Hi friends. I’m sorry I’ve neglected to post during the last couple of weeks. Words have not been my friends lately, as they refused to come out when I tried to write. Even my journal was neglected for too long.
My guess is the reason for the blockage of words is that writing meant thinking and facing things I’d rather not acknowledge. It meant dealing with the urge I’ve had so many times over the past few weeks to yell, “I am not home!!” when people spoke of me being back home (in Colorado). It meant thinking about the moment when I was pondering which part of the airport I would visit on my way back… only to remember there is no return journey to Ireland in a few weeks this time. It also meant facing fears that I don’t have what it takes to do this new job well or to invest in new friendships knowing I’ll only have more goodbyes in a few short months.
With all the things I’d rather not deal with floating just under the surface, it seemed easier to push them further down into my heart and lock them away than to let them into the light and have to deal with them. However, even though that always seems easier, I hit a snag every time I try it.
You see, we are asked to love God with all our heart, etc. If I’ve locked part of my heart away, that part is no longer free to love God and others as it should. When I do this, I also find (as I have during the past couple of weeks) that even though I don’t feel the pain of those broken places in my heart, I don’t feel joy or excitement or anything else either.
As I have tried to settle into the place I’ll be living during the next months, I have felt little joy or excitement for what God has in store for me here. I am happy to be near one of my best friends again, and I am grateful for the few days I had with my parents before moving to the Ranch, but I have felt little else in the last few weeks. (Perhaps aside from the two or three times I’ve cried my way through the thirty-something cards I collected from friends in Ireland before I left.)
Thankfully, in the last two days, my journal has come out, and words have begun to flow again. The blockage began to break when I realized that wholeness will only come as I offer God my entire heart, even if it is broken in many places right now. He is the One who can make it whole again and who can bring joy and excitement and promise to every season I walk through. He even sent me an incredible sunset Saturday (at the end of a cloudy/dreary day) to remind me that there is hope and beauty to be found even in the coming of darkness.
