Crazy Like Me

Day 41.

Well, I was right. I didn't burst out of bed and skip around my apartment today. I didn't join the birds on my windowsill in a song as I threw open the curtains to let the sun shine in on my perfect morning. Hardly. Actually, I had a hard time getting out of bed today. I was really tired from being sick all weekend, and I think I may have had a NyQuil hangover of sorts. I kept telling myself I needed to get up and start my day, but because it was a holiday and I didn't have plans until later, I lingered. Even after I took the dog out around 9 o'clock, I went back to my bed and enjoyed a few more moments of much needed sleep. It's exhausting to be this emotional all the time. Constantly checking my anxiety level, constantly chasing away stray thoughts, constantly aware that things aren't quite how they should be. It wears on me.

Even though I didn't have some super fantastic revelation of joy, I did have a good day. Understand that “good” is a relative term. I would not call it my best day ever, but not a bad day at all. I got to spend time with my family, had fun in the corn toss tournament, and enjoyed a casual dinner at my brother and sister-in-law's house. I did shed a few tears when I was telling my aunt how much better I was doing (even though there was definitely some heartache that I couldn't ignore). She encouraged me in my journey and told me that my testimony in church was “spot-on.” I was comforted by that.

I like to use the word “crazy” to describe where I went in those first two weeks after my breakdown. There are those in my inner circle who don't approve, but it amuses me on some level, I suppose. As I was hugging some of my cousins and crying, I explained to them that I was crazy now and they should just accept the new me. They laughed...cautiously. But I'm not who I was. And I don't want to be. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to be “crazy” or to be known as “crazy.” But I don't want to walk through the fire and come out the same on the other side, either. I want to be noticeably different. I don't want to encounter God this closely and bypass Him down the road. I don't want to turn a deaf ear to His voice when He calls my name or urges me in prayer. I don't want to go back to where I was. I want to move forward. As Paul said in his letter to the Philippians, “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” I press on. I press on. Not because every day is full of sunshine and green pastures. Not because the journey isn't long, hard, and tiring. Not because I'm ever going to have some super fantastic revelation of joy. And certainly not because it's easy. I press on because it's worth it. Every day, every hardship, every sacrifice, every struggle. It is worth it that I might, like Paul, obtain the prize of the high calling in Christ. Nothing on this earth compares. And maybe that does sound a little crazy, but maybe I'm a little crazy after all.