Join Me...

Sit down with me... across from me, and watch as I tuck my knees up to my chest and rest my chin on top of them. I'm not sitting here because I have nothing to do, and I'm not sitting here because I sprained my ankles. I'm sitting here because my soul is tired... weary and worn out. And all I want to do is sink. And lay down my head and fall into a deep, dousing sleep where I can escape - where I can be freed from all of the thoughts spinning through my mind - free from all the worries and expectations and problems with myself, and all the hurt that I feel.

I spent last spring and early summer looking up at the sky, watching the planes blip across the dark night sky... you would have seen me following the jet stream with a concerned longing to be on that plane... be there - be away from where I was - be... gone. I remember hiking on a trail last spring and I just kept looking up at the planes... there were so many, too, flying in every direction away from where I was. So many planes… all offering me a ride to another place.

I tend of run away in my mind. I run away from where I am, even through my imagination. I imagine I am gone, and so I am. I spent those cold spring months having to deal with so much inside me, and I thought I would explode. And all I wanted to do was to drop it all - screw it - and escape... escape to anywhere, even to a non-reality that deep down I know wouldn’t fix a thing.

I'm there again, unfortunately. I put on this great facade of smiles... happy jokes... lots of laughter. But if you were to take a microscope (souloscope?) and look inside, you would find me in this moment of frustration, ravaging questioning, and heavy weightiness of weariness. I am honestly weary of being so....................... Imperfect? What a way to say it... imperfect. I'm sick of feeling like there is so much that I'm not. So much that I could have done differently. So much improving to do. I'm sick of feeling like I do so little right.

I caught myself staring up at a plane tonight, imagining myself in seat 16B, looking out the tiny window onto the city of Bloomington, where a small, tired boy looked up at me. It was traveling Southeast, probably heading toward Miami. It was headed to somewhere that is not here. And it looked so good.

I look up and think about planes more than God. And for some reason a plane can offer me a tangible escape that, even though I'm told otherwise, God doesn't seem to be able to. I read the Word and I believe, I pray and God does answer. But why is it I sit here and so many "earthly" options seem better than Him? Is it because I can stub my toe on them? Why do I prefer what is tangible to what is intangibly profound and life changing? I seem to settle for second (or seventeenth) best and not be bothered by it. Maybe it is because it's safe and I don't need faith for it. I don't know. I just know it isn't working.

I long to find life. I yearn to know freedoms that I haven't even dreamt of. And I think I will, but I'm not convinced, yet. I feel driven away from what was killing me (sin), but strangely enough driven from what can save me. I feel driven to escape... to find something different than what is now. And I think it's good and bad. And now I think I have begun to ramble, so I will close.

Thanks for sitting with me.