Eagerness and how to live without it
04/21/2008 09:59 p.m.

I attended Sunday services in Portland yesterday, and then came home and read. What strikes me is that what is lacking in my life is eagerness. Really, not just to serve God, but to do anything in particular. And I believe that it is in this eagerness, that we find our will to put one foot in front of the other spiritually speaking. This desire must be so strong that I become willing to meditate daily, dedicating each and every day to the Lord from the very start of it. Alas, somehow these days, eagerness is in very short supply, perhaps even non-existent for me.

I feel so old. I know I am perhaps, God willing, only just over half the way to the end of my breathing in this body, so, certainly, I'm not as old as I will eventually feel. Still, I can remember being 18, on fire for the Lord and full of energy and natural eagerness to find His will for my life and live it. I was so certain that I would not fall prey to the temptations and pitfalls of this world. I seemed to have infinite hope, for myself and for the world around me.

It wasn't that I had lived a life void of suffering. My mother's second husband, my legal father, sexually assaulted me repeatedly during my childhood, though I am thankful it was not to the degree that some children are. My mother was so unhappy that she consistently cast that unhappiness in the direction of her children, often verbally expressing to us that she wished we were all dead when, infact, I believe now she wished it for herself more than anyone. And she beat us, me mostly, I think because I was the oldest and was able to vocalize my protests much more than my younger siblings. The end result was that, when I was 12, after their divorce, I felt abandoned by both of them and alone in the world.

It wasn't as though I lived a life without blessing, though, either. My grandparents loved and supported me whenever they were allowed the opportunity, and I actually spent quite alot of time living with them throughout my childhood. They were my champions, along with my aunts and uncle that have persisted, to this day, to support me when my deficits outweighed my ability to cope (both emotionally and, many times, financially). I was also able to find other adults in my life....teachers, friends' mothers, neighbors....who tolerated my neediness and gave me affection and guidance.

In my youthful, energetic resolve to be a Godly woman, I managed a few things that other kids my age didn't seem to care too much about. I avoided the pitfalls of becoming infatuated/addicted to drugs and alcohol. It wasn't that I didn't try it. But thankfully, it never appealed to me enough to forgo my studies or other extra-curricular activities. Also, I was able to remain a virgin until I married. Unfortunately, that marriage was so inauspicious that I was lucky to come out of it at all. At that time, I had no idea what casting your "pearls before swine" meant. Well, it means selling oneself short, throwing one's most brilliant efforts onto a garbage heap, not even realizing what is happening. At any rate, in my late teen years, early womanhood, I felt very proud of myself for faring so well given my entirely dysfunctional and damaged history. It wasn't long into my adulthood when I was knocked off that high horse, as seems to often happen when one is overconfident. I began to make critical errors in judgment, and spent much of my time during my 20's and up to my late 30's trying to clean up the messes of those mistakes.

I quit college just after my first semester. I got married to a very young man (though he was my age) I barely knew. We had a terrible four years, spending most of that time apart, before I finally divorced him due to drug/alcohol abuse and a violent temper, and a series of other tragedies, including losing our first born son to SIDS. I left when our second son was just over 2 months old, knowing life with his father would put him in danger.

I had every intention of "cleaning things up" at that point and providing Joey with as normal a life as I could. I was 22 then. And to make two very long decades (plus three years) full of mistakes short, two more divorces and five more children later, here I am.

The children are grown or nearly grown. My oldest son is 23, out on his own, married and expecting my first grandchild. Next is my oldest daughter, who is 19 and in the Navy. After that is my 18 year old daughter who lives with me, ready to graduate this year, and then my 16 year old triplets, two girls and a boy. The boy and one of the girls lives with me, and the other girl lives with her father. Two of the children and I have very strained relationships, full of hurt feelings and offenses. I used to have hope that truth would win out in the end, and there might be forgiveness for my shortcomings during their childhoods. But I've learned the very difficult lesson that truth is in the eye of the beholder, and one version (while completely authentic according to the memories of the one recalling it) may be so different from the other that the discrepancies can't be reconciled. Well, at least, reconcilliation doesn't seem possible now, and I have lost hope that "things can be fixed."

All this given as the thought process connected to my lack of eagerness to find God in this world that I've come to mostly loathe. Sure, there are moments of personal happiness and there are sunny days. But when I dig deep, no longer do I find the fire I once took for granted. I find, instead, a smoldering mess and so far I am unable to find any embers.

So, what to do about this? *sigh* I know less now than ever about how to begin to rekindle my passion for being a Godly woman in this life, in this world. I know all about the preaching of forgiveness and redemption. But even if I could grasp a sense of God's forgiveness, I don't believe forgiveness of myself is a thing that can be found. I've looked. I've prayed. I've meditated. I've performed personal ceremonies, and still a sense of relief eludes me. Yes, it's not as though the mistakes I've made eat at me anymore either. There would be little use in that. But, when I look backwards to try to take a personal inventory of the life I've lived so far, I am filled with a disappointment in myself that persists despite mercy, despite grace, despite time.

Eagerness. I won't stop until I find it, or create it, or become blessed by it.


I am currently Melancholy
I am listening to the TV in Meme's apartment