Dear parents of an adult child with un-diagnosed mental illness,

Dear parents of an adult child with un-diagnosed mental illness,
This
is why I want you to go
see a good family counselor psychologist: so

you will know 

that this 

is not 

your fault.  I 

want you to talk
to someone who sees
this kind of thing
every day, someone
who will listen with
knowledge, someone
who can suggest
things you can try

(if you haven't already 

tried them and only 

if you ask).  I want 

you to hear--from someone who hears
from people like you for a living--
whether or not this behavior
that hurts you
so badly
is something your child
chooses (and something you choose
to allow) or whether

this is 

something 

your child 

has no choice over 

due to the mental health issues.
Maybe that doesn't
matter to you so much,
but it does to me.  It's
different for me if
someone is choosing
to be cruel to me than
if someone is
unable to
choose
anything healthy
because of brain
chemistry problems.
It's scary, too, of
course, to think that

someone is behaving 

so badly without 

any choice 

in the matter 

because that means they can't
choose better behaviors (except
maybe to finally seek treatment
and health and help like any
ill person should).  However,

I'd rather know that truth

than go on suspecting 

that someone is knowingly, 

intentionally causing pain 

to people who love them

because that person chooses
to do so for any reason.  Please,

talk to someone who 

can give you real answers,

and stop lying and
saying it's okay and
it doesn't bother you
when the hurt you feel
is a sound
I can hear
so clearly even
over my phone's
terrible connection
to you.  Please choose
to find out
if this brokenness
can be repaired or
needs to be surrendered
as something you
cannot change and are not
responsible for, so we can all
move on from there.
Love,
TMIA

Being Christ to the Creeper

Once upon a time when I was younger and less physically broken, one of my jobs was befriending the lonely ones, the ones left outside the circle, the ones no one wanted.  I would protect them, the pasty and overweight ones, the socially awkward, the prickly, the unattractive.  Since I did not need friends or popularity or fitting in, I was free to be friends with those who needed friends but, for whatever reason, couldn't seem to make it with the regular people.  I felt like it was some sort of gifting or calling, a way to use my comfortable introversion to love people like Christ commands us to.  Now I am older, more physically broken and exhausted, and I don't have the energy to use this freedom any more, which is unfortunate because there's a guy at the anime club this semester who is starting to really creep me out.

In the anime club, I have always been there for the anime.  I have never been there to make friends, be part of the community, or fit in.  I don't live on campus; I'm not a student.  I do not need any friends in the club to have a nice time.  This has always worked out well (once the super-friendly folks have learned to leave me alone each semester) because it's good for these kids to make friends with their peers.  I have not needed to actually reach out and show kindness to an outcast when I have pretty much nothing to give.  With one notable exception, I have made no friends there, and it has been lovely.

Many of the folks in the anime club are a bit socially awkward.  This stereotype exists because it is based in observable fact.  Many of them are bad at eye contact and reading body language and understanding personal space, but they usually figure things out by the time they graduate.  Most of them find their tribes, even the ones who are incredibly annoying and awkward.  As a sort of maiden aunt, I watch all of this at a distance and am glad things work out, even if I am sometimes mystified. 

This semester has been different.  This semester has been incredibly uncomfortable.  This semester there is a guy who hasn't found his tribe, and he seems to want me to be his tribe because all the other natives flee screaming at his approach.

I have never met anyone so terrible at understanding body language and personal space.  He seems to take me scrunching up, leaning and moving away, refusing eye contact, and reluctantly talking brusquely in short answers when absolutely necessary as amazing encouragement to sit down, move cloers, be friends and talk and talk and talk about the same things 4 over and over and over again.  (At least he hasn't used the words "scrotum" and "anus" since the first time he opened his mouth to talk to me several weeks ago.)  He talks about his anime that he will make some day and its badass, junior-high-school-boy-humor-liking female main character and what he doesn't like about X, Y, and Z anime and about why he likes the Devil May Cry anime but hates Black Lagoon, etc., ad nauseum.  (If you're an anime fan, this will seem even more annoying to you than if you aren't.)  He does this to anyone who has a pulse and doesn't actually get up and just walk away.

Recently, because no one else will even talk to him, he has taken to following me out to my car, chattering all the way, and ignoring my LEAVE ME ALONE PLEASE body language and really fast pace because he is that desperate to connect.

I know that if I want him to leave me alone, I need to just completely ignore him and not respond at all.  However, he is so lonely and sad that my old reflexes kick in, and I talk sometimes, un-encouragingly and grudgingly, because I don't want him to be completely alone in silence.  He is so young and so awkward, and I think he may not ever find any friends if he doesn't come across the college student equivalent of the old me soon.

I probably don't have to tell you that the following me to my car thing makes me really nervous.  Men I don't know in general make me wary and having to be trailed by one as I walk half a mile away to my car where there might not be anyone else around does not help.  I think that I probably need to just have the creeper talk with him or ask the club admins to intervene, but maybe I've been living in Minnesota too long (land of 10,000 ways to passive-aggressively indicate things instead of just saying them) or maybe I'm trying in a sort of half-assed way to be Jesus to this poor kid.  I mean, everyone avoids him, and that's really sad (even if I totally understand why they avoid him).  I was hoping someone would take him under their wing and help him understand the basics of body language, but they haven't even this far in to the semester. 

As maybe one of the few believers who attend the club, do I have some sort of responsibility toward him?  Because I'm sure acting like I do.  And as long as I sub-consciously feel responsible, I won't be able to just tell him leave me alone or ask the folks in charge of the club to intervene.  Thus far, the best I've been able to do is drag my poor friend to the club to try to act as a buffer and escort to my car, and that's not fair to him.

So, Christians, your thoughts?  Everyone, your strategies?

When church membership is more like country club membership

When I became a member of this church (so I could work at my alma mater if I ever had the chance), the folks interviewing me seemed very anxious to tell me that they didn't have any expectations that I would serve within the church just because I was a member.  Most people spent their time supporting ministries outside of the church, and that was just fine with the church, they assured me anxiously, like they thought I would leave if I was actually expected to DO SOMETHING (in addition to all the work I had to do to get to that point).  They sold it like a benefit to get a candidate to take a job when there was another comparable offer being made elsewhere.  It made me pretty uncomfortable, to be honest.  What church lets people join and says, "We don't expect you to take your membership seriously or, like, do anything biblical or anything"?

After I expressed my frustration about this recently, a friend who has had lots of struggles with church people said maybe the church wasn't where my ministry would be.  I had pretty much reached that conclusion myself.  I've got two really attractive options I've been looking at for a while.  I made one last try at my church, and apparently there are no orphans, widows, or single parent families (which frankly seems to be the modern equivalent) in my church who need my gifts.  You know what?  That's a lie.  I call shenanigans.  I know there are people who could use my help, my gifts, my talents.  I just have no way of connecting with them, and the church leadership apparently does not consider them a priority.  (No lie, the leadership decided that they wanted to put all their efforts and money into nuclear family ministries, so tough noogies for singles, couples with no children, poor people, single-parent families, and everyone else outside of that particular group.)

Is it really so wild for me to feel like my church should be doing things for the orphans and widows who attend?  Like actively seeking out the members and knowing them and knowing their needs and doing something to help since the Bible is pretty clear about our responsibilities to these groups of people in our midst as the church.  I mean, is it really outrageous to think it should be standard for a church to do biblically commanded things like take care of their orphans and widows?  Or am I being silly and stubborn and unrealistic by demanding this happen in/through the church when I could just as easily go to a place where these needs are addressed by civil bodies?

I want to do the right thing, but it seems like my church just isn't interested.  Obviously, this means I'm in the wrong church.  (I'm looking for other options.)  I'm just so disappointed that these fallible humans have failed me again.  : )  Is this like the fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me, or is that really too cynical?  I know we are strangers and pilgrims not of this world, people just passing through, but it hurts when the church only intensifies that feeling.

Maybe I just need to think of it as getting side-tracked on a quest and needing to get back out on the road in search of other opportunities.  Maybe that can keep me going for a while.

Breaking up is hard to do

I'm trying to compose a break-up letter to my school to explain why I won't be making any more charitable donations to them, but it's surprisingly hard.  I don't want to sound petty or unreasonable.  This might be difficult because I'm still not convinced I'm not being petty and unreasonable.  Am I acting like the child who feels betrayed because he has discovered that adults are fallible humans or am I behaving like an adult who has looked at things rationally and decided she would rather give her money to organizations that aren't behaving (in her opinion) shamefully.  Am I being like my mother and being more concerned about appearances (the school's behavior is embarrassing me, and this is how I can punish them) or more like myself (taking a principled stand against unprincipled behavior)?  Am I being reasonable, or am I carping about the Emperor's New Clothes in the middle of a nudist colony?

Who knew I was such a coward about breaking up?  It's been three weeks since I made the decision.  I'm tired of putting this off, trying to think up the perfect way to explain, avoiding the internet because I don't want to read any more about these disasters and their aftermaths.  I think maybe I will just tell them I'm discontinuing my financial support.  If they want reasons, maybe then I will write up my list.  Maybe.

Mamma mia, alma mater!

This is not how I want to be spending my Friday night: in despair about my alma mater.  On top of the numerous other questionable decisions made using questionable methods in the last few years, they have decided to cut the philosophy major.  Yes, a liberal arts college without a philosophy major.  On the positive side,  I no longer have to wonder if I would have been miserable teaching there: I know. 

I just wish I didn't have to be ashamed of the behavior of both my alma maters.  (The other one recently ripped apart the liberal studies program and cut the Liberal Studies master's degree, as well, under similar circumstances.)  For a while, it wasn't a complete black mark to tell people I graduated from those institutions, and I could even recommend them without reservation.  Now?  Well . . .  But anyway, focus on the positives!

• I am now officially really glad I didn't get that job, that they treated me in the shameful way they did. 
• I'm glad I no longer feel conflicted about giving financially to the institution. 
• I feel lighter knowing I no longer have to keep attending the church I've been attending mostly because it fits with Cedarville's doctrinal statement (even if I don't) on the off chance that another job opens up, and they don't treat me like crap this time through. 
• I don't really have to blog "anonymously" anymore if I don't want to (I was doing so partly because some of the things I said could have adversely affected my chances of employment there) because I wouldn't want to teach there even if they offered me a position, at least not until things stop heading the direction they are right now.  (And if things turn around, then I don't think anything I have said would prevent me from getting hired at an institution heading in a better direction.)

Why do these positives leave me feeling so negative?  Am I being completely unreasonable to demand this from my Christian alma mater?

"We believe that every organization, especially those in higher education, and most-especially those claiming the name of Christ, should be characterized by transparency." - Fiat Lux

 Amen.

Family depression

The recent school shooting has brought mental illness and how families deal with it into spotlight once again.  The blame game has been played (the mother should have known, should have gotten her son help, the signs were there, etc.).  It's good to try to look for root causes to prevent future problems if at all possible, but her son was legally an adult.  And just because you want to help your adult children or adult siblings, doesn't guarantee that they get help, or that if they get help, they will be fixed by it.  The human mind is an unbelievably complex thing.

This is much on my mind as I watch and wonder if my sister is spiraling further into mental illness.  She is an adult, nearly 30, and she has suffered from depression (untreated) for years.  We have asked her if there is some reason for the way she treats my father (the kind of treatment one would expect from someone toward their rapist/abuser).  She has promised us that it's nothing like that.  He just sniffs, and she can't stand it.  That's all. 

Depression runs in my family.  (As Miles says, "We give it to each other.")  My mom has explained the briefest bit of her childhood struggles with it in her dysfunctional family.  She later sought treatment for anxiety and panic disorders, and her mental health has improved.

My sister has not sought treatment.  Instead, she has always had many excuses.  We are reaching the end of our patience for excuses. 

We, her loving family, are tired of watching her hurt us.  Some of us think she is fully in possession of her mental faculties and is choosing to act in cruel ways.  I think maybe this is related to OCD, depression, and maybe other mental health problems.  Either way, she needs help.

I think a reason I lean towards mental illness is because I don't want to believe that she is capable of deciding to act with such cruely while mentally balanced.  I don't want her treatment of my father and her distancing from my mother and her decision to end her friendship with me to be possible if she is in full possession of her wits.  That would hurt too much.  I would rather have something to blame it on.  I have that luxury because I live several states away and am naturally someone who does not need the company and affection of others. 

My parents who live with her do not have that luxury.  They just have the hurt.  And it's eating at them, threatening their mental health.  It has to be stopped.  But how?  I'm praying.  But I can't help thinking there is no right answer.  Having a loved one with mental health issues is not a simple situation with a single right answer.

If you are ever tempted to point fingers and blame when you encounter a situation like this, well, maybe hold that thought.  Humans and human relationships and love in a fallen world are messy, and it's always easier to point from outside, especially after the fact, to try to make neat conclusions once all the chips have fallen.  But inside, it is sad and scary and messy.  Please remember that.  Be careful how you judge.

And please pray.  Because I don't really know how to right now.

Give me rest

I am not very good at resting.  In fact, I am terrible at it.  Resting in people, in my own company, in God's company: I seem to have lost the knack.

A friend who helped me move recently told me he'd be glad to come help me assemble a piece of furniture this weekend but that he'd also be happy to spend some time NOT assembling furniture or doing anything but sitting and talking, for that matter.  I looked at him blankly, remembered that he's a people person who likes to be social, and wondered if he would mind me unpacking while he talked, or if that would be a problem and he would feel like I wasn't being properly social. 

Now it's true that I'm not really a social person (understatement), but the main reason the idea of just sitting and talking threw me is because it wouldn't involve doing anything, and I just couldn't handle that.  He said he didn't want to think I was just using him for cheap labor, which is understandable since the only times we've interacted outside of singing and a club we belong to have involved moving-related activities, but I just couldn't imagine having someone over and not doing anything when there's so much that I need to do. 

Today, someone else asked with an accusatory, threatening, and motherly gleam, "You're good about taking the time to rest yourself, right?"  I had a moment of guilt and thought, No.  I feel guilty when I'm not doing anything, so guilty that I don't let myself just sit and rest and do something I enjoy because that would be nice and I shouldn't do anything nice if I'm being lazy and not doing the things that need to be done.
The thing is that these tasks don't actually NEED to be done right now.  I mean, no one will die if they aren't completed.  Why this feeling of urgency?  Merely the weight of the number of things on the list? 

Maybe some of it is my growing frustration with how lazy folks in the church are in this country on the whole.  They don't seem to be doing much for others at all that I can see.  Many churches seem more like country clubs where people go to comfort each other in their minor inconveniences and mourn their tiny discomforts.  "I have no energy to do anything except care for my husband and kid."  "God doesn't want me to burn out." "I work full time; how can I possibly have time to volunteer or work in a ministry?"  I don't just hear these phrases; I see them.  It's hard to go to church. 

What logical flaw is this:

1. They're not doing anything to minister to others because they're selfish and lazy.  
2. I'm not doing anything to minister to others.  I have an excuse, but maybe they do, too.
3. I can't just go pointing out the lack in their lives when it's present in mine.  
4. I must be selfish and lazy, too.
5. If I'm ever going to confront this problem in my church, I can't be guilty of it myself.
6. Overcommit!

Or maybe I'm just afraid that if I stop, I won't be able to muster the forward momentum to get moving again.  Let me tell you, once you stop,  it's hard to get started again.  I learned that in physical science class and in the school of life, I guess.

I've been bogged down before.  I've been trapped in a place where I can't do what I want (lack of sleep for years is a killer), so I just block out what I should be doing because I have no energy for it and I don't want to deal with the guilt and thinking about it all it won't make the pain go away and won't make me able to do all that needs to be done.  Avoidance!  Distraction!

When that happens, I feel like I am being lazy.  I am afraid of being lazy, of being seen as lazy.  I am terrified that I will have to try to live with this reduced ability to function for the rest of my life, that I will use this as an excuse to do less than I could.  I'm afraid of my own weakness, afraid that it will lead to getting weaker in some sort of psychological spiral I'm already living physically.  (These are realistic fears.) 

Maybe I'm trying so hard to avoid stopping and confronting that side of myself that I just keep pushing when I shouldn't.  I can't tell any more.  Am I really waiting for some sort of breakdown to serve as an epiphany?  If so, why?  I mean, that's just silly.  I wouldn't let anyone else get away with such harmful self-disrespect (unless they were having their own epiphany).

When did I get to this place where I feel guilty if I stop moving and insufficient if I keep dragging myself on when I shouldn't?  It's not like I feel I'll be punished by an authority; I am an adult living alone, so the only person who can punish me is me.  And that guilt monkey, apparently. 

I wonder why rest = laziness in this messed up head of mine?  I wonder how much of it has to do with the fact that I just have no energy to do things that are good and right and true.  Maybe I feel like using what energy I do have to rest or do something I enjoy is a sort of betrayal of some kind.  But of what?  To whom?

My God is a God who says, "Come to me all you who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest."  I want rest so bad, but it's beyond my reach with this chronic-pain related insomnia, and it's been beyond my reach for years. 

I do not call my God false for promising this and not delivering it right here right now.  Rather, I look forward to the rest that is to come, and I enjoy the rest now of knowing that my worth in His eyes is not based on what I do, how much I do, how long my to do or already done list is.  At least, I'm supposed to be enjoying that rest.  I know that's true.  I'm not completely miserable, which I would be if I were trying to prove my worthy by what I did.  So why this unease with ease? 

Maybe I need to attack this head on.  Maybe I need to schedule some time to rest, chores and responsibilities be darned.  I mean, if it's on my list of things to do, it's legitimate, right?  I'll try setting aside a day I force myself to rest and tell that feeling of guilt it's not needed every time it pops up . . .

That doesn't actually sound very restful . . .

Do you feel that guilt when you stop?  What do you do to rest?  How can you tell when you need rest versus when you just want rest.  Is wanting rest laziness?  Any thoughts on all this?

March is a good time for New Year's Resolutions: cripple, heal thyself (lots of random thoughts)

I figure as long as you focus before Daylight Savings Time changes, that's fine, right?  :)

The focus of this year is healing right now.  Doctor visits, physical therapy, not beating myself up as much about being crippled, etc.  I have this amusing idea that since I'm not working two jobs right now, since I'm not where I (think I) want to be, since I've dropped so many things (and can barely hold on to what I have), maybe I should stop dwelling on these failures and see what kind of healing I can do with the down time I have right now.

One doctor told me he thinks I could get better than I am, but it would have to be serious rehab.  "It would be another full time job," he told me.  "That's the kind of effort it would take.  Like Joe Mauer!"

The last time I tried to hold down two full time jobs was probably a certifiable near-disaster.

But I am so tired of being in pain.  If there is any chance I can improve, I should probably take it, even if it ends again in failure because then, in my failure, I can say I really did try because, you know, that may have a slight effect, like ibuprofin . . .

Problem: God alone knows if the federal office of workers' compensation programs would pay for that kind of rehab.

It's hard to imagine that there was once a time when I really didn't want Jesus to come back really soon because there was so much I wanted to do here (not including the whole injury and derailment of life as I knew it, of course). 

Are we there yet?
No.
Are we there yet?
No!

One foot in front of the other.  Stay near a wall at all times in case you start to feel light-headed.  Always have a hand on the stair railings (the good hand, or at least whichever one is working [better] today).

Someone must be carrying me because it's been a long time since I could carry myself.

This, too, shall pass. Eventually.

Why I'm not writing in February

I've been wrestling with the idea of when/whether it's okay to give up on your dreams because by inaction,  I am giving up.  It might actually be the right thing to do (or at least a right thing to do).  It might be time to choose new dreams or just focus on the present and survival.  To be honest, I really want to be wrestling with this on the page, but I've been in too much pain to type nearly enough.  So I put it off until next weekend, hoping I'll be in less pain, but I never am, and there is always something else that should be done that will make me hurt more, too much to type.

Feeling a tad claustrophobic with the jettisoning of dreams and the closing in of forces beyond my control and consequences that shouldn't be mine to deal with and the usual same old same old.  My asthma is the reason it's hard to breathe, but you'll forgive me the melodrama of wondering if dreams are like oxygen and letting them go leads to slow asphyxiation of something. 

Unfortunately, sometimes it's too hard to hold onto things I should hold onto anymore, hard to tell the difference between what is baggage weighing me down, sinking me, and what is anchoring me to something solid and sheltering, so I don't blow away in all this weird midwestern stormy weather.

Adulthood sucks, sometimes, children.  Hang onto your dreams for as long as you can.

Standing still (and loving it)

I have come to a decision.  Not a DECISION set-in-stone-here-I-stand-I-can-do-no-other, but a decision like a rest stop along the way.  I have been wearing myself out wrestling with whether my peculiar distance is a problem I should be trying to change or a gift.  For now, I am tired.  I have decided to let it be a gift for now and to be like this person. 

"Just like always, he never stops things that come, or chases things that leave."

Rather than making myself be concerned over relationships where I have to force myself to chase someone reluctant, I will let myself relax and go back to merely observing and not trying to make things "better."  It's kind of refreshing not to be irritated because I'm putting in effort I don't want to for someone who wants but does not want to be seen as wanting. 

Maybe it's okay to just be me.  It worked for years before I got paranoid about it.

I think I feel better already.

Do you know any people (other than me) who could be described with this quote (and seem happy with their lot)?

Success?

I got the job. 

I keep waiting for it to be a joke, to wake up and be disappointed, to have them come back and say, "Just kidding."  I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.  It feels like a dream, like something unreal.

The other day, when I was talking about how it hadn't sunk in and relieved all my tension, my acupuncturist talked about chronic pain and how funny it is that even when the pain is not there, a lot of times we can't just relax and be content because we're always worried that we'll do something wrong if we're not careful, and it will come back with a vengeance.  It's a mental pattern that's hard to break out of.  We need to enjoy the times when the pain is absent or muted.  Maybe it will come back, but it's gone now.

I look forward to experiencing that absence of pain at some point, and I was nodding at how much her statement made sense when I realized that she was gently telling me to just enjoy the now and be glad that things went well and seem to be moving in a new direction.  I am a little slow sometimes.

Donald Miller said, ". . . I will readily accept a failure, even meditate on it, but I won’t accept an accomplishment.  There’s nothing healthy about that."

Zing.  (Direct hit.)  We'll thank the Lord for the good and assume the bad is our fault.  We'll accept the good from the Lord but not the bad, as Job implied.  Is that the way it's supposed to be? 

While I was in the middle of the increasing-bad, Christians would use language that indicated that God would rescue me from this attack of Satan, that this bad couldn't possibly be from God, etc.  I struggled with that because it smacked of that pesky, unbiblical prosperity gospel to me.  Does our success = God's favor?  I wondered. 

I think that our failures do not = God's displeasure.  We learn and grow from failures as well as successes.  Some lessons can only be learned in one place or the other.   It's how life works in a fallen world full of fallen people with free will.

I wonder if this is part of the secret of being content in all circumstances.

Any thoughts or wisdom you want to share?

Honest experience

I came across this post before the interview, back when I was prepping during my lunch hour at work and after I got home from work and whenever I had a spare minute.  When you're getting ready for a job interview, you always have to prepare for the questions about your weaknesses, mistakes, and difficulties, and you have to face those and figure out how they have benefited you.  Sometimes, you can really see God's hand at work, but only if you're looking.  Most of the time, you just want to look away from your mistakes, as if acknowledging them makes you weaker, as if working through them doesn't make you stronger.

      "The truth is, though, he could have all the faith in God he wanted, but if he really wanted confidence as a public speaker, he’d need some hours. God wasn’t going to grant him confidence. Even Moses had absolutely no confidence. And God even stopped the mans stutter. It was experience that gave Moses confidence.
      "The funny thing is, if you wanted to be a locksmith or a plumber or a cab driver, you’d never pray and ask God to magically give you the ability. That’s not how God designed life. But in those fuzzy areas of emotions, we suddenly believe God is going to act like a magician.
      . . . "The truth is, if you do the work and gain the experience, you’ll have more confidence because you’ll actually know what you’re doing, and you will have spent some great time with God."  - Donald Miller

I really didn't have a lot of confidence going into this interview.  I don't have the experience they want.  All my skills are rusty.  I'm crippled by pain physically and mentally.  I don't actually know if I have what it takes to do this job.  It will be a miracle if I get the job and an even bigger miracle if I can keep it.  But a job interview is no place to be honest, which is another reason I struggle with them.

I figure interviewers ask questions about your weaknesses and struggles because they genuinely want to know what it will be like to work with you, but that's the last thing you're supposed to tell them.  You're supposed to play judo games with their heads and make them think you're an impossibly positive polyanna.  It's lying.  It's acting a role.  It feels awful.  I'm really good at it.  I've always been able to fake confidence.  It comes from experience.

I would like to take this opportunity to hope that the interviewers are more honest with the job-seekers when replying to their questions because I would hate to go enthusiastically into a job only to find out they were putting a positive spin on everything the same way the job-seekers are supposed to.  Something seems wrong, there.  The people I interviewed with were pretty forthcoming and even-handed, which I appreciated.  I just wish I'd been able to return the favor. 

I wonder, if a miracle happens and I do get this job, if I'll be able to live up to their expectations of me.  The real, daily grind me is much less dazzling.  Turning on the full force of my personality like that is impossibly exhausting and exhilarating at the same time.  I can put on a great show for a short time.

Is that a form of trust in God or another way I'm lying to myself?

What to pray for

What am I supposed to be praying for? What am I supposed to be trusting God for?

I read a really convicting quote in the last chapter of Crazy Love.

"We try to set our lives up so everything will be fine even if God doesn't come through." 

It's true for me.

Right now, my family can help support me financially, but I feel like they shouldn't have to. I feel like I must find a Job that pays a living wage somehow, even though I'm not qualified because of my disability, even if I have to fudge truth about my capabilities or take a Job that will cause me too much physical pain because if I don't, I'll just keep failing more and more financially until I have to declare bankruptcy. I want to get a Job, so I don't have to rely on their help, so they don't have to sacrifice for me anymore. Whenever my situation hits me hard, I find myself praying for that magical Job that will make things right.

Sometimes I feel like those prayers to God for that magical Job situation are my trust in Him. They are certainly my parents'. "God will provide a Job," they say, "you just have to keep trying." This makes me feel like if the Job doesn't materialize, it's my fault for not trusting enough or something, for not doing the right things.

Other times, I feel like this insistence we seem to have that God owes us a good job or prosperity of any kind is foolish and arrogant. God does not exist to make me happy and comfortable. God does not have to provide me with a miraculous Job in order to stay God or win my favor and trust. At least, it shouldn't be that way. People who believe in Him are starving to death, being tortured, and dying for Him, and they don't feel that He owes them anything more. So I feel guilty when I pray specifically for the Job, like I'm saying, if you just give me this thing, then I can take care of the rest.

It's messed up.

I don't think I can ever go back to that place of worry-freeease and comfort, if I was ever there in the first place. I've never really been in it, now that I think about it. My mom was deathly ill. My Dad lost his job when I was a kid. I struggled to get out of college debt-free; I was always concerned about there not being enough money. It's not like this is new to me. I have always had to rely on "things working out" in order to stay afloat financially. I feel like I already learned that lesson. But if the job never materializes, does it mean I haven't learned the lesson right (or the right lesson)?

What this crappy, painful, out-of-control situation (that started with my injury at work and subsequent dumping by the responsible party [US government] and currently disabling chronic pain and basic unemployability) has made me do is rely on God to get me through the day, every day. From the hauling myself out of bed exhausted every morning to the crawling back in and all the sleeplessness therein, the Lord's name is to be praised. Not very chipper and poetic, as Psalms go, but maybe I can make it work.

I don't think that I will forget this reliance on God just because I get a great job with health insurance and a competent, reasonable boss who appreciates my work and gives me great performance reviews. I don't think I will forget that it is in Him that I live and move and have my being if the pain goes away. I think this lesson is part of me, ingrained in me forever.

But if getting these things would make this understanding go away, then I have to pray that God won't give me those things. (This is why you shouldn't pray dangerous prayers, like, "God, bring me closer to You no matter what," unless you really understand what they entail. :)

So what am I supposed to be praying for again? I feel like my standard, "helpmehelpmehelpme" or "pleasegetmeoutofthis" aren't specific and personal enough. Any suggestions?

Enjoy being single?

"When I'm not freaking out about dying alone and unloved, I actually really enjoy being single." - anonymous

I had to share this one; it made my day.

Does/did this ever describe you?