Today I didn't take communion.
I thought I was going to as the man up front was talking about it, but as the trays were passed and I held the small square of 'bread' in my hands... I couldn't. I don't really know what is inside of me that is so against communion lately, but I felt so unworthy, and I felt so rushed. I felt that if I had had more time in that instance, if I had not been around a bunch of people... I would have been able to process the things that are on my heart.
I'm thinking about leaving school. Since I got back from Cambodia, everyone has been asking me how it was, and all I want to do is scream. I don't want to be here. I have this Holy Discontent while I'm just sitting in classes and doing all of this homework that is keeping me still. My heart ACHES to be somewhere else. I love Johnson, but it's so comfortable here. I don't know what to do anymore.
I feel like I just need to break down and cry. I skipped my speech class Friday because I was having an emotional breakdown while being overwhelmed thinking about Cambodia and school... trying to figure out what to do next. If one more chapel speaker comes in and talks about missions.. I might lose it. Harvesters wants me and Matthew to come and share our experience about Cambodia.. but I don't think I can do it. Yes, I know people need to know about it and what is happening there, but I am not in the right frame of mind to do any speaking about this country. Maybe I take a semester away to process? But I don't know if I would really come back.. Again, if I left to do missions right now, I don't think I would ever come back to school. I know what I am doing here is necessary training... But my heart is aching so much and my mind is whirling in so many different directions that I can barely walk straight. My classes leave me more confused than ever and my logic and my emotions fight daily.
I just want to know what I'm doing and where I'm going.
Dear Breath,
Where have you gone? Often times you escape my lips without so much as a notice or an utterance of goodbye...
But I don't miss you.
In your place a small smile has begun to spread from one corner of my mouth to the next. As I extol you from my lungs, a feeling fills my heart. Something that can truly only be described with this crease in my lips. You leave my lungs more and more every day and it seems as the days pass, I am loosing more and more control of my diaphragm.
When I catch you, my senses are heightened. I smell new things, see new things.
I shall keep breathing. But please, leave me from time to time. I like this: Heart racing, smiles cracking, fingers trembling, and extolling my very precious breath only to take it in again moments after I should.
Oh, my dear breath. You are so precious.. Take care, take heart. And, be careful.
Love,
Breathless.
My heart is in a wrestling match currently and I don't know how it will turn out. Well, in two matches really. In the first, I have a sense my heart shall be rather disappointed. I am preparing.
But the next, I feel that my heart will prevail. My heart always has in those kinds of situations... I just don't know where to begin fighting. I already started the path to get to where my heart wants to be, and truly, it's written all over my face if you catch me at the right moment. It will be hard, it will be long, but I know I'm ready.
Nothing else really makes sense right now.
There are two things that my heart is yearning for right now:
a. To be noticed,
b. and to not be ordinary any longer.
Sometimes, most times truly, my desire for the first trumps the second. Inside of me I'm fighting a war between speaking what I feel and staying behind the curtain of safety. And in regards to the the latter, I keep itching in my seat in class because I'm in class. I know I am learning valuable things and things that will further me to help others... but I am sitting.
Wow.
Today, in chapel, the entire service was about communion. That makes this communion number three.. I have a friend who likes to joke around about the 'frying pans' in my life, but truly... I feel like I am still winded from this one. I sat in my chair today, as in days past and chose not to partake. I wasn't disobeying or being lazy. I simply knew that by rising to my feet and placing the bread and the grape juice in my mouth that I would be taking for granted something that I have been over looking and walking over for too many years.
The last few weeks I have been learning so many new things about myself. I have found myself to be stronger, I have found beliefs that have just now surfaced.. I have become so brave. I have discovered parts of myself that I didn't think existed... That Emma Petitt that Brian told me to be when I was shipped off to Johnson over a year ago- I'm coming face to face with her. Life is scary. Life is not what what I ever expected it to be. My life has certainly had it's share of downs, but my life has also had beautiful and incredible moments of awe and wonder.
"A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones." -Proverbs 17:22
I have been in casts for so long. And now that the molds are finally breaking free and coming off, although my bones are weak from lack of use, I'm getting stronger every day from every step I take. Granted, they are all hard steps. I have to trust the unknown. I have to trust people and things foreign to me. I have to trust this God that I know loves me above all else... but is the same God that I checked at the door when I went to live my life for a year without so much as uttering a sentence to Him.
"If all I had was one last breath
I'd spend it just to sing Your praise
Just to say Your name
If all I had was one last prayer
I'd pray it 'cause I know You're always listening" -You're There Casting Crowns
I used to live this way.. or at least have a mentality of wanting to. In these short few weeks at being back at Johnson, I have been SO challenged. It has been so good for my heart to be here.
(Insert really awesome closing sentence here).
Today we had student lead chapel for the first time this year. It was great and I have really missed the intimate setting. We had communion and I sat in my chair, again. But this time, something was different. The last few days something has been stirring inside of me. Something that I wish I could describe. It's like I'm coming alive again from this darkness and numbness that has overtaken my heart for so long. I think since I started attending conferences and retreats, I gained the mentality that a break, or restoration had to come with smoke, mirrors and fancy lights. But right now, I'm being challenged. Challenged by my friends- new and old. Challenged by my classes. I'm being forced to figure out what I believe and why. It's frustrating but wonderful! I haven't been challenged like this in my classes like this at JBC yet, and I'm getting hit with it all at the same time. Hello, frying pans from all different directions!
I have this strange peace about changing my major even though I never thought I would pick that for myself. Haha.. Because I didn't. I am taking a lot of tiny steps right now, but they are all in the right direction. When I didn't take communion this morning in Chapel, I talked with God. It was something along the lines of "I'm not ready yet". And while I said it in my head, I felt so incredibly foolish. I take so many things for granted, and for the last 5 years (the time I have been a Christian and attended Church), I have taken communion for granted. I haven't seen it as an act of worship but more as an obligation or as something that Christian just do. So as I sat in my chair as everyone around me got up to take the physical communion, I communed with my God in the most intimate way I ever have. It was so beautiful.
Walking around campus today, I have just felt this.. peace: something I haven't felt in so long. I doubt it will dissapate. I pray it does not.
