Becoming unstuck.

It had been going on for too long, festering inside like a yoghurt mix gone wrong. I released the lid, and the contents released a foul smell.

Isn’t that what happens when we allow negative feelings to well up inside us without processing them? The odd part was, I couldn’t, didn’t have anyone to direct those feelings to. There was no villain in the picture, no demonized culprit whose face could be put up on a dartboard. It turns out the people who hurt you the most, very often are the ones who love you.

So I had been tired of hearing things I did not believe in, advice that I did not ask for. At one point, an avalanche of advice from up above knocked me senseless, what with people from church constantly messaging, emailing and wanting to meet up with me to share their two cents worth on what they thought about marrying early. I was polite, cordial always, but little did I realize what this was doing to me.  I was swamped, tired out from meeting people after people. It made me feel misunderstood, hurt, saddened and eventually, angry- I was tired of people telling me, constantly telling me what they thought, and passing judgement based on their own experiences. I just didn’t, still don’t buy it. And if there’s anything I learnt, is that when it comes to matters like this, text messaging and emails are the worst form of communication. But I thought to myself, it wasn’t their fault. They cared for me. After all, if they had agreed with me, I would have been relieved. But it came to a point where any talk about this just made it excruciating for me to bear. The fact of the matter is, unlike other previous decisions that I could make without needing anyone’s approval, we both felt it was important to receive blessings and approval from both the church and our parents. I was angry- I felt like just another “case” on their list of “to-do”s, another person they felt would benefit from their good counsel.

I felt stuck.

Stuck like glue to a wrong place. As if nothing at all can be done.

It was then that I realized, that that wasn’t the only thing I had allowed to fester inside. The day-in-day-out frustrations of the hospital ward had taken its toll on me, the complaints of other people rubbed off on me and the slightest irritation frustrated me. It was not normal. Somewhere, somehow, I had wrung my hand away from God and run away.

It was then that someone said to me, that sometimes, things are hard because they’re worth fighting for. Marriage, for one. Holiness, the other. Neither can be accomplished on its own. Both require prayer, consecration, suffering. And the wait is often simply a time of refining, a brutal training ground for the battle ahead.

Sometimes I feel like an awful partner. What with my long hours and tiredness and tantrum-throwing. I look at the conflicts we’ve had and the times you waited for me at hospital, the times you went out of your way to brighten my day and the times you made sacrfices for me… And I realize, that all this is possible, only because of the cycle of love, pain and forgiveness that you put yourself through, time after time.

In the same way, you have shown me that in life, suffering and conflict and frustrations cannot be avoided. But we can choose to forgive. We can choose to look at Frustration in the eye, and tell it that God is bigger than it. We can look at stuck ruts and believe in the possibility of becoming unstuck. We can break the vicious cycle of death and bitterness and anger and enter into a new cycle of grace and forgiveness. We can master death. What’s hard is waiting. And praying. When the rest of the world is moving on, and letting go.

Someone told me things would change. Prayer has a way of changing tides. Someone told me, sometime, perhaps earlier I expected, my parents and hence, church, would come to their senses and support us marrying soon. I don’t quite understand why I’ve been feeling this way, why this feeling has not gone away, why I haven’t been able to let go, and why I cannot bear hearing another person give me their two cents worth on what they think about this issue, whether its supportive or otherwise.

A mushedup mash of emotions.

I’m still figuring this out.

All I know is that this easter, I want to remember what God did for us, His love for us, and His incredible desire for our good.

We can try to run away, but He never lets us go.

 

 

 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.

For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again;

death no longer has mastery over him.

The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Romans 6:8-11