Choices

Failure, failure

Everything I touch turns to dust.

Newtonian Mechanics as applied to mental states

It happens. The happier I am one month, the more depressed I am the next. There’s a great emotional pendulum somewhere in my brain that records exactly the amount of re-verb to apply, and before I know it I’m a salty-faced mess.

“Why don’t you look happy?”

“Believe me, it’ll bite me in the @$$ come tomorrow.”

The eye of the storm

In the midst of it, I’ve found peace. Why do I need you, feet, when I have wings to soar?

Dr. Lumsdaine

“The latest trend in higher education is blogging and journalism. It might be the stupidest thing of our age, encouraging you to ramble ooonn and ooonn and write about nothing but the way you feel, and it eventually influences your academic papers until they don’t have any logical substance either, and the problem with that is that I have to grade them, which means I have to read them. You, students, are subjecting me to torture.”

“And he who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust.”

So that’s how it feels.

I love the way you heal me

Question 1

“And how are you today, Carissa?”

Please choose one of the answer options below:

A) “Fine, and you?”

B) “Great, thanks for asking!”

C) “My heart is breaking, I can’t sleep, and my body is on strike. I looked in the mirror today and didn’t recognize myself. I’m falling apart. Really.”

D) “I’m living in the wealthiest nation on the planet, attending a private liberal arts college, and this morning I awoke healthy enough to tell you my Jesus died for me. I’m blessed with grace upon grace.”

What if, Jesus, what if I want to be with you now? This Earth isn’t home, and in the midst of the battle I’d really rather be in heaven worshiping you. “To live is Christ, to die is gain.” Oh believe me, I understand the ‘gain’ part, I’m longing for it already, but I’m not at all living up to this “Christ” mission, not one bit, not at all, because every day I remain cognizant in this fallen world I watch myself turn from you.

But heal me from within, Lord. I’m begging you; I need this more than I need to live. I’m not wise, not loving, not right. But more importantly, I can’t pour out onto him until I’ve been filled with you, for his heart, God, his heart means everything to me.

I’m tearing out the pages of my heart

If our lives are stories and each year is a chapter, every season a volume, I’d like to burn this book.

My blood vessels are bursting in my eyes, I can’t sleep, and I’m losing weight. My body is falling apart, my mind is broken, and my soul is too tired to do anything about it. Father, where are you?

And yet again, I’ve allowed my ambition to exceed my potential.

Oh my mind is whirring, miles an hour, miles too fast. The faster my tires spin, the more I dig myself into this ethereal hole, the less coherent I am to others, the less controlled I am to myself. All I can express is symbolized in the dust and bits of gravel spat up by the futile spinning. As clearly as I understand my own thinking, as effortlessly and perfectly as I see the turning of my wheels, I’m afraid all others can see through this cloud of communicative dirt are mental steps 4, 17, 100, and the end result: I’ve dug my own grave. Logic, wit, these have all failed me, and I’ve been pressing on the gas so long that two months ago I was running on fumes, and now I’m afraid I’ve nothing left.

And yet, I’m finally going sane. Leaning on myself was never a reality, but now it isn’t even an illusion.

You have to break a horse before you saddle it. It is with a joyfully broken spirit I say I’m ready to submit and be trained.