Fish Envy

I went home this weekend, and, as is the practice, I was sad to hit the road back to Omaha again. Very sad. Every fiber in my being just wanted to scream for being stuck in this seemingly endless cycle of despair followed by contentment and joy followed again by despair. It's not a fun cycle to be stuck in.

The saving grace of the long drive west was that I recently purchased my favorite book, Blue Like Jazz, on CD. I listened contentedly to Donald Miller for hours, and really could've kept driving in order to hear more of it. No book has ever resonated with me more. One section in particular, west of Des Moines, really hit what I was feeling right on the nose:

"I think I was feeling bitter about the human experience. I never asked to be human. Nobody came to the womb and explained the situation to me, asking for my permission to go into the world and live and breathe and eat and feel joy and pain. I started thinking about how odd it was to be human, how we are stuck inside this skin, forced to be attracted to the opposite sex, forced to eat food and use the rest room and then stuck to the earth by gravity. I think maybe I was going crazy or something. I spent an entire week feeling bitter because I couldn't breathe underwater. I told God I wanted to be a fish. I also felt bitter about sleep. Why do we have to sleep? I wanted to be able to stay awake for as long as I wanted, but God had put me in this body that had to sleep. Life no longer seemed like an experience of freedom."

Exactly. I feel so weighted down by the thoughts in my head that sometimes I feel like I could explode. I often wish I could just stop being me for just a day or two, just to have a break from the living and breathing and feeling and aching. My heart is heavy. I'm incredibly confused. I think so much more about the BIG questions in life than most, I'm sure. I doubt most people get ready in the morning while thinking about eternity, but that's the kind of stuff that is constantly circling in my head. I do get bitter and feel trapped. I didn't ask to come to the world as Nicole Palof and feel it all...

Is my faith so small? How many times does God have to amaze me with his timing before I will actually trust that it's good and perfect? My friend Annie challenged me with Romans 8:28 tonight:

"Nicole, we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."
"I know," I grunted.
"But do you believe it?"
"With my head... but I have a hard time translating that knowledge to my heart."

Anyway, after he gets most of his bitterness out of his system, Donald Miller then goes to the Grand Canyon and surrenders to God and stuff. I'd be here all day if I typed it out word for word, but trust me that it's good, real stuff. By the end of this experience of bitterness-turned-peace, he "lay there under the stars and thought of what a great responsibility it is to be human. I am a human because God made me. I experience suffering and temptation because mankind chose to follow Satan. God is reaching out to me to rescue me. I am learning to trust Him, learning to live by His precepts that I might be preserved."

So, I'm going to do my best to hold on to the promises, live by His precepts, and let Him preserve me, despite my desire to breathe underwater.