Heart Issues

Do you ever feel like you have so many thoughts and presently-processing knowledge, that you can't even stop to "unpack" (borrowed) them, because you have no idea where to start. It's like staring at a merry-go-round, or a revolving door, that's revolving at such a speed, you feel as if you can't get on, or in. You could, but you don't really want to. Then again, you do, but it would take a lot of effort. You don't have time. Just let it spin.


But if you don't take time to process, and "unpack," and regurgitate and release, then how will you grow and take the next step, and build on what's reeling inside of you?


You won't. At least, I don't think you will. I know so little, it's hard to tell.


Thoughts that you've been graced and blessed with from someone who's made themself available and dedicated their life to being a tool to reach others. Thoughts that are in turn generated from that shared knowledge. Thoughts that you glean from a book, and post-analysis afterthoughts. Thoughts that you heard on Sunday from additional dedicated life lines.


Sorting through these thoughts isn't technically my problem. I'm a note taker, and that allows me to go back and study the thoughts and meditate on them and conduct further research and add to the initial information. It's implementing them. It's taking that knowledge and those thoughts and actually implementing them. And then making that stick.

It's like studying for finals, and then forgetting most of what you studied and learned, not too long after. That's where practicing what you've learned comes in (light bulb).


Also, on a seemingly unrelated topic, though tightly intertwined to me, why has it, in my personal experience, taken me so long to even begin to understand God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. What my relationship is intended to be with them. Why I was created. What Jesus dying on the cross really meant, and means each day. And, I still don't completely understand it. I'm starting to. I'm starting to get it. But I'm 28 years old.


I feel like my eyes are opening to new light, but it's taking several years for them to open completely for various reasons. Does that make sense? Probably not. I feel like I'm finally standing inside a circle, but my back is up against a wall of it, and I haven't taken any steps yet, but I'm taking in everything I can and trying to process it.


Situation. I recently, within the last year or so, experienced some very incredible things. I felt closer to God, in relationship and understanding and communication, than I can ever recall. I didn't feel like temptation had a hold of me. I didn't care about my old self. I couldn't get full. I stepped out in certain ways, but not on my own; it was a meek boldness that came from belief and purpose and love and relationship.


Then I fell. Really, it was more of a trip at first; a stumble. Like if you were waving at someone, and not paying attention, and then tripped over a curb. Just a trip that humans repeatedly make. But that stumble, without any premeditation, led me away from my security, my accountability and my need, and it led to me falling. The fall of course was my choice, by that point. But instead of getting back up, dusting myself off, repenting and walking back up to solid ground, I just rolled on down to what felt like a muddy pit.


I turned and walked away from God, rather than towards Him. I saw Him as being disappointed in me. I didn't know that "His joy in me wasn't based on my shortcomings." What an immense blessing.


But it seems that whenever I "fall" or stumble, I tend to roll in it. Suffer. Be punished. And that only worsens my situation. My purpose becomes marred in my eyes.


I've been afflicted in this way for so many years. Years of guilt, self-induced shame, beating myself nearly to death for sin and transgressions I followed through with; some of which bled into the person I regretfully still am to an extent. I find myself wanting to sink below the surface; wanting to bury myself with my sin; wanting to lie in the wet, muddy mire that I landed in time and time again, after I climbed back up the landslide. The foundation I was climbing, and still climb, after falling from making bad decisions, was like the hill dividing the soccer field and the practice field in high school, when it rained. It would become completely saturated with water. Your cleat would sink several inches into the unsolid ground and partially stick when you moved forward. It required double the strength to pull your foot forward to climb up that hill, because your cleat would have rather become entangled with the heavy, dead grass and just sink in and become saturated as well. Causing you to fall back down the hill into the accumulation of water and mud at the hill's foot.

Why is it that I feel the need to punish myself? Because I know I've done something wrong. Maybe, sadly, it makes me feel better. Why is it seemingly so difficult to hate the behavior and actions that can torment us, and lead to us being an ugly person? The things that can own us?

I also tend to keep attempts at sanctification to myself - here and there. Fear of embarrassment; uncertainty of peers and loved ones' thoughts; no longer fitting into some of the circles I am ingratiated in and have been for the majority of my life; fear of failure; fear of becoming a hypocrite. I can hardly type that word. It's haunting, accusatory tone can do great detriment to my mind and soul and in turn my everything.

I'm constantly, mostly subconsciously, wondering what people think about me. Someone who can be one way, and then another. I don't like people like that, yet I am like that. It's hard to truly believe that it doesn't matter what people think. It's hard to believe that when you have life-long friends that have known you so long.


So many thoughts. This turned out to be more of a confession of sorts; an airing of laundry; maybe a crying out for accountability.

I think I'll attempt to be as porous as possible, with hopes that every word of each medium I'm seeking out, and reading, and listening to, will saturate me and begin to fill me. I'm sure I'll be pecking away with another regurgitation to help me digest, sooner than later.