Have you ever been in a place to pray and you just can’t get everything out? Have you ever been in a place where you want so badly to just let loose, let everything out, and have it out with God, but you feel yourself contain everything you really want to say and keep it nice and short and sweet?
Well, I have. A lot actually.
I’m not one of those people who sets aside a specific time to pray, I don’t know it feels too formal for me. I tend to find myself talking with God while I’m in the shower or when I first wake up in the morning and reality starts to set in over my dreams or when I’m walking to class. Usually the times in my days when I’m to myself and I have a couple minutes to not think about everything going on around me.
But I don’t know the last time I felt like I had a real conversation with God. I can’t tell you the last time I felt His presence in a time with just myself. And it’s frustrating, ya know? I feel like everyday I come to a point where I realize how alone I feel and how defeated I feel and I want so badly to feel God there with me and I want so badly to just cry to Him and let everything out.
I’ve been so frustrated that I haven’t been able to do so. It’s not like I don’t have those times that I usually talk with Him, it’s not like I don’t have anything to say. But it feels lonely, it feels fake, it feels empty. I find myself everyday asking, “Where are you, God? Am I in the wrong place?”
I’ve written many times before how I’ve realized that I’m pretty good at closing myself off. I’m good at not being attached to the things that hurt me and I’m good at not feeling the things I felt when the damage was done, and I’m pretty good at looking like I have my shit together.
I laugh at myself some mornings, the mornings when I wake up and I’m just not sure if I’m gonna make it, the mornings where I can’t wait to just be back in my bed again, and I go to the Cage and as soon as my client walks in, I feel the smile form across my face, the sweet words spewing out of my mouth, talking about how good things are when they ask how I am.
I’m so good at telling my friends that it’s okay to not be okay, that it’s okay to not have it all together or know what they’re gonna do with their life, or even what to not know what they’re gonna eat for their next meal for that matter. But I’m sure not good at doing it myself.
I mean, honestly, today was the most Monday-ish Monday in the history of Mondays. My weeks starts off pretty early with my first client at 6:30am. I spent my Sunday night trying to perfect some extra credit for Anatomy so no, I didn’t study for my test at 11, no, I didn’t attempt to start my lab due by 1. I got my two morning clients done, got my paper for anatomy printed and BOOM. The storm was in Rome. The power went out campus wide and I had just a few minutes to make it to class on time.. So I had to make a decision. Do I get wet or does my paper get wet? I think you know how this goes. I ended up in my dark anatomy classroom, dripping wet the entire lecture, cramming before my exam. This is just by 9am, so let me just spare you the time and sum it up to the fact that I spent a large amount of time laying on the ground questioning my entire life today.
I’ve been so frustrated with myself for quite a while now, wondering why I don’t feel close to God. Wondering why I feel so distant and wondering if I’m doing something wrong. And though, I wouldn’t necessarily say I was doing something wrong, but I was the one attempting to form this wedge between God and myself.
Unfortunately, I’ve found that it tends to be easier to be vulnerable with people than it is with God sometimes. Not that being vulnerable is ever easy. But I’ve been trying to talk with God like I’m not struggling. Almost like just because I’m a Christian, I feel like I shouldn’t be struggling because I have Christ with me. WRONG. And it’s so easy for me to forget that. Christ PROMISES us struggles and pain and suffering. But He also promises that he’ll be there with us, even in the valley of bones.
Lord,
I want to yell for You. I want to scream for You and then feel You come back to me. I don’t want to just know that You’re there, I want to feel You there. I also want to yell at You. I want to know why everything seems to be crumbling around me. I want to know why I feel so undeserving and defeated all the time. I want to know how to do better, how to be better. I want to find You and feel You every day when I’m dealing with my struggles and when I am losing sight of Hope. I want to know what to do with my life and with my classes and with my friends. I want to know that everything is really going to be okay. I want my friends and family to know how loved they are even when I don’t show it or say it enough. I want to do a good job, the best job I possibly can every single day and I want that to be enough. And I know this is so much to ask for and so many desires, but my heart is heavy and You are my rock. You are the light in my darkness and I’m searching for a bigger and brighter flame. Thank You for relentlessly pursuing me and loving me unconditionally even when I don’t deserve it.
In Your name I pray,
Amen