The Lack of Happiness.

Honestly, I just want to be happy. I want to experience and feel genuine joy. I can find that in my moments with God after enduring trials, but lately I desire to see it around me at the same time. I want to be able to see and feel a true happiness in my life. It feels like it's been too long since I've actually felt content, with peace and joy. I have faith that I can make it to this point, if only for a little while, but something has always been missing in my life. I've fought and fought for years, off and on I've battled. There have been tears, anxiety, painful experiences, and moments that I just wanted to hide from the world.

For years it has felt like I always had that same thing constantly tugging at my heart. I'd have painful feelings latch onto me and I'd reach out for a dream only to never actually reach it. It's like my arm was stretched out as far as it could, trying so hard to grab hold of that dream, but in pain I would retrieve my arm and accept the loss. I'd wonder and wonder why this part of me had to keep me reaching, keep me seeking, and let me feel partially empty.

But now I accept who I am, where I am, and what has happened in my life. I am here. There is no turning back, no changing my past, nor predicting my future. I am here, in the present, and I'm turning to God to simply ask for genuine happiness. To finally sit down, relax, and breathe and know I'm actually okay. All I can feel now is a hope for happiness, but when I look around me I know I can easily be brought down if I let myself lose focus on the light at the end of the tunnel or lighthouse on the shore.

Even if others find it so silly that I practically am begging for happiness, I don't want to lie and say I have it and yet hide that part of me that can't actually believe that. They will tell me to find the good around me, and I will hear this advice being repeated as if I'm doing the wrong thing by recognizing the truth within me. But I'm tired of pretending like I'm doing all things right. I am a human, and I will indeed feel these things. I want to let this out and let God truly come in and show His power. In order to see the difference He intends to make in my life, I know I must admit my faults, failures, desires, and emptiness. I admit it to Him because He is God and He already knows the truth. But I think He wants me to know it for myself.

My thoughts and dreams aren't silly and I know they aren't. God knows them to be real, to reflect a part of Him, and to show that I have a heart that isn't always strong. I want to find myself in a place where everything around me isn't so broken anymore. Where I can hold onto a true friend and feel content, or sit around family and feel welcomed. I want to walk the streets at night with someone that just knows me and I want to laugh it away and know I'm at a good place in life. I want to feel like I don't have to hide my feelings anymore. I want to release them. I want to feel right. I want to say that God has brought me out of the wilderness and into the Promised Land, metaphorically speaking. I want to know I made it there and I want to feel that joy.

I cannot express in enough words how utterly hard it is for me to feel so completely far from that happiness. I cannot express in enough detail how very desperate I am to actually feel that joy. A joy so intense that tears will fall down my face as I smile at something miraculous in my life. I want one of those moments where you know you suffered for seven years but it comes to its end and there is a reward for enduring. I want that beautiful moment of satisfaction to happen and to not dissipate so quickly.

Maybe what I'm saying is I want to hold onto something for once without losing it. I want to grasp something and hold it close without dropping it. I want to hold on because I want something to become familiar and last forever the way God has lasted in my life. I cannot achieve this on my own. I want to be real and I want something real. I want something genuine and true in my life. Something I can look at and believe that I've found what belongs to me. A reward all my own and customized to fit me perfectly.

Dear God...please bring me joy this Christmas because only You know what I truly need and what I truly long for. Only You know my heart.

When All Goes Wrong.

For the past few weeks, I have lacked a genuine and sincere feeling of joy. It has become incredibly hard to accept that each meaningful and important thing in my life has instead wilted or altered. One thing has remained positive though, in which I highly thank God for, and that is my relationships I hold dear with my mother and sister. But somewhere along the line of life, I have lost the proper image of what a genuine and sincere friend truly looks like. I only crave it because I want to know I can have it. I want to know that I can obtain it instead of destroy the possibilities. When the rocks are continuously falling from the mountain, I simply wonder what happened to the comfort in a true friend.

I crave a sense of freedom. In fact, I now too often beg God for this heavy and painful burden to be lifted. I've spent the past few weeks fighting it all off, fighting my way through, and now I wake up with that one sort of thought that says, "What happened?" Can anyone actually show me the real Jesus? Now, don't get me wrong. I still have friends. I value them all and try my best to remember them. But my confidence I've built up has been threatened and after getting kicked down so harshly I've learned that what I wanted and needed all along was just something true. Something sincere. Something lasting.

Metaphorically speaking, I want one of those warm hugs where you can literally feel cared for and protected. I want this feeling from my Creator and I want to see everything that has gone wrong turn around and change for the better. I want to be better. I want to be great. I want to get so caught up in my talents and passions that no person around me could bring me down. I don't want to be used for the things I'm good at or be treated less than who I believe I am.

When all goes wrong, could this mean that my desires do not line up with my actual life? Could this mean that God has so much more, but I'm just not seeing it? Could this mean that I am aware that I deserve so much more? Or could this mean that I've lost an ability to see? To hope? To believe? I've always been so dependent on God. Being close to God to me is spending time talking to him throughout the day, or praying just to feel better. Being close to God to me means choosing to believe in Him, even when everything looks awful around me. When all goes wrong, could this mean that I'm on the wrong path? Or the right one?

I guess I won't know these answers. I now spend most of my days to myself. I talk to God the most and my mom the second most. I walk alone. I learn alone. Sometimes I'd rather be alone because it's less disappointing or more comfortable. It's not common for me, but it's becoming common now. I've risked getting close to people and I've risked messing up friendships. I've risked these things because I was tired of hiding and I was tired of pretending. I've risked it all and now I sit alone as if there is a missing security in my friendships. And that's the part I'm willing to accept. That's where my prayer begins.

I want something true. Something real. A turnaround in this negative season I'm in. I want a miracle. I want to feel secure. I just want more of Jesus and I'm too tired to try.

Dear God, please help me.

Conditional Commitment.

Lately it feels like I'm almost pretending that I have indeed done the right thing. But I decided to spend these days in prayer and walk. Most of my afternoons consist of at least one walk around the block or a few cycles of it. I proceed to take another walk at night, in which I have now witnessed two falling stars because of it. I'm giving myself some time before taking any form of action, meanwhile I am also asking God for the proper opportunity.

I guess it takes running away to fully understand what you're running from and if you'll miss it. I see myself unquestionably loving my friends around me and yet pushing one particular soul out of the way. I knew my reasons for it, and for the record, my reasons made sense to the world. I was overwhelmed, confused, and afraid--end of story. But looking back, I can see that my repetitive behaviour isn't solving much issues in my heart.

Perhaps my case is that I get too involved and scare myself to pieces. I dive into things like it's a bowl filled with pudding and then get sick quickly. I admit, I get excited and can't help but want to make the most of everything I begin. My problem isn't in beginning anything or trying anything. My problem is in staying and sticking through it when it gets tough. It's an odd thing for me to admit because I always considered myself a very committed individual. I still think I am, but is my commitment conditional?

This is where the word "conditional" comes into play quite hardcore. I've developed a mindset to believe that my goal is to be unconditional. But somehow over time, I've conditioned my friendships. I think, "As long as we are pleasing to each other, we're good." And I don't intentionally think up these things, but looking back on my past, I can see it being worked out. I almost lie to myself by saying, "I will love you no matter what." And what should "no matter what" actually mean?

I will love you even if you do not love me. I will love you even if you fade away. I will love you even if you get mad at me. I will love you even if you walk away. I will love you even if I am hurting. I will love you even when you're away. I will love you even if you do not choose me. I will simply just love you.

How could I possibly portray such an image when I choose to hide away? Sure, I can last ages applying this way of living, but I can't quite get myself to merely do it out of the goodness of my own heart. I can't seem to apply this when the going gets tough. I can't seem to look at someone I care deeply about in the eyes and say, "You may not choose me, but I'm going to stay to simply love you anyway." Because I may do it once, I may choose it when I see they are not on the same page, but there is this unfortunate selfish part in me that instead says, "But if you really can't see what I see, I won't be able to handle it." And followed by such a feeling, I give up on portraying to that special person what love actually is.

This bothers me because I find myself too sensitive to accept certain situations. It bothers me because my heart keeps telling me, "Why can't you just love them anyway? Why do you walk away when it gets too hard?" But I practically beg of God that I can one day break that wall I've built and become determined to actually see that person happy for what they accomplish, even if I stand off to the side as a simple friend. Shouldn't they matter enough for me to stay? Shouldn't they be great enough for me to watch them grow without walking away? And even if they aren't great, even if they hurt me with words or choose to walk away themselves, shouldn't I not be afraid of them?

I do not believe I can ever truly overcome this until I get myself to stop cutting ties when it's tough on my heart. I cannot overcome this until I can look them in the eye and tell them that their happiness means a lot and that I will support them no matter what. This is eating at my heart as the hours and days go by. I beg and beg to God now that He will lift my heart up and mend it so that it may function well enough for me to avoid the action of walking away when I'm scared.

I need not be scared. I need not walk away. I need not stop loving when I truly trust in God.

The Guilt of Copping Out.

The heart has this way of telling you all the things you didn't really want to know. It tells the truth when you least want to hear it. It guides you in ways you often try running from instead. When you connect your heart to God, it's honestly the hardest thing to ignore. Maybe our hearts know what is right. Maybe we spend too much time ignoring what it's really saying. Maybe.

I feel as though I've made quite the mistake. Not that I want to go back in time and change it, but that I needed to make this mistake in order to learn something. I tried justifying everything by using God, just so I could feel better about what I did. I then proceeded to listen to the people around me who stood in agreement to my decision. But the truth of the matter is that I ran.

I needed to run to find myself though. I needed to run back to God and let Him heal me, direct me, and set me straight. It seems as though every time I choose to run, I run right into God and right into my biggest problem. It's much like a slap in the face at times, but maybe God just knows how I work and how I break. To be honest, I really feel like God is now showing me how horrible my ability to run is. It's almost as if He is asking me, "Why do you keep running? Why do you give up right at the end? When will you stop running?"

Today I have experienced a deeper form of guilt. A guilt that got me teary-eyed and on a walk of shame. Not because someone made me feel bad, but because I knew I made a mistake. I ran from something and hurt someone along the way. And I knew I hurt him. I saw it in his eyes, I heard it in his voice, and his words were enough to say that I was handling it in such a cowardly way. I was reverting back to my old habits, doing what I thought is the thing to do. But what have I really accomplished this way?

As for me not to feel completely ashamed of my choice, I believed and still believe that God intended for me to make this mistake. He knew I would handle it this way and I believe He intended to bring good out of it anyway. God works with us as  His children. I believe this with my entire heart. He knows we will make mistakes just like He knew after He flooded the earth. We as humans would sin, would mess up, and would come crawling back to Him to beg for forgiveness. God is a loving and powerful God. This comforts me because I know He is willing to work with me with all of my mistakes, failures, and regrets.

What I now understand is that I need to stop copping out and running from my fears. I need to start climbing the mountain with the intention to climb over instead of letting go and falling down again. It seems as though God has been working with me on this for years as if He truly cares so much for me that He'd take this time to keep working around me. He understands I want to run from it all and He understands I'm afraid. But with Him, do I really need to hide? I need to stop listening to the world and start listening to the still but small voice from my loving Father.

I hurt a very special friend in my life. I kept thinking about myself and what was hurting me and then forced myself to ignore his pain when he realized I truly was walking away. I knew him so well, I took the time to hear his story, and then I killed everything that we had without allowing myself to work it out with him. I just copped out. And now, with my big and sensitive heart, I ache over the fact that I knew I hurt him. I believe God is with him, that he will be okay, but it doesn't take that guilty feeling inside of me away.

This has been quite the reality check for me. It feels like God Himself is looking down on me thinking, "Have you not learned that I am God? That I can do all things? That I Am? Are you going love the way I want you to love and then give up last minute because you're afraid? Do you not trust Me?" God isn't a God who makes us take the easy path. I do not believe He guides us to the easy ways. He's a God that says, "Take this road, it's less traveled on because it's much harder, but I can show you My power this way. Do you trust me?" What is that dark path we are so afraid to take? I think God is saying, "Go down that way. Shine your light there. I've got you."

I watched someone else's life get built and broken and when I knew I meant a lot to them, I ripped myself away. I didn't stay to talk it out or face the fear to overcome it. I gave them a friend like they've never had before and then ran. That is the reality. Not for me to look down on myself suddenly, but for me to see that I need to fix this. I need God to come down and mend this broken friendship that I created because I will never overcome my fear by running. I do not want to go on in my life with the idea in mind that when things got too tough, I copped out.

This I pray, that God brings forth the opportunity for this broken part of my life to be mended and put  back together. I pray that I can fix my mistake and not run away anymore. I pray that when it gets as tough as it is now, I rely on God to give me strength. I pray that the person I hurt along the way will see that they matter more to me than what I showed. I pray that our time apart can serve a great purpose.

I don't want to run away anymore.

Solitude, Destruction and Reconstruction.

I did not quite complete my blog posts on my week of solitude, nor did my week end with that thought in mind. Life has this way of twisting and turning out of the blue, setting us off course from the path we intended to take. At least, that's what happened to me. Before I continue to explain, I'd like to say that my decision to seek solitude indeed led me to my Creator. It stirred up emotions, thoughts, and fears like I could no longer ignore them. This is not the first time I've had to address issues in my heart, but it was definitely a very sensitive and significant time for me.

There is an area in my life that I've experienced in negative ways. I've only seen sad or ugly endings and I've endured through each new situation in that area in ways that still broke me. The time I've invested in certain people, putting my heart out there, is great and lengthy. If there's one thing I'm certain about with myself, it's that I love deeply and hard when I put my mind to it. But this is the area in my life that I have continuously given up to God. This is the area that silently created bitterness and anger over time, because my experiences were continuously hopeless and sad.

Tonight though I feel filled with a sense of strength that is not my own, but rather God's. Although I still haven't seen the bigger picture to understand what is happening in my life today, I feel like He has given me quite the glimpse of what He has started. Just the other night, I had a revelation. It was one of those moments where as I'm speaking out my thoughts based on what I can see, I suddenly paired what happened around me to what happened between God and me. These moments are by far my favorite, where a piece of a puzzle comes out of nowhere and places itself in connection to another.

I truly felt like God went silent to simply make Himself known. Without Him, would I notice? Would I realize how much He actually meant to me if I didn't hear from Him? If He didn't show up? If suddenly He just wasn't there when I was used to  Him being there? But did He "hide" because He doesn't love me and wanted me alone? No, I think not. I believe He went silent so that I would come diligently seeking Him because He means a lot to me. He knew that no matter how far I went, no matter how deep I sunk, He could resurrect me out of anything. He knew that when I hit my lowest, I'd come running to Him and if He wasn't there... I would miss Him. He was still there, but He was silent, letting me learn what my truest pain was so He could then take it away.

I believe that God is still in process of working with me on this, and it is taking me years to grow this much. But this is my story and it speaks greater than it would have if I never had those bad or hopeless looking experiences. Tonight I feel this strength in me that has allowed me to look up and see a light at the end of the tunnel. It has allowed me to feel this hope that everything is going to turn out all right. I have struggled with my faith because of my ability to believe in things that have never once in my life happened. It gave me the idea that I tend to believe in the unseen and impossible and then I proceed to watch them never happen before I move on to something new. Although that is unfortunate, I can still feel my faith wanting to return despite its failures.

This hope inside of me allows me to feel like God will surprise me with an answer I can never make up in my head no matter how many made-up scenarios I picture. God's solution to this negative area in my life is unimaginable at this moment, but I feel that hope that He's bringing me there. Out of fear, I held on so tightly to a person that made me feel happy around him. I held on tightly because I felt like if I let go, I would fail to believe. I somehow believed that if I stayed around, I would witness everything changing. I held on because it meant taking a risk and I wanted to prove to God that I was willing to believe again. But then I let go when I realized they weren't holding on in return. When the other person isn't holding on back, letting go means falling. So I fell. I fell so far down after climbing so high that it hurt an incredible amount.

I can look back and see that it was entirely human of me to react the way I did. That it was perfectly normal and okay to cry, to break, and to feel defeated. I imagine God knew it would happen but He wanted to be that Knight in shining armor who "saved the day" because He was the only one capable of it. So although it hurt at first, as I grieved a loss of something I once found beautiful, God wasn't finished with that part in my story. He wasn't leaving that prayer unanswered, or story left unfinished. I believe God intends to finish what He has started but for now He merely needed me alone. Because through my story, I can show the world that when life hits you with the heaviest, sharpest, and biggest rock...you can still get back up and find strength in God.

God is shaping me into one strong human being, even when I keep using up that strength and finding myself on the floor. I know myself to keep getting back up, attempting to believe all over again that something great is about to happen. Although I've let myself believe false hope one too many times in life, I'm now to the point where I'm seeking true hope. The hope in what you cannot see because you haven't even imagined it. Tomorrow as I turn twenty-four, I pray that God fills the next year of my life with true hope. Not hope in my dreams, but hope in God's dreams. I know now that I can love with my entire heart. I know now that I can take risks, even if I get scared. But most of all...I know now that I can love and then walk away empty handed and it still be worth it. Love alone is worth the fight.

Solitude: Day Three.

Spending more solitude time with God started off really rough, as I mentioned in my previous two blogs. It hasn't gotten easier, but it's an interesting time in my life. It's interesting because for the first time in quite a while, I cannot hear God nor feel Him. It's as if I'm going based off of habit, assuming that God is with me and believing even when I cannot see Him, feel Him, nor hear Him. It is one of the scariest feelings I've ever actually felt, and I'm not quite sure how to properly deal with this besides prayer.

Day three went okay (I am writing this a day later). I missed my classes again because of how off my mind is. I think I need this week to sort this out, but I'm still lost as to how this is going to end. During my day I ran into one friend who talked a little bit with me about what's been going on. When we parted, he gave me a hug for the first time and it served as a reminder that no matter what, no matter how far I feel from the world, the friends I have do care deeply.

It is more normal for me to have a revelation, get a sudden dose of hope, and get right back up on my feet. It is the most common answer each time I faced fear. Although I cannot feel that now, and it is taking me a while to accept reality, I am determined to keep my trust in God and do whatever I can to get through this. I've always held so much faith in everything that I went through. I can recall the years I spent truly believing in what seemed impossible to others. The hardest part now is picking myself back up and continuing on as if I still believe. Because to  be honest, I'm not sure what to believe at the moment.

The years I spent in off and on agony have scarred me enough to take this long to still feel them and fight them. It has been well over 2 years since I took on such a fight and I'm now battling all over again. My heart is too big and too fragile that I continuously tell God I can't do this anymore. I find myself at a total surrender lately and when I sit to talk with God, I quickly fade away. I'm convinced there is purpose behind this though. I refuse to believe that He has abandoned me because in His word, He says He will never leave nor forsake me. In my weakness, I know He is strong. He is the reason I can still breathe, I can still function, and the reason I can still believe in at least something changing soon.

To end my day three, I attended chapel with one of my closest friends and on our walk there, I told him how I haven't been well. I could only manage to share a portion of what I understand is happening, but even then, I couldn't explain it enough. I have a mixture of thoughts, a mixture of fear, and a mixture of feelings. I keep thinking that this is going to cause me to lose him because I'm going to walk away. Not even because he will walk away, but because I would walk away. Out of fear, I would flee and leave him as if to run from everything so that I never had to risk my heart again. This has unexpectedly become reality for me and I'm trying so hard to figure it out and not drag him down with me.

None of this is anyone's fault. I see all of my friends with care in their eyes and I only want to keep this between God and me. Although the truth is leaking, I know that in the end I will feel stronger. At least, this is where I put my hope. It is so easy to question myself, "Will I ever overcome this? Will this always bother me?" The root of my fear is something that has never been proved wrong. It is something that now haunts me in my dreams, causes anxiety, and sucks me dry when I think about it. This is the reality of spending all these years never understanding why I have that ability to love nonetheless and risk everything in hopes that it won't hurt someday.

I pray that God will return to me. I pray that I can feel Him again. I pray that He can take this fear away. I'm not sure how long I can endure, but I trust that He is there, even when it doesn't feel that way. I cling too much to my dream. I don't know how not to. It feels like the same thing has been attacking me ever since I turned 18. It's been about six years since I haven't fought what I now fight. I'm not sure what God is doing. I'm not sure how He can use this for good. But I hope and pray He will.

Solitude: Day Two.

This day possible marks the worst day. I wish I didn't have to say that, but it's true. It started off in tears while my heart became fearful. I still got ready for class and grabbed my backpack before heading off to campus. Once I got near the trolley stop, I ignored it and continued to walk because I was early and I needed the solitude of walking. I kept feeling like tearing up, feeling afraid, feeling attacked. As I walked and got close to the further campus, I began to question whether I should actually attend class or solve what's going on inside of me.

By the time I got there, I tried contacting my mom and sister to feel better. I sent myself a voice message note to talk it out as well, and then gave up on actually attending class. I eventually talk with my mom on the phone as she attempts to lift me up and encourage me. I get on the trolley and head back home. At this point, I really want to escape to my actual home with my mom and sister. I felt disconnected to everything here. In fact, it was the scariest feeling to have.

I tried to use up this alone time to speak to God, to figure out what a solution could be. I began to realize that I could not feel God at all. I felt like He abandoned me in my situation that I struggled with and left me to fend for myself. I couldn't believe this of Him though, so I tried to ignore such thoughts and trust that something would happen. Only time could tell at this point. Once I got back to my apartment, the tears came streaming down my face and my heart physically felt unwell. How could this be happening to me?

I wanted to go home immediately. I wanted to unite with my mother and sister and be somewhere with people that have known me my whole life. These are the people who have never left me and I wanted to just be there with them because I felt so far away. I needed something more familiar, something or someone that ran deeper than the friendships I had made. Was I being attacked? Was something trying to bring me down so deep to merely suffocate me? How could this have happened mid-semester? I knew school wasn't the issue. My homework load was light compared to everyone else's. I had no midterms coming up. School was not the problem--yet I wish it was.

This fear and anxiety that hit me is real. I had to choose to fight it constantly and not give up, hoping and praying that God was somewhere out there, even if I couldn't feel Him. I took a lot of walks throughout this day. I walked everywhere I needed to go and saw two female friends when I didn't want to be alone. When I was calming down, I managed to take my journal out to the benches in my apartment complex area and write out everything going on in my head. Writing is always therapeutic for me, but so is sitting outside.

Whilst outside, a familiar face came along and this guy asked me how I was doing. I replied with honesty that I wasn't doing that well. He came over and was understanding, thinking it was schoolwork. I explained it was internal, but that I'm just taking it one minute at a time. He offers to pray for me and places his arm around me and speaks out a prayer that lifted my spirits in that moment. It felt like God showed up to remind me that He loves me and that He has not left me. Because this man had no idea what I was actually going through, his words felt like it was God Himself speaking to my heart. It made such a large difference for this guy to come up and offer prayer. Now I pray that God blesses him beyond measure because of his obedience.

The rest of the night I spent remaining calm. No more crying, decreased amount of fear, and hoping to Skype with my mom so I could see her. I missed all my classes unfortunately, but I needed to sort this out. I needed to give myself the time to breathe and continue praying. It was almost like the grief I dealt with a year in advance upon losing my dad. And although my grieving has come to a very controllable state over that, I knew that any fear that could hit me also made me wish my dad was still around.

It is crazy to think that deep and intense fear inside of us can be triggered by such tiny things. It's crazy to think that this could happen out of the blue and that we as humans could become so afraid that the entire world around us changes. It's hard to feel okay, happiness seems like its miles away, and no matter what people say, you can't feel anything good until that time passes. I can't seem to conquer this part of me, and yet I try. I have fought for years over my emotions, my feelings, my life in general. I've taken such huge risks because my heart is so big it wants to accomplish the greatest things. It wants to love the unloveable and then some. And that's the hardest part.

The closer you get to anyone, the more you risk. And the more you risk, the greater the fear becomes. And one day it might try to eat you alive and tear you down. Has God abandoned me? I do not think so. I think the fear tried to blind me from Him and close my ears to His voice. I knew only God could get me out of this pit and calling on Him is what I would do no matter how far He seemed. I have this fear of losing the people I hold close, but mainly of growing close to someone I would eventually lose to someone else. I want to hold on and yet I'm incredibly afraid of making the wrong choice. And this is what I give up to God.

For day two of attempting to practice solitude, I was definitely informed of what is going on in my heart. There is a battle. A very heavy and intense battle and it scared me quite deeply. But I pray that God will take over, make a way, and clear this fear in me. That He will open my eyes to the beauty and solution He has for me. I may not know what that is, but I do know that He has been there for me before and He is the same God who will be there for me now. As scary as it was to face this unexpected attack...I have a feeling that God will use this for good. I may have been knocked down, but I'm not dead.