Reality

I am so very tired right now, so I don't know how long this post is going to be.  It's been a long several weeks of not getting enough sleep for stupid reasons, and lots of emotions (good and bad) and thoughts.  And today I learned that one of my friends (someone I've known for 16 years) is going to have a little baby boy in the next several weeks.  I am currently still trying to process that fact, and I kind of really wish that I could see her and make her something cute for the baby.  I mean, I'm going to make something cute for the baby anyway, but I wish I had been keeping in better contact the past few years.  So that's the big thing that happened today.

Yesterday and Friday I went on a retreat with my church here at school, and it was really, really, really good.  Like mmmhm so good.  Worship on Friday night was beautiful, with Ria and Alyssa and I dancing on the side of the sanctuary, and then one of my friends from my New Life Team shared his testimony, and even though I've heard it before, it was still beautiful and amazing and full of so many reasons to rejoice (also he just got engaged!).  I got to spend some time with some ladies that I absolutely love and don't see very often, and the talks were all really good.  The last talk on Saturday made a big impact on me.  I don't even think that it was something that the speaker explicitly said, but it was something that popped into my head.  What would my life look like, if rather than wanting to be happy in my life, my goal was to follow God?  And I know that I've heard that lots of times, but it really hit home yesterday.  Like, what visions would come to fruition then?  What dreams would be reality?  How much would God use me and move through me if my sole goal in life was to follow him, to run after him and his desires rather than the things that I think will make me happy?  How beautiful would my life be then?  And so, I kind of rededicated my life to God yesterday.  Another, deeper vow of trying my hardest to go after him, of giving him my weakness and my strength, of continual surrender and living sacrifice.  Another, deeper stubborn decision to follow Him as Lord of my life, no matter what.

And so I'm giving up.  I'm giving up my selfish desires, my attempts to make me happy.  My attempts to keep my moods stable and my emotions in check.  I'm giving up control of my life, more and more areas in my heart are willingly surrendering their desires and angers, their bitterness and grudges.  Come in, Lord.  This is yours.  And the things that I thought would hurt so much to let go of, are such a relief.  The burdens that I feel/felt like I carried, in the face of God and His amazing power, are not sliding off, but rather shrinking to their actual size, and I hardly feel them now.  A new reality in my life.

Which brings me to another big thing from this weekend.  My biggest tendency, my greatest temptation, is to reject the reality that I see in favor of a different one in my imagination.  All of my life, I ingested books, movies, stories.  In these stories I could substitute myself in as the narrator, as the one having the adventures, living the friendships, and falling in love.  I was creating a fantasy world in which I lived, pretending that it was satisfactory, rather than having my own adventures, forming deeper and deeper friendships, and falling in love with God.  And I'm so sick of it.  Which is why I'm fasting books and movies, fasting stories, fasting those other realities that I am so fond of living in.  Because I'm sick of not being fully committed to my Lord and Savior.  I know that there are parts in my heart that are still hiding, still stubbornly clinging to their defenses, but I also know that God is inexorably bringing them into the light and gently prompting me to begin renovation.

The saddest part of my addiction to stories, to other realities, is that they are a substitute for real relationships, real adventures.  And I know, so so so deeply that God has amazing adventures for me.  I know that one of my purposes in this life is to be a unifier of people, to bring them together, to love communities into being, to facilitate bonding.  It's who I am, even though I have been ignorant of it for so very long.  And when I am wrapped up in fiction, I cannot play the role that my Creator has set out for me in reality.

I don't really have a good way to wrap this up, and I'm absolutely sure that more things happened this week that I could write about, but I think I'm done with this post.  One last thing, though.  I signed up for a Spring Break trip with my church without looking at the focus of it, just knowing that it was the one that a lot of my team is going on.  Turns out that the subject of the week is "A New Reality."  Oh God, you are awesome.