Thursday 31 December 2015

All I've got is Hope




Anxiety is a funny thing. It robs you. Of everything.  It makes each and every moment a rush and a ruin. Taking the joy out of life all the time. And it makes us not ever get to a place of rest. Sometimes it even feels as if we'll never get there, a place of rest, if we don’t ensure that 'this or that' is in place. It makes us want to rush God. And if He doesn’t show up in our time, we get upset and we take matters into our own hands. We want to control our lives and we want to control time… But we can't.  we need to respect the process. 

Lately I've been angry with God about life. My life of course. And He said nothing. In His style obviously… but what I did get was that I needed to get to a place of complete stillness, a place of rest. Also, I must stop having so much expectations for myself and let God take the lead. Because I’m anxious. All the time. So I asked myself… Do I even know where to start with letting God lead...? What does that even mean? And all of this was happening, while I was having one of my fairly regular conversations with myself…or with God... I often have those. A lot of time alone, tends to do that to a person...ask me, I know. 

For a very long time now, I’ve been asking myself the question:  when will I start?  What are you so afraid of? You see, I’ve noticed that I keep putting myself in situations that I really cannot afford, but I always have hope that it will work out. What can I say, I'm a hopeful person.  Actually, I'm hopeless. I’m hopeless when it comes to matters of the heart... like relationships, or our passion, or our religion. So it has been pointed out to me that it seems as if I can somehow only manage to do one of the three at a time. Ideally, we should be able to balance all three these simultaneously (God/passion/life), but I have not been able to and that has had me run into a brick wall every single time. I always seem to pick one, over commit and run with it... but I never quite finish... then I take one of the others... then I take one of the others... depending on whether it will yield fruit... I end up ignoring my "plan" and devise a new one... one better suited for what I want to happen... I somehow think my plan is better...so I just never win. I asked God why this happens to me...? And the answer was that I'm too anxious about life... I always want things to be quick, I want to move on, get done with school, get the job, the girl, the family, and end up in heaven. Although, in the midst of all this rushing, I’m always hopeful. I hope to see the beauty... the beauty of the authentic life... the realness of its hardships and the joys of its successes... there is where life is... and there is where I want to be... only thing is, I want to get there so badly that I forget to enjoy it now... after all, life is happening now.

For me, right now though, I feel very destructive,  and it makes me not wanting people around because I’m afraid I’m going to hurt them... but I love having people in my life... I need people...we all need people.  Me, not wanting people would be similar to someone denying their love for swimming and water, and so, refuses to swim because of 'this or that'. That sound absurd right? Denying one’s self of such a simple and innocent pleasure of life. So for me now, I need to seriously look at why I think I feel destructive...?

So this is where I'm at now... at the ground zero and I'm hopeful. And I'll remain hopeful... hoping that I'll get to a place where I can do all three these things together: God, me and life/ relationship,  passion, religion... tough question to ask on top of the already tough questions asked... So I have to start with, who am I... again. And that probably starts with letting God lead, or rather trusting Him more with my life. Accepting that He has forgiven me... accepting the hope of magic and the beauty He boasts about... accepting my wrongs and imperfections, but like really dig into them and uproot them. Be completely honest with myself about my capabilities, what can I do, what can’t I do… what do I need to do, what don’t I need. Who do I want to be, who do I want people to see, who do I want to be for the person, a person that might want to be with me… And while I'm doing that, figuring all this out, using my time and God’s expertise, I believe that I should then, in those trying moments, catch a glimpse of the promise of happiness, because I'll have hope. And I'll continue hoping for as long as I can breathe... 

One thing about me though is that I always think more of people than what is presented... and that is why I hope. I always hope that we are better than what we give ourselves credit for. I think most of the time we are just too scared so we hide, or we find distractions or we disregard our inner being and we succumb to greed and power or the lack thereof, so we have no passion and no ambition. But I hope. And so I’ll continue hoping. I'll hope in God, I'll hope in humanity and I'll hope in the beauty of two very individual people coming together in the name of love. Love, being this perfect concept... And with God being love, He obviously knows how to do it perfectly... yet I hope that we as humans can emulate that. As we do with our kids and some with each other and upon hearing about these stories, the ones where love and humility are victorious, those things restore and fuel my hope. Maybe I'm too hopeful, maybe I believe in fairy dust and unicorns... just maybe... or maybe I'm just like you, trying to figure this thing out... only difference is that for me, hope is like a compass.

I have been wondering... what am I going to do in that moment... the moment when the opportunity arises for me to not be destructive? How does that feel? What impact would such a decision make on one’s life? I think I'm scared to find out. So I have to hold onto hope. And I'll have hope the next time and the next time... and I'll hope because it's all I've got. So why am I writing this to you...? Because I want to remind you of hope and I want to encourage you to hope. You see the light at the end of the tunnel, or the silver lining on the cloud, or the person phoning you, ends up being the person you wanted to phone you…  That is hope and that is what our eyes and ears need to be fixed on. And we shouldn't forget that sometimes life is about the fairy dust and the cupids, and believing in it does bring a certain kind of comfort… and maybe just maybe, when a little believe is thrown in the mix… then that’s where life starts to get direction. 


So where to start?  For me, I think it starts with me, being honest with me about me.  God will do the rest.

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