So come to realize that things have gotten out of hand again; I had my entire life--or at least enough of it to seem like my entire life--planned out again, and how hollow and unsatisfying it was. Or maybe the problem is rather that it was entirely too satisfying. I wrote it down in my notebook during Methods--that's how eerily planned out it was:
- Graduate from Hardin-Simmons in December of 2010 with a bachelor's (BBS) in theology and a Spanish minor and get a job as a youth minister, or some other steady one in the church, or at least find a steady job relating to the Spanish minor.
- Get married in March or April of 2011 and move with Aaron to wherever he wants to finish school, where hopefully I'll have the steady job mentioned in point 1.
- Rinse and repeat. (?)
So my life has been reduced to a set of instructions that could be printed on the back of a spiritual shampoo bottle. And the scary thing is that the idea that I have to be Uberchristian--the perfect Christian--has reared its ugly head once again and caught me hook, line, and sinker without my noticing it until now. Because while going through points 1 through three, I'm also supposed to: have perfect doctrine, apply it perfectly in my life, have perfect Christian discipline all the time and be perfectly content with it.
Where the hell has life gone?
In finding my life--in planning it all out--I lost it--the freedom to live in Christ, here and now, to enjoy the life that God has given me. Somehow I started clinging once again to the idea of the Uberchristian, that I'm 100% perfect 100% of the time or I'm no Christian at all.
Good lord. It's the Emily Miculkaitis flaring up again.
That is the exact language of Emily Miculkaitis. I can point you, or myself for that matter, toward things I wrote in freshman and sophomore years of high school that say exactly the same thing: "I feel like I have to be 100% perfect 100% of the time." And I had so discounted the Emily Miculkaitis since WorldChangers, thinking that I'd defeated it once and for all, that it never even appeared on the radar as the source of these problems. Aw, crap.
Well, at least once you see something for what it really is, it no longer has any power over you. Funny thing, deception. When you realize that you're being deceived, you're not deceived anymore.
1 comment:
ok but look here--
what your plan looks like to me is just like a foundation to build on. a skeleton if you will. not the whole shabang like your wedding venue, where your kids will go to school, the parties you'll have with all your facinating chums every friday, the children your children will carpool with, etc.
I mean honestly, there is no shame in planning and hoping for the future. Stabbing around in the dark and trying to follow blindly and taking things as they come is not really the same as Living... or at least I don't see that it does. Maybe God has given you insight to these things because it'll help you in the long run. And maybe Living is happening without you aknowledging it as Living because your mental state has been transformed. Maybe what you "think" Living should be is not what Living is at all and why you are/were giving yourself an emotional concussion. It's like you were saying before--and don't worry I do it too--you're going to find something to worry/be upset about no matter the circumstance. Maybe this is no different.
But...I know it's not as simple as that. And bear with me, I know I can't possibly have all the answers, but here goes: In realizing the freedom you have in Christ, you are free. You can't be unfreed, or enslaved. You can't unthink it. Kind of like when you realize that your parents must have had sex for you to exist. It's there, no going back. And as you say, you're not deceived anymore. Furthermore, I don't see your need to plan and poke around as a need to be perfect. Wait crap I'm confusing myself.
GAHHHHHHHH! CRAP!
What I'm trying to say is that you ARE LIVING. CARING ABOUT THE FUTURE DOES NOT MAKE YOU SEPARATED FROM GOD. Do you mean that like by not listening for his perfect holy will and making your own plan that you are submitting to your own sinful Emily Miculkaitis ways? Really now. Aaron is in your life for a reason, as am I, and it's not just so that we can be dumb and buy treats at 7-11 and make you happy even though it's inevitable obviously because we're awesome. Having this kind of insight is....what the hell I don't know. Maybe God wants you to have a general plan. and that is all it is. Notice that it always seems to stop in about 2013 or so. That's just four years or so. The problem isn't the plan...the problem is worrying about it. I mean, you kind of shed a lot of your previous thoughts about finding a man and you wound up with Aaron. But now we're back at square one which is like...give up all notions about the future, what should happen, etc. and LIVE
but you're scared crapless because in planning you're not living
aw fuck it I don't know. I was going to go to bed a long time ago...so now I'm just stuck in a tangled mess of thoughts that only halfway make sense when I offer chocolates to them which is not very often because my brain barely has enough energy to think about those tangles let alone offer them brain chocolate.
so
yeah.
hopefully this made a little sense.
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