What an Easter! Recall my post from last night... and imagine how I felt when I woke up this morning. Becca was already gone, and I felt like people must feel when they wake up with a hangover. Like crap.
I decided to try and start today off on a better foot by doing my arm workout DVD before showering for church. Getting ready in an empty room is always a bit surreal for me because I'm used to Becca leaving AFTER me. Anyway, I headed off to the ladies' class with Monica and hoped for the encouragement I always get from being among those women. But that's hard when you begin the day feeling like crap... having gone to bed the night before feeling "pathetic." About halfway through Rhetta's lesson, a girl in our class asked a question that (to me) seemed totally unrelated, yet at the same time... sent me over the edge. She was asking about struggles. The basic gist was that she wonders if there are certain addictions that are so addictive that people will take those struggles to the grave, and never get past them. Rhetta's answer just GOT me in my heart! She said that she's more and more convinced that that might be true... and more and more convinced that it means that there'll be drug addicts who die and go to heaven STILL drug addicts. And she said that a true "struggle" (not one where you just give up and say "this is how i am," but one that remains a "struggle"- something you grapple with and fight... even if you take it to your grave)... is looked upon favorably by God. The girl asked another question a bit later... I cant remember what it was, and Rhetta again adressed this issue saying that there will be things in our lives that we don't see improvement in. Maybe we wont see daily, weekly, or even yearly improvement. Maybe we can't even see improvement on the horizon of our future! But that we STILL have to keep struggling. That we have to wake up every day and submit our hearts to him, again and again and again, even if certain things follow us TO OUR GRAVES.
I sat there just numb. I thought of myself waking up today and doing that stupid arm video even as my stomach was still full and hurting from the night before, and even as i felt SO CERTAIN that another screw-uppy day was to come. I thought of how I continue to struggle and scrap and fight, and how much I'm hurting inside over it. And I cried as I sat there because I felt doomed. I see no improvement in my struggles with food over the past three years... and I see none on the horizon. I see this as being an ugly thing that could be here forever, and yet i know that I cannot and will not cease to struggle with it.
Amber put it this way: We belong both to God AND to our sinful nature, and yet we belong so much MORE to God. And we struggle to rid our lives of certain things (even things we desire so much) because they do not belong in us. We belong to God... and so the evil we desire can still never reside peacefully in us. It does not belong there.
I cried as I sat there because I know that God sees me hurting, and yet the only way for him to teach me and free me is to allow me to learn through hurt and struggle. I cried because my feeble attempts at "continuing to struggle" ARE so feeble. I cried because I HATE how it feels to feel "wretched," and cannot give myself any guarantee that it will ever go away never to return. I cried because the ONLY thing I can do is never give up fighting. The only thing I can do is say, "I believe in you God," and then do as Rhetta said and keep submitting my heart to his, day after day. It's no comfort... its scary.
The day got better as it went on. But this is a big thing for me right now. I am to wake up each day and be HIS... because his way is BETTER, whether I understand it or not. Today is a day where I DONT, so its hard.
In other news: I have four tests this week. Bible, Science, Spanish, and Health. This is not going to be pretty.