So...um...God? Yeah...so where is it at?

I am learning so much lately, but it is stuff that cannot be expressed in words. I keep saying there is something big and crazy going on inside of me, as if I am all jumbled up inside and being shaken around. Since my mother passed it has been as if my word has turned upside down and the support system I had for 98% of my life has fallen to pieces, all the while God is catching those falling pieces and laying them where they should have rested in the first place, but can I be frank with you all and say THIS CRAP HURTS! I appreciate God being involved enough in my life to fix what is broken, but I am in pain and discomfort. I know one day I will look back and say "Man, look how far God brought me through that valley, and how much I grew through that period", but right now, I feel alone and oppressed. Nobody knew me like my mother, and I don't know if anyone could ever again. She watched me grow and knew my deepest secrets from the moment I was born to the moment she left this world. We had so many deep conversations most people couldn't handle. My mother and I could not stand to be surface. If I am a friend, I am a friend with all that I am. I don't know how to small talk (not well as least), and it pains me to be surface with people, or even worse, when people are surface with me. Its as if I can see through to peoples pains and fears, and even their reservations about me, and I just want to prove to them how I am dedicated to being their for them. I hate the fact that everyone is always wary of me. Not only does this keep me from being there for them, but it keeps them from being there for me. I cannot share my pain with others because it seems they either don't want to help me carry it (as bad as that sounds, I can't blame them) or they just can't handle it. I have wondered this since I was about 13: Is is God's design that I be lonely so I would depend on him more? I do have a problem with placing people on pedestals and then being disappointed when they fall off. I have gotten over that though, at about age 22 or so.  I now know for sure that everyone sucks at some point in time, and I accept that about people. My problem is this: Who but God knows how I feel inside, and will I ever have someone who can handle the emotional wreck that I am at times? I need help sifting through all this crap inside of me. I know that God is a friend through everything, and I appreciate that very much, but I find myself needing a human being to talk to, who I can call at 3am and just spill my guts to. Can I be honest with you and say I am not satisfied with talking to God about what is going on inside? Can I be brutally honest and say God is too silent? Can I be honest with you and say that I sometimes doubt God's care about my loneliness, my life, my well-being? Can I be as honest as ever and say that right now I am struggling with understanding what is going on in my life right now and am on the edge of a nervous breakdown? All of this and more is going on inside of me and I am about to make the biggest move in my life to a place where gas is $4.75/gallon and rent for one person is $700 and I have about $400 to my name as we speak. I know that I am doing what God wants me to, but I just don't see where this is going. I am so afraid, but somehow I know God is in this and there is a strange reassurance underneath it all.  But where do I go to unleash all of the emotions ravaging my insides? Where is my outlet? Who is my soundboard? When you took her, I was left all alone in this world. What about me God? Where is my support? Who will help me? Who is my friend? Who will counsel me? Who will teach me? Who will be strong for me? Why do I always have to be the strong one...? I know you are supposed to be the strong one and I am supposed to be weak so you can prove your strength but WHAT DOES THAT MEAN!? There is just too much going on inside of me for words. Im lost... When does it end?

Heartstrings tugged in so many ways...

 Lately I have had this amazing urge to write something, but every time I put my pen to paper, it never comes out right. I have been told that I expect too much from myself by thinking I will write it all out the way it feels on the first sitting. I have done it before though, but when I grew up to join the adult world, it all seemed to drain away as my life was taken over by work and school and responsibility. This annoys me to no end because whatever this is that is brewing inside of me is beautiful and poignant, tragic and epic, heart-wrenching and soul-inspiring, but it just wont come out! I hate to force it out, because it always seems to come out rushed that way, and I never get the whole thing out. God is seriously doing some big things inside of me and I just can't seem to get into His rhythm though, but whatever is happening, its literally as if my insides are being turned inside out and my world is being destroyed and remade time after time. I feel as if I am forgetting who I am and at the same time I wonder who have I ever been?In the middle of it all is this intense desire to DO what I was made to do, and that would be to worship God and enjoy Him. I am afraid of this though. I know God's hand is all over my life right now, and he has a purpose, but it seems like pure chaos at the moment. What the heck is going on?! This has been ringing in my head for days now, and I am going to say it now just to get it out and give it presence, and perhaps somehow wrap my mind around what is being said to me. "God, you are both terrible and beautiful, orderly and wild, just and..." and what? Gracious just doesn't cut it. I heard this song on the radio by Big Daddy Weave called "Just The Way I Am" that made me cry with joy and I just started thanking God for loving me when I fail so very often. I have been down a lot in the past because I believed the lies of the enemy that God had put me on the back burner abandoned me to my sin, but God is inside me somewhere, a terrible force demolishing the ugliness in me and making something beautiful out of all of my mistakes, scars and wounds. God is a God of redemption friends! Everyone has their something that weighs them down and tears them to shreds when the Enemy starts using it against you to keep you from being effective for the kingdom of God. You may be the only one who knows what it is, but please remember that God knows too, and He is not waiting for you to fall just so He can kick you when you are down. That is the Enemy who does that. God is there with a stretcher called grace to carry you, a safe haven from the onslaught of the Accuser who hates you simply because you are Gods. You have been chosen for good works which God set into motion from the beginning of time. YOU ARE A VITAL PIECE OF AN ELABORATE AND BEAUTIFUL PUZZLE! Please believe God is in the midst of it all. I know it seems like everything is going wrong; you're broke, you're lonely, you're confused about where your life is headed, and all the while gas prices are steady rising and you don't know how you're going to make it to, let alone through, the next week. Understand one thing: Our understanding of the ways of this world is limited, and what we may think is a sinking feeling could be God's way of drawing us into the right posture we need to have in this life, one of humble acceptance that in no other way will be able to make it though unless He does it. Lets face it, as long as we have a handle on all the things in this life (well paying job, love life, living arrangements), we think we have a handle on life itself, but none of these things require depending on God if we depend on ourselves to provide them. Of course God is the provider of them all, but we think we are. What if this world got a LOT harder to live in, and we lost that security in ourselves? What else would be left? God, that is what. I believe when the church sees this world turned upside down in chaos, the wheat will be separated from the tares and we will truly depend on Him the way we should have in times of ease and peace. God doesn't do these things to hurt us; just the opposite. He knows that there IS no other way to live life abundantly unless through Him, and His love for us wont allow us  to sit down and depend on ourselves. So the next time the rug is pulled out from under you, don't try to pull it back. The palm of God's hand us MUCH more secure to walk on, and will break your fall.

Even nature speaks His words

Lately, starting around April, I have seen more vultures than ever before in Georgia. To be truthful, this is the first time ever, in five years of living here, that I have ever seen a vulture. I am not talking about a large crow, but a large, ungainly, gobbledy-necked thing with a 4 foot wingspan and a penchant for looming over rotting carcasses  in the middle of the road until your bumper is 3 feet from its face. Their very appearance  gives me the creeps, and I have seen over 5 of them in the last three months. I am not superstitious, but perhaps after reading this you will swear I am. You see, almost 2 months ago, my mother died unexpectedly of a sudden  asthma attack. Ever since then, I have heard story after story of people losing parents, children, limbs, et cetera, and every time I am reminded of my own loss. Losing my mother has been by far the weirdest experience in my life. She was a phenomenal woman and my best friend (cannot emphasize this enough), yet somehow the grace of God has kept me from contemplating suicide to escape the unhealthy despair I'd expected to hound me on that fateful day. People tell me "You are so mature" or "You are really strong" and I have to disagree, at least about this. The truth is, God has not allowed me to see this in any other way than as blessing, although painful, bewildering, and sometimes quite trying. I miss her unlike I have ever missed anything, to the point of unfeeling where I am only aware of a distant pain...somewhere. Just when I feel like I am going to descend into the pit of despair out of which I will never escape, God is there sowing into my mind the seeds of new growth and revelation of His will for my life and glimpses into the multi-faceted purpose behind her seemingly untimely death. Don't get me wrong, these things don't numb the pain. The pain numbs the pain. His provision is that there is a reason and I have a purpose and there is meaning in her death. To top it all off, she is doing AWESOME right now, I have reason to envy her! (To any skeptics who believe Heaven is a lie designed to subdue the masses, what if you are wrong and missing out on this Hope that has brought me through many a weeping night?) To speak of the possibly superstitious part, I don't think seeing these vultures for the first time so often is by coincidence. Its almost as if natures is reflecting the climate or the mode in which God is shifting me. The uneasiness these creatures give me parallel the uneasiness I feel about the darkness of this word. There is so much death and pain here, spiritual and physical. My sensitivity to such has always been somewhat heightened, however my mothers passing blew the lid off of the jar and ever since I have been ultra sensitive to the pain of others. I have been there. What am I saying? I AM THERE! I wish to be a wounded healer, to squeeze good and meaning from my painful experience. I wish to help! So does God, and he won't let me go a second without realizing that He is the greatest help I can offer the world. So this is where my road leads, towards broken hearts that struggle to survive in the dark corners of the human experience. This is where my Master beckons, a call that I wouldn't dare resist. You see, this is the call I have been waiting for, and now it's time to run.