I had just kind of had enough, you know?
After so many hours of travel and switching a bazillion time zones and walking into a sauna (aka Thailand) my body was feeling pretty defenceless. It was a wide open gate for anybody to just waltz right in and take over. My guard wasn't up.
And Emmi, our contact, warned us about the spirits that would try to get involved in our business and disrupt our purpose here.
Hellooooooo apathy.
I would say that for the last two weeks I've struggled with feelings (or maybe lack of feelings) that what I did really didn't matter. I would move from A to B but without much motivation, no bounce in my step, hardly a smile on my face. I found conversations hard to follow, exhausting to engage in, and rather inconsequential. It was the hardest transition of all-harder than my rock hard bed. It wasn't like me to not care about people, to not want to help people, to not want to be a part of their celebration/healing process/whatever. I like to be a part of peoples' whatevers!
So I asked God to take it off me, whatever it was. Spirit of Apathy is what I perceived it to be. I lay in bed and let myself be weak and helpless while he renewed me. But not before I let myself sink deep into the midst of it.
"There's too much hurt to really heal at all. There are too many lost. I'm just one person. It's too exhausting to do anything, so I won't."
But I have to tell you that God really did take it away. And the best advice I have for you is to walk in the opposite spirit. If you're feeling apathetic, then walk in gratitude. Walk in whimsy, even. Look HARD for the things that make God's heart beat in delight.
It's absolutely a messy world out here. I've seen prostitutes who should be ready to go to their first school dance, not service their first client of the night. I've seen monks who are so studious but so mislead by the emptiness of following a philosophy. But I've seen hope come in laughter of those same prostitutes. I've seen my monk friend bring his monk brother to come hang out with us and drink a smoothie at our coffee shop. And I can't help but feel so grateful to have been a part of it. And I can't help but feel so grateful that our God is the kind of god who brings salvation in majestic, firework, running through sprinklers kind of ways.
I can't get over that. I hope I never will.
