I bang my hand against the couch as pins seemingly shoot up my forearm. It’s numb, my whole hand is numb and the feeling radiates through my fingertips.
As I sit here trying to shake the sensation, I realize it’s not just my hand that’s numb, it’s my whole body, it’s my heart.
This isn’t the numbness that results from feeling nothing, from eliminating all pain and love. This is the polar opposite. This is the kind of numb that results from sensory overload. From experiencing every possible emotion in the matter of three months, and experiencing them at elevated capacities. One hour you can’t wipe the smile off your face, the next everything is in shambles. It’s hard to keep track, it’s impossible to navigate the waters, and as a result your body falls numb.
I don’t know what I’m feeling. I don’t know how to identify it. I don’t know how to explain it.
Everyone from home calls and the first question; “how are you doing?…” “I have no freaking clue!” that is the honest truth. Yesterday I was great, today I’m crappy, tomorrow could be any combination of the two, how am I to answer that question?
This blogging medium is supposed to paint a somewhat accurate picture of what the Race is like. But I’m beginning to rethink how accurate that truly is.
In order to write a blog, I must shut my brain off for a half second. Pick one moment in time, and one of the hundreds of emotions that are cascading through my body,… and then write.
It’s subjective. I can’t capture it all. The emotional rollercoaster is far more extensive than one could ever imagine. They say the World Race is a pressure cooker; what usually takes years, takes months on the race, and I agree with that statement 100%. That means your emotional variability on the day to day is magnified ten fold, and your body begins to shut down.
What’s happy, what’s sad? Because, in the next moment it’ll be gone. What’s wrong, what’s right? I fight by the moment to check my heart, because the sheer capacity of emotions and baggage causes every compass to go array.
So, how am I doing? I don’t know.
What I do know is this is hard. Very hard. Not the physical discomfort, that’s become second nature. But the emotional discomfort, the pressure it puts on your heart is tremendous.
This is the Refiner’s Fire, and flames engulf me on a daily basis. It’s hot, it’s exhausting, you’re drained, you feel empty, you lose your sight and your way, help comes now and then, but you are tested day by day.
My one and only comfort comes from the fire itself and to whom it belongs. It is the Refiner’s fire, it is His glorious tool for pruning. He chips away until you look more like His Son. It hurts, that’s a guarantee, but it is His process, meaning He is there every step of the way. In that, and in that alone, is where I can pull my comfort. In that alone I can experience clear feeling. I must fall numb to my own emotions so I can be recreated fully into His.
