This is kind of strange. I suppose I just want to come forward and do something a little unorthodox; something possibly a little odd, but I think it's something I have to do.
If I tagged you in this note it is because I trust you, I think you deserve to know truth and deserve to know what is going on in my life and heart. So here goes.
I am struggling. I am not doing good. You may have noticed or you may not have. Regardless this is the truth. I have been trying my best to hide it; I have been trying my best to put on a mask, to put on a brave face and pretend like everything is going good. It's not as if my life is a wreck or like I am struggling with day to day living; but more on the spiritual end of things. I have a various assortment of masks that I have been wearing these past weeks, and months. Regardless of how strong I may see or how "together" might look; trust me.. I am not. I am not writing this to discourage you, but I feel I need to be truthful.
My heart feels as if it is being torn to pieces. I am pretty sure that I am not where I am supposed to be, yet I am terrified of where I am supposed to go. I am terrified of trusting God. So terrified that I can barely pray and worship has become so painful. It just seems that the more I realize what I need to do, the more I run in the wrong direction. These days, nothing feels right. Places where I used to feel so at home, like church or prayer, now seem like foreign places.
I want to say that I am not writing this for pity or for sympathy or empathy. I am writing this because I feel I have been fake with many of you. Spoken words that I am finding trouble believing, acting as if everything is ok when it most definitely has not been ok. I need to come clean with you all. Come clean to the fact that I have been lying in my actions and in my heart; that I have put on so many masks to hide the fact that I am not where I want to be, hide the fact that I can't seem to get back on track with God and with myself. I know this is rather out of the ordinary but if I can say this without seeming like I am contradicting myself, I think this is what we need right now. I think we need honesty. Honesty about where we are, honesty about what we're feeling, and honesty about struggles we may be having. We cannot be in community, I don't believe, if we are not completely and utterly honest with each other.
So I guess I'm just saying that I need to be truthful. I feel completely broken because I know exactly what I am supposed to do but I cannot do it. God is just asking me to trust him; but I am so scared to. I am terrified that if I trust him that everything will hit the fan again. I know all the great things about God: all knowing, all merciful, all loving, etc etc, and it's not as if I don't believe these things about him but I am just so scared that if I trust him that I will end up in the same place as I did last time I trusted God; fake and alone. When my mom died, I "knew" that it was God's plan; I "knew" that it was going to be ok.. But I was so busy being sure that it was God's plan that I did not grieve. I will always regret that. I regret not telling God that it wasn't fair. I regret every tear that I didn't cry. And now that I'm being ask to trust I am so scared of that same thing happening again.
I hate to say that I am scared to trust because I did it so "well" the first time around. Everyone would tell me how much I encouraged them with my faith despite of my mom's death. They were awestruck by how I trusted God even when everything was falling apart and now to tell them, you, that I am finding it so hard to trust just breaks my heart. I would wish that I could trust now as I did then but it's just so hard. I know that it is supposed to be hard, but right now I can't fight my own weakness, and I can barely stand on my own two spiritual feet. I am almost feeling now that I shouldn't be writing this; it seems like a "pity party", I want to assure you that it was not and is not meant to be that. I simply wanted to be honest with you. I wanted you to know that no matter how brave a face I put on right now; I am not perfect, I am not even imperfect, but I am broken.
I hope this wasn't discouraging. I don't expect that it was encouraging. But I hope that it.. I don't even know what I hope. Thanks for reading this and thank you for being my friend.
