new day

Funny things happened today - I woke up, coughed up some blood mixed with mucus (weird...) then later in the day I got a nosebleed (first time in my life), then my ear got clogged up with water for like 5 hours... Strange, strange, strange..

Better even, I did absolutely nothing productive today. 90% of the day was spent lounging around, eating at a barbecue, or laughing. Stranger even...

And in the midst of this, I didn't hyperventilate about not spending prayer time or reading the Word (at least until around now, but I didn't freak out about it)... Strange!

I excessively worry about what my life should look like.

I know the answer is not to be a good Christian, the answer is to be a Christ-follower. There are so many things in my life that I take as competition - church, being moral, sports, academics, being cool, having lots of friends... Pride feeding.

I need some reflection time. To know what to do, and to know how to do it. I know what I need to give up, though. That pride that festers within me and tells me to do something, or to rather, glance at the closest competitor (because it's never those who are far below or far above that I compete against, but my peers) and compare how well I do something. That is what must be disciplined.

I wrote a testimony for my baptism last semester. I had things written down, but to tell the truth I didn't understand half of what I was saying, and I don't think I fully believed what I wrote. I want to take the time to write something more genuine, something more true.

I wanted my testimony to be something powerful: an alcoholic gone sober, a punk turned holy, or the story of a person whose life was dedicated wholly to Christ. And so I thought nothing about my real life, the life that had none of these dramatic transitions. I thought that my life was boring enough that it wouldn't matter what I said, that it really wasn't traumatic enough to merit being spoken.

My life, however, only seemed boring because I left all the vulnerable and genuine parts out. The parts about my overwhelming "religiosity" and my perfectionist tendencies. I left out the part about why I started going to church (which, for some reason, I still don't understand). I left out the part about hiding from Jesus, about not being able to tell him how I feel, and instead trying to find out what magic phrase I could pray today to get him to make me feel refreshed, to take the frustration within my heart away. To take the doubts away.

I can't pray genuinely to God until I'm honest with Him. I don't know my own heart, but he does. Yet why do I hide in the bushes from Him?

"He answered, 'I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.'"
- Genesis 3:10

I think I'm going to rewrite my testimony, around this verse. This is the real me.