“I
don’t feel my laughter inside anymore…”
That
was my friend’s status on face book the other day and it felt like she was
yanking the words from my mouth before I could even form the thoughts! You know
the feeling you get when you’re trying to figure something out and it’s just
beyond your grasp and then someone just says the words and it’s like Yes!!! So someone else gets the
whole point! I was in that
place again and I felt like I was on the side-lines, watching life flow by. I
can’t exactly say I was sad or anything like that, but I wasn’t like happy
either, I was just there. It made me wonder if, just if
everyone else was faking it, I mean, how do you laugh with
your heart, with your whole being?! How do you feel it deep inside, as in
really genuinely bring forth that bubble of feeling from that place deep down
within you?! I don’t seem to touch that place anymore, I’ve forgotten how to,
forgotten how it feels, forgotten how to feel…
Then
my friend goes, maybe they just think or hope that if they laughed longer or
harder, it’ll banish all the sad from their lives, maybe they’re just as
desperate to feel something, connect with that place deep within, or maybe they
just know something we don’t! So I ask myself, what could they possibly know?!
I wonder if we could trade our muddy spectacles for their rose-tinted
ones so we could see the world as they do, see the magic they see, feel it,
live it…Or maybe we just have some wires in our heads that are crossed, you
know, maybe we’re not quite
right up there?! Or look on the bright side, maybe
we're the 'ok' ones n everyone else is weird! *wink* ;D
So,
how then do you explain why we can’t figure out how they can feel it n they can’t understand the emptiness,
the helplessness, the deep hollow feeling of nothing-ness,
the feeling that’s choking you, swallowing you up, smothering you…“…so what
do I do? I keep going back n forth, ‘cos I know I have felt it before, I’ve
heard it before, and it’s part of me. It is me. And once this tunnel is
past, I’ll hear it again, ‘cos it was never gone. Not for one second…”
…He’s
not given me the spirit of heaviness…but a sound mind[1]…so
what then is wrong with me?! How long do I wait for the world to turn
right-side-up, how long before the wires un-cross themselves?!!! This can’t be
God’s will for me, what ever happened to the plans
of good?! Is this the expected end?![2]
Then
I realised I had to fight it! I couldn’t afford to let myself go, let it eat me
up like a disease from the inside out. I had to reach out, grasp a hold before the
coldness became deadness… I realised the real triumph would lie
not merely in being happy and not-weird,
but in being able to face it, coming out alive enough to fight another day, and
yet another, and another. Not allowing it to swallow me up, not ever giving up,
fighting my way through, even if it means fighting myself! I tell myself that
amma keep getting up each and every time ‘cos I’m not giving up on me, Never! I won’t let the fact that I’ve
been here many times before break my spirit, rob me of hope, snuff out the
light. Even if no one understands, even if everyone thinks I’m a fruit cake
(sometimes, even I think I’m a fruitcake) or that I’m
just a silly cry-baby who needs to snap
out of it, I’m gonna keep on keeping on! I know I can do this ‘cos He strengthens me[3] and
if He says He’ll never leave
me nor forsake me[4], then that means He was there through
every single trip down to the dumps, that means. He saw the tears that came for
seemingly no reason, understood the times they just wouldn’t come, He felt the
indifference, the inability to feel, to care. He heard the stony
silence, felt the blinding rage. He knew about the numbness that gradually
turned to deadness, to nothingness. He was there. He is there…Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free
indeed[5]…I know I don’t have to walk this road another
day, I don’t have to dread the next time I come full circle and it all starts
again. I know there’s light even in this tunnel …we take every thought
captive to obey Christ[6]… out with the thoughts that the sun
will never shine again, that I’ll always be here, that I’ll always carry this
weight, that I’ll never feel the laughter, that I’ll have to fake it…give
unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise
for the spirit of heaviness[7] …so, like MercyMe[8],
I realized I gotta keep singing, even through the rainy, sunless days. From
that deep endless abyss, I pull out a song. I’ll trade this drab cloak of
heaviness for a beautiful coat whose many splashes of colour are the beautiful
shades of my praise, my coat of many colours that my Father lovingly made for
me…
[1] 2 Timothy 1:7
[2] Jeremiah 29:11
[3] Philippians 4:13
[4] Hebrews 13:5
[5] John 8:36
[6] 2 Corinthians 10:5
[7] Isaiah 61:1
[8] Keep Singing from the MercyMe album Undone
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