The times spent in waiting rooms of Dr.’s offices are always awkward. The most common, of course, is the doctor's office. You're surrounded by moms with children, elderly folks who smell and aren't aware of it, and teenagers that are either very tan or very very pale. The small children hit a toy over and over again on the little plastic table, making your groggy head feel worse. The smell of the babies' diaper whimpering next to you joins the wafting from the elderly gentlemen across from you. The muted strumming of the acoustic guitar and the wailing trumpet that sometimes makes it through the cacophony of non-muted coughs and clearing of mucous from the respiratory system. The nurses in their bright, multi-colored scrubs with cartoons dancing on them provide a kaleidoscope effect to your numbed senses. You sign several forms with a pen that runs out of ink randomly throughout your insurance information, which makes you hope that someone else gets charged the deductible. You can't remember if you put on deodorant, or maybe that’s just the teenager next to you.
Waiting rooms are never for good reasons. You don’t go there when you took a vacation day, or when you want to enjoy the sunshine or want to relax. Only problems (yours or someone else’s) send you to waiting rooms. Sometimes trivial but chronic symptoms, sometimes much larger issues.
Sometimes I feel like I’m in the waiting room in my life. Nothing around me seems to uplift me or encourage me, everything drags me down and depresses me. It’s grimy, unsettling, uncomfortable, and I feel gross.
Rick Warren, in a devotional, says of his time spent in a waiting room, “you just need to stop and trust God. He’s never late or in a hurry, because His timing is perfect.”
That phrase struck me right where I sat in my waiting room of life. It didn’t give me some euphoric feeling that everything will be sunshine and daisies, but it reminded me that on the other side of that waiting room door, the Maker of the Universe sits, loving me, asking me to lean on Him, and mercifully encouraging me to realize that His timing is perfect.
6.25.2008
6.23.2008
Intensity of Emotion (a.k.a. chaotic passion)
I'm the type of person that talks to myself in my head. Don't worry, there are no multiplicities up there, but while on the exterior I will appear calm and productive, on the inside I could be having a nervous breakdown. This bodes well for keeping my vocational endeavors, but does nothing for my mental health.
The reason I talk to myself in my head most often, other than when I make some sort of blunder I didn't mean to (forgetting to lock the bathroom door in a unisex restroom and looking up blankly as the CEO strode in), is the everyday challenge to put the passion I feel into my activities. The problem there is not so much that I do not sport passion as a main characteristic, nor that I am unsure of how to apply my enthusiasm and excitement to my mundane daily life. Its more that I have so much passion that I cannot seem to find a middle ground on which to display it.
When I say middle ground, I mean an in-between stage that entails an enthusiastic but steady level of passion to demonstrate my love for (fill in the blank), without tipping to the overly dependent on outcome side, or the apathetic side. Those are the two norms I excel at.
For example, if there's a writing opportunity I find out about, I will do everything needed to secure the story or possibility. I will maintain regular contact, provide writing samples, speak with individuals on the phone, conduct preliminary research, and make it presistently clear that I have all of the passion required (along with the experience and skills) to make it happen with style and pizzazz.
But sometimes it doesn't work out. Then in my head, the discussion starts. "Just stop caring. It's not your problem. You're still great at what you do. Stop depending on stuff like that. Be self-confident. Be independent, not dependent," and so on. In essence, in my brain I tell myself that to survive everyday dissapointments, I need to be apathetic. Which is impossible.
So I yo-yo back and forth, up and down. Agressive, full of life, determined, on-the-ball, dissapointed. One day I told myself "I wish I could buy stock in dissapointment, I would be making a fortune by now."
I had this very conversation in my head this morning, when I was about to open an email with the deciding fate of an opportunity I was expectant and happy about the possibility, but apprehensive enough to save the email for later, when the cementing or shattering of the idea would not effect the whole rest of my day.
I lasted until about ten thirty. When I opened the email, I found a short and straightforward response: the door was closed to me.
While my brain starting yelling about how I should not let this affect me, my body did the right thing by picking up the phone and calling to leave a thank-you message for the solid communication. My brain continued discoursing on all of the ways I am awesome and how I should keep looking to do what I love. Only my brain was telling me to find the openings, make my excitement for the possibility known, and then forget about it. That way, if I stop hoping and waiting on finding out if the window is open and I can fly through, I won't be let down when and if I get rejected. Again.
So the conversation continues. While my brain is intelligent (I like to think), it does not know everything. Yes, the logical side argues to remain apathetic and hope will not be dismayed. The logical side, in as far as it can see or feel, is correct.
But it does not apply to the rest of me. For the logical side is void of passion, exuberance, and glow. The rest of me (body, spirit, emotions) are filled with those qualities, and thus, I cannot be
apathetic.
But nor can I maintain this draining level of passion for everything. Thus, finding the middle ground.
I haven't discovered how to do that yet.
Except.
There's this one thing. Not a breaking of emotion, nor discarding of heart, but a tempering. A solidifying and calming of the strength within me. I cannot do the tempering myself, as we have seen. but Someone can.
and He is faithful.
The reason I talk to myself in my head most often, other than when I make some sort of blunder I didn't mean to (forgetting to lock the bathroom door in a unisex restroom and looking up blankly as the CEO strode in), is the everyday challenge to put the passion I feel into my activities. The problem there is not so much that I do not sport passion as a main characteristic, nor that I am unsure of how to apply my enthusiasm and excitement to my mundane daily life. Its more that I have so much passion that I cannot seem to find a middle ground on which to display it.
When I say middle ground, I mean an in-between stage that entails an enthusiastic but steady level of passion to demonstrate my love for (fill in the blank), without tipping to the overly dependent on outcome side, or the apathetic side. Those are the two norms I excel at.
For example, if there's a writing opportunity I find out about, I will do everything needed to secure the story or possibility. I will maintain regular contact, provide writing samples, speak with individuals on the phone, conduct preliminary research, and make it presistently clear that I have all of the passion required (along with the experience and skills) to make it happen with style and pizzazz.
But sometimes it doesn't work out. Then in my head, the discussion starts. "Just stop caring. It's not your problem. You're still great at what you do. Stop depending on stuff like that. Be self-confident. Be independent, not dependent," and so on. In essence, in my brain I tell myself that to survive everyday dissapointments, I need to be apathetic. Which is impossible.
So I yo-yo back and forth, up and down. Agressive, full of life, determined, on-the-ball, dissapointed. One day I told myself "I wish I could buy stock in dissapointment, I would be making a fortune by now."
I had this very conversation in my head this morning, when I was about to open an email with the deciding fate of an opportunity I was expectant and happy about the possibility, but apprehensive enough to save the email for later, when the cementing or shattering of the idea would not effect the whole rest of my day.
I lasted until about ten thirty. When I opened the email, I found a short and straightforward response: the door was closed to me.
While my brain starting yelling about how I should not let this affect me, my body did the right thing by picking up the phone and calling to leave a thank-you message for the solid communication. My brain continued discoursing on all of the ways I am awesome and how I should keep looking to do what I love. Only my brain was telling me to find the openings, make my excitement for the possibility known, and then forget about it. That way, if I stop hoping and waiting on finding out if the window is open and I can fly through, I won't be let down when and if I get rejected. Again.
So the conversation continues. While my brain is intelligent (I like to think), it does not know everything. Yes, the logical side argues to remain apathetic and hope will not be dismayed. The logical side, in as far as it can see or feel, is correct.
But it does not apply to the rest of me. For the logical side is void of passion, exuberance, and glow. The rest of me (body, spirit, emotions) are filled with those qualities, and thus, I cannot be
apathetic.
But nor can I maintain this draining level of passion for everything. Thus, finding the middle ground.
I haven't discovered how to do that yet.
Except.
There's this one thing. Not a breaking of emotion, nor discarding of heart, but a tempering. A solidifying and calming of the strength within me. I cannot do the tempering myself, as we have seen. but Someone can.
and He is faithful.
Serene
Grant Me the Serenity
I have always been jealous of women whose faith is serene. I knew a woman when I was in high school; she was the mother of one of my friends, who contracted a rare form of cancer. I saw her accept the diagnosis, fight for all she was worth, and recover from the crippling disease. She is now a beautiful, healthy woman again. Throughout the entire process, she always seemed full of faith, calm, and completely waiting on God. I have a friend whose husband was called to his military duty as a marine in Iraq shortly after their first child was born. She rallied her friends and family around to support her while she raises the little one, and again, she seems serene as she plays with her tiny baby girl, serene in her faith that no matter what happens, God is right next to her, holding “the whole world in His hands.”
I don’t think I have ever been serene. Not when I was a child, with my rambunctious spirit and bouncing curls, not as a teenager, determined to get the best grades, save for college, and be a strong leader in the youth group. Not in college, when my determination grew even more, to graduate at least a semester early, to earn not one degree but two, to hold two or three jobs at a time, and to become a visible and effective leader of the student body. Not in my marriage, where I discovered that mortgages can be stressful, houses tend toward disrepair, and compromise is a necessary component. Not in my career, where I am always committed to doing my job better than expectations and where I always push the bar a step higher, yet where I find few employers are willing to give me a chance to explore my full potential.
Serene, sometimes I think, is incompatible with me. With the economy in America. With the busyness that we are raised to launch towards, the immediate satisfaction we strive for. Serene sounds too much like an old novel, with a picnic near a lake, swans floating nearby, where there are no cars breaking down or bosses getting angry or trying to survive on oatmeal and bananas. Serene no longer exists in the 21st century, as far as I can tell.
But then I open my Bible. My Bible is full of strife, just like my life. In the first year of marriage alone, I have been unemployed twice, my husband once, we have totaled my husbands car, bought a house, replaced a dryer, water heater, ceiling fan, several parts of my rapidly aging car, and eaten a lot of hot dogs in an effort to stay afloat financially. We have no t.v., try to shower at the gym to save our water bill, and my husband has become Mr.-Fix-It in times when we find a gaping hole in the side of our house or when my car breaks. In the Bible, most strife is worse than my economic and personal struggles. David had the man who was once like a father to him out to kill him. He became king but committed adultery, lost the respect of two of his sons, and let his daughter be raped with no punishment for her attacker. Elijah wandered alone, feeling abandoned, in a land riddled with drought, knowing that he was one of the last prophets. Judas betrayed the one man who saved us all, and died a horrible death. Job suffered endless trouble, all for his faith in the one God.
But unlike in my life, the Bible is also full of serenity. Of peace. Of those who knew that there was a time for strife and a time for blessing. Of Faith. Hebrews has an entire chapter dedicated to those who showed that they were faithful even when they did not understand anything going on around them. Take Rahab, who let strangers from another land into her house inside the city walls of the fortress of her country, hid them from the authorities, and then lowered them outside the city walls in a basket so that they would be safe. I bet she was serene during that entire event.
In the Bible, strife and serenity seem to go hand in hand to those who carry faith in God. In Peterson’s paraphrase of the Bible, The Message, he writes of Jeremiah 17:7 “But blessed is the man who trusts me, God, the woman who sticks with God. They’re like trees replanted in Eden, putting down roots near the rivers – never a worry through the hottest of summers, never dropping a leaf, Serene and calm through droughts, bearing fresh fruit every season.”
I want to be a tree that doesn’t worry. A tree that no matter where I am or what I’m going through, I feel like I am in paradise, and I know that even though I can’t see water right now and I haven’t seen it in a long time because of a drought, that it will come. That I will never have to go a season alone, that I will always bear fruit as I trust in God. That strife, though I use it to become worrisome and restless, is supposed to build faith in my Maker so that I can come to embody that word that seems so foreign: serene.
God grant me the serenity….Amen.
I have always been jealous of women whose faith is serene. I knew a woman when I was in high school; she was the mother of one of my friends, who contracted a rare form of cancer. I saw her accept the diagnosis, fight for all she was worth, and recover from the crippling disease. She is now a beautiful, healthy woman again. Throughout the entire process, she always seemed full of faith, calm, and completely waiting on God. I have a friend whose husband was called to his military duty as a marine in Iraq shortly after their first child was born. She rallied her friends and family around to support her while she raises the little one, and again, she seems serene as she plays with her tiny baby girl, serene in her faith that no matter what happens, God is right next to her, holding “the whole world in His hands.”
I don’t think I have ever been serene. Not when I was a child, with my rambunctious spirit and bouncing curls, not as a teenager, determined to get the best grades, save for college, and be a strong leader in the youth group. Not in college, when my determination grew even more, to graduate at least a semester early, to earn not one degree but two, to hold two or three jobs at a time, and to become a visible and effective leader of the student body. Not in my marriage, where I discovered that mortgages can be stressful, houses tend toward disrepair, and compromise is a necessary component. Not in my career, where I am always committed to doing my job better than expectations and where I always push the bar a step higher, yet where I find few employers are willing to give me a chance to explore my full potential.
Serene, sometimes I think, is incompatible with me. With the economy in America. With the busyness that we are raised to launch towards, the immediate satisfaction we strive for. Serene sounds too much like an old novel, with a picnic near a lake, swans floating nearby, where there are no cars breaking down or bosses getting angry or trying to survive on oatmeal and bananas. Serene no longer exists in the 21st century, as far as I can tell.
But then I open my Bible. My Bible is full of strife, just like my life. In the first year of marriage alone, I have been unemployed twice, my husband once, we have totaled my husbands car, bought a house, replaced a dryer, water heater, ceiling fan, several parts of my rapidly aging car, and eaten a lot of hot dogs in an effort to stay afloat financially. We have no t.v., try to shower at the gym to save our water bill, and my husband has become Mr.-Fix-It in times when we find a gaping hole in the side of our house or when my car breaks. In the Bible, most strife is worse than my economic and personal struggles. David had the man who was once like a father to him out to kill him. He became king but committed adultery, lost the respect of two of his sons, and let his daughter be raped with no punishment for her attacker. Elijah wandered alone, feeling abandoned, in a land riddled with drought, knowing that he was one of the last prophets. Judas betrayed the one man who saved us all, and died a horrible death. Job suffered endless trouble, all for his faith in the one God.
But unlike in my life, the Bible is also full of serenity. Of peace. Of those who knew that there was a time for strife and a time for blessing. Of Faith. Hebrews has an entire chapter dedicated to those who showed that they were faithful even when they did not understand anything going on around them. Take Rahab, who let strangers from another land into her house inside the city walls of the fortress of her country, hid them from the authorities, and then lowered them outside the city walls in a basket so that they would be safe. I bet she was serene during that entire event.
In the Bible, strife and serenity seem to go hand in hand to those who carry faith in God. In Peterson’s paraphrase of the Bible, The Message, he writes of Jeremiah 17:7 “But blessed is the man who trusts me, God, the woman who sticks with God. They’re like trees replanted in Eden, putting down roots near the rivers – never a worry through the hottest of summers, never dropping a leaf, Serene and calm through droughts, bearing fresh fruit every season.”
I want to be a tree that doesn’t worry. A tree that no matter where I am or what I’m going through, I feel like I am in paradise, and I know that even though I can’t see water right now and I haven’t seen it in a long time because of a drought, that it will come. That I will never have to go a season alone, that I will always bear fruit as I trust in God. That strife, though I use it to become worrisome and restless, is supposed to build faith in my Maker so that I can come to embody that word that seems so foreign: serene.
God grant me the serenity….Amen.
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