So I think I owe an apology to Andrea. I'm sorry I sort of snapped at you with my comments, and now I think you're right. I am totally capable of diagnosing other people's problems from a mile a way, while constantly being blinded to my own. What I'm trying to say is, sometimes it hurts a little less to hear the truth from someone you're close to, than someone you don't know as well.
I had lunch last weekend with good ole' Jeremy D., J.Paul, Jer Bear, whatever you'd like to call him. This is an old picture of us...we don't really have that many pictures come to think of it? I can always tell how old pictures are by what was going on with my hair. Haha. I've known Jeremy since I was a baby, and ever since about high school, his friendship has been more valuable to me than I realized.
We had a long talk about what's going on in our lives. I talked about feeling lonely, wanting to move, change jobs, sell the house, questions about God, etc... And so here it is, when Andrea said, "Stop searching for a man and be happy with yourself", I bowed up because it hurt my feelings, kind of made me feel like she saw something wrong with me. I went into defense mode and thought, "Of course I'm happy with myself? Why wouldn't I be? I'M not the problem, its all the men in the world. THEY are the problem!"
And then at lunch last weekend, you know what Jer says to me? Something along the lines of, "It sounds like you're not happy with yourself. As long as I've known you, you've always been looking for the next newest thing, you've never just been happy with who you are. You're going to move some place, and be the same unhappy person, but without friends around." For some reason, it didn't really hurt when he said it, but rather just made sense. I guess that's because he knows me so well and had all sorts of examples to display.
It's true though. I plague myself with grass is greener syndrome. Sometimes this mentality has led me into some pretty cool adventures...but it's also left me with miles and miles of discontent. You can see the evidence in my life...I'm discontent so a new career will make me feel better, or maybe a house instead of an apartment, or maybe a different boyfriend, what if I traveled to this place, or moved to that place, THEN, then I could find contentment. But Jeremy is right. I'll spend my whole life chasing that dangling carrot if I don't fix the internal issue.
Then there is church. For the last month, my preacher has been telling me how I am NOT the point of the universe, and if I make the whole world about me I can never feel free. The world is not centered around me, God does as He pleases and we each get to play a role. So how do I reconcile these two truths? Because I feel like something is broken in me and I don't know how to fix it. And at the same time, I don't want to put so much focus on myself. Maybe the fact that I HAVE put so much focus on myself is the very reason I feel like some thing's wrong? I don't know what the practical steps are here. I was hoping there would be some sort of kit, or book, or pill I could buy. Those don't exist though. So for now, I'll pray they be revealed to me, so that I can fully understand His secret to being content in all things.

5 comments:
Thank you Jeremy!
Mom
Carisse -- Chandler's words have been hitting my ears in a similar way to yours, and I feel lost in the process right now too. I just want to say thanks for communicating what is on your heart and mind. Your words often encourage me!
If God has chosen to dwell in you, if you were baptized into his spirit, then i would suggest there is a very real sense in which you are the center of the universe, that so many things do turn around you and your decisions. there is no getting out of that responsibility i am afraid. neither, of course, is there cause for arrogance in it. for god chose you, you did not choose him. but you are both in this business together.
"The Bible really seems to clinch the matter when it puts the two things together into one amazing sentence. The first half is, ‘Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling’— which looks as if everything depended on us and our good actions: but the second half goes on, ‘For it is God who worketh in you’—which looks as if God did everything and we nothing. I am afraid that is the sort of thing we come up against in Christianity. I am puzzled, but I am not surprised...." (CS Lewis)
You must spend yourself in chasing, you must learn to be content and wait for his proper time. good luck.
the more you get outside of yourself, the more you'll find yourself :-) I just now came up with that spectacular nugget wisdom on my own! though i'm sure someone else has said it too in some way or 'nother. I'm in the same boat, Carissey-poo. journey on.
No need to apologize. :)
I know I tend to be too blunt sometimes. I just had you're best interest at heart. :)
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