I need to stop with these late night posts. I keep forgetting what I was planning on writing.
I was thinking today about what I had written yesterday. Well, really I was thinking about several posts I’ve written, and trying to find a theme among them. It has seemed like an erratic journey of far-reaching topics, but when I thought more about it, I was able to see a relation between many of them.
Early on, I felt this draw towards exploring emotions and feelings, which was odd for me because they are not my favorite topic by any means. As of late, I’ve felt this fascination with the spiritual realm and spiritual warfare. And looking back, there is no way this could have happened without opening my heart to those emotional posts early on.
I’ve realized, the more I’ve written and the more God has opened my heart, that my true discomfort was never in emotions specifically, but in things that are difficult to quantify, prove, or express empirically. I’m an aspiring scientist. I like data, I like numbers, and I like the experimental method. Theories don’t do much for me if they cannot be backed up by research, and personal experiences make a good story- but do not prove a point.
You probably have a good grasp on my skepticism and cynicism now.
Obviously, ignoring these things would be ignoring an enormous, important part of the human experience. Emotions, stories, these are the foundations on which relationships are built and made.
But even more importantly, if I can’t handle someone telling me about why this or that made them sad…how on earth would I be able to listen to someone telling me about spirits? Including the Holy Spirit?
They may seem unrelated. But to me, they are really similar in what discomfort and challenges they bring me. And it was really cool today to look back and see the path where God led me over the past few weeks to reach this point.
An unwillingness to engage emotionally, for me, meant a roadblock for engaging spiritually. But God has slowly broken down those barriers in my heart so that I can now address both without completely running in the other direction. What’s even more amazing is I feel like I am finally able to be my true self- the self that God created- and I hadn’t even fully realized that I was hiding a part of me. Walls have been broken that I couldn’t see, and weights have been lifted that I never realized were keeping me down. I’ve felt more open than I have in years.
I can’t give you a particular event or time when all of this happened. Like I said, it’s mostly the result of a day-long reflection on where this God has taken me through this blog. Things aren’t perfect, but I felt true joy today just from thinking about what He’s done so far this Lenten season.
It may also have to do with this being a mini Spring Break for me. So praise God for Spring Break.