it does me. i think people who deal with their problems are far more courageous than those who choose to remain in them, afraid of being without the pain, or afraid of feeling more pain in trying to resolve things.

i hope i am courageous.

there have been various seasons in my life in which i have been more ready to deal. to face my pain. than others.

as school has worn on this semester, i have fallen farther and farther away from it. my grades aren’t slipping, but the care and concern that i put into it are. i love school, i love to learn, to be academic, to be the one who gets the best grades. but, with many of my emotions and much of the pain of my life culminating in the past few semesters, i can hardly hold on to school anymore.

on the contrary, i can hold onto the anger and pain in my life. the unforgiveness, the hurt. i know it is all there and most of the time i try to hide it from everyone around me, but even then, it often comes out, especially onto those who are closest to me. you mask the pain, but eventually the mask cannot even conceal it anymore.

the reason i am talking about the fact that i know pain and anger is buried somewhere within my soul is because in a way, i was confronted with it today.

i am reading a book called-Closer than Your Skin-about having intimacy with God that my dear friend erin recommended to me. perhaps the most enticing thing about this book to me at first was that there is an orange on the front cover. i have this thing for oranges, its the fruit that i identify with. the fruit that makes me thank our genius God for coming up with such a thing. but more importantly, Susan, the author, is so much like me, and it would not be difficult for me to write and write some more about every chapter that I have read so far, but my uneasiness with the one i read today brought me to write this. i read the chapter called Ambushed by Life in which she recounts her realization that somewhere deep within, pain was ravaging her soul. and i have to say, i am no stranger to this. one only has to listen to a conversation between joseph and i every now and then and you will clearly see my anger unleashed.

bitterness and unforgiveness remains, most of which i have yet to understand. if you were to ask me what exactly it is that i am angry about, or what it is that provokes me into sadness, anxiety, or a fiery rage, i don’t think i could tell you.

i know that some of the pain exists as a result of people i have met and goings on during my college christian experience, but i don’t know that that is it.

mostly i am just left asking why. why have i suffered these unjust pains? i constantly ponder towards God, whether consciously or subconsciously. the most unnerving part of that chapter is Susan’s discussion of her anger towards God. this is not something that I have failed to recognize in my life. in fact, i recognized it and then voiced it to Him at the beginning of my falling apart in the spring of oh-seven. its just that i don’t know how much i have dealt with the pain. oh sure, i have tried. but its still there and i still feel very angry at God a lot. its like, as she says, i don’t think he’s doing a very good job at being God.

in the book, Susan talks about some of the things that helped her deal with her pain. and i don’t want to do those things, nor do i know how to do those things. but i want to be courageous. i want to stop holding onto the pain as some sort of security- a symbiotic relationship that instead leaves both of us weakened.

but what will it take?- i ask myself. does ending the pain mean jumping into more? i think so, and if not, at least i know that it is not easy. that it is a difficult process that cannot be reversed.

if i don’t know anything else, i do take comfort in one thing- that there is this beautiful love that reveals itself in God not wanting to let the pain eat away my soul. that He wants it to come out, even if the process is hard. that He has let me crumble because it had to happen and he does not toy with my life. my life matters and because it matters, he wants to extract the shit that is in it and make something beautiful.

and that i can live with.

(book cover courtesy of Google images; painting inspired by a photograph by misty mawn)