rambling for today...

So I don't really know where this is going but I just have so many thoughts in my head that I figured that it's best that I at least get some of them out. I have recently been having conflicting feelings with my closeness to God. On the one hand, I am at this christian school, connecting with people of similar value and belief system, I'm even more active at church (teaching confirmation-scary!) and my prayer life has really not been this active in a long time, yet I feel like I am missing out on the relational part of my relationship right now. To use an analogy, because I like them, it's like if I had a kid and I was going to all the games and attending all the events, yet I wasn't making any sort of connections with child. It's not exactly that I think I am just going through the motions, because it seems like more than that, but it's like I'm learning all about having a relationship with God and not actually delving into having the relationship.

It seems like a weird place to be in, and also not one that I should be too "upset" about, considering the fact that there was a time when I felt really far away from God and that time was not so long ago that I don't remember the intense feelings that went along with that. I am happy to be out of that funk, but I guess it really just goes back to patience and my lack of it in certain situations. I am so pleased with so many aspects of my life right now and before I found out I had gotten into grad school all I was asking God for was an answer to what I was supposed to be doing, and he showed me in plain black and white letters that I had been accepted (acceptance-a whole other issue) and I was getting to do what I had always wanted to, literally. Graduating high school, people asked me what I wanted to do and I said be a therapist and work with kids or adolescents. It took much more than going from point A to point B with many unplanned stops on the way but nonetheless here I am doing what I feel called to do. I take back that it is just about patience, because it's also about trust and the fact that I clearly have a hard time trusting God with my life. I would like to say that I trust him completely to take care of things and do what is best and to lead me along this path, but if that were the case then would I really be thinking all these things about what was next? Probably not.

I had what I would have called a good conversation with my dad the other night about how I felt like I couldn't depend on him as a kid, but that now I would say that I can depend on him, yet that doesn't take away the childhood feelings that I had and still haven't dealt with. Well apparently that equals to him that I am ok now that I know I can depend on him. At the time we were having the conversation I was thinking, "wow! he is really getting what I am trying to say"...well, it seem that is not the case and he has essentially diminished what I said (reinforcing my feelings of being powerless in that relationship) and I am A-ok now. I don't know how else I could get across the feeling that I am not ok, that I still have so many residual 'leftovers' from my childhood insecurities. I may not have an Axis 1 disorder but I am not the most highly functioning individual there is, BY ANY MEANS! Then my step-mother says that I'm the "most normal person she knows". Interesting...because she either needs to meet some more people or I do a good job at covering up things. I think that the latter is correct. It's not necessarily that I cover them up but I just do a really good job being optimistic because like I said before, I don't have a disorder and I have it so much better than some people and I don't feel the need to 'dwell' on things incessently. That doesn't take away the baggage, it just puts it in the closet for another day.

I'm tired of talking about that...time to put the baggage back in the closet.