ElePHPant Haven

These seem to be becoming a yearly occurrence. They'll probably stay like that for a while too.

I was going to record it this year, so I could then transcribe what I actually said rather than post what I wrote, but I forgot to grab my phone as I went up. So you get my unedited notes instead. Hooray!

Maybe next year I'll actually figure out how to record things from the console, or just stick in an aux/monitor and use that.

God has a way of using the good and the bad things that happen in your life to draw you closer to Him. I'm going to tell you about something bad that happened to me that pretty much forced me to strengthen my reliance on Him.

I have this really bad habit of suppressing and bottling up almost all of my negative emotions. I then go and forget about them, but they're still there. Just stored in a box that I try to tell myself doesn't exist rather than handling them and letting them out.

Back in August, three things that are rather trivial but irritate me a lot all happened at the same time. Normally, I would be able to keep my mask up and pretend like they don't bother me that much, but that night something different happened. I don't know what was different about that night, but I broke.

That box decided to let out pretty much all of my ugly, repressed emotions. All at once. Being hit with hate, anger, envy and loneliness, among others, in a very short period of time is not a very pleasant experience.

There is no way I could've handled that by myself while remaining sane. So I did the only thing I could think of. I went to church and spent an hour alone just crying out to God for help.

While God did help me regain control, I felt like an empty shell the next morning. So, after work, I went and spent another hour at church, crying out for help. This continued for about a week before I could do more than just survive each day.

I'm still nowhere near as stable as I was back before my break down. If I have a day in which things just don't seem to work out, I need to go and spend time alone with God or I feel myself edging towards another fall.

I keep wondering why God doesn't just fix me. While praying this afternoon, I just got this feeling that God doesn't want me fixed. He values the time I spend with him more than my independence and even prefers me to have to lean on him rather than try to stand on my own.