Saturday, February 12, 2005

in the midst of grief, sadness, and pain...

Let me preface this post by saying two things:
1. It will be long.
2. It will probably be sad (well, it's sad for me and my hope is that you can enter into that with me, but a majority of people cannot so, just pretend)

If you still have the patience for me to ramble, please continue on. Otherwise, come back next week from something a little less dramatic and we'll continue on.

Within the past three weeks, I have received information after information about people leaving Chicago. My mentor and the director of the internship...a majority of the interns who started with me (that was a given, it's now harder than I expected)...my friend Vivian...other people from Willow...David and Sara (given as well, but after spending two weeks with them it's still hard). I'm honestly questioning my role here in Chicago and if I want to stay. Why, when so much of my community is leaving, should I stay? I feel disconnected and sitting in a swirl of questions and emotions.

Perhaps it's my longing to be wanted...to be accepted...to be loved that is making this so tough for me. This is the only place I have ever lived and experienced a community that is transformational and willing to call me out on my crap and still love me inspite of it. And I appreciate that; in fact I now love it and can't imagine life without it. And now that's all changing. I don't do well with change. I like stability, traditions, the status quo. Heck, I even have assessments that say the those things. I told the Trinity the other day that if I need to stay, that I need relationships to start (any type of relationship)...I'm now waiting to see if that happens.

And then I saw Hotel Rwanda today. I needed a day to myself. To not be surrounded by people asking me the constant question of what are you doing next. I DON'T KNOW!!! Trust me...And you'll be on the list to find out...please stop asking! I needed a day to get up, straighten my room, take a long hot shower, go to lunch at Panera, read the paper, and spend time with the Trinity. I needed to reconnect with my soul. Of course I cried...it's powerful. If you watch that movie and don't cry, there are serious issues going on. And as it has been pointed out to me recently, I am a fighter of injustice. When my mentor told me that she was leaving, I got angry. It wasn't fair and it still isn't fair. So watching a movie where injustice is happening every second of every day...so not cool. A good cry was produced and I drove to the library in the silence of my car. I feel more connected with the Trinity and my soul, but I don't feel like I've still gotten to my gut to see what the Trinity is telling me about current and future situations.

All this to say is that January was hard, half way through February is hard, and I'm predicting that the next 4 months will be hard. No easy track for me. But there is hope, and that my friends is what I am clinging to right now.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

My dear friend. Life is about transitions. We are always in the midst of transitions...life can never be stable or else Christ looses His identity as the rock, our fortress. I feel your pain...your anxiety...your fear...but more importantly I feel your hope and it's hope that wakes us up in the morning, not stability. Live not in fear, but in hope. All you will ever need has already been given to you.

Anonymous said...

My dear friend. Life is about transitions. We are always in the midst of transitions...life can never be stable or else Christ looses His identity as the rock, our fortress. I feel your pain...your anxiety...your fear...but more importantly I feel your hope and it's hope that wakes us up in the morning, not stability. Live not in fear, but in hope. All you will ever need has already been given to you.

Anonymous said...

And you can now laugh because I was trying to be more original with the Warren K as opposed to the Warren G identity (no need to steal from others) and instead ended up posting twice...see what happens when we entertain such notions of identity crisis.