I started fasting social networking on February 1st. I had good intentions of using all the wasted moments spent scrolling through my facebook app to spend more time with God.
In hindsight, coming to know God was easy growing up. Oh the perks of being introverted.
On a bad day, getting close to God looked like coming home holing up in my room sprawling out on my bed and sobbing. Over my misunderstood feelings or a boy or something. When I finished embracing a little apathy and staring at the ceiling for an hour, I’d flip open to the middle of my bible cause Psalms always did me right. I’d read on and on.
I had a few days like that in my adolescence. And I liked how the comforting words of David in Psalms made me feel, like I could really relate to his cries out to God. So I began to want to never stop reading. Day after day. In the bad and the good. It became my food.
God’s word started to change me.
Four summers ago, a fellow camp counselor knelt over me on a hardwood floor in the middle of the night while our campers were sound asleep and she prayed God’s word over me. Slowly the gray fog in my head cleared and I felt lighter. I went home at the end of the summer and never needed to take another pill for depression. I witnessed my first miracle ever.
Anxiety came in place of depression. I got anxious even over little things, like going over to a friend's house to hang out. Sometimes I'd convince myself to stay home instead of hang out. After months of battling insecurities and falling asleep on top of the new testament, anxiety eventually lifted.
I began to see a pattern. It’s like God is peeling back layers of dead skin and calling me forth saying, “I made you a new creation, now let’s pull the new you out from under all this dead weight!” And the process was and is full of grief but it always ends on a happier note.
Iff I saw the 15 year-old me now I would never recognize her.
As of late pouring over God’s word for hours doesn't feel so natural. I get distracted. Sometimes I can't finish a full chapter of the bible in one sitting even if it's really good stuff.
Ultimately I'm desperate for more of God. I want more tangible expressions of Him. I find myself getting frustrated when I'm talking to Him and He doesn’t answer back. I fall asleep wishing He’d scoop me up and hold me when I’ve had a rough day. I wish His very words that pierce invisible realms and transform me at the core would leap off the pages and hug me; say out loud exactly what He thinks of me. Converse with me like we're old friends.
You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
There’s only one alternative. Press on.
