The response to the last post was about what I expected it to be. Cody came up to me on the front lawn and told me that I needed to change my blog post. A couple of people posted reminders on Facebook saying such things like "God is good" and "you'll get better." One friend at camp even wrote a note telling me that God still can use me and that perhaps this is His way of knocking down my pride. I first want to say thanks to everyone who said something, either directly to me or straight to God.
But I also wanted to add something to my last post. I'm aware of what we all say when something like this happens. "All things work together for the good of those who love God and live according to His purpose." "He has a plan," "things are bound to improve," etc. And while, again, I'm thankful for the reminder, I still needed the time to process what happened to me. My part in this was to work through it and the part of everyone else in my life seemed to be to continually remind me of the Truth. I'm incredibly blessed to have people in my life who are willing to put up with my bad attitude and so glad to hear from everyone.
As I said above, my part in this was to work through it. My thought was that I was shortchanging the healing process by saying to myself that everything would be OK. I want to be honest to you and to myself. And the honest truth was what I was feeling a couple of days ago. But that snapshot is just that, a picture of me at a certain point in time. To know the real me you're gonna have to be around me and see that no matter what I put up on this blog I'm growing, that almost as soon as I put something up on this blog I've grown from it. I'm already a little better and less emotional about being hiked out, and I think part of that is the discipline of writing and the rest is time.
The other thing I want to say I've already touched on a little and it has to to with honesty. I feel that what I write in this blog has to be honest or I'm wasting everyone's time. I could just put the fluffy, happy things up and you and I would probably feel just that way about it. But when I first starting writing in this thing I made a conscious decision to write the truth no matter what. So that's what I've been trying to do, no matter how uncomfortable that may be. So in one hand I'm sorry for being a bummer sometimes, but on the other hand I'm not sorry for that. Our feelings are from God and if we don't use them they'll become lazy and atrophied. If I can make someone feel something from what I'm writing I'll be perfectly happy, and if that feeling is sadness come and talk and we'll work through it together.
Thanks for reading, and in the next couple of weeks I should have a guest post coming up.
Luke
luketlancaster@gmail.com
I appreciate your honesty Luke. I disagree with your friends who think that you need to always write about how good God is and love the fact that you are willing to be open and honest about the struggles. I just heard a sermon from Tim Keller on Psalm 1 and something that stood out to me, in short, is he said it is dangerous and unrealistic to always dwell on the "everything will work out, and God is good" side of things." We are promised rough times in life and we need those to force us to dig deeper into our roots of Christ, like the tree planted by the water does in time of drought (second half of Psalm 1). I thought this was profound as he was talking about true happiness. Preaching the gospel to yourself, as you should daily, is going to include rough patches of realizing that you are not enough, you fail on many accounts; but in the end it makes you more aware of how desperate you are without Christ. Desperation can't be talked about with sunniness. It has to be realistic and will bring true joy, which doesn't always look like positivity. Anyway, this comment is too long, I know, but I just wanted to encourage you to be honest. Allow yourself to struggle. I know your roots in Christ are deep and you need those struggles to make you continue to draw deep from Him.
ReplyDelete