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| Must. Go. Towards. The. Electric. Light........ |
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| Where did the top of my head go?! |
"It's probably just nerves over the upcoming trip," you might say. I thought so, too...except that what I was thinking about had nothing to do with my trip. No, my brain felt the need to focus on all the bad things going wrong with my family. There's a lot of pain in my family. A lot of suffering. And not all in the ways that would make you go, "Aw...." No, most of it is in the way that would probably make you go, "Eh, it's their own fault." And you'd be right, to an extent, but they're family, and it hurts me when they hurt.
"What does this have to do with God?" I'm getting to that. You see, the brain turning was a symptom of my slipping away from my newfound relationship with God and He was calling me back. Silly me, I didn't realize insomnia could be a calling. But the moment I decided at 3:45 am to take my dog for a walk in the slight drizzle of the first day of Fall (my favorite season in MS), I immediately began talking to God. I realized that all I had learned these past few months about being positive and giving up control started slipping away the closer I got to my goal of going to England. I had begun to revert to my old self and try to "fix" everybody before I left. And oddly enough, bad things were starting to happen.
At first, little things started going wrong, especially with the trip. Things that, at first glance, one might say, "Oh, that's just normal stuff." Some of my wire transfers got bungled. Murphy's vet stuff was not as simple as I thought.
Then, there was that debacle with the douchebag in Minot. Then, I wrecked my car (it's fixed now...). Then, I got a stomach bug from no where that forced me in bed for literally 24 hours on the ONE day I HAD to do Murphy's pet passport stuff.
That's how I felt, too!
Allowing the negativity of those around me to permeate my life again was interrupting all the good things I had gained. It took tonight (well, last night, I guess I should say, as I writing this at 5:10 in the morning), when that negativity erupted at my own going away party, that I realized how much it was causing pain in others when there should have only been joy. My cousins had just arrived after a stressful plane ride with their two small children, and the family negativity began. My aunt and uncle left without telling me goodbye. In fact, they didn't say more than two words to me the whole time they were there. It was not the way I wanted my family at my going away party to go. I didn't allow it to affect the rest of the party because, well, my stubbornness got in the way, but I didn't realize how much it had affected me until I lay down to go to sleep at 11 and found myself WIDE awake for hoooooouuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrsssssssss.
Dude, I see into your soul!!!!
So, as I walked my dog around my complex in the rain, I talked. And talked. And talked. For a long time. Murphy needed some exercise after the day of rain, but I needed some exercise, too. Some emotional exercise. I needed to settle some issues within myself that I didn't know needed settling. Like my loneliness without my best friend of the last 5 years or my apprehension at moving somewhere I've never been. I didn't realize how much strength God had given me, just within the last six months, to achieve all the things I have achieved, but only because I really paid attention to His teachings. I had started to let go. I had stopped participating in the negativity. And I had started to finally try to fix only myself.
What's sad is that part of me didn't want to write this post because I have so many friends who would read this and say, "But Brittany, you're an intellectual. How can you possibly have so much faith in God?" To that, I respond, "How can you not?" Too much in my life has been "coincidental" and if there was one thing I learned growing up, it was that nothing is coincidental. There was so much pain I was shielded from by pure circumstance and so much pain I experienced that led to much better things. Too many "miracles" and prayers answered for me to ignore. Hell, even Corey was a gift from God (not to boost his ego if he reads this). Not two days before I met him, I asked God for someone to remind me of who I was, to help guide me back to who I was supposed to be. I don't know what I would have done without him a month later when my dad died. Or two years later when my sweet Luna died, which was followed almost immediately after by the death of my grandmother. Everything happens for a reason...
So after an hour of talking to him while sitting on my porch in the cool new autumn air, I felt at ease again, like someone had let out all the bad air. I am back on track with my life and at peace with all the unknowns of what's to come. Because I know that God is there with me. And that is awesome.
