If I listen close enough, it sometimes seems that I can hear the life being sucked out of me. In an instant, the flame that burns inside that serves to provide me with vitality, humor, empathy, energy, and drive, can be snuffed out. Sometimes, the ebb of that flickering flame is so subtle that I scarcely notice it slowly dying away. When that light has been extinguished within me, I just want to give up. Nothing in my world arouses any passion in my belly and I become an emotional zombie, a useless shell ...When I entered a new season in my life several years ago, I made a vow to develop some friendships. I have always had trouble with relationships of any sort due to my social disabilities and personal history. Yet I felt it was important to strive to look outward instead of focussing inward. I put every ounce of energy I could into working through my own acute feelings of low self-esteem and inadequacy and shyness. I put myself in very uncomfortable and foreign situations because the investment was important. It was necessary. It was crucial. However, something happened along the way that has only made things worse ...
I had made a few friends. I had found a new church. I met weekly with a small group. I went to counseling with a psycologist twice a week for nearly a year. Now here I am. The friends that I had started to get close to have all moved away. My church has grown so rapidly that I feel that I am but a grain of sand on a vast beach. My small group experience has been more than uneven. My psychologist only told me what I already knew. I feel like I have completely lost traction. However, I don't want this season to turn me into someone who believes that I don't need other people, or that I'm a lost cause and nothing in my life will ever change for the better, or the Lord is not with me because I am unworthy, or that this is proof that God does not exist, or that these tests are more than I can endure. I don't want to give up and throw in the towel just yet ...
