Last Month's struggle

Stumbled upon this. Wrote it a month ago. Real and raw. Ups and downs. Is life a roller coaster? Or does it ever level off? I'm not sure which would be better...

Who am I. Who am I anymore.
As soon as I thought I knew, every crutch is slowly broken, every layer peeled off revealing a raw and bloody core. It was busyness I hid behind, doing and producing and performing. I was defined by what and how much I produced in very little time . And accomplishment. I achieved many things and was known for it. I was a high achiever, top of everything. Then sports, fast and encouraging. A compassionate heart. An optimist. And one with big dreams. With great potential. One who could get paid to go to school. Who had an inheritance. As one who never faced rejection, who could do whatever she wanted. One who had great intelligence. 
And now look at me. Stripped of sports ability. Stripped of busyness and responsibility. Stripped of performance and academic achievement. Faced with rejection after rejection of things I wanted to do. With no knowledge of history, current events, geography. Not well versed in pop culture or any specialty. What do I know. I don't even have common sense. My compassion is selective and my patience non existent. The self has replaced the selfless. I feel unworthy and unwanted. Stripped of intelligence, options, stability. No money, no performance, no ministry.
What do I have. What is there left to strip me of. I don't even have full health anymore. Not even a fully healthy body. Yet listen to me. Complaining and whining about me. Can't I see how trivial all of this is relatively? My troubles are a drop of water in the sea of pain. Yet it's big to me because it's my identity. Who am I. When all this is stripped away, what's left of me. 
I fear I don't know. I fear I question my very core. I know what I should say, but it sure doesn't feel like it today. Maybe it's lack of sleep or scales of sin on my eyes so I can't see, but here I am. Raw and vulnerable. All my crutches gone, all my masks and covers off. My naked soul feels broken and unwanted. Worthless and ugly. Confusion and chaos wrapped in a body. 
Who am I. Who am I when its all said and done. When every support I've been standing on has been ripped from under me. I'm tempted to think it's just down from here, a spiral into the abyss. But I know that's not the case. There is a foundation. One who defines me. Who gives me a new identity. Devoid of all the titles and masks I've come to see as me. I could be the stupidest, coldest, brokest, everything bad-ist in the world and would he still look at me and say I am beauty? I am worthy? I am just who he wants me to be and is growing me to be? I am loved and whole and redeemed? Fully seen, fully known, fully and unconditionally loved even in my insufficiency. He does and he has. I can rest in the shadow of his wings. My soul clings to him and his right hand upholds me. He is my strong fortress, my refuge, and I will not be shaken. May that be what I truly believe. May my identity come from who he is and who he's made me. Jesus sees me. And he loves me. Even when all my striving ceases and I lay void of productivity. Now I just need that to sink from mind to heart and start living as if that's what I truly believe. The cross has clothed my bloody core with an intense beauty and irrevocable identity.

A Sample of Costa-Rica-Inspired Thoughts

Airports:

Such an interesting concept.

So many people all crammed into the same place, yet none acknowledging a single stranger.

So many people moving. Going. Leaving.

So many people in transit.

Far transit, otherwise they’d drive.

It’s crazy how close the proximity, yet how great the distance.

Each in their own worlds, focused on the world in their palms, totally withdrawn from any human interaction.

Unless of course they travel in groups.

Then their attention is split between the world at their fingertips and the nucleus of humanity that is their travel group.

And I’m just as guilty as the next person.

Is it that I’m simply exhausted? Or introverted? Or just not open for a new conversation?

So do I take my headphones out and risk spending the time and energy to actually participate in the world around me?

I guess we shall see.

Hip hop:

This culture. It’s so different. Unique. Tightly knit

It’s so interesting how different things draw and unite people together.

Some seem to from stronger bonds than others.

I wonder why that is.

Is it based on the level of commitment to that thing?

On the degree of identity placed in it?

What is it that causes us to forget our differences and draw so deeply on that one thing that we have in common.

It’s quaint.

Gay pride. Christ’s body. The music or dance or drama scene.

All examples of that bond played out.

Lived out.

Yet they stand for such different things.

What causes people to do the unthinkable, spend unimaginable amounts of money, travel unreasonable distances. Catholic or Muslim devotion.

The worship of material things. The visiting of ancestry homelands.

How humanity works.

It fascinates me.

Causes me to wonder why we are the way we are.

Which could drive me to psychology, history or divine mystery.

So I don’t have an answer, but it’s interesting to think about.

To toss around my mind.

Why are we so connected to where we came from? Why is the connection and commitment to family this unbreakable love, even against all reason?

Streets:

They’re everywhere.

People on the streets.

Disfigured, crippled, or without work.

Asking, begging for money.

Some selling trinkets and candies.

Others just shaking their nearly empty cups.

Of course, some making up stories and scamming up and down the street, but others are truly and gravely in need.

So what do we do? Is possible greed a justification to ignore them all?

Does it matter where their story falls on the Truth spectrum?

But what’s enabling and maybe even hurting in the long run and what’s lending a hand and an offering of love.

Back then they shared everything in common. Does that mean just within the church? Or to all?

What our call to stewardship of money and  stopping and sharing in someone’s story of affirmation and redemption?

Giving gift cards?

A conversation?

A meal?

Cash?

Nothing?

How do we love and affirm humanity.

How do we love selflessly as Christ loved me.

The sheer number in the streets is overwhelming.

I want to love well. To live well. With my life as a telling testament of the gospel.

So what do we do now?

Words

After watching people paint pictures of their hearts with words:

I don’t understand.

I don’t understand the power words have over me.

The way they can elicit tears by just being arranged in the right way.

The effect they have on my emotions, one who can simply say the right things.

With passion and rhythm, with heart and soul that beats like the tympani drums.

That just flows naturally in a way that I can’t explain. 

A way that flows through my veins. Pumps through the marrow of my bones, filling both sides of my heart and then being exported into my very being, my core.

While some are moved by music and melody, the melody that moves me is the tune of words. Deep and powerful. Just spoken real and raw, with honesty and love that I can’t move on from.

I can’t get over the fence of these words without truly taking a step back and realizing their vastness, their length, their depth.

This fence stretches from east to west and reaches the depth of my numb heart buried deep inside my sunken chest.

And when I collide with this wall, I’m forced to step back and realize how great the awe it elicits, how deep the fall into feeling again.

Into being moved again.

The beauty of words said in the right way.

I thank God for those with the gift of rhetoric. The gift of rhythm. The gift of linking words together in a way that punches my numbness and wakes up my solemn heart.

I can’t explain it.

But maybe I don’t have to. Maybe there’s nothing to explain, nothing to tell.

So I’ll let the tears running down my cheeks speak for themselves.

Lost and Found

I think I may have found it. 
Hidden deep down, covered in exhaustion, under layers of weariness and stacks of reservation.
Half suffocates yet struggling to reach the surface once again, to breathe deep from the well of good clean air.
It's muscles strained from the weight of pessimism and atrophied by lack of exercise, it must be strong or it wouldn't have survived. 
Yet it's alive and in the quiet I heard its faint whisper, gasping for breath, pleading for mercy to see once again. To breathe once again.
And after struggling to shove aside all he weight threatening its suffocation, I think I've found it.
I'm not sure if it's weak because that's what is is by nature of Id lack of use has brought this change, but I guess time will tell. I'm not sure of its true, naked nature. But I think I've found it.
My sense of adventure.