Stand Firm

Happy Wednesday! 

To be honest, I really struggled writing this post.

I got to September 13th and realized a little anxiously that I didn't have any blog posts written for October. I got through August and all of September having pre-written all the blog posts, so they were ready to go on Wednesday. This was really important to me in August going into September since I knew my classes would take up a lot of my time and my blog would fall to the wayside like it always did when a new semester of college starts. God was good, and He provided me with the words that needed to be written. I can't say I wrote any of those blog posts by myself. I can't take the credit because there's no way I could have written what I wrote without the Holy Spirit's direction and guidance.

But the thing is... I got to September and was feeling pretty burnt out. I started feeling kind of apathetic and dispassionate about a lot of things going on in the world. I think I just felt and felt and felt so much this year that by the time September came around my body was like nope! I need a break. I am exhausted from feeling so many feelings. It didn't feel very good in the moment... I thought there must be something wrong with me because everything happening in the world isn't bringing me to a sad, anxious and depressed place like it was before. But really, I just think my heart was exhausted from having hurt so much this year for so many reasons. It had me feeling sort of numb for a little while and then a little detached from everything. I knew what was going on. I saw the fires and the riots still happening, I saw all the hate and anger and fear and bitterness in the world, all the injustice but it didn't stir me the way it did before. The best words I can use is I felt detached and apathetic. I'm an enneagram four and if you don't know what a four is, we're feeling people. We're all about our feelings. We feel big feelings on a daily basis whether we want to or not. So, when I feel apathetic, I don't feel like myself. Apathy is the lack of enthusiasm, concern, excitement... any big feelings and that just is really awful to me. Without those big feelings, it doesn't feel like I'm living (and yes, please excuse the ridiculous amount of times I'm going to use the words feelings and feel in this post haha). It feels like I'm just going through the motions... getting by.

My mom and I were driving home from small group a few weeks ago and we passed by a really nasty car accident. We commented on the miraculous fact that despite like three cars looking smashed, everyone seemed to be Okay and on the side of the road with the police. As we drove by, my mom mentioned how there seemed to be a lot of crazy drivers out recently. I don't drive often, but even I've noticed that there were a lot of reckless drivers out. We got to talking about that, and one of us said how it seems like a lot of people have just lost their minds this year. A lot of people have become reckless and emboldened (in a bad way). They're Okay with treating people poorly to their faces instead of just doing it behind a screen (I mean, you shouldn't treat people poorly behind a screen either but that's been a thing since the beginning of the Internet sooo).

Two incidents come to mind from August when we went to my grandparent's house to visit. Me, my mom and my two little brothers were driving from our hotel to my grandparent's when we got a flat tire. We pulled into a gas station and were on the furthest edge of the gas station parking lot. Like in a little corner, way removed from everyone and everything else, not in the way of anyone. There were maybe like three or four other cars parked near us. My mom parked a little crookedly because the tire was like dead flat. We were waiting for the guy to come and change out the tire when the guy whose car was parked next to us showed up. He started to pull out and then paused right next to us and started harassing us and bothering us and just being kind of nasty toward my mom because she was parked crookedly. She tried to explain that we had a flat, and my dad had told her not to move it any more than it already was because it could hurt the tire or whatever. The guy got snippy with her and as he was pulling out he started trying to take a picture of our license and a video of the car, with me and my little brothers inside! It was a very scary encounter and so completely random... it was hard to believe that that had even happened. What kind of person harasses a mom, two young boys and a young woman like that? Thankfully he drove off and a guy in the gas station was kind enough to stay with us until the road side guy came to take care of our tire... but it was still so random and kind of scary.

Literally the day after, a friend of mine was out playing baseball with his friends in a public baseball field that they had played at numerous times before. That evening he texted me and told me that some random guy had shown up and started harassing them for playing the game wrong on the baseball field and how they were wasting the field and shouldn't be there even though they were the only ones there and no one else was in need of the baseball field. He tried to get their numbers and their names and wouldn't leave them alone. My friend is literally one of the most polite, patient and kindest people you'll ever meet. He's very good at diffusing difficult situations and so the fact that the guy literally did not leave them alone even though my friend was perfectly civil and polite and was like hey sorry, we didn't mean to bother anyone, we'll pack up and leave right now, was just crazy and so random.

Both of those incidents came to mind as my mom and I were talking about how people just seemed to have lost their minds this year. And I realized... maybe everyone's feelings and hearts are burnt out. Maybe everyone's feeling a little apathetic and cold toward the ongoing events around us and the people around us. We're all living in what feels like constant stress and anxiety and fear over not only the pandemic which has been happening since March, but also a constant stream of new bad events. It feels like just one thing after another. I think everyone's a little on edge or feeling tired or detached. Including me. As much as I hate feeling apathetic or detached toward anything, I can't really blame my brain and heart from needing a break to recharge and take a breather from all the hard feelings. But just because you might feel detached or cold or on edge, doesn't give anyone the right to treat another person wrongly.

Which brings me all the way back around to the first paragraph of this blog post. Stick with me, I promise I'm getting to the point. So, here I am in September feeling deflated, tired, detached and completely and utterly uninspired. For all I know, it could just be another bout of my old friend called depression, but this does feel a little different than my normal depression. I don't just feel depressive tired, I feel worn out and wrung out tired. Like my heart is exhausted and worn out from feeling so many things. I'm not feeling God the way I was in July and August. I'm still reading my Bible every day, praying every day, even going through the Gospel Reading Challenge this month... but I'm not feeling what I did the past two months with this blog and my words. I was getting nervous that that was it. The Spirit was holding out on me or something. I felt like a dry well when it came to inspiring or motivational or spiritual words. I got to the point today where I decided I couldn't just sit and wait for the Spirit to come to me. Sometimes you gotta go to Him. So I sat down in front of my laptop, and I prayed and I invited God into this space. I knew the topic I wanted to write about, but the words wouldn't fall into place the way I wanted them to. So I asked the Spirit to give me the words to write, to let them all make sense for me and to guide me what needed to be written. Then I opened my Bible and read in Matthew 24 because that's where I was at for the Gospel Reading Challenge. The disciples had asked Jesus about the end times and so, Jesus was telling them what to expect and the signs they would see when the end times were drawing near. Verse 12 stood out to me. Jesus said, "because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved." I underlined that verse and smiled and thanked God because that was the verse that sparked this entire blog post and made all the words fall into place. All because I went to Him and asked Him, and He provided just like always.

But I feel that. I've been feeling like my love has gotten a little cold lately. Maybe I'm taking this verse way out of context, but honestly, it's one of those times where you read the verse and it's just what you needed to hear. You don't need context or to dig deep into the meaning and all that in those moments because God put that verse there for you to see and to read and to encourage you in that very specific moment.

So, if you're feeling like your love is getting kind of cold, like your heart is burnt out and your feelings just can't feel anymore, read that verse. Don't look at the passages before or after it. Pretend for a second that Jesus isn't talking about the end times. Pretend that He's talking straight to you. What I read today from that verse is, "if your love is growing cold, stand firm. Keep fighting. Don't let the wickedness, and pain of this world beat you down and make you cold and uncaring. Even if it hurts, keep feeling and keep loving." Jesus hurt when he was on this Earth. He felt indignant and angry, and he cried and he grieved. And never once did he let the fact that the people and the world around him hurt him and grieved him and frustrated him continuously stop him from loving. He put his heart out there every single time. He felt compassion and love for every person he came across. He brought Judas in as one of his disciples, treated him as he did every other disciple around him with love, compassion and kindness even though he knew he would betray him.

Don't let the fear, and anxiety win. Just because you're feeling edgy or tense or stressed or angry or a million other things because of the world we live in, don't let any of it harden your heart. Instead of lashing out at the people around us because we're angry and scared and maybe even a little bitter, let's take a deep breath and remember that God is still good and we are still called, even in unprecedented and crazy times, to be a light in the world. We can't really be a light to others if we're letting our fear and anxiety get the best of us.

Don't give the world or Satan the satisfaction of hardening your heart. Right now, being strong and standing firm means to continuously ask God to soften your heart until it is softened. It means to go through the motions of loving others even when you're not feeling it until you do feel it again.

Don't let the enemy win. He wants so badly to freeze over people's hearts and divide us, for us to lash out at one another and to cause more chaos and pain in the world.

Stand firm and keep fighting.