Affirmation / Negation

There's a balance, a scale.

On one side: "Life is great! Things are looking up!"

On the other side: "Life sucks! This is never going to get any better!"

And I'm pushing down on the good side.

But all the while I'm sitting on the other side.


Church is happening now and I'm at home. I never know how far into the service I'll make it before I can't take it anymore and have to leave. Today I made it to the second song. Sometimes I get as far as the offering, or even the sermon and Communion. I don't remember the last full service that I made it through--I guess it was a few weeks ago when I was on the worship team (blah). I've had rehearsals and gigs the last couple Sundays, too, so that was a welcome excuse not to make it to church at all.

I feel like God has been pouring out blessings in my life this last month or so--the tangible, easy to grasp kind of blessings. Good time spent with friends, some great music, fun movies, cool art, even a bit of unexpected French. I also have a biweekly Sunday brunch + book club with a few guys from church, which is very much a blessing.

But there are other things. Unresolved things for which I don't have any hope for resolution anytime soon. Things I don't feel like I can talk about with anybody (including my pastor), for various reasons. And so I dread Sundays:

Step 1: Go to church.
Step 2: Get overwhelmed and freak out.
Step 3: Leave early and come home.
Step 4: Have a one-sided, closed-minded, lie-believing, self-defeating screaming match with God.
Step 5: Settle down and breathe again.

"The gift is not like the trespass." Christ's work is greater than Adam's (and my) sin. But these days I have a tendency to turn the lesser gifts and blessings into curses. Much worldly sorrow.

Music is one of my lifelines, for sure, my current drug of choice. (TV, too--as I wrote on our fridge with some magnetic poetry words: "TV is my junk anesthetic")

People are reaching out to me. God is speaking comfort and conviction and truth from a variety of sources. I just don't really want it right now. Or I want it to sound a little different--on my terms. I'm still angry, and bitter, and hurt, and broken, and sad, and afraid, about those aforementioned things. Things that feel insurmountable, too big for Jesus to make right, at least anytime soon. My daily reality is more defined by my pain than by my Redeemer. I'm not letting go and getting over it. I don't really want to engage with God. I don't want to read Scripture. I don't want to pray. I am being willful, stubborn, and self-destructive, and my focus isn't on Jesus.

But I'm like a runaway child who can only run as far as the next block, and then he just sits there, wondering what to do next. Too much is true for me to abandon my faith. Too much feels hypocritical and painful for me to feel like I have a place in this community anymore.

But my self-righteousness is a false shelter. I do want things to get better, and there are moments when I feel my hard heart melting. But then certain triggers will just re-open the wounds, and I don't want to do the work of paying it down over and over and over again. Looking back on the last couple years, I couldn't have planned it to be more messy than it is. It's uncanny.

But really, the historical details aren't the most important part. The question is whether or not I believe that God loves me deeply deeply, that Jesus is everything that I need, that grace is there for the healing. I do have some hope that God's pursuing love will save me, set me free. But I think it will be a very bumpy road, and so in the meantime...?

Taking a break...

I think I'll be taking a bit of a break from this space for the time being. There are probably a few things that I could say, but nothing pressing. I'll just process for a little while and chime back in at some point. Peace.

Your mistakes and your crimes...

...it hurts just to mention
Feel abandoned and alone in desert land
But every mess is a fruit that's ripe for redemption
If you only leave the harvest in his hands.


I'm starting to believe those last couple lines not just in the abstract, but in specific ways for my life. Something of a breakthrough. I tend to remember a lot of things really well, which can certainly be a good and useful thing, of course, but it can also mean holding on tightly to hurts and guilt and all that fun stuff. I'll leave it at that. Just to say that the long-term forecast is actually starting to look more than ok. God's ultimate victory over sin and death and darkness is already secured for us in Jesus Christ. Beautiful. Eric Peters has a song called "The Ending" (on his "Miracle of Forgetting" and "Bookmark" albums) that reminds me of this truth:

I want to know why we fall so hard
And why hope for tomorrow can seem so far away

Don't say it's over when the world's gone mad
I've seen the ending and it's not so bad
Don't say it's over when you lose your heart
'Cause the ending is where we start


Lent was a really good and fruitful time in terms of delving into Scripture, morning quiet times and evening writing times. I don't really know why, but since Easter it's been a pretty dry season, and I've just been riding it out this past month. But I feel like there's a renewing coming now, remembering and knowing that I am here to spend time with God, and what a true joy, peace, and comfort that can be. God's Kingdom breaking into my false little fortress. Thank God. I've had the U2 song "40" (off their "War" album) ringing in my head last night and this morning:

I waited patiently for the Lord
He inclined and heard my cry
He brought me up out of the pit
Out of the miry clay

I will sing, sing a new song
I will sing, sing a new song

How long to sing this song...


I read that psalm this morning and this was one of the verses that resonated--"my iniquities have overtaken me, and I cannot see; they are more than the hairs of my head; my heart fails me." I've definitely had a lot of heart failure of all sorts these last few months and weeks, reaping the fruit of my iniquities, falling down in repentance. And yet, there is ever and always God's steadfast love and faithfulness, His mercy, His grace.

I can wait. I think. I hope. God help.