I've been weirdly sad this week. The funny, mildly annoying thing is that everything is fine on the surface. I'm surrounded by beautiful people, class is great, I'm finally beginning to find a routine that works for me, and I sometimes wonder if it might all just be in my head---but something's wrong. I've been tired when there's no reason to be, frustrated with how hard it has been to see God move, how my sense of well being seems to fluctuate from moment to moment. Sometimes I think this weird ache is all in my head. Sometimes the clouds clear just a little and I can see how far I've come, how present He is, how much I am loved, but then I'm alone again and a weird cycle starts in my head. For the past couple of years, I have been told that welcoming others is 'my gift'. It's my thing, my calling, my passion. I'm making a career out of it. I've used it to make sense of my story and how God is using me in his redemption story. And I like it. I love loving people. I really do. But to be totally honest, it's starting to ache a little. I like that I'm following in Christ's footsteps in a way others can point out to me when I need it. But lately I think that maybe this gift is actually doing more harm than good.
I was walking around campus earlier this week, trying to figure out why I felt so much on the outskirts, even when surrounded by people I love, and at one point, I found myself wondering 'Who am I--if I'm not staying behind at lunch, catching up to the person lagging behind the group, talking with the one sitting alone?' I didn't really find an answer. I think I was mostly just confused. I still am. I know this is what He calls me to and I don't exactly plan on stopping anytime soon--but lately I'm also feeling like maybe this role is becoming my god, my default identity. And it hasn't been all bad. It means that I never sit alone. It means that I get to make people feel included. It means that I've gotten really, really good at easy conversation and laughter and met a lot of really cool people--but I also feel myself burning out a little. I'm not really sure where I belong anymore. I'm not really sure if there's anyone who I can go to when I'm tired and worn and lonely after trying to love the way He calls us to. I'm not really sure if I can just be around people without drawing lines in the sand and feeling the need to make sure no one has to be alone. This week, among many other things, I realized that I'm actually really bad at being honest with the ones who matter most to me. I'm bad at admitting that I need a ride or a place to stay, let alone help weeding through whatever is happening in my mind right now. It's not that I don't have people who care--it's that I find every reason not to turn to them, every reason to convince myself that they're preoccupied with their own worries and can't be concerned with mine, that to love someone means to constantly put others' needs above my own. Part of that is true. Maybe part of this is just plain old selfishness, wanting something that's not mine to have, but I can't shake the feeling that my head has become a battleground.
Deep cries out to deep. I never really understood that line when we sang it. All those years, we sang in worship and read it (somewhere), but now I think I get it. When we're in over our heads---that's where I meet God and find that He is not fazed by the storm I find myself in. That's where I find that He is just as deep and wide as the water over my head. This could kill me if He let it. But...I'm not dead. I'm tired. I'm lonely and frustrated and maybe a little jealous, but, even after a week like this, I am alive and looking to tomorrow, and that has to count for something.
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