If I'm being honest right now, I feel really discouraged. I could list all the things that are wrong with me and wrong in my life right now, but all of it can be summed up pretty much with this description: I feel worthless. This semester, I am applying to graduate school and guess who has not even compiled a list of schools I plan on applying to before the deadline. I have not started to study again for the GRE because I honestly do not feel like I will get the score I want. I have given up before even really trying because, in my eyes, I am hopeless. I am co-leading for a small group this semester, and instead of seeing this opportunity as a privilege I am so caught up in the struggles, I fail to see this opportunity to grow through these hardships. I try so hard to love my members and I am trying so hard to make them feel loved, yet I feel like I am failing miserably. I tell myself that I am trying and that I am awkward which is not false, but who would have known you could be awkward in trying to love someone. I fear the things I tell them may be wrong, the way I treat them may be wrong, that everything I am doing is wrong. There must be something wrong with me. I look at others and they have this natural gift to connect with people--those people are capable of being loved. They must be. And me? I must not be capable of having love reciprocated by most people and that is the conclusion I have drawn. It is hopeless for me. I am hopeless.
I must be feeling this way right now because inside I am longing for answers to the uncertainty of my future, longing for my wishes to be granted, and longing for love from others and in my eyes there is absolutely no answer, no progress. I am falling flat on my face day after day and forcing a smile on my face telling myself everything will be okay. I convince myself that my members love me even while I look at their blank faces. I reflect on all that I try to do for them and it isn't enough. Nothing I do is enough. I am falling apart because there is only so much I can do by myself. Everything is out of my control, the way people see me, the way my life turns out. My life is not in my hands. And I feel like I am slipping away, fading. Aimlessly, I am trying to carry on living by my own effort and I honestly have felt so dead these past few days. When my time is consumed with serving, with studying, I look within and feel emptiness rather than joy. There must be something wrong with me. It's so hard to see the purpose in loving others, in even carrying on when I am so caught up in the fact that I am a failure.
This is reminiscent to me of a time when I cried out to God in desperation. I wanted rest, I wanted peace, I wanted an escape from darkness. Once again, I am reminded of how hopeless I am. Hear the cry of my heart, Lord, the cry inside my heart that begs for you every single day for I am poor and needy. Even when I forget the reality that I am nothing and worthless without you. While I only used to go to you in desperation, life has become so painful to go through that I am beginning to see how much in need I am of you daily. I want to draw near to you, pour out all these feelings of worthlessness and look to you for hope because it is absolutely impossible to find it in myself. I can pretend but I will never be able to become the person the world wants me to become, my parents want me to become, the person people expect of me. I feel like I fallen flat on my face and I need your strength to get up and keep living. I don't want to sit down, not doing anything, not going to you for guidance or strength and expect everything to work out. That is not faith. I want faith that all things are in Your hands, I NEED to reassure myself of your steadfast love and grace daily and I want this longing, this desire, within me to do everything with all that I can do worship you through serving, through my studies, and through my life with full assurance that you will work through me. Lord, at the end of the day, I do not need all these things the world has to offer me. Yes, I need strength, perseverance--all to say that, Lord, I need you.
