It’s Sunday night, January 1, 2012, the second-to-last night of my break from work and for the holidays, in which some 8 days have slid past, and I feel frustrated.  Frustrated that I feel I didn’t accomplish anything over these days off.  Frustrated that I didn’t go snowboarding this break, like I had planned and hoped.  Frustrated at whatever it is that has made my stomach hurt for the last 4 days, and that has shortened my dance nights each of the prior 2 Friday nights. Frustrated at my inability to be productive, at feeling tired, at feeling down, at feeling hurt from rejection, at the muscle and joint pains that have been riding on me for the last month.  Frustrated at just being me.   I feel the blindest I have ever felt about living at this point in my life. Oddly, I know God loves me and that it’s His grace that drives the world.  I feel absolutely lost in the world of men, though.

These outsider feelings were underscored this morning when I went to church, and I realized how out of place I felt there.  And how I am cut off in some ways from driving deeper into who I should be in the body there because I had to leave Thursday night Living Free activities because she is there. With her abject rejection of me, her entrenchment in the Living Free leadership, and the fact that for me, going to what should be a gathering to find freedom, encouragement and hope has become the most painful event I could involve myself in during a week, I am aware that I am shut out from anything good I might experience, or contribute, to that community had this friendship not died.  And died in the way it has.  I find myself anxious to attend my own campus church, knowing that people there know her, that Living Free is growing, that I left leadership there because the pain of that broken relationship was too much for me to bear, and I wait in anxiety for the day when she comes in the door or appears featured on screen, golden and exemplary, and I have to face the fact again she decided I was not worth keeping in her life- and the fact that I loved her, and because of that she could not keep me as a friend.  The pain of my dispatch remains fresh each week as I go into the building of my church. It’s no use that I try and talk about it with anyone there anymore.  But it’s always just under the surface with me.

Watching this morning’s message, I found myself wanting to run away from the place as fast as I could, never to return.  “Too many bad memories, too many reminders, too much disappointment.”  What used to fire me up about this church now kneads my heart with pain.  And I realize, again, I am an outsider here, too.

Why do I struggle so to feel at home, at ease, at comfort in your house, with your people? I know part of the answer to that question, and it relates to whatever it is that is broken in my heart.

I love God.  I love people, as best as I can.  My experiences from the past year with her and with others within the church body here have highlighted how much I wish I was better suited to serve and to help others, and yet how limited, overlooked, insubstantial and  unimpressive I am in real life.  I am not good in relationships these days, and my recent experiences in this area tend to accentuate this flaw about me in my mind.  Relational failures. Another frustration.

God, thank you for your work and your mercy for the Mephibosheth’s among us.  My life should not be about what church I attend or how much I serve or how well I toe congregational political or organizational lines.  It is about knowing you, seeking you in your word, serving you as you lead me, and letting you shape me along the way.  You, after all, are the one who has called me out and loved me.  You are the one I owe my life to.

It’s a new year. I need to just work on walking with you, and trying.  Letting you stretch me as you lead. Dealing with my issues as you tell me to.  Bringing my stuff to you as often as needed, and trusting you to help me deal with the labor of being myself.  And loving where I must.  Lord, I am a poor lover.  Help me to remember, as she put it, “it’s not all about me.”  Well, I know it should be all about you, Father.

Help me to forget myself.  I’ll keep trying to hang in there.