Thoughts.

I feel incredibly sad.

I'm familiar with this feeling and I know Who to turn to, but it doesn't make the things that I am sad about go away.

I miss my mom.  In the way that you can only miss someone you haven't talked to in months and know that you will never talk to again.  I want to tell her funny things that happen.  I want to comment to her that while there is a Jack for every Jill, sometimes the Jack's don't fit the image that you have in mind for Jill.  I want to pour out my heart about all of the sadness and uncertainty that creeps in and hear her gentle reminders that people will always fail me but the Lord never will.  I want to hear her tell me what she would do, followed by "But what matters is what the Lord is telling you to do."  I want those precious moments back.

I feel alone.  In the way that you can only feel when surrounded by people 24/7.  I miss having a heart connection and, I suppose empathy.  About the struggles of the day ahead and the silly things that do and the lament that our people need to eat and have clean clothes again.  I don't understand why God chose to one by one strip away what I think of as my kitchen table friends.  Life moved us on from those sweet days.  I miss them.  {And I've threatened something less than bodily harm to the ones that remain if they ever leave the area...}

I feel gloomy.  I have countless things to do.  Paint the walls, sew the curtains, organize the things.  But aside from me, who will notice or express appreciation for those things?  In the end, what value are those things?

I feel defeated, looked over.  All while knowing with every fiber of my being that I didn't choose it and that I can not control the situation or person.  I can't make anyone or anything choose me.  I can't speak my feelings without being made to feel wrong.  So I cling to Truth.  This storm may pass.  Jesus never will.

I feel like King David in Ecclesiastes.  I long for purpose, knowing that God has given me one.  I long for affirmation.  I long for company in my heart.  In the end I conclude that all of these things are meaningless.  My feels do not change reality.  But they are an important part of how God created me.  So I write them, affirming perhaps only for myself, that they exist and are real.  And I look forward to the day that this season ceases, giving birth to a springtime in my heart.  Until then, I cling to Daniel 3:18, knowing that the words are true.

{Daniel 3:18}