Please Don't Ask Me to "Lighten Up"

(I've been sitting on this post for quite some time, debating as to whether or not I should put it "out there."  It's not very uplifting -- but it is real.  And deep, deep down, it truly is filled with hope -- because God is there.  So, for anyone who is interested, here it is...)

I think I've finally accepted the fact that my interior life will always be marked by a general disposition of, well, discontent.   I live with an ongoing, restless longing for something better, something more.  Someone once told me I needed to stop being so "dramatic."  I said I would try.  At that time I believed that I actually had a choice in the way I think and process life. But I'm not so sure anymore.  I'm growing weary of people telling me -- either directly or indirectly -- to be something I'm not. " Lighten up." " Stop thinking so much." "Don't take it all so seriously."  "You've got to let go of the questions."  In other words, stop.  Stop being me.

Instead, I think God is calling me, to be me.  And everything I've experienced, all the people I've met, all the joys and heartaches I've felt, everything I've encountered along my life's journey-- factors into the person I am today.  Because nothing I've experienced has gone unnoticed by God.  Rather, God has been with me through it all and has been using each experience, each person, each struggle, to transform me throughout this journey -- drawing me closer and closer to His Heart, closer and closer to the Image of Jesus Christ.

For some unknown reason, God has made me this way -- with a heart that breaks easily, with a mind that won't stop thinking, and with a soul that is often discontent.  I've met lots of people who are not at all like me.  People who always see the bright side, who come and go with no strings attached, who weather life's storms and come out on the other side without a scratch.  Sometimes I envy these people, I really do. 

And then I've met people who have truly experienced life and know what suffering means.  There's something about a person who has truly experienced suffering.  You can see it in their eyes -- when you look deep enough and long enough.  It is a level of understanding that is almost impossible to describe -- but you know it when you see it.  These are the people I am drawn to, because they don't try to explain life away with easy answers and bumper-sticker phrases. They know better. 

I'm convinced that the most important spiritual insights don't come from reading a great book.  They don't come from listening to stirring sermons.  No, truly deep spiritual insights come from experience -- and usually at great cost.

•  They come when you are scratching and clawing for survival -- just enough strength to make it through another day.  

• They come when your world is as black as night and it seems as though the dawn will never come -- never.  

• They come when you feel trapped in a valley of dust and hopelessness and even when you find the strength to cry out for help, you discover you have no voice, or at least no voice that anyone can understand.  

• They come when you are surrounded by people, loving and caring people,  and yet you feel completely and utterly alone.  

• They come when you doubt everything you've ever believed about yourself -- everything -- and you almost feel as though you will disappear completely.  

• They come when your mind is filled with voices telling you how bad you are, how damaged, inadequate, broken, beyond restoration -- and even when you don't want to listen to them, the tapes keep playing back -- over and over again -- no matter how hard you try to shut them off.

At least, this is when they come to me.  Because this is when God has my full attention.  This is when I realize that I am, in fact, dust.  Everything else is stripped away.  My reputation.  My goals.  My dreams.  My relationships.  My past.  My present.  My future.  A true sense of humility overtakes me.  I have reached the bottom.  There is nothing and no one left.  Except God.

It is in this state that I have come to know and experience freedom for the first time in my life.  Freedom?  Yes, freedom.  Because freedom is knowing that what means the most to you, can never be taken away from you.   

It is in this state when my life verse becomes my life blood:  "Whom have I in heaven but You?  I desire You more than anything on earth.  My health may fail and my spirit may grow weak, but God remains the strength of my heart.  He is mine forever."

He is mine FOREVER.  He is yours FOREVER.  Nothing -- NOTHING -- can separate us from His love.