a summary of nights

I have to confront my demons. My demons are wicked, and I am afraid.

I need to talk to my mother, and perhaps my uncle.

I don’t know who I am. I really don’t. It’s starting to scare me. I'm losing grip of something I should be holding onto for dear life. It’s slipping. Slowly and surely it’s slipping through my fingers. I don’t know if I ever had it…but I’m quickly losing it. Sometimes I have to just sit down and shake myself. Shake clear my head and figure out what’s good and right in the world again…and realize that it feels good and that it’s the direction that I need to be heading. But when I'm in the midst of it all, I can't see a thing.
I was in tears last night. I've been in tears the past few nights. The conversation tonight was hard because it made me realize how much I don’t have. There are aspects to my singleness that I value, but none of them are valued over that wonderful feeling of knowing you’re loved…or at least thinking it. perhaps what I am saying here is that I would almost prefer the deception of loving to living without it. I think many fall into that. It feels close enough and it will do, so we go ahead and do it. Sort of like replacing love with sex I suppose. You replace the actual feelings with the actions and you get something that feels close enough and helps alleviate that horrible feeling of being unloved. That’s what I feel right now.
I’m sad. I'm sad and hurting and feeling as unloved as a person can feel. I feel alone and unwanted. I want more than anything to crawl into my mother’s arms and have her hold me and sing to me and tell me that I am worth loving. I won’t believe it, but it helps me to fall asleep, and then I can forget everything.
_______________________________________________

Morning light sheds clarity on blind, nightly struggles. I’m struggling with the same demons that I’ve always had trouble with. They’re just so hard to recognize at night. In the morning I can see how the grasses were trampled with the struggles and I follow them back to the path they pulled me from. First of all and above everything I need to trust God. I am feeling unloved because I am allowing everyone around me to define me. I need to look to the Lord for my worth, my value. I need to be content in who He is and not in who others think I am, or whether or not others are loving towards me. I need to ask Him for strength to get through the outward struggles I am facing. I need to step back and gain perspective, and not the perspective that says “this is all useless and such a short span of time that nothing matters and everything you do is worthless,” but the perspective that says “God is so much bigger than any of this, and He’s on my side and loves me no matter what happens. It will be for the best even if I cannot see it now.” I need to let go. I need to give Him the control I am so jealously guarding.

Seeing this struggle for what it really is helps…and then it doesn’t. Seeing it makes me realize that it is the same struggle I’ve been fighting forever and I still haven’t won. Does this bring me any closer to winning? Will I win? Ever? Will I ever be settled and content and stable in this path I am seeking? If I am, will I know? Hopefully…

Abba, help me to feel like your child.