When I woke up this morning, I knew I would write at some point today. Mostly because I think everything has been building up lately. Not the good kind of building up, though. Like the building anticipation right before summer or as your car is approaching the beach on a sunny July morning. No, this is the bad kind. The kind like the pile of clothes in your room that you should put away or at least wash and just never get around to. Or the kind like looking at the trash in your kitchen that just keeps piling up and you know you should take it out, but you can think of a million things you'd rather do than take out that rank garbage bag.
And the more disgusting it gets, the less inclined you are to remove it, to deal with it. So it just kind of sits there, getting bigger and stinkier and more obtrusive. If you're lucky, you live alone and no one's screaming at you to take the trash out. But more often than not, SOMEONE is telling you it needs to get dealt with.
Finally, enough time passes and you go to throw out a banana peel or coffee grounds and the avalanche begins. The next thing you know, you're muttering profanities under your breath as your cleaning up this mess you created and you're FORCED to deal with your garbage.
This is the place in which I find myself. And it is, indeed, all my garbage.
When I woke up this morning, I sent a text to my boyfriend about how I felt like my life was "spiraling out of control" and I didn't "know what was happening to me". The longer I lied in bed, the more depressing my thoughts became. So in a moment of will power, I threw myself out bed, marched downstairs and began my morning routine of showering and getting ready for work. I had thought about indulging in an hour or two of a new book I had recently purchased and immediately rejected the idea knowing full well I couldn't just sit at home today.
By the time I got to work I realized that for the past two months, I had been allowing my circumstances to dictate my attitude and not vice versa. I suppose our attitude can't always change our circumstances, but there are opportunities and I have been wasting them.
So I think today I decided to take out the garbage and finally air out my kitchen. Spring is here and I think (while my room in reality is in dire need of a Spring cleaning) it is time to Spring clean my heart and spirit and mind. For whatever reason, I've allowed junk to collect and clutter all of them and because of that, I can't focus on things I either need to be or want to be focusing on.
There are many things I have been my whole life: a liar, a thief, a whore, and a hypocrite. My choices and my decisions. There is one thing I have never allowed myself to become however, and that is a victim. I am not someone who has to or will sit back and watch myself get tossed around by life, getting beat down by situations around her. When life has gotten tough, I've always gotten tougher, gotten stronger. Because no one is going swoop in on a noble steed and set everything right for me. Jesus isn't going to open up the Heavens and make my life full of sugar plums and gum drops.
He already paid the ultimate price for Freedom, for Joy, for Love. So when I'm letting life or whatever is happening in my life get me "down", when I'm letting my circumstances gain a victory over my Joy, I'm in all truth telling Him the sacrifice just wasn't enough.
This is an everyday process--this choice of Joy over depression and victimization. A process I was much better at not too long ago, but I know why it is that I've forgotten for the same reason that I forgot that Ray loves me. When you spend your time elsewhere, when you invest your heart in places that are far from God, from your best friend or your love, you forget the truth about those things.
So if I'm not digging on a daily basis into that Truth and life is rearing its ugly head to sneer at me, and the father of lies is doing a bang up job of killing, stealing, and destroying, who really is to blame? Is it right for me to then turn around and shake my fist at a "cruel, unforgiving God" and blame Him for everything that isn't right? To me, it is the equivalent of someone giving you gifts that you didn't really even ask for, let alone deserve, and then someone else comes along and destroys them or ruins them or steals them or hides them, and instead of getting angry at the person who has done the damage, you turn in anger and bitterness toward the gift giver, uttering profanities and spitting malice.
In what way, shape, or form does that make any sense?
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?
If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your
children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to
those who ask him!" (Mtt. 7:7-11)
I think all that I'm saying is instead of shaking my fist at the sky, why not decide to put all that anger to good use? Instead of shaking my fist at the sky, why not use it to bang on the gates of hell and demand penance for the death of children, the genocide of races and peoples, the reign of terror over peace, and the spread of intolerance and hate?
If I've learned anything in the past 22 years, it's that my God is not a God of chaos, anarchy, hate, or malice. He is many things, but sadistic is not one of them. I think that if maybe we stopped pointing fingers at each other, even at Him, and started warring with the one who is really to blame, or even ignoring him all together and just really LOVING people! Maybe things would change. Maybe things would make more sense.
It's become a trite message: to love one another as you love yourself, or do unto others as you would have them do unto you. But I believe maybe if we actually lived this, humans that is, not just Christians (who should be more aware of and more concerned and more proactive about this than most, but are not, myself included)... The fact of the matter is if we lived that way, it would change people, cities, and nations. It would change the world.
The fact of the matter is this will never be so because at the end of the day, my justice and my penance will be sought and found in the blood of humans, of my kin. That is the mentality and thought process that governs this planet, that governs me. That I am #1 on my list and anyone who insults or attacks or hurts #1 is going to get theirs. Because why be governed by self-control and selflessness when I can be the happiest little nihilist in my nubilous bubble?
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