I haven’t posted anything here for some time. The reality is that I created this to be a space to creatively and healthily process and reflect of life for its own sake, and the past months have left me without the space or motivation to engage with anything deeper than the day-to-day.

I have seen myself fall into patterns of people pleasing and escapism: selfishly locking myself away to dream while overextending myself and going through the motions of the song and dance of obligation on the outside.

Both are quite numbing I suppose, and I as a result I have felt out of touch with reality, caught in the divide between dreaming of the life I want and living the life others want for me.

God’s voice feels silent, but what I know of His character leads me to believe He is speaking into the divide, calling me to rest, inviting me into something greater.

I don’t know what I want: I feel my heart craving the space to just be. I am craving meaning. I am craving Jesus. Why is this lacking in my life right now? The hope and freedom of the gospel simply don’t feel near.

I wrote this prayer several months ago. It feels fitting to include it below.

I feel the pressure of obligation bearing down once again: different voices telling me what I should do, each with its own agenda and plan for my life. I tell my desires to quiet down, disbelieving their validity in the face of the steady heartbeat of expectation. Where is your voice in this mess, O My God? I don’t even know what I want anymore. I only know I want more of You and I can’t feel you with me anymore.

The pressure is crushing me from all sides, and I don’t even know how to take another step. What will my value be if I let others down? It’s easier to comply and be unhappy than to listen to your voice calling me into the unknown. Why must your ways make such little sense to me O my God?

I feel all the life slowly dripping out of my heart. What is left? I imagine only a shell of what once was. How can I even love you God, if I can’t love anything? If I can’t find the strength to move forward? What good is Your divine sacrifice if I can’t taste the freedom? It is for freedom that I am set free. Why, then, does it feel like it is for duty, obligation and death.

I cry out to you, unsure of how to hear your voice. I know it would be calling me into a greater hope: freedom from this debilitating pressure and freedom for You. I dream of a beautiful life where together we experience the wonder of distant lands and the mysticism of this world You have created, full of mysterious complexities and wondrous depths and a certain levity of spirit that only comes with the fascination of what will be found beyond the next winding, cobblestone alley.

My dreams can’t love me, though. They can’t sustain me. They aren’t my freedom. Why even dream, then: why hope? I put my hope in things of this earth, not the Creator of it.

Still, though, what of my dreams and desires? I desire a beautiful life. I desire to meditate on the splendor of who You are from the vantage point of the magical and fantastical. But are You more splendid there? No. You are utterly constant.

Lord, I pray you quiet my heart so I can hear your voice above the internal and external noise. Amen.

For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” Isaiah 30: 15