It’s about 10 AM this morning, and I am back at work after an extended weekend. I feel pretty much today like the sky was this morning when I got up: dark, a bit on the cold side, and partly cloudy with a decent chance of precipitation.

Sometimes for me, it’s simply a fight for emotional stability. I spent a weekend with family, and I am very lucky to have the family that I do, but even being part of a warm and loving family, I so often feel lost when I am with them, and like my life is being lived somewhere far away from normalcy when I leave them. It’s an ongoing sense of being trapped in the middle, never quite being where you want to be or ought to be, always behind somewhere, or in transit while everyone else has arrived, or just trying to learn life lessons that others my age and/or gender learned somewhere a while ago. I don’t know. Weighing heavily in the outlander feelings is the ever-present singleness question and my inability to find a wife and found a family. i certainly have weaknesses and liabilities, but I don’t think I am all down side. Still, this “failure” certainly bugs me the most at this point in time, and reaffirms my doubts about myself as a worthwhile mate and father. I’ve all but given up on the girl at this point, but the giving up is settling deeper in my heart. It’s generalizing.

And some of that capitulation flows out of my sense of never quite knowing who I am and what value I have to others in my life. It’s like that mechanism within me is broken, and I am just tired of trying to figure out who I am to anybody anymore. Heck, we all want to be loved. Sometimes I probably just want it too much. The monastic in me feels constant awkwardness around others and disappointment in my inability to win what I want, and the pull of the cave grows. But I know that there is not where I or anyone is really meant to live- alone, away.

Still, God just wants His children to be faithful. To love Him and trust Him despite appearances and feelings. And I am trying to do this: to suspend my wants and wishes and just say “Lord, help me to just walk with You and seek You.” To surrender more each day, each hour. To trust in the reality of His providence, and that He does hear my heart and it’s longings. And that He has a timetable. And that His plan, as I strive to seek and serve Him, will always result in His best for my life.

It’s a melancholy morning. I was really tired last night after getting home from Denver. My feelings are dull and sad, even after going to small group last night with my Highland family. I am thankful God can still work on us and use us despite our inconsistencies.

At least I got out with Kurt for a run this morning. That was a good start to the day.

In the (sort of) words of C.S. Lewis: “When you can’t trust, just obey Him. When you can’t obey, just trust Him.”

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
~ Matthew 11:28