monday makes for a long week

i was going to try to sit down and journal this morning. there's so much unprocessed junk in my head. but then i figured i've lacked so much consistency here that i might as well type out my thoughts since none of us are frequenters of this space anymore. 

i'm hurting today. i'm worn out. i probably don't deserve to be worn out, but there it is. i am anyway. it feels like most mornings i'm poking and prodding and arguing with my kids to get everyone in the car and barely eke into their car line to drop them off for school. this morning i couldn't hold back my tears in the car. 

it's all so difficult. i don't know why it's that way. i don't know why it seems like it needs to be that way. i don't think it actually needs to be, but no matter what i change we seem to end up back at the same place. and it makes me feel like i'm a bad parent and i'm failing my kids. and in many ways i probably am. 

sometimes i wonder what parts of me and my parenting are going to be the thorns in their sides? what parts of how i do things will harm their future relationships? what parts will make them fight with their spouses and cause less health in their grown-up worlds? what things will come up over and over in their therapy sessions?

i want what's best for them. but i know that despite my best intentions they will still have shortcomings and misgivings. i will fail them. i will hurt them despite how much i chide myself to protect and cherish them and their hearts. i love them so much it hurts, but some days i wonder if i'm grown up enough to parent them, let alone parent them well. 

i'll be really honest with you about how i've spent my time since taking my older kids to school -- i've mostly been browsing online shops trying to distract myself from all the turmoil inside my mind, my heart, and my soul right now. thankfully i realized early enough in the process that distraction often leads to a bigger explosion of un-dealt with crud later and maybe i should try to peel the onion a bit. 

ugh. this day has made for a long week, and this week has made for a long year. 

there is so much hurt. there is so much brokenness. there is so much division. and there's so much of me that doesn't want to try to speak to any of it. i don't want to attempt to make sense of any of it mostly because i don't think any of it actually makes sense. because when everyone talks at the same time, it's just noise. when i don't listen to anyone else, i shouldn't expect anyone to listen to what i have to say either. and we shouldn't be surprised that our nation is full of people wearing noise-cancelling headphones, and shouting at the top of their lungs expecting anyone and everyone else to listen.

there's a deep sadness in me. i want to ask how we got here, but i already know the crux of the answer. we thought we could know as much as God. we thought we could do better. we've wanted to do it our own way, in our own strength, out of our own wisdom. and we've turned the amazing creation we've been given into a sh*tshow.

yesterday i was thinking about the difference between unity and uniformity.

there is no space for disagreement among the ranks. apparently not even for the sake of argument. we seem to either push freedom and independence at the expense of the well-being of anyone and everyone involved where people make decisions based off of their emotions and what they're driven to by blindly following, or we expect peace and unity, but define unity as uniformity and persecute anyone who doesn't fall into line with our thinking. we tolerate everyone as long as they agree with us but we certainly don't tolerate the intolerant - how could anyone tolerate them? 

we walk around - and when i say we, i mean every.single.one.of.us. - with giant logs in our eyes all the while thinking and telling those around us that we have the clear vision to remove the specks in the eyes of others. 

we pity people instead of seeing them. we think we understand them without taking the time to know them.

who is our neighbor? who are we called to love? and what does it mean to love?

love does not mean giving in to the whims of what others want. it means wanting what is best for someone else. sometimes that means wanting them to go through something painful to bring healing. getting treatment for a disease - for any kind of cancer for instance - is extremely painful. but staying comfortable instead will not help. avoiding the problem will never lead to healing. of course throwing medicine and vitriol at people won't solve the problem either.

the crazy part is that we can't seem to agree on what the problem is, or in even more frustrating scenarios we agree 100% on what the problem is, but we cannot agree on a solution to pursue. so we're counter-acting each other while trying to arrive at the same place.

we are very clearly told that our neighbor is not just the person next door. our neighbors live on the other side of our city. they live on the other side of the world. they worship other gods - even gods that look like good things that were never meant to be gods like freedom and progress. our neighbors have all different tones of skin. they have all different beliefs. sometimes they come from enemy territory and are people we wholly disagree with. some of them hate me. some of them hate you. that doesn't give us an out. Jesus doesn't put a caveat into "love your neighbor as yourself." there is no "unless" attached to the end of the sentence.

we don't get to opt out just because something is hard. we don't get to hate people because they make stupid decisions. *newsflash* i make stupid decisions too. every day. and so do you. 

and what does the Lord require of you? to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with your God. sometimes i think we forget to notice that this verse does not say - to do justly to those who agree with me, to love mercy when it's mercy for those on my side, and to walk humbly with my God when it's easy to do. but that's how i live most of the time. that's how i interpret it. or at least i must admit that my actions lead to the conclusion that i interpret it that way.

we will all be held responsible for our own actions. we are all culpable for the times when we've done wrong, and the times we've disengaged from fighting against the injustice and the unmerciful. the times we've called out for destruction and we've turned a blind eye full of apathy to the hurting people around us.

we will be held responsible for the times we preached love yet sowed hate. where we prayed that our actions would honor the God we claim to serve and then tore down and name-called with our next breath.

this world will pass away. the only thing that will last are the souls.

we've become so mixed up about what's fact, what's opinion, and what's truth. so mixed up that we constantly mistake each of them for the others.

we cling to opinions instead of truth. we confuse Christ's call with the call of our own wayward and deceitful hearts. 

i have no answers, guys. i have no ten point plan that will bring us into agreement and have us holding hands singing kum ba yah around a fire somewhere by the end of it. 

my only hope is that God is still in control. and that earth has no sorrow that heaven can't heal.

xoxo