"Thoughts of you, and how you've changed me fill my mind. Without you, where would I be?"
- Barlow Girl
{Reading through an old journal of mine, I came across something quite profound that I thought I would like to share. The entry is centered on something that we as humans are bound to experience at some point: heartbreak.}
Today, these past few weeks even, I've given into fatalism.
Hopelessness and fear have ruled my thinking and caused me to be so afraid.
First, it was not knowing where I was going to school. Next, it was worry about an apartment.
Now, I worry about a job.
Before, I was more willing to give it all up for God's way. Now, I am having trouble trusting because things didn't turn out the way I had hoped or even planned with [a specific relationship].
I had hoped that he would be the one. The one with whom I'd share my heart, my life. Yet, I can hear the echo resound of that door closing slowly in my face, and it pains me deeply.
It goes against my will - my plan. The supposedly perfect plan that I conjured in my mind's eye. It was all going to be perfect.
Until that day, The Day, when it all came crashing down and I realized it would never be.
Never be what I had hoped.
Never be what I had dreamed.
After all of my tears and prayers, all I had hoped for...
Wasted
Days
HoursMinutes
Seconds
Months
Years
Seasons
Opportunities
Energy
Life
Time
Gone
And now I fear above all that I may lose the very most important thing, something quite dear to me, that I should not at any cost lose sight of -- myself.
Who am I apart from being a girl who has had a crush on [this guy] for 2 years? Do I even know my identity outside of that? I had believed that I did, that my roots were so strong, they were unbreakable.
But now this doubt has got ahold of me and it won't leave. Won't let up - it needs to...I must break through to who I am - aside from the clutter of my thoughts and emotions.
Who am I in Christ? What is my name?
My name is Loved.
My name is Blessed.
I am called of the Most High.
Yet, that sounds so clichê right now. Yes, in theory I know who I am, but when the day is over and I sit in my room, all alone, I feel empty.
Like all the life and energy has gone out of me. Where is the hope I used to feel with every step? It was so easy before. Before all of these decisions came my way...now I feel so unsafe.
And when the lights go out, I stare at the ceiling, wondering at the meaning of it all.
Is all this futile? This hope in things I cannot see? What if all proves vanity?
All is wasted, nothing won. Ventured, yes, but nothing gained. Naught is anything at all. All the hopes and dreams we spoke of are without...
Without direction, cause, or meaning. If this all is vanity, then why am I here? Why do I sit, and think or dream if it will not change what has been or will be? I am me, but who is me?
What is my identity? What is my song? The song I have sung all along...
Even when I thought I could not go on this song gave me a dance.
It gave me hope that there was a chance that anything is worthwhile.
Help me regain the hopeful melody that rang so cheerily through the halls.
The passages of my house, and lifted, even carried me through the dark times of this life.
They kept me from darkness and despair.
These songs of hope, I sang with gusto these tunes...yet, where once there was hope I now see despair. Will the pain of life overtake me completely?
Can I know love once more? Will I find that which I seek and know I need? That which continually eludes and somehow taunts me, mockingly.
Hope, Love, Joy, Peace -- these things I seek to know personally. I hope that soon they will not simply be nice ideas or notions.
Let them be my very own, borne of pain, blood, sweat, and tears, yet earned honestly, through most noble trials of life.
Let them be mine.
