rant-(ish)

Oh Africa. Why why why WHY will you not leave me alone? Why do I think about it so much? I want to go back so badly, but why? I have no clue if I'm "called" there or if I should just do something around here for the people there. I love telling people about it....is that what I should do with my so-called passion for the people of SL? I don't know. I know that I want to go back, but I don't know when or how or who I should go with or WHY. Brutal. I see pictures, I hear stories, I talk to people, and I just get so passionate about it. It's weird, because I kind of hated it when I was there, yet I loved it at the same time. I was just in the weirdest mental state ever...and now that I'm sort of normal (ish), I just get so fired up when I hear about SL. Who knows?

Valentines Day is tomorrow. Part of me wants to be all girly and pink and giggly and retarded and freak out about flowers or chocolate or a teddy bear, the other part of me wants to go emo and wear black and be moody and cynical and write a poem about how I'm all alone. Neither one of those would be true, I'm not alone in any way shape or form, and neither of those two people is me. Common sense says that I should do neither and just let it pass without going to either extreme of my split personality. Random!

I had a kind of revelation today. It's ok to feel like crap. :) Like I'm never getting anywhere or changing at all or that my life is hard. It really is hard....like REALLY tough right now. It is a lie that I'm never going to change, etc...but it's alright to be bummed out once in a while. God doesn't expect us to be happy all the time. Joy isn't faking it and never telling anyone that you're really truly deeply struggling and that you cry almost every day. Hurting openly in the presence of God is one of the scariest, most vulnerable and beneficial thing EVER...and it's ok. :) It's ok it's ok it's ok. I need some sort of tape recorder playing that in my ears all day. It's ok.

It's actually an odd sort of relief to learn to hurt before God and sometimes others. It's weird to say that learning to actually let myself hurt and feel something and identify that feeling is GOOD....or even amazing and wonderful and comforting. Try it sometime. Tell God how you actually feel. You'd be surprised how many people don't do this and end up not even knowing how they really feel. And "feeling" isn't just some lame cliche counseling thing. God gave us emotions for a reason and they indicate what's really REALLY happening in us.

This time around the hardness cycle (whatever that is) I also have more of a hope than I did before. My desires and pains and hopes and disapppointments and fears are still there and pretty much the same as always, but I'm beginning to have hope. I read a book for my Women of Faith class. It's called Shattered Dreams by Larry Crabb and I wanted to throw it at the wall. :) BUT it's SOOOOO good. It talks about pain and the purpose/good of having pain. I hated it because it meant that pain WILL happen....I can't avoid it...It goes so far as to say that I SHOULDN'T avoid it. I hate that. But the whole focus of the book is how God works through pain and "shattered dreams". In alot of ways I feel like I'm in the midst of a shattered dream or two, but I am starting to see that hope that comes from perserverance start to come through the pile of rubble that is my heart. It's totally incredible, but so super scary at the same time.

I'm also learning about communication right now. Communication and how much I SUCK at it. :) Ha. That sounds brutal, but I really do. I'm so afraid of feeling anything and therefore afriad of TELLING someone that I feel something. Articulating my feelings and thoughts is ridiculously hard for me, and I'm starting to see why....and that's SOOOO hard, but SOOOOOOOOOO good. God is taking me on this ridculous and scary and incredible and rough and crazy and unreal journey...and I have to give myself credit for what I really am learning. Which I also have a hard time with, but I will NOT go into that now.

My roommate really opend up to me the other day, which is a huge answer to prayer and encouragement. My sort of long-lost cousin came over for supper last night and is asking about church and we laughed and played and talked together. I have a few people that I trust and can talk to. I AM changing. My brother talks to me. And I'm learning to feel and hurt and be honest about it. Praise God.

*Caitlin