“Fear doesn’t shut you down; it wakes you up. I’ve seen it. It’s fascinating.”
I’m so overwhelmed.
I have all these friends I have to say bye to and all these things I have to get done and all this money I have to raise.
And it’s pretty freaking overwhelming.
Can I take my heart out of my chest to show you? In the very least gruesome way possible, I wish I could. I wish you could hold it, so you would know what it feels like right now. How it seems to be beating with a slower, more absorbed rhythm. It feels heavy and sad. It feels like the fourth rainy day in a row in the middle of summer. It feels like a man who’s just lost his job and has to go home to face his family.
It feels like leaving a town, a home, a multitude of friendships that have made me feel more safe and more loved than ever before. It feels like leaving a mentor whose guidance and love have changed and molded me towards the Lord and into who I’m meant to be. It feels like leaving late night drives out to the sunflower fields for blood moons and good conversation. It feels like leaving a really good thing.
Since I was accepted to the Race, one thought has held in my times of sorrow: I’m not scared of going, I’m scared of leaving. I’m not sad to go, I’m sad to leave.
How do you stop your heart from feeling like that? Better yet, should we stop our hearts from feeling the full weight of loss? Because it’s easier? Because it hurts less?
Haha, not in a million years.
“Aren’t all these notes the senseless writings of a man who won’t accept the fact that there is nothing we can do with suffering except to suffer it?” –C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
I wrote a blog about being brave. I got a tattoo that very literally says be brave. The Lord had made it very clear that it was to be a theme for my life.
But sometimes, I don’t want to learn the lesson. I don’t want to be broken in the way He wants to break me. I don’t want to be brave.
I don’t want to be brave enough to press into certain pain, when it’s too deep and too messy, too close, too shut off for too long.
I don’t want to be brave enough to keep acting, to keep doing, to not shut down in the midst of overwhelming circumstances.
To not shut down. Said to me loud and clear this morning as I walked out the house to do just that.
“Hannah, don’t shut down. Part of being brave (as she points to my tattoo) is not shutting down. Keep going.”
It’s walking out today, when all I’d like to do is skirt every one of my responsibilities and read a book. It’s taking sponsorship letters to businesses when all I want to do is cry and stomp my little foot and give up. It’s planning for the garage sale at the end of the week when sitting in Starbucks all day sounds a thousand times more appealing. It is resting in him, instead of hiding in sleep.
“That’s the thing about pain. It demands to be felt.” The Fault in Our Stars
It’s not just feeling the pain, in whatever capacity it chooses to surface, but walking life out in spite of it.
It’s saying, “God, YOU make me brave. I neeeeeeeed you to make me brave today. Don’t let me sell my birthright for beans. Make me brave. Show me how to be brave, how to walk through the pain. How to do things I don’t want to do, how to act even when my heart is dragging its feet in the dirt. Let me see your glory today, no matter the conditions.”
“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried” – G. K. Chesterton
Yes, there is joy. Yes, there is peace. And while those are promises we cling to, sometimes our hearts don’t always feel them. Which is why people stop trying. My heart’s prayer is that I never leave anything the Lord sets before me untried. That as difficult as it may be, action would always outweigh inaction. He is joy, He is peace, He is kindness and gentleness and all other good things. And He promised us suffering, for our own discipline and sanctification. As difficult as it is, how can I say no? How can I not be on my knees in thankfulness that He thinks me worthy enough to discipline me?
Strength of my heart, I need not fail,
Not mind to fear but to obey,
With such a Leader, who could quail?
Thou art as Thou wert yesterday.
Strength of my heart, I rest in Thee,
Fulfill Thy purposes through me.
-Amy Carmichael
