Dark? Well, yeah, that's Steve!

And the space between posts gets wider and wider. Why do I always do this? Why can I never follow through on things?

Oh, so the title of this post. Many years ago, one of my friends said to another (apparently, I was told by the other later), "wow. Steve can be so dark sometimes"! The friend who told me about it said that he just replied, "Dark? Well, yeah, that's Steve"! It has been pretty consistent in my life. Oddly, as consistent as my silliness and sense of humor on the other side of things. But so -

So what's going on. What is going on is too much darkness! I'm almost 45 years old and repeating the same childish patterns of insecurity, inability to believe in myself and follow through on any dreams I might have. Patterns of irresponsibility with money and credit. The amount of debt I have allowed myself to incur kills me. There's no room for saving up anything. I look around and see some of the same "hand me down furniture" that I moved out of my parents house with some 25 years ago or so. A cobbled together collection of stuff, here and there splattered with purchases of my own which were foolish.

Its so easy to look at what others my age have and be envious, and jealous, and beat myself up for being such a loser. I don't think I ever thought I'd be 45 years old and living in a one bedroom apartment furnished with hand-me-downs and "I'm getting rid of this old couch, you want it's", still struggling just to get by and always worried about money. Unable to explain the darkness inside, the lack of hope and the depth of despair, loneliness, anxiety and depression. "Have faith"! People say. "Don't listen the the lies of 'the enemy', they say. Its hard, I don't know. I'm grateful for the stuff I have, I appreciate the people who have helped me, who have given my the furniture and helped me get through the tough times financially. I want to be clear about that, because gratitude is so important.

So anyway, I pulled a Bible off of my shelf of Bibles (yeah!) the other day before church, and one of the Bibles fell off, and landed opened to the book of Lamentations. I decided that maybe I was supposed to read it. In doing so, and in reading the introduction and notes, it seems that God is trying to tell me to allow myself to once and for all just wail before him in an outburst of emotion, as Jeremiah did. Just let Him have it, just let it all out. So often I start to cry and then it just shuts up. There's stuff I'm running from, things I am hiding from. There's an underlying sadness that is always there, this desperation. And yet, I never can let myself just FALL. Just surrender. I think God is trying to take me there, wants me to go there with Him. I think that has been part of why I've been sick so often lately, and especially so sick this past week. Somewhere in the midst of this sickness, there is coming that sense of surrender. It scares me a little, or maybe a lot, that I still can't quite reach it.

Someone from church told me recently that I don't seem to be able to trust God. I've been thinking about that, and what it means to trust God. How trusting God is different in a subtle way than simply having FAITH in God. Why is it hard for me to trust God? And furthermore, why is it that I can trust God on behalf of OTHERS, but not for myself.

May as well end with Comes a Time (Grateful Dead lyrics): "You got so far away from how it feels inside. You can't let go cause you're afraid to fall. But the day may come when you can't feel at all. Comes a time when the blind man takes your hand, and says don't you see? Got to make it somehow on the dreams you still believe! Don't give it up, you got an empty cup only love can fill".