I usually start these posts off with saying that I haven’t posted for a length of time. For this one it’s almost been two months. A lot happens in two months. I wrote a novel, I logistically turned 20, I had a lot of meetings, it can be said that I learned much. But those aren’t all necessarily things I want to write about right now. I think ideally I’d like to go out for a walk amidst the snowy and frozen streets in the darkness; it has a sort of calming effect I would presume. But I doubt I would be allowed and so for now, this will have to do. Tonight I write for no one because I’m sure it’s been so long that nobody checks any more. It’s a nice feeling. For those who know me, it’s a Sara bareilles and william fitzsimmons kind of night for me.
I thought the winter break would be restful or at least I had hoped dearly that it would be. But I’ve come to realize I don’t know what rest means right now. It’s been so long since I last had it that I can barely remember it. Like faint wisps. I lie on my bed and I can feel my fingers itching to touch something, reaching over for my phone. Or if not, I still have thoughts running through my mind. Logistics and administration, thoughts about the two movies I’ve watched in the last two days, knowing that I need not have watched them. But I decided to burn the time anyway. The whole semester I kept saying I was looking for rest. And yet in my prayers I’m not even sure if I asked for rest. I asked for eyes to see and ears to hear and God answered that. But did I really want rest? When you run for so long you’re not sure what it looks like to stop. I thought rest would come naturally when people started going away and I was forced back into a much more secluded environment. But instead I was received by the pandemic that is checking Facebook more often than I can remember or will admit to counting. I’m not even sure what I’m looking for on there. Most everything on there has no relationship to me. Heck, if anything it just feels fickle. And still I go to it.
I cracked open a Tozer book yesterday and a quote from another man was written there. It spoke of a man who when asked what he would do if he found out Jesus was coming back soon, his reply was that he wouldn’t change anything about what he was doing. I read that and I think about myself. What am I doing and would it change if I was told Christ was coming back in the next month. The next year. The next week. I didn’t know how to respond to myself. The immediate answer is yes. I would change it. But then the deeper probing begins. Why? What needs to change?
The reason why I’m running is probably a place to start. And this running isn’t necessarily the running of the race marked out for us as highlighted in Hebrews 12 when Paul writes. No, this is just running for the sake of running. Sometimes it aligns with the race marked out. Sometimes it’s a lap just for kicks, letting the adrenaline build up again so I never feel the drop. Ironic that earlier in the term I told somebody else to stop running from themselves. I’d still tell them that. For me, it’s not so much running from who I am and my past and my identity. For me it’s running from my future and the expectations that I inherently must deal with when looking at it. I wrote the MCAT, applied to med school partly with the mindset that it was something I’d try. Like Paul I’d start walking and I hoped God would tell me to go another route if He wanted me to. It’s really how I’d always thought of med school. Never had to go. Just would if I was given it. There were always better things to think about in the now anyway. But now I sit at a crossroads where the decision I might actually have to make in May can affect more than just me. It’s not just about whether or not I’ll go to med school or not. Whether I’ll be around for a 4th year of Health Sci. There’s a house lease that needs to be signed. And more importantly….there’s the talk of a committee position. It’s different from the bomb that was dropped in the summer of Grade 11 when my youth pastor insinuated very strongly that I’d be the chair when I was in Grade 12. I had anticipated it. It’s not like the idea was new. And in the same way, it’s not like the idea’s necessarily new here either. If anything, it’s been insinuated not by a youth pastor but by other friends this time. From there a fear creeps in. One that I haven’t necessarily let myself feel in a long time but that I was very much reminded of. How I can fail people’s expectations. How I can damage people. Oh that last one. I was recently reminded of the last and possibly the most pivotal time that I damaged somebody. More than sitting on Andy’s back in the fifth grade I damaged someone without knowing it. A few weeks back as the time slid past midnight I sat listening to two friends angrily vent with words coming out of their scarred hearts which had now built iron walls, frozen and callous. I realized how enduring the damage I dealt could have been. I thought of how to apologize, how to try and go back and say sorry again and I realized…it might very well be futile. I burned the bridge long ago hoping that they’d heal if they didn’t see me any more. see, hear, read, interact. None of it. So that feeling came back. Feeling like I could very well let people’s expectations of me down. It was catalysed by the feeling that the term has already come to a close. That the year has already ended, nominations for next year are up and what….what have you done? You came into the year so pumped and ready for men’s ministry. So full of passion and it’s not like that passion died. But it took so long to manifest didn’t it? There’s a sadness that is mixed in with the joy of growth. That it kind of took us an entire term to come to terms with our roles and how to move forward. And the forecast for next term is better but it’s already half over. In various meetings over the term we talked about what CCF was, what committee was, what my own role was, what CCF could look like. All of them good things. But all of them were spoken with the warning at the end: it’s going to take time.
So I went into my most common mechanism. Make yourself less worth of it and then, just maybe, you’ll never have to deal with the calamity of damaging someone. I mean that’s what I did for dating relationships isn’t it? Or at least I tried. If I become a bit gross, not bother to be fashionable, and just overall unappealing then no girl will like me and I’ll never have to deal with unintentionally breaking someone’s heart. It’s a little different with not wanting people to nominate me or expect that of me. I still don’t know what I’ve really been doing. I think for myself I let myself become lazy. Lazy with devos. Lazy with sitting in the presence of the Lord and being still. And how ironic that I was running away. My heart has been in misalignment for quite some time though I’m glad that it hasn’t fallen so far away that it no longer feels tugs from the Lord. Because I feel them every day. I just…sometimes don’t know how to go to them. The feeling of disappoint almost pervades into just about everything. For the second time in a row I failed to be a good BHSc Buddy. I couldn’t even schedule one meet up with them, my messages over Facebook in hopes of getting a common time came out empty. Feeling like I didn’t pour into my DG enough this term, going to Tuesday nights sometimes wholly unprepared. Not knowing what I was doing for a good number of DGL meetings and hoping that Matt had it covered. Not being able to make it out to a bunch of prayer meetings and despite trying to see them, still feeling wholly disconnected from my year. Not putting nearly as much effort as I should into leading Pneumatos, feeling completely at a loss for that ministry because it doesn’t feel like my own and yet it has been given to me. Seeing Evangel pretty much have to remind us every time to do things even though he’s supposed to have passed the torch down to us. Seeing rifts in the house and being unable to do anything about it because I’m not even supposed to know. And yet I still see God’s grace in it all. I see that despite me the DGL meetings haven’t been altogether bad, that the men enjoyed simply seeing each other. Hoping the DG feels pushed. So there’s the knowing that God has been working still despite myself and for that I am joyful. And yet I still carry a burden that I was not enough. And moving forward…I don’t know how to reconcile them. It’s not my first time with the thoughts. I just haven’t let myself wrestle in a long time.
I’m like an older son who keeps telling his father that he’ll go into the house. But for the longest time he hides out in the bushes, hides under the porch, gets as damn close to the door as possible but doesn’t go in yet. He looks absolutely FOOLISH and he knows it. but he won’t go in yet.
I was told in November in reference to my birthday banner that I was much loved. I don’t argue that. But I also feel a fear that I could do more damage than good. And right now…it’s kind of crippling. It’s been said and read that perfect love drives out fear. I’m still getting there right now.
The Unforced Rhythms of Grace 