The Summer Bug
It comes every year around this time; each year, I feel the same odd mix of feelings.
Like a cocoon, each summer is always a marking of shedding one life and entering another.
I’m not sure if something like this can be described. I feel happy, sad, excited, depressed, all at the same time.
I know that I’m still growing both in spirituality as well as in mentality, but the summer bug always hits me hard.
Long before, it never felt as such a dark, yet bright, time as this; I always knew that I would just return to the same old life in the fall.
Just before, it was a huge shift of my mentality from high school into college. But I knew that I wouldn’t anticipate feeling sad leaving.
Now, it’s completely different how I view these different segments of my life.
Instead of wondering if I’ll be sad to miss people at all, I’m wondering if I’ll break down and cry or not when I leave the ones I love and return to the others I love.
Sometimes I wish time would slow down and let my emotions catch up.
Prayer of my life
I looked, I hoped, I wished, I remembered, I cried.
Dear God,
So I thought that things had been going pretty well. And maybe they would be, if I weren’t a human. I’ve gotten a little bit of free time, somehow, and managed to hang out with friends. But what just happened to me? Why am I depressed again? Maybe it’s sugar…maybe I can manage to blame my problems on irrelevance. Who knows? I was just reminded of exactly who I am. This isn’t a “good” brokenness, either. I have no idea how this is supposed to help me. You are supposed to know these things, I guess.
I am chiseled. What exactly am I supposed to feel if every person I try to love, I know that they will reject me? Every time I dream that that one someone will be there to hold onto dearly, that that one someone will say to me, “I love you,” it just cuts me even deeper, because I know that with that one someone, it can will never be. Not in this century, at least. But this one thing I can’t ask for your help with. No, I doubt I can ask anyone for help with this. Not in this state, at least.
Is this some kind of a sick joke? What exactly is this “trial” supposed to help me with, God? Is this really a trial at all? Why did You make me this way? Why are your “servants” condemning me, someone who loves You with all his heart and soul and mind? Why do you let those “servants” continue to pronounce utter lies that you hate me?
Or are they condemning you, because of what you’ve said? Or maybe it’s not what you’re “saying.” I think that You’re better than what people make You out to be. I think that the Bible is even more vast than anyone can imagine. It’s written by humans through You, but I haven’t been feeling your presence in the pastors’ messages lately. Pastors may have been to seminary, pastors may be the head of the church, but that doesn’t mean that they can even reveal a speck of Your incredible love for us (not that I can, either). Perhaps that’s why they’re so intent on revealing what you apparently “hate.” We, the humans, are pretty good at doing that, so I’ve read.
Except that’s not what the good news is. The good news is the ability to have a relationship with you, God. How is anyone supposed to have a relationship with you, if they’re told that you hate them? This is where many pastors fail in their professions. They spout lies that people need to do something to accept your grace. They spout lies that you hate certain people. They spout lies that hurt people, and turn them away from you.
And if a pastor teaches his congregation that you hate certain people, what will come of them? They will hate, as well. It is written: “So God created man in his own image…” (Gen. 1:27). But what many fail to realize is that you would never have created man to hate. You created man to love, and through love comes service. Too many people have forgotten that simple matter of fact. That single life-changing command, to love one another, is shallowed by continuous preaching, continuous protesting, continuous attention of all the wrong things. Is a pastor not supposed to be a shepherd? How is he supposed to calm his sheep, teach them to love through Jesus’ example, and inspire them of your coming if alll he talks about is who you hate?
No. Those are lost sheep, led by a ferocious wolf. Can a church glorify and worship you if it does not love? If only every church were led by a true, kind shepherd, then I would find it impossible to deny your love for anyone. I wouldn’t be able to help but sing of your love forever…
This is my prayer, God, that you will somehow melt the hearts of the hardened pastors who have lost sight of your great love. I pray that you can change the wolves into good shepherds, and if that is impossible, anoint another shepherd, so that the sheep will not be led astray. I pray that the congregations of those corrupted churches will be able to see past the deception; I pray that they’ll be able to see your wonderful love, and not your “hate.” I pray that those who have been affected by those wolves will be able to open their hearts up to your word and will be able to love you, even after they have been abused by the words of the wolves. But more than anything, I pray that others will be able to find you as I have, a confidant and a father, a guide and a light, so that even if they feel that their own kind is crushing down on them because of what the wolves have put in their ears, that they will be able to turn to you and see the truth, and even more, that they will be able to turn to you and feel the truth, the truth that is your undying and unconditional love.
All of these, I pray in your son’s name,
Amen.
Hold fast to that which is good.
“See that no one repays another with evil for evil,
But always seek after that which is good for one another and for all people.
Rejoice always;
Pray without ceasing;
In everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
Do not quench the Spirit;
Do not despise prophetic utterances.
But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good;
Abstain from every form of evil.”
1 Thessalonians 5:15-22
It’s a slow, but steady race way to die.
I have this tight knot in my stomach, but I think that it has been there since I was younger. It has been there for a while, but it gets stronger when I think about who I really am. I ask myself, “Who are you, really?” and nothing appears to me in all of its prideful, brazen glory:
I am the light that burns the inescapable dull-colored candles, when all else is dark bright.
I am the dark that dodges the bright lanterns on the narrow roadside that try to guide me into the night light.
I am the paved road that beckons the flaming flares to waste their time, trying to light the true way.
I am the unlit flare in someone’s last resort trunk that does not ignite when burned with true passion.
I am the trunk that keeps all useless toys and unimportant trinkets as idols.
I am the toy that is not broken, but was made defective, the toy that was given away not out of love, but out of disinterest.
I am the defective, the dispensable, the disposed.
Coals
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”
But what if I don’t want to ‘heap burning coals on his head’?
