And, despite all that, right now I feel an incredible longing that I can't seem to quench. Sometimes it stays silent, but when I talk with someone, or think too deeply about life, it wakes and pulls somewhere deep in my gut and my brain. Pulling me, sometimes so hard that I can't concentrate on anything else... but without a place to go. Longing, so deeply that I sit staring... but with no way of getting there. When it comes, as it did moments ago, the feeling seems to shift and flow - sometimes feeling like a fleeting ethereal mist, then suddenly bordering on the edge of emotional pain so intense that it knocks me flat.
I'm not totally sure what the problem is. Maybe it's the feeling that comes right as my bipolar is about to switch into depression. Maybe it's some sort of embedded longing to cuddle with a guy. Maybe I ate something, or didn't eat enough. Maybe it's a longing to be emotionally close to someone - anyone - and an echo of the deeply resonating emptiness when I realize that even when I & others try we still have a long ways to go. Maybe it's a longing for Heaven - I read a CS Lewis quote today that was something like, "If I feel a longing that can't be met by this world, then the only logical assumption is that I was made for another."
I don't know.
It feels sort of like the wonder/awe/love I feel when I watch the rain and know that God loves me, but twisted and empty and backwards and opposite of all those things. Which is probably why, when I've felt this way in the past, I usually prayed for rain. And rain... or perhaps the presence and love of God... can somehow quench it when nothing else can.
And I wonder if a therapist could help me process my emotions or complete enough self-reflection to enable it go away and never come back.
Or even if I want it to go away.
Maybe it's just a reminder that I'm imperfect and need God... and this is one way He reminds me.
Maybe there isn't anything wrong with me at all.
Because in moments like this, on the edge of excrutiating pain, I find myself suddenly remembering the people around me... and caring about them far more than I did a few hours ago. I find myself writing a blog post when it's been days since I felt the desire. I find myself turning inside myself, trying to find ways to solve the problems that I see... and those are all good things.
Again, do I want it to go away?
Do I want to live a life free of pain... and also thus free of the reminders of imperfect mortality? Do I want to solve my problems and find complete and total peace... and perhaps forget or lose my desire to reach out entirely?
Would living a painless life make me forget how sweet it is to see the hand of God during suffering?
I'm thinking about finding a therapist, but I don't know what my goal would be. Maybe I'm attached to my own cycle of suffering and unable to give it up. Maybe I don't know how to get close to people, or I'm afraid of them, or maybe there's really nothing wrong.
I don't know.
All I know is that it hurts... and it hurts more because I don't know what it is, I don't know how or if to fix it, and I don't know how anyone else can help... and because it always ends up hurting the people that care about me, too.
*sigh*
I'm going to pray for rain.
Have you thought about seeing an emotional healer?
ReplyDeleteI've been experiencing the same things the last little while. Feelings of deep longing or yearning that come and go. A feeling of emptiness. I've wondered too if I should see a therapist, but, as you say, am not sure what my goal would be or if that would really help. It's nice to know I'm not the only one who's experiencing this.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you seem to be extrapolating from pondering about your recent feelings and experiences. That pain has its place. We don't seek it. But it helps us be more aware of - and understanding toward - the people in our lives. And more aware, as you said, of "how sweet it is to see the hand of God..."
ReplyDeleteYour pondering caused me to think of this scripture from Paul:
"I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.
I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." Philippians 4: 12, 13
My wife shared this quote on Facebook today. It isn't directly related to your post (because the context was about letting go of past mistakes: "You can't start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading the last one."), but the end result is related I believe.
"Lord, thank you for forgiving me for all the times I fail you. Please give me peace today. Amen."
It just seems that every time I feel something, you're going through the same feelings.
ReplyDeleteI don't even know you... but I feel like you already know me.
-L
Thanks for the thoughts and thank you also for sharing them. I've felt many of these things myself. At times the longing and pain have been almost unbearable but I made it through, with the help of others. And what I was left with was a desire just as strong to reach out to others as others have reached out to me.
ReplyDeleteI've thought a lot, too, about what causes the pain. While I don't KNOW I have a suspicion that for me it results from a feeling of separation from God caused by the belief that it is impossible for God to love me as I am. In working through this one of the most important steps for me has been learning that people, tangible real people, can love and accept me as I am. I use their love as a model to begin to recreate my belief that it is possible for God to love me as well.
And thank you for the rain. :)
I think writing is therapeutic for you and I hope you never stop doing it because not only is it helping you it is helping others.
ReplyDelete“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
― Ernest Hemingway
You don't pray for someone to come, sit with you in the rain, metres away, not even watching you, but feeling the same rain?
ReplyDelete