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Here’s an entry from my journal, slightly edited to take out some names, etc. If you want to know what stress looks like to me, see below. The entry was written on July 18, 2005. I was emotionally exhausted and pressed for time leading up to this day, and badly needing to get out of town to write LifeVesting. (Caution: This isn’t very ministerial or pretty, but I took out most of the really offensive stuff.) Here goes…
I swear, I keep thinking, if somehow I press through, I can get where I want to go. If, of course, it doesn’t kill me or I don’t kill myself in the process.
Today was the day from hell. I’ve had other days from hell, but this one was up there with the best. A classic. Evidence of some curse somewhere. Was there no desire to write, to get away, to take care of myself, I’m sure there would be no problem. I’ve reached some point in starting and leading a church where that work drives my entire schedule. There will always be something to do. But to retreat, draw back so I can spring forward, to do that thing I’ve been trying to do for seven months, is near impossible.
(I hear the Lord saying, “You haven’t asked me yet.”)
Yesterday I had to delay our trip to Ruidoso by a day to do a funeral for a lady who committed suicide. Her funeral was this morning. It has been 20 years since I did a suicide funeral… only one at that. It was stressful to prepare for it. It was even more stressful because I was trying to prepare to get out of town, having to manage an entire Sunday without the help of people I normally depend greatly on, (that was a disaster in and of itself), and trying to pay bills - never any fun. On this particular Monday morning, however, there was one and only one assignment. Get up and get ready to say something to a family of mostly nonbelievers, I’ve decided, and a larger group of people who are hurt, bewildered, and needing some measure of help and hope.
Meanwhile, Robin was trying to get me to attend to a few other necessary things, which was a distraction and a frustration. I felt like I was trying to push a huge emotional rock up a mountain, and had to stop and give interviews and make a hundred little decisions along the way.
(I hear the Lord asking, “Why didn’t you ask me for help?”)
The funeral was the first time I have ever been in the situation I typically find myself in at a wedding - wondering, “What do you need me for?” and feeling horribly out of place. There were five songs - four of them some kind of folk/country stuff ala Bob Dylan. There was a reading from some miserable novel. Then a family member, by request, got up to tell a joke. You know, it’s a funeral! Let’s lighten the mood with something funny.
Q. - How is Michael Jackson like caviar?
A. - Both of them come on a cracker.
My God! My God! My God! My God! Get me out of here! I don’t belong. How was I supposed to follow that up? Fortunately, the folk singer had another song for us, to enable me to sit there and pretend to be dignified. I just got up and prayed and dismissed everybody.
We finally got on the road about 1:30. I was OK with that. But still trying to unwind from a very stressful two days. We hit Brownfield and I got nailed by a speed trap. Barney said I was going 50 in a 35 zone. A five lane road, going out of town - what the heck was it doing a 35 zone?
I was able to do some computer work and let Robin drive. On the other side of Roswell, I took the wheel again, and got yet another ticket.
I quit! I’m obviously doing 70 in a 55 world. I don’t fit any more. I’m out of sync with the whole world. I haven’t fit with traffic in a week or so. I’m completely out of my element in a hundred different elements. And evidently I’m the worst driver in the history of driving. A complete failure. A sorry excuse for a human, who will always, ALWAYS find a way to live in complete poverty. A worthless sack of poo who doesn’t deserve to occupy the planet or even breathe the air. Rejected by the world. That’s it. I feel rejected by the world. Not by people, per se, but the world itself - life itself.
I (very slowly) got to the hotel, and my computer cord had (once again) quit working. Two hotels since I’d owned this laptop. Two malfunctioning computer cords. I came here to write, and I’m dead in the water. Dell can’t get me one until Wednesday morning.
I quit. I give up. We should have never come. We should just go home. Resign myself to being led around by the urgent. Go and go and go and go and go and go and go until I burn out and then die. Forget the LifeVesting crap. Forget any assumption that I have anything to offer.
Robin says it’s warfare. I say it’s God. It’s me. God has better vessels, and doesn’t need somebody as worthless as me.
(I hear the Lord saying, “I’m just trying to get you to slow down. The tickets were just a metaphor for a larger issue. You can’t write if you can’t listen. And right now, you’re not listening. And since when do you have to have a computer to meet Me, hear from Me?”)
So, regaining what little sense and sensitivity I have, the assignment, apparently, is, rest, then work.
Imagine that.
I’ve seen that pattern before. Truth is, I’m trying to write from a heart that is fried. I need some “Be Still” time. I need to hear my own (wasted) sermon to the people at the funeral: Be still, (Cease striving!) and know He is God. I’m tired of pushing that rock up the hill. God can either push it, or let it run over me.
Hey, I told you it was ugly!
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[…] so the guys at SynerJACK are talking about stress this week, and I just vomited out of my journal from a couple of years ago. (It’s ugly… you probably don’t […]
Just a word of encouragement for you. I had shared with you a little about my “day from hell” in Roscoe on Sunday with my sisters and the anger my oldest sister vomited all over me. Well, God used her angry words to get my attention about me acting like a know-it-all when my motive was only to save someone else pain I had been through. I felt the sword in my heart and wept over my sin of playing God. I have asked forgiveness from those whom I have been guilty of doing this too and all is well, except I had determined to never have another sister weekend much less have anything to do with my sisters ever again. Then comes Wednesday night and your talk to us about “Giving Away Your Courage.” I felt like the Lord had you say everything you said just to me. Everyone else could have gone home. Thank you for hearing the Lord and sharing what He has to say to us, His people. I will have another sister weekend with my sisters if they plan it. I will just not try to fix their problems. Instead I will point them to The Creator and His Word.
I have to say that reading a blog about your day from hell was actually a tremendous blessing to me. Ironic, isn’t it? But truly, from the day that I met you, and you began to bring me into your family (so to speak), I have always respected you greatly. In fact, with the exception of my own father, I hope to model my life, my ministry, and my family after. Of course I know that my mentors have bad days…but somehow you tend to still think that they handle it with complete grace, both outwardly and inwardly. Being allowed into a personal place in that way shows a side of you that rarely is seen. Thanks for letting us in…..
PS. Sorry if this sounds somewhat jumbled…it’s the end of the semester and I’m on writing overload. I’m not sure that my brain is functioning properly at this point.
Wow. That was a day from hell. Sorry you had to go through that. Thanks for sharing, though. Its a great [and painful] reminder to be guided by God and not the urgent.
[…] Andy posted an entry from his journal from 2005. It was his day from hell. […]