To Feel Again

I haven't been able to feel much this past week. My heart was stuffy as if it had a cold. Most people think depression is where you are really sad, or a perpetual debbie-downer.  Depression doesn't work that way.  There are two main kinds of depression. On one hand, you have people who feel more than normal people do.  I have a couple of friends like that. "Happy" for them is euphoria for a "normal" person, and sad is dysphoria. They can't contain, nor control their emotions.  They are caught in a whirlwind and feel like they can't get out of it.  People with this type of depression have an incredible blessing beyond the obvious curses; they have felt emotions that I can't begin to comprehend.  They have tasted heaven, along with the hell.

The other kind of depression is, I feel, the more sinister.  People with this depression feel less.  Do you know how hard it is not to feel?  To want to cry, but can't?  To see a sunset that you know is overwhelmingly beautiful, but remain underwhelmed? To eagerly anticipate free time for a hobby, but find yourself unable to focus...again. To walk next to someone special, to share in a precious moment, yet feel distant. Detached. Dead.  What does a man do if he can't feel?  How can a man cry out to God...if he can't cry at all.

Today I felt again; I laughed the hardest I have in a long time; I cried harder than I have in a long time. God heard my muddled, muffled heart.  He gave me strength of heart to live and love. He kindled joy in my heart that gives me hope. It's a reminder to me that God is in all things sovereign.  He can bring a man down to the depths; He can raise him up to the heavens.  He can give a man depth of heart, and he can take it away.  He is the same God to both, and to both, He is good.  He is the measure by which real and normal take meaning.  I don't know why I go through phases of lifelessness, but I know that in it, God is good, and that somehow my lifelessness will bring life more abundant to either me, or some other of His children.  As much as it cuts me to the core, I delight in the opportunity to be forced to rely on God's strength completely, in heart and mind, when my own falters.  God is good.

Thanks

I thank God for pain.  I know that seems really odd, or maybe downright crazy.  I thank Him for it none the less.    We have the capacity to create worlds.  Worlds so deceptively perfect that we forget what's real.  Pain wakes us up.  It calls us back to God.  It faces us - kicks us in face - with the question of how a good God could be sovereign over a world so evil.  In the face of pain, one cannot ignore God.

I thank God for a rainy day.  You think I jest or lie to myself, but I do...thank him, that is.  Gloomy, Eeyore days are days "that the Lord has made" no different than the sunny ones.  Rain, thunder, clouds, and snow all work to make the flowers grow.  Hardship is the wildfire that prepares our hearts for growth.

I thank God for silence.  I find myself trying to fill it whenever I meet it.  I try to silence silence.  You know, God speaks in silence.  I spend my time crying to God for wisdom and clarity, and I don't even listen to his whispers. After witnessing the strength and faithfulness of God in dispelling the prophets of baal with fire from heaven, Elijah ran to the mountains in fear of his life from Queen Jezebel. He was hiding in a cave.  God told Elijah that he would pass by the cave and talk to him.  There was an earthquake, a fire, and a tornado, but the presence and word of God was not in those.  After all these things, there "came a gentle whisper."  God spoke to Elijah in the silence.  After deafening, devastating noise,  the voice of the Lord came in a whisper.  Listen to it, will you?

I thank God for everything.  I thank Him for good, bad, A, and D.  I thank Him for euphoria and dysphoria alike. Height and depth are His.  The vast expanse of human emotion is in his hands, and it is Good.

 I thank God that He is faithful.  He is faithful no matter what.  Believe it or not, God is greater than my ability to screw things up.  There is nowhere I can go, nothing I can do that is beyond the reach of His grace.  He promises never to leave or forsake me.  He keeps His promises. 


Now thank we all our God!
Rock, star, and atom
Sing praises when we do not.
His faithfulness no one can fathom.


Earth, fire, and wind obey
My prayer is that we too may
So thank our God above
For His unfailing Love.

College

This is how college feels sometimes...

Twisted

Bent, crooked, twisted, broke
Anything that isn’t straight
Evil’s not its own entity,
But anything that's not quite right

Slightly shifted focus,
Malicious overtones;
All are evil equally
When all is said and done

The devil aims to hit us hard
Right where we always place our heart
He always seems to slightly twist
That which we can't bear to part

Mr. Weyandt

I used to think that a man
Had only life and name as his
Here today, tomorrow gone
Preserved alone in memories

Now I know that is not true
A man who died, yet on he lives
In mem'ries, yes, but greater still
In lives he's touched, the love he gives.

A hero, one to imitate
Is this beautiful man to me
Unfailing love in the sight of God
Is his legacy to me.

Everlasting Song

I wrote you a song
With images fair
Of beautiful eyes,
Long golden hair

Of beauty of souls,
Noblest minds
Perfection of pathos,
Hearts that are kind.

The words never change
Their images mirror
perfection in heav'n
incorp'rated here.

The deep tearing pain
My tears now show;
The reason you changed
I never will know.

Or maybe it's me?
And I'm in the wrong?
I guess time will answer
When you hear my song.

Joy

Joy is when the whole man is “filled up”, or satisfied; When one’s being is completed. And complete joy is when Heart, Soul, and Mind are completed completely. Pain, is when some or all of these are lacking. Obviously, there’s physical pain, but of all kinds, it hurts the least. There’s emotional pain, when we feel sad, or angry. Mental pain, when we’re in anguish, and indecision, or a logical paradox. When your soul is in pain, it hurts like…well, Hell. Actually, that may be more accurate than you think. In heaven, we will be made into a real Man; in Hell, we will be stripped from it. Pain is in a sense, a longing for the True, real reality. It is when joy is lacking that we feel pain, and the pain is the absence, the not being complete. A sick man longs to be well, but a healthy man never longs to be sick. The completion of sickness is health, and the completion of pain is Joy. Pain is a signpost pointing to Joy, and it is quite real, but we cannot stop and mistake the sign for the road; The road that leads to Joy.