I want to meet you where you’re at

(Christa Wells and Nicole Witt – we can do something)

 

When it is dark sometimes it is hard to see *anything* and it seems impossible to see God. And it feels like maybe he isn’t even there.

 

And then there are reminders that God is there.

 

Saturday night church was that moment where God really reminded me that he is there because the sermon was so validating and spoke to where I really am.

 

We talked about grief and then how as a church we are people who slow down time to cultivate community…and that made some things click into place.

 

My grief has been coming in frequent crushing waves lately. It feels like everything is a trigger…and I realized that while my life as a whole has gotten more busy in this season, but instead of being with real people I am primarily alone except for the people behind the computer screen. I feel so much better when with other people, so that is strike number one. Second, emotion really is contagious. It has been long enough since my dad died that for everyone else, life has moved on. When I was constantly with people I could feed off of the normalcy in their life to feed the normalcy I want in my life. Without that I am drowning.

 

And today I wanted so badly to be able to talk in the zoom meeting after church. I got the one sentence that getting in was hard. And as much as I felt like I failed because that’s all I said, I have to realize that those are still words…and I *did* finally make my fingers put the words on the screen which is obviously not as good as using my mouth for the words, but is still a step beyond the sign language alphabet spelling my thoughts out off screen. My voice got to be heard even if not audibly. I can’t expect to be perfect immediately…but I am thanking God for the successes I did have instead of focusing on the successes I didn’t have.

 

Also, I am currently watching the IOCDF social anxiety and isolation video…I think the OCD foundation should probably stick with OCD because their OCD videos are better, but I appreciate that they tried to tackle it, and considering that is not necessarily their specialty it was pretty good…and they hit on a lot of things that I deal with – living alone, not having the opportunities for exposure we’d have if everything wasn’t closed, worry about being flooded when we do go back to normal life and there are people everywhere…I loved one statement: For people with social anxiety, social distancing feels like a get out of jail free card. I agree. It does…but knowing what I know, it feels more like a day pass than *really* getting out of jail. Knowing that I need people and knowing that this will end, I don’t want to lose all ability to communicate…for that matter, I am already having trouble even with email and other social media at a level where there are things I should be doing that I am not…so I really already know that change needs to happen.