resolution lament

Ben: It's a laminate.
Janine: That's not real hardwood floor?
Ben: Nope. It looks exactly like it. But it is like one one-hundredth of the cost.
Janine: Oh. I still wanna go with the real wood.
Ben: What? You can't even tell the difference.
Janine: It's not the point.

Ben: Well, what is the point?

Janine: I just...I don't like the way it's pretending to be wood. If you're not wood, don't try and look like wood.
Ben: I don't think that it's pretending.

Janine: This is a lie, Ben. Just be up front and tell people what you really are.
 - from the movie He's Just Not That Into You

I loath uncertainty. What so many people find exciting about doing new things is not knowing what's going to happen, but often new things fill me with anxiety and creates a tight knot in the pit of my stomach.

I wish I didn't care. It would be so much easier if I just didn't care. I can see why so many medicate legally and otherwise.

I'm sitting here watching the most beautiful snowfall ever. I have so many wonderful things in my life. I'm a lucky person, truly. And yet...

I've had a chance to think - which is never good - really, what good does thinking ever do anybody? My thinking has led me to a painful crossroads. Knowing that someone is capable of something wonderful but just not capable of that with you - leaves a whole new kind of silence.  Like the snowstorm outside, the realization is cold, blurring, numbing.

Every anxiety is rushing back. The words "There's just always something better than me out there" keep playing on a loop in my mind. Those I like are always looking for something else, some intrinsic quality that I apparently grievously lack. I feel all my efforts come to nothing in the end.

In developmental psychology they have what are known as Erikson's Stages of Psychosocial Development. Conflict number six is defined as: Intimacy versus Isolation. The major question needing resolution is: Will I be loved or will I be alone?

Call it an only child complex, call it an introverts summation, call it what you will, but I worry. I worry because I feel I'm running from the answer I've always known: I was made to be alone. The faster I run the heavier my limbs feel. There is nothing but emptiness all around. And in it all, I'm afraid if I stop running from what I know is inevitable, I'll never move again.

It's Palm Sunday. I wonder about Your journey into Your doom, into Your purpose, into Your Kingdom. You were traveling into Jerusalem - the city of The King, the City of God, the home of Your people. You, who change everything; You, who nothing is impossible for; You, who not even death can defeat - "resolutely set out toward Jerusalem" (Luke 9:51). I request only this from you: don't leave me here alone, in this dark cold world. I have no palm but my hand, small, finite, and weak. Whether I lack or gain anothers to hold, please, secure my palm in Yours forever. Strengthen my resolve that in Your arms is goodness, life, and hope.

"After this I saw a vast crowd, too great to count, from every nation and tribe and people and language, standing in front of the throne and before the Lamb. They were clothed in white robes and held palm branches in their hands. And they were shouting with a mighty shout, “Salvation comes from our God who sits on the throne and from the Lamb!” (Revelation 7:9-10)