Nighttime and Words

This is how I know that I am a night person...Nighttime is when I do most of my writing. Nighttime is when my brain kicks into overdrive, and random thoughts start spewing out all over the place.
Of course, I can write in the daytime too, and I used to go every morning to get coffee and sit and write awhile. I like to do that too....but there is something that happens at night that I cannot explain. With that said, here I am again.

A very long time again, when I was in 10th? maybe 11th grade, I remember being very upset over something, I can't now remember what. In any case, I was in my room, and I was crying, and that's what I remember. I also remember that I chose that moment to say something, which was maybe partially a request as well, to God. I wasn't much of a praying person back then. I was kind of coming into the whole thing on my own though. Just starting to get there. So as I was crying, my sentiment was something like this; Whatever it's like in the future, however much it hurts or whatnot, I always want to be able to feel it....because I would rather have it hurt....I would rather weep like this, than feel nothing. After awhile of feeling nothing, I think you grow even more numb, and I never want to be numb.
Naive huh?
Sometimes now, I am numb, and I do want to be. Mostly because, being a person who feels a lot of raw emotion takes its toll over time.
I havn't been to church in awhile, and the last church I went to was Mars Hill. Now, Mars Hill is a fantastic church, but they don't have a traditional worship service.
One thing I really love about a more traditional worship service is that you might get a lot of repetetive, but you don't have to learn new words every week, and the music is usually fairly easy to follow. This is nice if you want to just be able to sing, and worship, and not worry about the details.
So anyway, I have been meaning to visit this church in town, and I just asked my friend if she would go with me. We're going to go this weekend I think.
Saturday of course, no, I am not missing the playoff game. (haha)

Last week, before I asked my friend, I was just imagining that this was going to end up being one of those worship services where, for whatever reason, I felt particularly touched, and spent the ENTIRE time sobbing my eyeballs out. I am RIPE for this sort of occurance, and it is one that I do not want to have my first night in a new church. Call me crazy, but I don't want to field those sorts of questions, and it might sound crazy, but that sort of encouragement.
Frankly, it is just sometimes annoying when people you have never met before want to give you comfort, as if they have any idea what's going on with you. I just need a good release, okay pal?!?!?!

I know I've mentioned in the past that I am looking for some kind of consistency in my life, as far as, the kind of person I am in public, in private, wherever. Integrating everything that I believe in into one me. Rather than having church Amanda, who is acceptable to those folks, and Starbucks Amanda, who is acceptable to those folks, and so on and so forth. Somebody who speaks a language that is relevent all the time, not just in the bubble that church can be. I am done being that person. I don't understand Christianity to be that way. It's not supposed to be!
I cannot reconcile myself to that anymore.

So right now I am dealing with things on my own...I've been afraid to go back to a church, fearing that I will be sucked back into that culture. Maybe I will just go here and there, I don't know. The thing is, God really can move in churches in crazy ways, and having the encouragement of worshipping with all those other believers can be amazing. Church isn't all bad, it's just that there must be more balance.
So...yeah.
I feel somewhat torn. I know in some ways I could use it, and in others....yeah.

I find myself in this place with God where...we really aren't communicating so much. Well, I am sure that He is communicating all the time!! haha! It's ME that has the problem!!! :p
There are these things in the back of my head, and things that I am struggling with sorting out, and I know that I really can't do it on my own, but I sort of hope He will just miraculously intervene without my having to ask, or rather, that at least He just will keep my together so that I don't have an emotional breakdown! :p
The thing is, if I ask Him, and He does nothing (or I percieve He does nothing), then I get letdown. I can deal with the situation, better than I can deal with the dissapointment, so I don't ask.
I don't pray about relationships, a spouse, or any of that mumbo jumbo, because of essentially the same thing. I can deal with being single and not having too many friends where I am, that is usually totally fine, only sometimes hard. Admitting that I want it though, and talking about it to Him, and being completely open about what's deep down inside, brings all of that to the top, for my occassionally shaky emotions to deal with. Then I just feel raw for awhile. I get over it, I mean, until the next time I have to deal with it, but it's still horrible.
I feel like I am just walking around with this gaping wound in my heart. This is my life. I get somebody that I think I need to pray for...and they start doing all this lame ass crap, and the more I pray for them, the more of a heart I have for them, until I have heartache over every stupid ass thing they do!! Is this fair?!?!?! In order to pray so honestly, does it require a constant broken heart on my end?!?! This is how I have begun to feel over time. This is why I have sort of taken a break from praying for people....as horrible as that may sound.

I used to deal with it a lot better. I mean, I understood that place so well, and the ups made it all worth it. Over time and dissapointment though, I have started to feel very selfish, and very tired. Perhaps I will snap out of it. Who knows. I would like to say that I can be an intercessor, regardless of what it costs me, but in order for that to happen, I am going to have to come back to a place of seeing the greater good. Essentially, of having what we like to call in the church, an"eternal perspective." Knowing that you are storing your treasure in heaven, or whatnot, and that its really not about here at all. Knowing that there is some reward for your efforts. I don't mean, reward as in; My mansion is bigger in shinier than yours!! That is a bunch of B.S.! Like we earn it or something...we don't. I mean, more like an eternal reward in people, and in being with all of them in a better place.
Maybe it sounds lame to some people.
Anyway, I used to have that perspective, and I have lost it. It rolled away under the bed or something I guess. :p
Once in awhile I think...Okay Lord! We are going to have it out tonight...but to me that means that I am going to cry, and talk to Him about all of this stuff that he already knows I am feeling, and nothing is going to change, except for tomorrow I am going to feel better for awhile. So, a week or so from now, I am going to be dissapointed again, because I need real answers to some of my questions, like, last week.
And why go through that? Why not just leave everything in the background, and focus on the important things like...Oh, finding a place to live, that is incredibly cheap!
*sigh*
Oh to be 22 again. When I believed and that was alll I needed. I miss that place.

LOL!
I talked to an old friend the other day, and he asked me; Hey!? Done any more of your crazy 40 day fasts lately?! And I was like..Umm...no. And he said; I tell everyone about that! My crazy friend who fasted for 40 days!
And I can't even believe that that girl and I are the same. If I could meet her face to face, I wouldn't know what to say.
That was ten years ago right now. Ten years ago right now, I hadn't eaten anything in nine days. Isn't life weird? The way it twists and turns?

But hey, after all, this is me being real. So at least there is that.