"...but we do it everyday..."

I haven't posted in a little while, and I think it's because I really haven't known how to tell my story recently. There is such a broad scope of change in my life that I have been remiss in finding clues as to what they mean.

When I turn on the television, I can't help but be saddened by what I've been seeing. It seems like no matter what issue we talk about, there is always a right way, and anyone who thinks differently is hateful or intolerant. I see hypocrisy, anger, judgment, denial, betrayal, and worst of all, apathy.

Today was the worst. I turned on the television to find that one man has killed, by himself, over 30 people at Virginia Tech University. There simply is nothing that can be said to try to explain how evil this was. In one moment, the darkness came over a man so completely, that he was able to coolly destroy so many lives and so many families. Just thinking of that makes me breathe harder and my heart clenches in confusion.

It seems the devil is always at my door and the door of my friends. There is no game he won't play, no trick he won't use, and no lie he won't tell. I have a friend who is struggling with her faith right now, and wondering why she can't leave the place where all she wants to do is follow her own desires. That isn't who she was created to be. She was created to give glory to God. The lie comes when the devil makes us belief that our purposes are in our own matters. They are not. They are indeed God's.

Despite all of this, and despite the hatred and evil that has been able to manifest itself in this world, God is still here. I feel it even more now than ever. The same God who took the time to create the infinite universe and took the time to especially create me, has a hand in all of this, even in the tragedies. That seems so trite and naive, but when I look back... I can't find a single horrible moment in my life that somehow God didn't work my future benefit.

We simply do not have the ability of foresight. We see the map of our lives as it comes and we forget that there is no possible way to see past what we are doing now. I thank God for my salvation. I praise Him that when something like today happens and that event causes so many in the world to doubt its meaning, that I can look up and know that I don't have to worry why. I know this because He took that worry from me on the cross. And because of that promise, I have no fear.

"He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."

"...the devil is hot on my face again..."

This whole week has definitely been "off". I've had as little of sleep as I've had since I moved to Washington, and my days have been usually marked with this feeling that the world around me isn't spinning the way it should...or something. I think we've already decided that I as a writer and you as a reader that I am horrible with imagery.

I don't think there is any coincidence in how I've had such a hard time getting my heart in a place to talk to God and me feeling so separated from what I would consider a happier existence. God brings me to a place where I can feel meaningful in Him and see less reasoning to find meaning in what the world gives me. But when I drift from talking to Him, the world becomes a much prettier and worthwhile enterprise than it really seems. I think the devil does his work there.

I heard the best analogy for my struggle this week and the one who told me about it had no idea how much it spoke to me when she said it. Summarizing her badly, she said that the world is like this huge circus, being held under a beautiful sky. To seek God is to look to the sky, but the circus is always trying to get you hooked with whatever it can bring to tie your eyes away from the sky. That analogy speaks almost to the letter of how I've felt lately. The world has been throwing spectacle after spectacle in front of me, trying to bring me in more and more. I've been so strong, but lately the devil has been winning, and I see the effects of it on my heart. It takes all I have lately to just pry my eyes for a moment off the circus and into the sky.

This is where my spiritual immaturity rears its head. What do I do? How can I pray for God to speak to me clearly when I can't even focus enough to clearly ask for that? Where is the place I can go to in my soul that allows me to reach God the way I had been before?

I honestly don't know those answers... but I'll keep looking upward in case the answers have been trying to be find me already.