serious

I have become so serious.

 Serious because I have been on the battle front for 4 years.  I have forgotten how to simply enjoy life.  How to be simple – how to love and laugh.  I feel like a veteran coming home from war.  I have become so, so serious, because of people dying everyday and brokenness that I constantly encounter.  I feel guilty “letting go.”  I grew to resent others who do not understand the hardness of life and the battle that we live in.  I have gotten frustrated because people do not see the ‘holocaust’ that is happening around us.  In all of this I have been so traumatized that I am now living with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). 

God has removed me from the battle ground, He has removed me from the trenches of war and took me home to ‘white fences and flowers.’  It is so hard for me to relax because I know others are still fighting the war. 

God, it’s not easy!  Why did you remove ME?  I feel like You have a special assignment for me, but I do not know what it is.  I must prepare for it somehow and for now You want me to recover from the trauma of war. 

It’s been 3 months already and I feel like I am only slowly beginning to ‘thaw-out’ now.  It is still hard.  I am cramping in the process.  It’s not easy.  It’s hard to let go especially knowing that the war is not over.  Others are in the fight.  There are casualties.  People are in pain. There are so many wounded.  It’s hard to enjoy life again, to be free and silly like I used to. 

I remember simply enjoying life, the lightness of laughing and being with people.  I do not feel like that any more.  I don’t feel like I can be carefree when there is so much pain that I am aware of.  It is hard to focus on making people feel good (which is what they want) when all I can do is focus on the pain they try to mask.  Addressing it, WILL make them feel better, eventually.  We must FEEL, in order to HEAL.  Yet people pretend that they are well.  They want a quick medicine to numb the pain.  In fact most people want a sedative instead of Real Treatment. 

Most people go to church just for that too.  They want a quick fix.  They want a prayer to fix their problems instead of fasting to change their perspective.  They want their 'good works' to earn them a blessing, instead of surrendering to receive free grace.

Why are we so stubborn? 
Isn’t that what I want as well?
A quick direction for the next step? Give me orders Captain! 
Instead of processing what I have been involved in and learning, taking the time to understand and making sure I absorb the lessons from it all. 
I need time to heal, from the wounds of war.  Maybe being ‘on the go’ I am not even aware of the injuries to the soul I have endured?!

Please Heal me Lord!