hibernating

I haven’t really talked much about my “goals” or this journey that much of late. I’ll be honest; I haven’t known exactly what to say. It’s not because I am totally bombing. I am LEAPS and bounds beyond where I was when I started, but for the last few weeks it hasn’t seemed that victorious.

I don’t feel must like I am thriving.

Instead, it is much more like surviving.

I haven’t pushed as hard as I want to.

I have “phoned in” obedience and found myself justifying it. There are the holidays, the musical, the SNOW, so many things that have made obedience more difficult than when I started. My runs have been slow and short, rarely going the extra mile just trying to get in and out of the gym and get home to my bed. My eating has been a little lax, embracing every reason that I should possibly give myself a slight exception of bend my early resolve. My time on my knees has been less spirit filled and powerful that I want it to be.

Have you ever noticed that it’s harder to be healthy in the winter? I know that I personally, find myself constantly fighting the desire to curl up and hibernate like a bear. I want to sip hot cocoa, eat popcorn freshly popped and still warm and toasty, bake cookies, watch movies under a mountain of blankets.

• You know what I DON’T want to do?
• Scrape my car and go to the gym.
• Run down my icy road in 10 degree weather.
• Get up early and read my Bible and pray.
• Leave the house once I am home for the day.
• Get out of my bed...ever.

I am finding it even harder this year following my bout with mono. I get tired in ways that I don’t think I ever have before. I like to blame the mono. I have read the articles saying that this could be the case. It may be, however, that I am simply getting older. It’s also possible that this is a season that I love so dearly because of all the joy and beauty, yet it still causes pang of ache in my heart because of the gentle reminders of things that I long for but don’t have.

Maybe a portion of my desire to hibernate is also a desire to withdraw. Perhaps I seclude myself from all of the Christmas cards with lovely smiling families, bouncing babies and stories of who did what over the last year.

So and so had a baby,

So and so got married

So and so took a new job

So and so went to Italy for their anniversary

While my Christmas card (if I bothered to send one) seems like it would just be an awkward photo of me and a letter that says, “I still work at the shelter and live in my parent’s basement.”

(I mean...this could be me someday...shudder)

Maybe I try to lose myself in cheesy Christmas movies and nostalgic music to lay aside the pressures and expectations of my day to day existence. Lately I have been fighting so hard against feelings of being brushed off and forgotten. The enemy is constantly pushing the idea that people only like me for what they can get from me. They call when they have a problem, text when they need advice, but never really go out of their way to return the favor. This is not true of every relationship I have but the sad thing is that it IS true of some. Truthfully, it shouldn’t matter. I am not called to love and serve with expectation of what I am going to receive in return. I am also not a perfect friend and fail people in my own way.

It’s amazing how this season that I adore so much, is also such a real reminder of the loneliness that is very real in my life.

All of these things pile together to create a melancholy in me that doesn’t want to do things like run, pray, or even write these words. Things that less than a month again I CRAVED and was so passionate and excited to do have become a sort of drudgery.

Last night I wrote about the way my mind races and the constant stream of thoughts that pass through my brain. A very real part of this is also that simple need to occupy my brain as all times. If I keep my mind busy with a movie, Youtube silliness, articles about this or that, Pinterest boards, recipes, projects for work, obligations, anything and everything I can stare at or listen to by myself to keep me from thinking real thoughts or focus my heart on what the Lord is trying to say. More than I care to admit, I squander my moments of solitude by cluttering them with voices and sounds that are not nourishing my soul.

I may not be laying my eyes on anything inherently evil. It’s things like silly little romantic comedies, lipsink battles or other bits of nonsense to make me laugh or “help me unwind”. There is nothing wrong with these things, but for me, they can contribute to a slow fade into the place that I find myself in today. The enemy is subtle. He rarely uses a direct attack. Instead it’s ever so subtle and slow, before you know it what once was a passion, has become nothing more than a chore.

It happens in every area of life.

The job you loved and were so passionate about can fade into nothing more than punching a clock and showing to because you HAVE to.

The spouse that you were head over heels with can irritate you with their every breath.

That new phone, tablet, laptop, TV, car (fill in the blank) that you wanted so badly suddenly becomes out of date and you can think of nothing but a newer version.

As I sit here, recognizing the hypnosis that has led me into my current deep desire for hibernation, I am not sure exactly how to proceed. It’s not the snow, the holidays, the workload. It’s warfare.

Yes, there is a time to crash.

Yes, there is a time to rest.

But there is also a time to arise.

I am not sure what that looks like, but I am alerting myself to it.

It may take me sometime to wake all the way up and break out of the funk. I may not spend every single day just spewing passion and fervor. That’s ok. The alarm has sounded. My eyes are opened and I am stretching for the battle ahead.

Don’t think for one minute that I am going down without any sort of fight, oh enemy of mine.

You see in the end, all I have to do is get up and move, the Lord will be the one who makes it all happen…

"Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you."  Ephesians 5:14