September 13, 2017 (Most of this blog post is comprised of a journal entry a few days before I moved back to Sacramento)
Today I found myself in a garbage dump. One could say it was a reflection of my life at the current moment. There I was, rummaging for a lost key that I had mistakenly thrown away. Or at least, I was hoping that’s what had become of it. I’m pretty forgetful. It’s crazy how we find ourselves in these places in life. One day we’re running through sprinklers imagining its rain and another day we’re wondering why the world continues to pinch us in the parts of ourselves that no else can see. As I sat there sifting through the garbage I quickly realized that I would need to go through every piece of trash to somehow find the key. The filthiest parts too. The egg shells leaking from corners of tossed notes and tissues, the half eaten pieces of chicken that appropriately smelled like dead dead dead flesh. Everything about the garbage was disgusting. The odor was pungent, but the texture was worse. Everything was moist, moist with a substance that you’re not exactly sure what it is. Each piece is identified and discarded into a new pristine trash bag. “Paper towel, not key,” “In-n-out bag, not key,” “A wifi password sticky note, not key” is how your mind starts to function. Upon reflection, I realized that this is no different than where I am in life right now. I am rummaging through parts of myself, old and new, seeing things in a whole new light, yet somehow in the dark about what it all means. Everything is sticky, nothing is certain, yet I continue to claw away at something inside of me until there is nothing but an empty bag of a person. The memories, the regrets, the lofty dreams, the anticipated experiences, all are in the same place, and some of the pieces we’re just trying to discard. But regardless of what we choose to keep or leave behind, to find what we actually really want, or possibly called to, we must go through everything. Every piece. We literally have to just sit there, in the waiting -- Chick-Fil-A bags and all. I don’t know what this all means. I ended up finding my key.
In a couple days I’m leaving for Sacramento. I’m not sure why, I don’t know how I got to this place, all I know is that I’m here. There is no turning back. I mean that’s not exactly true, I could always come back, but I can’t help but sense that this is what God is calling me to. I don’t know what’s the “best” thing for me. So many times people are asking you all the time: “Well, what do you think is best?” or “What do your desire most?” I don’t know. Or rather, people are always asking you: “Where do you think God is leading you?” And still, my answer is always “I don’t know, I just hope that the parts of myself that don’t trust Him, eventually begin to trust Him.” Maybe that just it, maybe you never really know but you have faith that God knows more than you do. I don’t know. Are you supposed to know? Isn’t this what we sing about? What we teach? We praise God’s faithfulness, we proclaim our trust in Him, we become people who are ready for obedience wherever He is leading us, no matter what sacrifices may have to be made…But what about the moments where it collides against everything you’ve ever imagined your life being? What if people will be broken in the process? What if you will too? What if your reputation may be tainted, friends will inevitably be lost, and a community potentially extinct. What then?
A lot of my friends don’t understand this move, and I can’t say I do either, but maybe God is getting me to a place where I no longer need to understand Him, I just need to fall in love with Him, over and over and over again. Maybe until my trust in surrendering to Him is as natural as dancing a two-step to Pharrell production. That’s sort of how my life feels right now, like Jesus is calling me onto a dance floor and I’ve never danced before but somehow my feet are moving forward anyway.
I remember one time my dad forced me into our swimming pool to help calm me down from a panic attack. I was young and afraid, but I trusted my dad. He guided me as if he was leading me to my second baptism and dipped me into the cold water. I broke the surface of the water only to find my dad smiling with tears in his eyes praying and speaking over me words of life and salient reminders: “You are loved son, you are loved.”
Upon reflection, this move is no different. What if it’s the most terrible but beautiful way I come to know that God is faithful, even when it seems like tragedy is imminent. I only pray that God would continue to redeem this somehow, and that I would grow in this process, or what I’m calling: “a self-imposed rehab.” A process of rehabilitating myself, so I can meet, the real parts of me that maybe I’ve buried for a long time.
I am leaving in a few days and I don’t know what to expect, but I just know it’s the biggest decision I’ve ever made. I don’t think that makes me a sure person or a good person, or even a spiritual person. I just think that makes me a person, who wants to do things the right way, or His way.
Or maybe it makes me a boy, who in the midst of utter darkness, has decided to run towards his Papa’s voice. A boy disguised as a man with no plan, hoping to find one. But what if my boyishness is what God’s been after all along? A hope that I would stop taking myself and my situations so seriously, and take His love for me way more seriously. What if Jesus gets us to a place that helps us to realize His cry: “Lord, why have you forsaken me?” So that He can then ask me: What has possibly been forsaken between us? Abandoned? Deserted? And son, will you trust me so we can reclaim whatever that may be? Sheridan, there is no other way. Come, follow me ---
So I jumped in the pool, again.
“….and the desire to please you, I believe, does in fact please you”
-Sheridan