There are moments in my life. Where I’m too spent to speak. There are times when I feel completely empty. Sometimes I bluff off the truth that haunts me. If I laugh, maybe no one can tell that I’m just a shell. I eat, hoping it will fill me, but it doesn’t. I am lethargic, slow. I don’t want to move. I want little more than to curl up in my bed with a book.
Why? Why am I so bound to my emotions? I thought I had reached a plateau in time to take the big plunge. I know I’m not fat, but some days I look in the mirror and I am. Some days I see through my face. Some days I feel so utterly unattractive that all I can do is pretend. And why? I know that’s not so. I know that people love me, God loves me. I know that I’m not overweight. I know that I’m not ugly. So why do I listen when my emotions tell me otherwise?
I’m a wimp and I know it, cocooning against the extremities. Did I pick the wrong major when I chose dietetics? After all, it makes me take biochemistry. No, then why is my favorite class this semester Shakespeare? Because I love to read, and I love English. Why didn’t I go with the English major I’d thought of earlier? Not practical. Why shouldn’t I give in to temptation now? Because the only reason I like Shakespeare is because it’s easy. If all I had to do was English, I would never have to push myself. I could pretend my way through life because I love it.
No pain, no gain, they used to say. That’s wrong and right. Everything’s so garbled. Unless I fatigue my muscle I’ll never grow. But I think my fatigue is the wrong kind. I have stress fractures from running too long, but no muscle built from the effort. Instead my flesh defends itself against the rigors of my life by developing callouses, drawing itself in and pushing all else outside. I’ve got too much pain so I curl in a ball and pretend it isn’t there.
I try to do the things I once did to relax. Nothing has any appeal. I start a book, and let it lie. I don’t care. Really. I want to get up and exercise–dance to some music in my room–but my body would rather not. And I don’t. I try to surf the web, to explore something. Nothing whets my appetite. I am starving for rest, but all I do is sleep. Hours upon hours upon hours of sleep. I’m so tired, but I cannot rest.
The only thing that gets me through is the promise of Romans 8:1-3. “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh.” In Christ, I do not walk in condemnation. My flesh and its death no longer hold sway over me. I am set free by the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. I have only to learn to walk according to the Spirit.