How can this be?! I mean, I passed by him every Tuesday. We shared smiles, some jokes, light conversation... he appreciated my music. I enjoyed him and his wife... but we didn't know each other, really. And now? Now I am stricken prostrate with grief over a man that I hardly know, who no longer walks among us.
I just saw him. O God, is life really that fragile? What stops you from taking my breath away from me? How can you let the adversary do this to us? God, IT'S NOT FAIR!!!!!
Why do we have to hurt this way? I'm scanning through the facebook notifications, and it's all so glib and dry, so meaningless... and I put on the same shallow mask... but all I want to do is scream at them, I DON'T CARE! Someone just died. Someone I knew.
All this talk about evangelism and GLOW and whatever else... I don't care. Why this hardened hatred in my heart, Lord? I mean, that was mother's milk to me for how many years? And now... I don't want any part in it. Maybe because I associate it with everything false in my life... the quiet agony that lay locked behind my smile, screaming silently into the aseptic abyss of doing, always doing... and...
I don't know.
I'm tired. Not just physically. I'm tired inside. And I hurt. Way down deep.
God, all I need is for you to hold me in your arms and rock me to sleep. I can't handle this on my own. It's too much for me.
I hate evangelism. But, on the same token, I love you. How can this be? When people make mention of giving Bible studies, or going door to door, or Sunshine Band (I had a harrowing experience with that today...), I panic. My stomach knots and quivers, and threatens to evacuate whatever passengers I took on at my last meal. My heart palpitates and cowers before the inevitable beating it will take to convince it to go along with this farce. My mind steels itself, pushing down the mental bile and sternly rebukes itself, "This is right. This is proper. You WILL do this, because you are a Christian." And, once more, I am forced into the cold, iron cage of what is right, what is seemly, and what is expected of me... and I hate it. I hate what people will think if I rebel. I hate the prospect of being an outcast. I hate the prospect of people finding out what I'm really like. "The Bible worker is not who we thought she was! Deception! Heresy! Stone her!"
Heresy, indeed. A SOULS student who loathes evangelism. Go figure.
Yet, if you were going to zap me, wouldn't you have done it by now?
It seems that this good thing has brought little but pain and isolation to my life--two things that I hate beyond all reason.
Basically, I just want to throw back my head and scream a savage, guttural scream of frustration, fear, anger, grief, and a myriad swirl of other restless emotions.
I can't believe Kent's death is bringing all these other emotions up. I'm still so angry. I don't know if I want to sleep... I'll probably dream about voodoo dolls or something.
You say you can use me? How? All I see is brokenness. Fall leaves littering the ground, with no promise of spring.
...I guess this is where faith comes in, huh?
Oh, El Shaddai... provide for me now, in my need. I have nothing to give.
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