trudgery & explosions

Inside me lies two responses to the lifeless state I feel myself slipping into today at work. Apathy and mindless, robotic endurance is one option. I will trudge through this day in survival mode, willing time to continue to tick by, after all, I know that it will. That's what time does.

Secondly, I want to explode, escape, break free, break out against the numbness. Change is on the horizon, July 5th- oh hasten the day! The day where I move on from this work that I no longer believe in. It's terrible when your job gives you an "in" into the lives of suffering, hurting people, but then makes you reach out to them not as yourself, but as a representative of an organization that you don't believe can actually help them. And I've done this for two years! A more honest, sincere person would have left the first week... I guess I expected I would be able to help them eventually. As I leave this job and go to one that seems a blessing in so many ways, I wonder what have I done here? Have I bettered this place, these people as a result of spending 40+ hours a week here?

I cannot bear the answer which I suspect. It haunts me.

I am also haunted by my quick turn-around. I was "up" on Monday. It is Friday and already I feel so down it's almost comical my lack of ability to find some sort of stasis.

Stasis: when two opposing forces equal each other in intensity, thereby cancelling each other out.

So, it's not that there aren't going to be forces bringing me down, squelching joy and hope, robbing me of peace. It's that I have to fight back with an equal intensity. "Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong." -1 Corinthians 16:13. But I am not a man. And I don't have strength in and of myself right now. (Or ever) "Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power." -Ephesians 6:10. What does it mean to be strong in the Lord? I feel so unbelievably weak, as if I could just keel over and die. Right here, on the spot. I am no superstar Christian. "But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.'"- 2 Corinthians 12:9.

I'm not sure I understand why He picks the weakest vessels to be put in places where light is most needed. There are others who would do better. Who would shine brighter. Could it be that the dimness of my own light causes Christ to shine all the more brightly? "For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong." - 2 Corinthians 12:10.