Today I am headed to Kansas. Unfortunately, due to the fact that I am “broke as hell” as Steve likes to put it, I booked a flight on a less than top notch air service. The first half of my flight was spent circling around the Denver airport for about an hour for pretty much no reason waiting to land. Then after a 2 hour delay in my connecting flight I am now currently sitting on the plane to Kansas at 10:08pm, half-awake, thanks to a cup of six dollar coffee. As I sit here, looking out the 36 square inch window into darkness, I am provided quite a bit of time for thinking. This weekend is a much needed escape for me. I have set out on a journey that has put me at odds with the institution of the church in many ways. That, of course, means that every “good church person” has decided to voice their opinions about the danger and awfulness of my “rebellion” as well as a nice list of “do’s” and “don’ts” when it comes to asking questions of God and “his people.” This has landed me at a point of frustration and spiritual tiredness. I have an ongoing struggle with depression. According to church people it’s because of my lack of faith and reliance on God; according to an actual medical professional (a few in fact) it’s because of a chemical imbalance in my brain. Honestly, I don’t care why I have it; I just know that sometimes it really really sucks! In high school I used alcohol to medicate my depression. It worked… well if you count waking up on the floor in a pool of your own vomit working, I guess. Hey, I wasn’t depressed anymore! I wasn’t anything. Just really… smelly. In college I started going to therapy and my therapist suggest I talk to a doctor about my depression. I did and apparently I had a massive hormone imbalance and he gave me some really awesome drugs that made my cheeks hurt from smiling so much! That didn’t solve all my problems though. I still had these awful panic attacks, usually caused by my ridiculously intense nightmares that I’ve had since I was little. So…. More drugs for that… yay. Eventually the meds trained my body to start balancing itself out and my doctor weaned me off of them. I still struggle with depression; not enough to be on drugs for it but enough to leave me extremely drained and numb sometimes for no reason… sometimes I wish I had the drugs again. In these times of numbness I find solace in music. Music is my escape whether it’s playing my guitar, writing music, or just blasting my iPod, closing my eyes, and taking in the music. Today on the plane I settled on the latter (mainly because I’m pretty sure the other passengers wouldn’t enjoy me walking up and down the aisles serenading them with my guitar). As I sit here staring out into the darkness above the clouds my current song obsession is playing in my ears. It’s a song called “Hard to Love” by Lee Brice. I’ve had this song on replay for the past 2 weeks but tonight the lyrics hit me a little harder.
I am insensitive, I have a tendency to pay more attention to the things that I need. Sometimes I drink too much, sometimes I test your trust, sometimes I don’t know why you stay with me. I’m hard to love, hard to love, no I don’t make it easy, I couldn’t do It if I stood where you stood. I’m hard to love, hard to love, but you say that you need me. I don’t deserve it but I love that you love me good. I am a sort fuse, I am a wrecking ball, crashing into your heart like I do. You’re like a Sunday morning, full of grace and full of Jesus, I wish that I could be more like you.
I have currently been obsessed with this song because It reminds me of my amazing boyfriend who is increasingly patient with me even on my depressed days. Tonight I started thinking of all the religious junk I’ve been fighting, feeling like I’m drowning in the waves I’ve made in this kiddie pool of conformity. I am reminded that just as my boyfriend is patient with me in my hard to love moments God is patient with me in my hard to love moments; and not only is he patient with me but he’s patient with the religious oppressors in their hard to love moments and when it’s hard for me to love the hard to love (confused yet?) I know God shakes his head at me sometimes, “Silly girl, don’t you know I love them just the same as I love you?” It’s really not fair that he uses my songs to tell me stuff like that… that’s totally cheating! Everyone is hard to love sometimes, but God easily pours out his love on us… he’s really crazy like that. I may be hard to love but it comes easy to him. He doesn’t do it out of duty or because we’ve done enough to get it. He does it because that’s who he is. God is love. Nothing we can do can change WHO God is… which is love. So… nothing we can do will ever change how much we are loved. THAT is much better than happy pills.
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