The Beautiful Battle

7 months. 7 months and the battle is still raging. And in all honesty I did not expect to have to struggle to not see myself as a victim within this situation with Bethel. I find myself struggling to trust, struggling to find my place in society, struggling to let other people into the battle with me, and struggle to find where God is leading me right now. Meeting with my counselor has been such a God-send! I have enjoyed the time and have realized that I do need to do some real changes in how I do self-care. Something changed for me in December and I think it had a lot to do with the feelings of loneliness, that I have to fight this battle alone. Lydia, my roommate, the other day corrected me in a tough-love sort of way. I told her that I didn't feel like I could go to the roommates for support in this even though they have because I don't feel like I can ask them to walk with me through this. She said that idea was stupid and that because we chose to be roommates we all chose to walk with each other through the good and the bad, the thick and thin. I've been realizing so many things that I've experienced in this situation, let's just call it the mountain. I never expected to find myself bitter over not having a community supporting me in this - I feel drained, going between dealing with this at Bethel and then going home to deal with it on the homefront. So many times I've wanted to run away. So many times I've wanted to scream. But God's peace and comfort rushes in and those feelings disappear. After chapel this morning I discovered a root of bitterness that had arisen in my life over the last 3 months and I don't like it. I see how it's gotten in the way of my relationships and especially my relationship with God. Over and over in my journal I ask God for a close friend and here I have them right in my dorm room! I ask God for holy intimacy not with God and with maybe a sister/mentor figure. And here I have them. The other day I begged God, as pathetic as that was, for people to come and give me hugs instead of me giving people hugs all the time. I've felt like God has been giving me a level of grace that I've never experienced before. The grace to do things for others but still feeling fed and nourished myself. I've found myself having a more realistic understanding of people and a better understanding of myself. I'm working on no longer pushing myself out of the picture but realizing myself in the minute-to-minute events. As an assignment from my counselor I discovered that I tend place my emotions in my head but when I empathize and carry others' emotions I place them in my stomach. OK so that probably didn't make sense but it does to me and I need to just put that out there.

There have been things changing in the spiritual realm around my immediate family. I think it's affected me more than anyone else but Mom talked about a deep level of spiritual oppression she and Dad have been facing for about a week now. I too have experienced this oppression but it's like nothing I've ever faced before in my life. My emotions have been all over the place, but more than that changing situations and events have come in a flood for me, mostly dealing with relationships. I find myself so weak at this time. The other day I had a really sharp pain in my side and I was sort of thinking it was an ovarian cyst, but it's gone now so I'm praying against it. I almost blew up at my roommates for not doing the dishes last night and I have not been that angry in a very long time. I think it's the root of bitterness. But I also think this new level of spiritual oppression has to deal with the fact that my parents are taking hours of their day to pray, and I all of a sudden can't find enough time to spend a decent amount in prayer and just being in God's presence. I find myself at times wanting to scream. God is doing something beautiful, although we cannot yet perceive what it is I believe that God is working in a powerful way right now and I have to continue to forgive, to surrender this mountain to Him and to just be still in His presence. Pray for me friends, things are changing right now and I don't quite know how to deal with it. Blessings!!