twenty nine. two months in, and i'm thinking this is going to be a hard year.
but one that i hope proves to be integral to growth, to healing; to looking back next year from a better place.

it seems i can't heal emotionally until i confront the lion in the corner. it's the scariest of all my demons. it's the pieces of me that were most damaged by abuse and that were at one time most important. the fragments of memory still hurt when i bump into them.

i don't know how to begin, where to start, what this looks like.
but i know i need it. i can't wait anymore. i can't let fear keep me from moving forward.

it's a strange thing, that i can't move on emotionally until i sort out who i am spiritually. the two shouldn't be connected in my head. but here they are. proclaiming loudly that they're as intertwined as clouds in a sky. i can't have one without the other.

i am terrified. i'm more scared of God than i am my father at this point. i'm afraid to let Him in. i desperately wanted healing in this relationship for so long, but now that time has dragged on and on i wonder why i wanted it. i'm dreading it. i'm afraid of what it will cost, for every victory and ground i covered spiritually in the past has had a high price to pay. i used to believe it was worth it. but now i wonder.....because i didn't even get to keep that ground or those victories. i lost everything. so much time that looks wasted from this perspective.

am i going to lose what precious little i have left?
am i going to lose my sanity, my rationality?
the lightheartedness of my personality that is so slowly coming back to life?

am i going to have to go back to living such an examined life that it suffocates my joy?
i know the heart of my faith is repenting and being made new. and part of me misses that. but mostly all i remember is struggle and hurting and you know what? i'm too tired to go back to that.
maybe that's because it was unhealthy?

but then i look at those i know still practicing their faith, still walking with God as i used to; and it looks like a lot of legalism still. some of them have joy, have peace; some of them make it look like what i want. but do i get a say in how it goes? or is this a journey where i have to submit & suffer whatever consequences? it is so subjective, so intuition-based, so feely & "hearing from God" looks so drastically different in different lives and i want concrete, i want logic, i want knowing. i don't want to live in a fog anymore. i can't stand the thought of a church. God no. i can't live with every person thinking they have a voice in my life, saying it's pride if i disagree, being constantly challenged and second-guessed. i don't mind being challenged if there's an open end or the freedom to agree to disagree; but i find that is more common with my muslim friends or friends with no faith. i sacrificed myself for community once. i can't do that again. the community kept me in the pit that was suffocating me.
is there every any freedom? can i actually walk in grace if i walk with Him or is that just a concept we throw out but never bring to play?
i can't say these things to anyone. my agnostic & atheist friends won't get it. my christian (ugh. that word and the baggage it carries--we have got to come up with a new name to separate the genuine, beautiful Jesus-followers from the ugly, morals-above-people hateful religious people)

i don't want to lose the people i love.
i don't want to get sucked into another cult like situation.
i don't trust myself to interpret the bible, to know if i'm truly walking by the Spirit or just making shit up, i don't trust God's heart or intentions or will; i don't trust His words. I trust a very few of His people. 4, to be exact.

i miss the girl who loved God. who believed she was loved. who lived out of that & for a very brief season of 21-23 lived in abundant joy because of it. but damn, she bought into a lot of lies. she was fooled and chained by things pretending to be of God but weren't; and her teachable humble heart cost her sanity for a solid year. i am so so so afraid of going back to her. the beautiful pieces were not worth the agony.
the thing is, i'm afraid creating a real relationship with God will be going back.
but...ok, lets think about this for a minute babe.
didn't you always feel torn back then too? weren't there SO MANY little voices inside you screaming that there was more, that the way your church was doing the God thing was off, that if God was love your life should be love? and all the formulas & walls & un-graciousness things you were taught, didn't you fight against them & reject them?
*yeah.*

so maybe...maybe this will be different.
maybe you will be whole.
because maybe, you weren't wrong. maybe it was right all along-your own gut instinct- and you just couldn't break free from the boxes being stacked & built around you.
maybe you can be just a jesus follower. and love Him. & let Him love you. maybe He doesn't want to crush your soul under the weight of all you're doing wrong; maybe that was them. not Him. & maybe He doesn't want others crushed under the weight of expectations & judgments & "shoulds". maybe He just wants them to be loved, accepted, given radical grace. can you do that if you're not free to be vulnerable? um nope. can you be vulnerable with all this baggage shit? again, NOPE.

so maybe you'll grow even better at what you do best now, loving the people outside the box.
(bc deep down, isn't that what you're afraid of losing the most?)
maybe *you* can re-define "christian".

what. crazy talk. ugh it's so ick. i don't know.
i know this is a lot of emotional vomit, but i need a safe space to do that in. so here it is. all the confusion & ugliness & irrationality of my fear & bitterness talking. all the thoughts i keep hidden and don't allow to surface. they need to escape so i stop choking on them. this is what i've been running from; this ugliness.