My heart and my head have a disconnect that won't reconcile itself at all

I feel extremely out of control. And I recognize this feeling, because when I get completely overwhelmed I get detached. My priorities become skewed, and my judgment is thrown off, and I act weird and say weird things because I am not here. Not present. I am always somewhere else, the next test, the quiz, finals prep, job after finals, class after finals, a new friendship forming, where I’ll be housed, how I’ll pay for it all, when I’ll eat, how I’ll survive next semester, who to study with, when to work out. Nothing really takes precedence anymore, I’m not able to stick it in a category or anything, it’s just all there rushing to be first in my head, crowding out any thoughts or sanity I am able to muster. I can’t think, I can’t process, I go into autopilot and smile like an idiot at anyone that walks by and study without reading a page. It’s like a lockdown mode I go into, where I just detach from everything and float through my days. I hate it. And God is absent. I can feel myself passing Him by. I can feel Him asking “are you going to talk to Me at all?” and my answer is always the same “Later.”

Later, when I have time. Later, when I have resumed control. Later, when things aren’t so busy. Later, when I can think again. Later, when I take care of everything. Later, when the problem is fixed. Later, when I don’t have more important things that require my attention and time. Later, when my brain is back on track. I don’t know why I push Him aside, maybe I feel like He addresses extraneous things. I don’t need peace, I need an A. I don’t need comfort; I need to rock my final. I don’t need your presence; I need the thirty minutes to review the digestive system. And unless You’re giving me new information that is going to help me knock these finals out, I would rather not spend time with You to hear things You’ve already told me. I know You love me. I know You accept me. I know You are enough. I know You have a plan. I know I know I know. What I don’t know is how these finals will turn out and what I do know is that they depend on my performance the next 5 days. Me. How I do. Not if I know God loves me. If I know how to design an RLC circuit that is a low pass filter. That’s what matters. The world doesn’t care if you feel at peace; they care that you can solve a circuit using Laplace technique. They care that you deliver, that you prove yourself. I’ll give you an A if you prove it to me. Prove you know it. Prove you’re competent. Prove you’re worth it.

And it should be that way. We are learning, and the only way to gauge progress, humans not being able to divinely know, is to make people prove it. But I make it overflow to reflect on who I am. Am I worth it? I don’t know, can I recite the entire reproductive system off? Am I good enough? I don’t know, how fast can you integrate a Fourier series? Am I ok? Well, show me that you can solve a static equilibrium problem and we’ll see.

And most of all, am I going to make it? Will I be able to get where I want to go, that goal that represents accomplishment, fulfillment, the perfect end to my story, am I going to fall short of that? If I fail, I lose it. If I don’t perform, if I can’t hold it together, if I can’t deliver, if I’m not good enough, I can’t be happy. If I don’t earn peace and joy, if I don’t prove that I deserve to be fulfilled, If I don’t go out there and take it myself, I miss out. I’m done. I settle, and become old and bitter and in the end, worthless, depending on someone else who did reach their goal to provide for me. Please tell me I’ll make it. Tell me I’ll attain everything I want, which has become synonymous in my mind to everything I need. Please tell me that the peace and joy and fulfillment I am fighting to get is coming, that I’m not going to be found wanting and tumble back into that abyss of bitterness and lost dreams and inadequacy. Please don’t tell me I’m inadequate. I’ve gone there before; I am fighting tooth and nail to not go there again.

My peace I give to you. I come that your joy may be fulfilled. Now. Not later. Not earn it. Not fight for it. Not I’m dangling it over your head come get it. Now. NOW. It’s waiting NOW, and the only reason that I don’t have is because I don’t ask. And the reason I don’t ask is because I’d rather pursue it my way. Because if I earn it the way everyone else earns it, by delivering and proving and scratching it out, I know what I’m getting, and it’s exactly what I think I need. If I simply work hard and let You sort out the ending, I have no idea what I’m getting, but judging from  Your track record I never get what I want. It never ends how I think it should. I know what I want, I know what I need, just leave me be. If You aren’t helping me reach my goal, You’re in my way.

And what is my goal? To be autonomous? Is it not to walk with You? Is it not to know You deeper? Is it not to be within Your will, the only place I was created to be in the first place? What am I running for? What am I striving for? I strayed from the path, I quit running the race You set me in and I started running my own. My own little convoluted path that is going to end in bitter disillusionment because I forgot that the world lies. I forgot that security the world offers is a trap that leaves me broken and destitute. I forgot that my goal is not synonymous with fulfillment but with death. I forgot that “the plans I have for you” is not “making you do something you hate and settle for”, it’s “finding your place in the wide range of eternity”.

I forgot that You see me, and that I am exactly where I am supposed to be. I forgot that the goal is now, and the reward is the free gift that I am able to call you friend. I am a friend of God. That is the only peace that calms. That is the only fulfillment that satisfies. That is the only assurance that never fails or fades. And that truth is mine, because You died to make it so. The goal I'm fighting to reach? It is now, because the point is not what I do, it’s who I am. And who I am is accepted. Worth it. Loved. Who I am is Yours.