"It is by the grace of an eternally loving heavenly Father that there is an intolerable inner conflictedness that results from the incongruousness of living with irreconcilable inconsistency in our lives. It is the pain of the tension between what we claim to live by contrasted against the ugly reality of what we actually do that forces us to reexamine our moral and spiritual underpinnings and identify the areas in which we are desperately in need of repentance and renewal.
Do not allow the conflictedness of another to become your own. If you have an answer from Scripture, the fact that another questions its veracity or strives to evade the pain of applying it in their own lives does not make the truth itself less true. You will never save a drowning victim by drowning beside him so that at least he dies in good company."
This is an excerpt from my journal 10 days ago, as I was wrestling deeply with what it means to walk beside someone through difficult circumstances, empathize fully and meaningfully and with compassion, and yet not become entangled in the same web in which they--whether by choice or by happenstance--have become ensnared. For whatever reason, this has always been a tough one for me. It's difficult for me to empathize/sympathize/pray for and with someone without on some level taking personal ownership of their problem and becoming just as distraught--or sometimes more, perhaps--over the situation as they themselves are. Which...is totally not helpful. Yeah. News flash, eh?
What's more, I find that the devil--or is it the weakness of my own heart and mind?--is ever alert for opportunities when I am at my weakest emotionally, physically, and spiritually, and it is usually at these lowest of the low points that I find I am suddenly faced with a series of temptations that brings to light all of the darkest ugliness of my past and present failures with a venomous force that is both frightening and infuriating.
And...it always hits during finals week or the week before. Inevitably, relentlessly, and without fail, there will be a situation that is emotionally and spiritually taxing going on in the backdrop of the academic chaos that already has every nursing student at her wit's end mentally and physically. (Next year, I'm going to start marking these things on my calendar so I can be more fully prepared psychologically).
The past two weeks have been tough, in all honesty. There have been a number of very intense, very draining situations in a number of different friendships that have seemed to demand every ounce of emotional, spiritual, mental, and physical energy that I had...and then just a little bit more. But I'm convinced that frustrated tears, the moments of desperation, and the feelings of helplessness are all ordained by an omniscient Creator to guide each of us--and in this situation, one particular blonde--to realize and accept the fact that we are desperately in need of repentance, renewal, grace, and divine intervention.
May my heart be willing and open to accept and embrace the things that my Father is teaching me through these next several weeks.
