prevalence of sleep-deprivation

*5

That is pretty much how my days have been! Granted, I’ve done other things like… eating, going to the bathroom, sleeping, going to church… But for the most part, the comic above is accurate. Things are really slow at home. Days seem so long.. Yet I can only squander so much time before it’s the end of the day. Why is that??

Honestly, it’s been hard… I spend a lot of my time alone at home. So most of my thoughts tend to be about what I want to do with my time and how I can best enjoy it… Well, besides my occasional moping about how much I miss college life. Point is that it’s really hard to be reminded of God so isolated from other brothers and sisters… Now it makes more sense to me how much I didn’t really see Him in my life until I went to college. I think… God is showing me that I have to be really intentional in seeking Him. That I have to put forth effort to believe that the last four years of my life have happened and that the changes He’s brought about in me really are things that He’s done with my heart and that it’s not something I brought about through my efforts. I guess I’m in the middle of wrestling over putting myself over Him in my life… I keep complaining about not being productive, and not complaining about it but thinking that no one really cares about me. But.. I think that’s what it all boils down to.

Like… all the attention and love and acknowledgement that I crave… and the anger I feel when I don’t get it from certain people… I’m putting my desire for those “needs” to be fulfilled over the grace that God has already (graciously) given. What more am I asking for when I’ve already been given the greatest gift of all?! There have been several moments when He’s been admonishing me with reminders of this truth. And then I ask God for forgiveness, lol. I wish to be free from this sin. So much. But I’ll most likely have to repeatedly ask for forgiveness for the rest of my time here on earth.

As for productivity… there have been days where I don’t feel like doing anything. And so I don’t. There was one day where I was only awake for six hours of the day. Quite the opposite of how my college lifestyle was, lol. I have yet to feel convicted that this idleness is sinful, though. I get that what He is teaching me here is to know and acknowledge that all the time I have is something that He’s given me. And like all gifts, He’s given it to me with the purpose that I use it to glorify Him. But I’m not. I’m just letting it go without purpose. I feel so stupid. I spend a lot of time calling myself stupid because I know all this and I still can’t get myself to be productive. To not be a slave to my desire to just entertain myself all day.

Thinking back on things, I realize I’ve even been skimping on my QTs because I feel guilty about not being productive… Productive meaning applying to jobs, lol. It’s productive for me to read, too. I’m so affected by what my parents think, though. More specifically, what my mom thinks. She would not be pleased if I tried to make up for not applying/job-hunting with doing my QT. I can just imagine how pissed she would be if I told her “Yeah, I was pretty lazy today and I slacked off… but I did my QT for an hour this morning!” haha…

Guess that is not being a good witness to my parents though… If I’m all like, Jesus is my Lord! But I’m not living it out at all………………………………………………………….. sigh. That’s… frustrating to realize. But being frustrated with myself is not going to lead me to repent and to change. I think I need to be struck with an appropriate fear of God.

So…. yeah. It took me so long to get everything I wanted to say out… I guess I really do need to journal and practice thinking and expressing my thoughts. especially on spiritual matters since I don’t get as many chances to talk about these things with people. And so that I can reflect on and record how God’s working in my life…

*2

First publicized private post

So… I used to be really insecure and I cared too much about how people viewed me. I would want to get their attention through these blog posts about what I’m doing or thinking and somehow try to impress everyone with my witty humor or deep thoughts. It was a huge huge deal to me whether everyone commented or not. Thankfully, God never gave me the social grace to be “popular” so I seldom got the attention that I craved (at least through my posts; there were other ways that I would try to get attention and affirmation and usually those were what I used). The image of perfection that I tried to keep up in front of everyone was also pretty empty and anyone who tried to get really close to me could realize how vain and self-centered my real personality was. Then I came to college and God moved me with His love and grace. Afterwards, I was still disillusioned for a while with myself and the insecurities that had motivated my blog posts before. I also was still afraid of judgement from others…

BUT! Now my identity is secure in being a child of God. I feel that I have nothing to lose from displaying my thoughts for all to see. And (possibly maybe) people could be encouraged by what they see in my thoughts.

How I’ve been these past few weeks… Things have just been crazy with procrastinated schoolwork and failed attempts to be disciplined. I cancelled so many scheduled lunches and teatimes with people on account of school work… that I had procrastinated in the first place. It’s good that God has shown me my heart is just being stubbornly selfish with my usage of time (i.e. just following whatever I feel like doing or not doing) but why can’t I stop abusing the time that God has given me?… Maybe I will continue to wrestle with this for years like other sins that He’s exposed to me. Maybe. One thing I’ve learned from my recently-ended relationship is how true it is that only God can change hearts, regarding both my own and his heart. And I’ve learned to acknowledge my feelings, no matter how much I loathe to admit them, and to submit them to God without acting on them. It’s still a struggle, because I’m used to having control over things and knowing that if I do this then I’ll get an immediate result and satisfaction. But He has been really faithful. Things are changing in my heart. Even now He is revealing idols that I keep hanging onto and that keep me from completely submitting to Him.

A recent example has been secular music. I noticed that I get crazily happy whenever I get into my jam sessions. And that I use it to distract myself from being lonely. While there’s nothing wrong with being happy or with taking my mind off of being alone, I felt like I was getting increasingly dependent on it for my happiness instead of on my relationship with God. So… no more secular music until Easter. Friends, please help keep me accountable to this..!

Although it’s been hard to control myself sometimes, I feel like I’m finally starting to learn to obey something other than my instinctual cravings and feelings. And learning how to fight to do the right thing. Could this be the beginnings of a beautiful change in my life? I sure hope so!

One thing that’s been a bit discouraging is finding that there are so many other things that I am moronically dependent on… coca-cola, playing sudoku, reading manga (which I’m fasting for a week)… one “good” idol is having a meaningful interaction with a friend everyday. My day just feels so much better when I do. But regardless of whether my lonely bubble is popped that day or not, God is still good and faithful. And that should be reason enough to rejoice.