I must apologize in advance for this essay. I could delete it, I almost did. Perhaps I still shall.
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I stopped dreaming. I realized this as I sat in church yesterday.
It’s hard to feel hopeful when you no longer dream. What you conceived for your life is not this, when you look around and hate who you have become.
[It takes me a long time to learn things. I am hard-headed. ]
Perhaps, it is too much to ask? I just wanted to be significant. I imagined that I would do something amazing with my life — all those years of working on Urbana conventions, I felt I was doing something important. Now what?
Is this it? I am a mother and not that good at it, seemingly always failing my children, a wife which I will never write about, a terrible homemaker, yes I mean lazy and bad at it, an infrequent friend and missing sister, ungrateful daughter who just feels forgotten, a hobbyist-at-best photographer and a sometimes I put words together on the page and call myself a writer … Even this blog is simply an exercise in navel gazing. And here I go again.
My fight with my maker is almost daily – my depression or remission, anxiety seems constant, recovery from alcoholism, battling with the isolation, feeling only loneliness.
I know that I am foremost an ingrate. I don’t need reminders. I have so much! Four beautiful children, a home and husband and all I can think is, … I thought I would be something, more. I put these words here for what?
I feel empty. I feel useless. What purpose does my life serve? Yes, I am looking for evidence of good, any good that I do, and hope.
God is faithful to his promises. What are they, his promises? What has God promised?
I’ve already lost whatever I heard in the sermon yesterday.
He said “God’s results will look different than what we dream or imagine, what we prescribe for ourselves. The book of Isaiah is filled with a promise that wasn’t fulfilled for 700 years. God is not predictable but he is faithful. “
I am filled with longing — sick with it. Perhaps this too is the waiting of Advent.
At times, we wait just for hope. We know we are ungrateful. We know we are useless to Him. He doesn’t need us.
We are simply empty and waiting.
“In this harsh world, draw your breath in pain to tell my story.” — Hamlet
Logic & Imagination 
Empty and waiting. Reminded me of being stranded in a car without gas. Sitting there along the highway, just waiting. Then we notice a car pull over just a way back with a flat. We might not have gas. But we have legs, hands, encouragment, knowledge………. Maybe we should get out and go help. Perhaps a bit later another pulls over in front of us. The passenger gets out and vomits violently into the grass along the highway. We don’t have gas. But we have legs, hands, encouragment, and knowledge. Maybe we could take them a paper towel to clean up with.
And while we sit there we could just slump over the steering wheel and cry. Or we could keep doing good for those who stop alongside with us, for whatever reason. And isn’t this why you keep a blog?
By His Grace.
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Not even sure.
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Thought: A hero isn’t a hero because of those eternally powerful senses, muscles, or gifts. A hero is a hero because that person defys sorrow, horror, or disability, and tragedy, to reach out and accomplish things that would otherwise not be possible. A hero is the one who does what’s right regardless the lack of strength.
Sometimes I become a hero simply because I turn on the computer and start typing about the Lord, even when I feel like something less than slug poop. Even if no one notices, I did what I could to push forward what is right. And the Lord watched and remembers. No one cares, but I type. No one reads, but I type. And I don’t do it for recognition from man. I do it to leave a legacy of truth.
Just a thought.
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by the way……. I just gotta ask…….. do slugs poop? I only ask because I’ve never looked for any. But I don’t remember stepping in it either. hmmmmmmmmmmm
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No idea, but the visual in my head made me chuckle.
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Keep doing the “right” thing, work harder, serve more, others have it worse so be content–these are all typical responses. been there, done that.
They don’t help. But that’s usually all evangelicalism has to offer women.
I’m not sure if what I have to say belongs on a blog.
You [I, we] want to be significant. That’s a GOOD thing.
You [I, we] want to matter, to make a difference. And when we don’t see it happening–that hurts.
Evangelicalism tells us women are significant if we just stick to our roles (mom, wife, serving others). If you question or doubt, they tell you the problem is you, ’cause you’re not a good woman.
They are wrong. God is the one putting that desire to matter, to make a difference, in women’s hearts every bit as much as men’s. It’s not God who says that men are called to adventure and women to romance. Can’t find that in the Bible.
OF COURSE we are depressed. Evangelicalism tells us (in words) that women are equal (spiritually) to men. But it tells us (in actions, all the time, with limits and prohibitions and the need for ‘coverings’ and whatever else they insist on) that we really are second-best to men. It’s a recipe for insanity and depression.
May be you [I, we] just have to change our context and quit listening to those messages, and move on to where we can do what God calls us to, without the sinful limitations imposed on us by (some) men.
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Hard to know. Hard to know.
I think many days I am my own worst enemy.
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