I've got a lot of things on my mind and I'm tired of trying to even make sense of it.
There are so many nights when I don't see the hope to go on, but I guess I still have. A lot of things change in a guy over the course of two years, it has been over two years since I was diagnosed with Leukemia and my life hasn't gotten easier. Everyone tells me it took so much strength to get through chemo but I see the strength in every person when they have faith, and hope to keep fighting.
I've experienced a lot of pain this past year, not the physical kind but the spiritual, and the emotional. I've felt friends grow close and seem to fall away but I am supported on all sides. Even with all this support though I feel suffocated and choked with the pains of life, I've struggled with thoughts of ending it, which scares me but I have. I'm at a point in my life where I know I could be doing more, I could be serving better and Jesus isn't my only focus in life, which I want Him to be and know these pains would be easier to handle but all this support keeps me up. When I am hurting I feel His tug, in strange ways to reach out to people, and almost always I get to hear of their own pain and all of their struggles.
I had a couple drinks tonight and began to feel lonely as I talked to my friend over how confused I am on life, she tried to give me advice but I didn't want to receive it, when I left her and started driving home (after I let myself "sober" up) I got even more depressed, all my loneliness kept setting in, and the weight of the world came down, I felt pain, and I felt lonely. I threw in some tobacco and put on some sad music. This is common for me, I like to just get the sad all out of my way when I'm sad, as if I can just puke out the sadness or something. Then when I got the urge to feel share steel touch my flesh, I text a friend who I reached out to recently, who has been here for me in weird ways but never constantly present in my life I just felt some sort of comfort with her. (Yea I usually go to girls with my problems, they seem more responsive.) She replied with "not to good, you?" the last time I called her when I was feeling low I unloaded, and I was like nope, not this time I'm gonna let her unload and make sure she's okay. I said, "tell me about it?" and seconds later I received her phone call, naturally I pulled over because I wasn't sure if she needed me in person or just to talk and I didn't want to be distracted so I got on the side of the ride in my Subaru and just listened to her talk about her fears, her low points, what seemed like everything on her mind and how blown away we both were by God using me to reach out to her at that moment when she felt like she was going insane. The conversation went on for almost 40 minutes and as I listened I began to realize things I didn't even know, things I've thought of before but often forget. Things another amazing friend of mine had started to talk to me about the last time I reached out and started reading "Love Does". This thing I thought of mostly is that just because I'm not blowing up Facebook, peoples phones, ears, and lives with my "Jesus" influence: He was still in me, and active. I was still playing a big part in His plan. I got to show love to one of His children when she was hurting and feeling abandoned by God. This pain, the depression, all of my idiocy, all the crap I was working with right now was actually going to be able to help someone, and although I have made mistakes I wish I didn't God can still use me. He doesn't need our vase to be perfect and pretty and painted to use us. He can glue, he can still pour into us. Sometimes when our vase has more holes in it, it's easier to leak Him out.
I am a vase, made perfect originally by God but through my humanity and sins I've become cracked, and not all the original clay is here but I'm still usable by Him.
Thanks for sharing your heart Jeffrey :) It's true that you are a jar of clay with its cracks and broken pieces that God pieces back together into something he can use and be reflected through. I've heard the phrase, "God uses the seemingly unusable to accomplish the impossible." In the world's eyes that is pure craziness because we think things should be pretty, put together, and like works of art, but in God's eyes those are the perfect things to use because HE can be made to look great, even in our weakness, sickness of body and soul. Your writings reminded me of 2Cor. 4:6-12.
ReplyDelete6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,”made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.
7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11 For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. 12 So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.
It's sometimes hard to swallow being pressed on every side, perplexed, struck down, and persecuted, yet he promises that we will not be crushed, forgotten, abandoned, or destroyed. You have been and are being used by God as you continually open that up to him. He loves you so much Jeffrey and I hope that just that thought washes over you with no 'but's about it!