Several Atmospheres

I wonder if it was inevitable? I've been fine for most of the time I've been here in CA, but this weekend is different. It's too cramped in here. The walls aren't closing in on me, but they may as well be. Feels like cracks are forming.

I went out this afternoon with the intention of merging with a 20-somethings group my cousin told me about because they play ultimate frisbee on Sunday afternoons. They never came, so since I brought the book I'm reading, I found a dry shady spot and read for a while, then just laid in the grass. The weather was absolutely gorgeous and it was all fitting for me to praise God in that situation.

Then I went home. I worked out for an hour, got back, and was a touch set off by something. Only it hasn't been decreasing, it's increasing. It's growing tighter and tighter inside. I'm not really saying what I want to.

I miss folks. I miss folks a LOT. Everyone is busily going about their lives and interacting with their friends. I live 1000 miles from any of my friends. I haven't made any good friends my age yet. I've hardly met anyone my age, let alone Christians my age. I miss my parents, and alex, and Joel, and Nate, and Arron and Darren and all of UCU. I miss Tia...I miss Tia a WHOLE LOT. She left some IMs. They made me chuckle, but it squeezed out a tear. Right now I want nothing more than to close my eyes and open them to find her sitting on my couch, in all her Tianess, not going anywhere.

These are foolish ideas. In the absence of friends and family I have my Lord! I was reading today about how He made everything and is everywhere, and knows the innermost struggles and desires of my heart. From this morning's Bible study of Ephesians 5, Paul suggests, "Walk in the Spirit..." Isn't that what I'm doing? And yet, for all God's Omnipresence, I sure ain't feeling any of it. WHERE ARE YOU, GOD? There's something vile in this room and it's terrifying me. Please eject it, Lord. Forget my unbelief, it's not my own. It's hard to tell if anything is happening. I tried to pray, and I couldn't. That's not right.

But you might argue, "If God's Spirit is not present with you it is because you won't let it be." Do you think I don't know that?! You ask, "Jesus stands knocking at the door, why won't you let him in?" If I knew, would he still be out there knocking?

Of course I can't find fault with God. He knows what's going on; he's infallible. Therefore the error must lie with me? Some sin troubles me; God is distant; I'm worried. My fault; my failure; my selfish desire? I hate the error. I want some recourse, but there is none. There's just God, in all his bigness, and then there's me, a waste of a disciple, troubled by sin and plagued by worry. Do you not see that I despise even myself, Lord? If you know me so intimately, don't you know how I wish things were different? Don't you hear when I call on you to change them because I'm too weak?

And they persist. Oh, sometimes they may go away for a time but it always comes back and nothing ever changes. Is my flesh really so strong that God himself cannot overcome it? Isn't that what the Cross is for? I fight defeatist inclinations: that since little has changed, little will change. What is it going to take for this flesh to DIE DIE DIE!! Even the smoky man in The Great Divorce did not have to take the hand of the angel to remove his blight, only to give permission. WELL HERE'S THE PERMISSION, WHERE'S THE ACTION?

This is madness, insanity. If beating my head against the wall would do some good I'd gladly do it. I might do it anyway because it would give me something else to think about. I'm gonna go call my parents. God, how I wish they were here.