Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Hit me baby one more time

I should probably just stop making titles out of pop songs I don't even like, but the other option I had was "from Saul to Paul" which from the perspective of a non-church person sounds either bad or like absolutely nothing. Anyway, here is the thing.

There is this topic that has haunted me for a long time now and whenever it reappears in my head I struggle with it all over. If you dislike everything biblically touched then feel free to skip this paragraph from here on. Otherwise just continue it is actually something more or less relatable. I'm not sure if you are familiar with the biblical story, but there was this bad guy called Saul who wanted to haunt down all the Christians only some years after Jesus had died. He was very successful doing it until one day all of a sudden he had an encounter with Jesus himself and that changed his life forever. Usually this little story and his life are used as a metaphor to cheer up those who consider them self too flawed as that they could ever be used by God.

As a person who lived on this planet for nearly twenty years let me tell you two things. Firstly we are all flawed and broken human beings. We all have scars somewhere, visible or not. Secondly, still some people have it worse than others and I just know where my place is in that scale.

I am a lucky girl. Don't get me wrong, I remember this time a year ago I spent most of my nights crying myself to sleep. You can now either think I'm weak or you understand that the breaking point of everyone is different. As you can see it took me less than a year from the ground up again. My life consists of valleys and peaks and I make sure to enjoy the view from a viewpoint as long as I'm up there. The next little down is probably just around the corner, its shadows reaching for me. I should just be grateful for all the sun that I got during my life, but it's a source of fear instead.


There's this saying "God gives his hardest battles to his strongest soldiers". I mean if you are going through a hard time that sounds perfect, but when you know yourself that you handle things moderately then it's not as pleasant. This saying basically makes me the weakest soldier to ever join the forces. I honestly fear that I will not be taken seriously ever if my life resolves like this. Don't we all look up to those incredibly strong people who have not been taken down by anything?

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not asking for actual bad things to hit me, that'd just be plain stupid, no thanks. I also know what some people around me went through and I am very thankful that I didn't have to deal with it. Sometimes I just fear that due to me being what I call lucky, I do not understand how hard it actually is. Pain forms you, no one can tell me it doesn't. Imagine this piece of clay. It doesn't become a beautiful vase without some serious kneading, right? Humans are the same I think.

The fears get even worse when I think of what I want to do in the future. I might see some pretty terrible things later and I'm not absolutely positive that I can handle them. I've known that for a long time now and I still worry that that's the main reason why I'm not supposed to ever work in the field I plan to. What if I just fail due to my own weakness or because I simply won't be taken serious.

I'm a white girl, coming out of a family whit not too many issues. What do I know about the real world, about things like depression, violence, poverty, world hunger, drug abuse? Nothing. There are some other things I know though. I know that I'm willingly to learn about them. I want to listen, I want to help. I might not be strong yet, but I'll learn it, step by step, fight by fight. 

Sometimes I also feel like not yet awake. I think that there is more to me that I am now and I want to use my full potential. How do I wake up when I feel like I'm asleep all the time? How do I get past that stand-by mode, how do I awake the Paul that lives inside this lazy little Saul?

I think it's about transformation in general, about growing over you, again and again. You don't need to hit rock bottom, but you need to face fears. Everyone needs to fight their own battles, one demon at a time. If my biggest problem is my own laziness then that doesn't mean it's less of a problem than real life depression. Whatever hurts me is something I as a person cannot tolerate anymore. I might not have heroic stories afterwards, but I'll have personal growth and trust me, nothing is worse than standing still for too long.

Cheerio.

P.s. Sorry I'm lame, NaNoWriMo is eating my soul and my time. Which is a bad excuse but yeah .

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