Wallowing

     Back to this idea of maintaining. My whiny butt does have a lot to do for Agathos and for classes. But I need to stop acting like I'm the exception around here, because I feel like this is just par for the course for everybody else round here. But I got sidetracked. 

     Before Jael called me back tonight, I was feeling especially . . . used up. I love encouraging people. I love cooking for them. I love talking to them. I love spending time with them. I love being in Christian community. And I love fostering that in whatever way I can. It's just that sometimes -- I can't even say lately, because this just snuck up on me -- I feel like I'm the maintainer of relationships. Sometimes it seems like I'm the one calling over and over again, the one inviting, the one handling things in the club, the one trying to sacrifice cheerfully (and if any of you -- I use that word "you" ironically -- know me, you know that I don't really do the cheerful part of that well). I feel like I'm the one making the phone calls, sending the invitations, giving the encouragement. 

     Some stuff happened tonight that made me feel used, frustrated, and a whole lot of other things. I think part of what hit me so hard as I came back to Anderson was the idea that here in Anderson, the place I now call home, the place where the majority of my friends live or live near -- I have no one that seems to have really taken an interest in my maintenance. There is no network of people pouring back into me like there was at SpringHill. I'm pouring out, but I don't feel filled. 

     Tonight I literally became so frustrated with the ugliness that I felt in and around me that I just wanted to rip the white netting of the gorgeous dress I wore to my mom's wedding -- rip it to shreds with my bare hands. And then I heard God speak to me through the metaphor: whenever I'm angry or depressed, every time I feel attacked or cast aside or abused, I literally want to remove anything beautiful from my sight, because such things sicken me when my view of the world becomes so reviling. And this just makes the bad, worse. God used this to show me that I focus on all the bad, hiding inside it when the world around me seems especially horrible; but it's this despising worldview that makes me so queasy at focusing on God's beauty and perfection -- his grace, mercy, wisdom, love, and patience. To put it more abruptly, I wallow. I don't know what else to say about that, except that I'll try harder. God is the God who maintains me and gives me room for error and for growth because of that. Still light years away from where I wish I was.