I See Blue Skies

How do you tell the truth without telling too much? I want to be known but I don’t want to feel like I’m asking for pity either. I don’t want pity. I want life, and life more abundant, and I want you to be a part of it.

For so long I lived in a world of grey, surviving one day after another. Days and weeks and years flowing together in an apathetic blur. Life lived in a haze of not really feeling and not really caring. Phone calls to let me know someone I love has cancer. Hugging a family member for the last time before the bitter moment of death. Trying to open my heart to a new love but always hearing the small, but powerful voice of my anxiety saying “not too much, protect yourself.” Life was happening around me and I was in emotional autopilot. Saying the right things, doing them too sometimes. But never feeling like a human being was meant to feel.

But I feel now. So much so that sometimes I think my heart can’t stand it. How different it is that often I feel so much heartache that I just want to shut it down again, but at the same time I’m thankful that I feel anything at all. After years of being closed off in the world of the heart it’s as refreshing to hurt as it is to feel unbridled happiness. How ironic that I chose to open up my heart to the world of feelings, to be more than a logical, rational person and life decided to come after me with a swath of its fury.

Some of it I had control over. It was the result of being closed off and more a head than a heart. And some of it happened because all lives end in death eventually. There is more than one way to feel heartbreak, and I decided to walk through them with my head and heart holding hands. These days when I cry it’s for real. Like snotty nose, face soaked, get it all out cry sessions. And quite frankly I love it. Not the pain that causes it, but being able to feel bad feels so good. And these days when I laugh it’s real. It’s not just because something is funny or I’m having a good time. It’s because deep down inside I know I have a lot to laugh about and my life is not so serious that I can’t just relax and enjoy it.

I’m far from complete. I am nowhere near where I will be when Jesus gets done with me. But man this is a hell of a ride. I am in process and I love it. I love hope. And I have a lot of it. I have a psychiatrist, and a therapist, and medication, and really good friends and family, and all of these are helping me become a healthy, whole person. But more than any of those things I have a savior. He died for my sins, but he also died for my heart. To bring it alive fully. He set me free from death, but he is also raising me to new life. He tells me he loves and that he’s with me no matter what and I believe him. And because of that I can face the brutal reality that life is not always going to be nice to me, but I can soar with him through the heart of any storm, because he holds my heart and is making it new. He is binding up my brokenness.

You are not alone. No matter how lonely or empty you feel, or if you don’t feel at all. You are not alone. There are people all around you facing the same awful truth that you are; that it’s not always going to be easy and a lot of times it’s going to be downright terrible. But there is hope. Hope isn’t wishing for something to happen. It’s believing that all the pain and turmoil this life throws our way is all worth it in the end because if we let it, it draws us to the feet of Jesus. And there is no better place to be than that. So don’t let life beat you down. Talk to somebody, maybe a professional, or maybe just a really good friend. But talk to God too. He loves you. He loves me. He’s sculpting me into something new and it hurts. But he’s chipping away a lot of crap and idiocy that I’m glad to be rid of.

I don’t know how to end this. I’ve learned to accept that tension is a part of life. And I feel a lot of it after writing this. This is a little bit of my heart. I’m glad there’s more of it