Quo Vado?

I’ve been completely shut down for a while. Its as if everything slowed down enough so that there didn’t seem to be any movement. There was a strange, “ah-ha, but I knew that already” moment yesterday. In the last month, and really in the last two weeks I’ve cut myself off from every person I can imagine. I have not picked up the phone, I’ve gone to activities late and left early, I’ve been playing off the shut-down-ness with glib comments and humor that hides the blankness of what I’ve been seeing. It’s as if all the colors turned to gray, and the music was all one note. The walls came up. I could see them rising, but I did nothing to stop them. The idea of being left behind or forgotten has once again won over the promises that God will not forget me. I gave Satan the ultimate weapon - apathy. The complete shut down has been happening for a while - probably since early October. In that time, I attempted to combat the feeling; but those attempts were not completed with discipline or diligence. But, here’s the deal, I can’t beat myself up over it - get mad at Chester not at me. Take this experience as a lesson, and work from today.

Earlier this morning I listened to Ed Townsend’s tape on Living from the Heart (Part 1) and I sit here with dismay. I don’t know how to do that. I have spent so long being independent and closed off I know of no way to practically get in touch with my heart again. Even knowing that doing so means going through my emotions makes the process more daunting. Right now, I’m emotionally detached. I can’t feel much of anything and all I want to do is hide. That’s what I spent all of yesterday doing, hiding in the crowd. Getting lost in the noise of the masses. Today, I just feel dead. Like nothing is connected or connecting to me. It’s as if I’ve tuned out the world and no one seems to want to pull me back in. I’ve spent a whole weekend and once again, no one has called. Now equally important, I haven’t called anyone one, I haven’t reached out, I haven’t made the effort, but would it matter if I did? Is that a Satan thought or indicative of a feeling? Both, probably, because I do feel so alone and unimportant and Satan’s trying to use that to his advantage. Argh, this war is never ending. Which is especially trying given that it has already been won. God and Jesus declared victory over Satan at Jesus’ resurrection, but the battle for my soul rages on. I wish id didn’t have to be this way; but wishing doesn’t change the way it has to be. Choosing to follow God is all up to me, people and events in my life are only here to influence or test the path I’ve chosen to see if it is pure and true.

The challenge on my plate at the moment is to get my heart engaged. I’ve got to go through my emotions to get there and that means dealing with the apparent black hole at the center of my heart. All I’ve felt lately is rage, anxiety, hurt, and annoyance. I don’t think my heart has had a moment of levity in a long while. I don’t know if I even know what joy, hope, happiness and love feel like I look at my heart and all I see is darkness. It’s like this big black cloud living within me that I can’t escape and feel powerless to change. Crazy as it may seem, I’m tired of being here and not liking who I am, so I’m going to get dirty, but I need some help in how to approach it. I don’t know really - this is something my heart tells me will be good for me, and that the black hole only looks like a black hole I will not get stuck in it, I won’t feel like my heart’s been pulled out and stomped on forever. I won’t feel like the worlds coming down around me forever. God is with me always. My best interests are his concern. This wouldn’t be the challenge of the moment if he didn’t know that I needed this to be the challenge and he didn’t think that I could do it. So let’s take the bull by the horns and go from here.