I know that He's for me.

I’m actually starting to tear up a little bit here, which is surprising to me. On Monday, I was remarking to myself on the fact that I haven’t really cried in awhile. There was that moment in class last Tuesday—last day for one of my sections—when I was so frustrated with the students and my inability to control them that I nearly cried, but was able to hold it off completely. I’m sure that’s a good thing—that I kept myself from crying in class—but I can’t help but think that I have become more calculated with my emotions since coming to Thailand and that it doesn’t seem fitting with my natural character. At the beginning, or during the middle of my time here, when I still wasn’t sure what to make of the place and didn’t quite feel good or happy (when do we truly feel those things anyway?), I felt as though I were lying to people when they asked me how I liked Thailand. “I like it,” I always answered. Could I really say that I didn’t like it? I mean, when is the point where we just break everything down and tell it to each other straight? Do I have to know you for a long time before I can trust that you will not try to force me to feel something different than I currently feel? If I’m unhappy now, for example, can’t I just say that and have someone listen. That’s it? Trust that God is working in me—and that my honesty signifies His work already in progress?

I guess I feel out of touch with my true feelings. On Monday, my first official day off from teaching, I made some vague, sweeping statements while on the phone with a friend about “patterns of behavior” as well as patterns of thought that I think I’m falling into (again, as before—because I’m so redundant). The vagueness may have been linked to my seeming lack of connection to my actual feelings. Maybe even my lack of connection to reality. After talking with my friend, already feeling down about myself, I went to FBT, a local sporting goods store, in search of a few clothing items. The employees there sent me to The Mall (which is actually the name of a department store) when they didn’t have what I was looking for. As soon as I got in the taxi, the driver said, “Madam go The Mall everyday.” For some reason, this statement—or maybe, assumption—made me feel worse than before about myself. Days like that are days when my whole foreignness overwhelms me: my inability to communicate with the taxi driver—except to tell him to go to The Mall and to respond to his statement—, the isolation of being alone in a crowded shopping center on a work day when I already feel a little guilty for not working and not knowing what to do with myself, the fact that I was one in a handful of Westerners and ripe for staring Thai’s, the disorienting experience of low blood sugar in an unfamiliar place, the desire to stay away from my place of residence for as long as possible and the other fear of having to get back to that place all alone, etc. It kind of seems as if I just got here, doesn’t it? That, and I seem a little paranoid or anxious or both.

Anyway, during one of those low blood sugar moments while I waited for my lunch to be ready at a restaurant, I decided that I wanted to process my feelings—and the best way to do that would be to go see a movie, where I could stop moving for a bit and stop appearing in the light among people who I would suspect were wondering what I was doing in Thailand anyway. Where, perhaps, I could even cry without anyone noticing. What delusions. I mean, sure, part of it was true—part of my feelings of disorientation and fear of leaving The Mall alone with the combating and simultaneous fear of staying in the mall walking in circles without aim were calmed in the 2 hour movie period—but trying to process anything is rather futile while watching a film if you’re actually going to pay attention. And crying? Come on, not with a movie like Jumper! Can you believe that was my best film option at the time?

I know this post has been ultra-self-focused and I’m not pleased with that; but I think I just keep trying to avoid reality and that this is one of those times where coming clean about my feelings and my confusions and about my sins—my addictions, even—is something that I need to do. I believe that confession is necessary. Confession in some way, shape, or form is a necessary step in finding wholeness in the Lord—the only one who can make me whole. Truly and forever whole.

I want to be real—but I keep feeling as if I somehow have to keep concealing things about my use of time, about my thoughts, etc. Keep secret, for example, the fact that I also can’t remember the last day that I DIDN’T watch a movie. My mind is full of garbage—or so it feels. I mean, I know I am covered by the blood of the Lamb. He has already made me whole. He alone can purge my mind like I need it to be purged of all the garbage that I keep shoving inside—but recently I haven’t felt as though I could be this open about my sins—even my addictions (really what this movie thing is)—with those around me. Most of the time, I can hardly communicate. And otherwise, these things don’t seem like as big of deals as they really are to me. I mean, even if a bit dramatic-sounding, I feel ill about these things—if I feel that I am not quite in control of my behavior, am I not a slave to something? [Am I going crazy? I don’t blame you if you haven’t made it through reading this post.]

Maybe you won’t agree with the latter part of this, but I know my salvation is not something to be taken lightly and I believe that every action means something--every action is also not to be taken lightly. And I know I am not bound to laws of holy living or any of that, but that grace and grace alone has redeemed me. I know that I cannot earn anything, that there is no need to try; but these are all things known in my head. My heart right now is distant—and I want to believe that Jesus takes me seriously and that He too takes my concerns and my feelings of enslavement to unholy things seriously. He doesn’t judge me, which is remarkable. I also want to know that when I take this stuff seriously, I'm not deluded. He doesn't judge me. He hasn't judged me. If God is for me, who can be against me?

Thanks for reading, if you made it.