn around because you’re right there waiting. Oh God! How could I have wasted so much time?! Take my dirty, broken self and make something from it.

“So dream a little, dream for me in hopes that I’ll remain.
And cry a little, cry for me, so I can bear the flames.
And hurt a little, hurt for me. My future is untold.
But my dreams are not the issue here for thee the hammer holds.
…this task before me may seem unclear, but it my maker holds.”
-The Hammer Holds (Bebo Norman)

“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot [imagine] what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
-C.S. Lewis

“Our heart is restless until it finds its rest in you.”
-St. Augustine