you are always on my mind

My problem is that I remember the things I do not want (or need) to remember, but can't easily recall the things I want (or need) to remember. What's up with that? Somedays I think my mind is like Six Flags for minions from hell. Can you picture it? They're having a grand time, let me tell you! All the splash water falls, flying swings, and funnel cake they want and they never seem to get dizzy or queasy.

And then I get in my car and listen to a song or I hear my Boston pastor's voice in a podcast and I cry all the way home where I settle into my favorite spot on my favorite new sofa, turn on the TV, and shut out the noise. Several days a week I also make a stop to workout which helps exhaust me so that I can fall asleep by 9:30pm and start over the next day at 5:30am.

I don't think I have ever felt this out of sorts and utterly alone in my life. It's a very strange feeling, and not one I can easily describe. As soon as I try I feel myself defend the isolation or rationalize the exhaustion which typically results in condemnation for my lack of fervor for my life here in Houston.

I'm deep in the throws of an I-don't-want-this funk. The craziest part is the battle in my heart about how certain I was/am that God brought me here, and how certain I want to get on the next one-way flight to anywhere and not look back.

In a sermon the other day, I think it was by Tim Keller, he was talking about suffering and how we respond when everything we saw as gifts from God is taken away. It was a sermon from the book of Job. I felt my heart sink as Keller explained that when we lose our things, our relationships, our power we are not without the source of our joy. He said that if our hope is in those things then the loss will drive us into despair, questioning God, and depression, but if our hope is in God then the loss of money, jobs, homes, friends will be bitter and sad, no question, but they will lead us to cling evermore to our true source of joy.*

I'm not sure I know what to do with that, but I know he is right and that my tantrum of the last few months is largely related to my perceived loss and lack. I don't want to make jokes about how I am Israel because I don't think it's funny that God has shown me overwhelming faithfulness and I've stood over in the side of the room like a child, thinking I can't be seen or heard... and am certainly not loved enough that he could not respond to my pouting.

He is responding. He is at work. I've thought about Habakkuk lately: "Look among the nations, and see; wonder and be astounded. For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told." -Habakkuk 1:5

He's right, I definitely wouldn't have believed all that he was going to do in the seven years I had in Boston, and I need to remember that I wouldn't believe what he's doing right now even if he told me.

*Apologies, Dr. Keller, if I just butchered (or mis-paraphrased), but you made me cry and this is what I heard.