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i'm standing in ken's office...holding on to his desk...hoping to God i don't fall down.

i posted a few days ago about the 'paradox' that i had found myself in. i thought that the experience that i had gone through was over and that life would begin to return to normal. i thought that whatever lesson God has wanted to teach me was finished and i could go out and play now.

i was wrong.

there is a scene from 'grey's anatomy' that keeps playing in my mind. some girl is lying on the operating table...something horrible has happened to her...and the doctors just...stop. they tell her family that her body needs to catch up with all the trauma that has occurred. she needs time to rest, and the family is just sitting there...wondering how in the world this is okay. how is it possible.

when i walked into ken's office yesterday i did not expect to cry again, but i sat there for a minute and i got all teared up. i remember a couple of times growing up when something similar would happen with my dad. i'd have just gone through something really hard...a break-up or fight with a friend, and i'd see my dad and i'd just start to cry. he wouldn't have to say anything or hold me or try to fix it...i would just have to see him. it was as if i had finally walked into a place where i could let go. i could give up control for a minute because i was in a safe place. somewhere i didn't have to be strong or tough anymore...i could just be a little girl.

ken and i talked about how we all say that we're 'broken' and that we all need to be healed, but few of us actually believe it. for most of us, in the back of our minds we think that others are more broken and perhaps we're just a little cracked around the edges. that's what i thought. i thought that for the most part...i was okay.

he said that the first time he really understood what this looked like was when the head pastor of the church he was youth ministering at died. he found himself in something he couldn't simply 'get over'....and he began the journey.

i'm wondering if i should be thankful that no one had to die. i feel as if all the things i've been getting upset about are all ridiculous. things that i could normally deal with so easily. life should be good right now...i should be happy. i wonder if someone had died that i wouldn't just pass everything off as grief and mourning. i wonder if i would see what is happening to me. what in the world is happening to me?

what's so humorous and ironic about all of this is that i didn't believe it. i asked God to help me understand what my friend ryan means when he talks about 'suffering' but i didn't want God to do it to me...or in me. i just wanted to see it, or read it in a book, or hear it clearly. i didn't want to feel it. i didn't want to...and i don't want to. i'm stubborn as a mule sometimes but right now i feel as if i'm in a fight i simply cannot win. just when i thought it was okay to get up from off the ground....that the fighting had ended and the coast was clear...i get knocked down again. i can feel my ribs cracking and i don't know how to make it stop. i think that i might come away from this with more than just a limp.

the funny thing is i feel silly for all of it. so very, very foolish. there are so many others around me going through much harder things than my experience. but this is my reality. i'm in it and i'm living it and it is hard.

ken asked me awhile back if a prayed. my initial response was 'of course', but then i thought about it. did he mean, do i have some format of conversation that i follow when speaking to the almighty? did i give...adoration, confession, thanksgiving, s....i can't remember the s. did i do all that? sure. did i know what in the world i was saying? no.

the funny thing is...i don't even know who i'm talking to. i know what the bible says about God and i know what others say about him based on their own experiences...but i do not know...i can't even finish the sentence.

i just...don't...know.

sometimes i wonder if i pretended that God didn't exist that he would cease to exist for me. is that possible? or is it like giving someone the silent treatment...you can ignore and pretend all you want but they're still in the room...in the corner of your peripheral vision. just waiting. but i can't see God in my peripherals. i don't know what he looks like...i don't know who i'm talking to when i try to pray. but i want to. i want to know.

this is all so very hard for me to say...or type...out loud. i want to be a pastor one day and i've been told that i might be an okay one. so how in the world do i walk away from this? what do we do? how do we know anything anymore???

so that's where i'm at. i'm exhausted. hurt. puffy-eyed. frustrated. nauseous. mad. sad. humiliated. scared. fed up. pissed off. tired.

not broken...but breaking.