Here is what I want:

To make decisions and not cause confusion.

And I can do this.

Here I go.

Feeling Distant and Choosing to Listen.

I have been thinking a lot about listening to God and about how He speaks to us. Recently I have honestly been feeling like I can't hear His voice. So often I get caught up in thinking, "Well, if God WANTS me to do something, He will make it clear."

...but what if He doesn't make anything clear?

Better question: what does God Making Things Clear even look like?

And that is what I have been thinking about. For SO long I have lived my life sitting back, more or less just expecting good things to happen to me because "God Loves Me". And I am not saying He doesn't. But I have not played an active role in my own life. And Donald Miller does an excellent job of explaining my reasoning for not being an active participant in his book "To Own A Dragon", (which is about boys growing up without fathers, but as a DM disciple, I read it and found much of it applicable). He basically explains the feeling of not feeling invited to participate in life. Life wasn't for us, it was for other people to succeed in. We are not wanted by life, so we just remove ourselves from the picture. This leads to overflowing inboxes of unresponded to emails and sitting around. doing. nothing. Probably living in the fear that if we tried something we would fail, so why try.

But this year I realized that just sitting back doing nothing wasn't getting me where I wanted to go (I know, it's basically rocket science). So I swung the complete opposite direction and took matters into my own hands. And in many many ways, it has been very beneficial. I have begun to learn my place in this world and exactly what I have to offer and contribute. I am learning how to be balanced. I do chores now, my reading for school, AND spend time with friends. I have gained self esteem as a writer. I am still afraid of failing, but at least I have tools now instead of feeling helpless.

But as I have done this, I have stopped discussing things with God. I have been full speed ahead, just bursting through walls and slaying giants on my own. But as the year comes to a close, I am faced with many options, some that I like and others that I don't, with new boy situations, leadership opportunities, family issues and situations in friend's lives, I am at an overall general loss of what to do.

I feel distant from God. I don't know how to hear Him these days. I am at my wits end depressed by any means. It has just been so long since I simply sat, and listened. So I think that is what I am going to go and do right now.

Psalm 46:10 "Be still and know that I am God."

Passion::Wise

I feel things rather intensely and I tend to make snap judgments based on very little information. It can come off as abrasive, but even if I don't have all the information, I can tend to be right about a lot of things (in a formulaic sort of way). I like people. I observe them and I feel like I have a good barometer for people's tendencies. Of course there is always more to a situation than meets the eye...and I am just now learning to sit in the uncertainty instead of going with my snap judgment...even though in the end my snap judgment might be true. I have to force myself to sit in the process to see what else might be there. I skip a lot of lessons in life by always wanting a bottom line.

But as I force myself to sit, I feel like I am deadening a vital part of me. Making snap decisions and moving quickly is what makes me feel alive. I continually want to move on. I have begun to see the benefit of sitting in one place a little longer than I might like, but it is this deadening inside that I do not like. Because sitting in one place is unnatural for me at the moment, I am continually making a cerebral decision and forcing myself to stay. I am choosing to not listen to my instincts. I am putting to death a part of me...a dysfunctional part of me, but a part of me no less. And I feel this deadening of intensity that so often rules my life is deadening the good aspects of my intensity as well. And I don't want that. I am unsure how to be balanced in this. I want to be passionate, but I want to be wise as well. Hmmm, I feel like I have never before seen those two words used in such close proximity to one another. But that is what I want.

How do I do that?

An Attempt to Be Non-Dramatic

I think the reason I dislike all of this so much is that it makes me question myself. I never know if what I am doing is too much, or not enough, appropriate or inappropriate. And talking about everything ruins the fun, the mystery. And than I sit here worried I have done something wrong while all of my friends tell me to stop freaking out.

*sigh*

It's enough to push it away and say no thanks, I am better off alone.

it is 7:34 and you are at Chick-Fil-A. I think thats how you spell it at least. I never really understood how to spell the name of that place. I think I have only been there like...well, I could probably count all the times on one hand. But anywho, their food is over priced and you are there.

Whitney is singing in the bathroom right now..."dreams last for so long, even after you're gone"...I don't know this song. She was singing a song I knew earlier and I was peeling paint off my door. I sang along. She is supposedly getting ready for the gym, but she has not left yet...what is she doing? I don't understand. Haha, she just hit a bad note and make a funny noise.

Blah blah blah, Whitney told me to blog about this because "It will be funny one day". Well future me, are you laughing?

My nose is runny. Whit wants me to text her updates...I dont think that is going to happen.

You just called. I like that your friends want to hang out with me. K, gotta go!

The Castle

The concept of being fully known is very strange to me. It is apparently man's deepest desire. Yet, I don't feel I struggle with this very much. I have a few friends who know me VERY well, and I am always trying to know people as well as I can in the time I am given. I feel I deal with this "deep desire all men share" quite well. Better than most even. In fact, knowing people is probably my favorite thing of all. I live for figuring out why a person is quiet in one situation and not in another, why they seem uncomfortable here but not there. What makes them laugh. People fascinate me. I maintain that one reason I don't watch much TV is because I have real life to observe! There are so many types of people and so many ways to do things and things to be passionate about, and I want to understand it all. It's all so much bigger than me. I don't want to miss anything.

But maybe in the midst of trying to know everyone, I AM missing something. Maybe there is a deeper level I have not gotten to. I am sure there is. In fact, I know there is. (Everyone TELLS me there is at least.) There is a good chance that soon I will be embarking on a journey of getting to know one person, very well. And that is new and very uncertain territory for me. Because just as I get to know him, he will be getting to know me. And that's terrifying. That's putting all your eggs in one basket...aren't we advised to NEVER do that? But it appears we must. This whole area of life is completely foreign to me. And in my humble opinion, I have done very well without it thus far. I am sure it helps that I don't really know what I am missing out on. There are all sorts of concerns, fears, apprehensions...and it goes both ways. I want this to work, what if I find out about something I don't like about him?? Ha, but this is the way it goes, so I'm told. And I can't just avoid it forever.

It is time for the castle that is me, that I have spent twenty two years painstakingly building, to get to know its neighbors...that apparently want to get to know me too.

Wish me luck.

Answer: until I accept that no matter what, I did my best and the rest is up to Him.

List of things to do:
-Figure out how to do "best"

Sometimes I wonder how long I'll be scared.

Time

Time is a very interesting thing and I tend to be afraid of it. My therapist is trying to get me to slow down, but I perpetually feel like there is so much to be done, how can I possibly get to it all?

I am reading a story for school about a blind man who receives his sight at the age of 50. It talks about how blind people measure distance in the time it takes to get there. People with vision measure distance by the markers we pass along the way. Once this man gained his sight he would stumble a lot because he didn't know how to utilize his new found spacial perception. I thought this was so interesting. Especially considering this is what Jesus does in the bible- just gives a man his sight. Could this man judge distance afterward?

@Jonathonforeman - "Time is the longest distance between two places." -Tennessee Williams