I started a timeline since all this but it's proving to be harder than I expected. It's mostly for me, and partially for posterity's sake, and so I'll work on it again tomorrow.
So, I'm really struggling. I haven't let myself just let it out and weep, mostly because the handful of times it has come up as a possibility the timing just is horrible. And also I probably have always bottled things up in this way my whole life and just use circumstances to make convenient excuses. I don't have any real perspective on the past few weeks (hence trying to make a timeline). But I know the lack of real human contact is already wearing heavily on me, and I have at least the rest of this month to look forward to having more of the same nothing. Between my extroversion and my physicality this is pretty much hell on earthfor me . I have two days off and I'm already itchy because I know I have very little to do tomorrow and Wednesday will be ok because I will be able to keep busy with things to do for church for most of the time I'm awake but am I ready to accept that that really is the existence I will have to embrace for at least a few weeks?
My brain has lots of great things to offer:
God is in control.
This is temporary.
There's more to life than just the immediate circumstances.
You've been through difficult times before.
Isolation is not what it seems.
Perceived lack is often a lie.
God is your portion.
Unfortunately at the moment my heart just doesn't have the right currency to buy any of it.
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From The Journal of Biblical Counseling 29:3 (2015), an article by Pierce Taylor Hibbs entitled "Panic and the Personal God"-
There is a problem, however. . . we don’t always recognize God’s presence in creation. . . even though we are personal beings who were made by a personal God and live in God’s personal world, our sin blinds and deafens us. It alienates us and makes us feel like the world is cold and when God speaks creation into existence, he marks it with his presence. We need the Spirit to remove the scales from our eyes, to unstop our ears, to loosen our tongues, to help us recognize that every part of the world is marked by the presence of a personal God. . . All are comprised of molecules and minerals created by God. And all these things are intrinsically personal because they were made and are sustained by the tripersonal God of the Bible. God never leaves us with only water and waves. When anxiety and panic creep into your mind and heart, remember that God speaks to you…everywhere. Look around. Every fiber of creation is a gift personally designed by God for his children. A rock, a window, a car, a couch cushion—they all exist because of the God who knows your name. The whole world is filled with objects that point back to him. That God, your God, is everywhere, personally present in what he has made. That means he is with you and me, even when we feel as if we are by ourselves. And he is with us not just through the things that he has made. He also communicates to us in Scripture and he invites us to communicate with him in prayer.
So. . . I'm gonna go for a walk.
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