Living Alive

I cried in church today.

There! I said it! They played a video about three different peoples' testimony and I cried. I can usually suck it up pretty well-I hate being "that girl"...about anything, so I try to hide it. I'm guilty of the eye-scratch, wiping away any tears that got past my stubborn steely resolve. But today, I cried. There's something about redemption that makes me tear up a bit. 

Today was different though. As I listened to those three different stories, I realized that I haven't felt in a while. It's more like a nudge on the surface. I haven't let life seep into me, and really emote any responses from me. It was one of those moments, where I kind of pulled out of my stupor, looked around at what's been going on around me, blinked to clear my vision and then felt the jab of reality. I don't know exactly what made me cry, I think it was the famous magician who had to go through killing his immune system, received a bone marrow transplant from a 19 year old girl, and hoped his body would reject this new blood. His words were something like, It was no longer me in my veins but someone else's blood filling me and making me alive. With that, I remembered The Blood. The Blood that poured out for me at Golgotha-somewhere I have seen/walked on. I haven't thought about that Sacrifice in a long time. And I think it's something that is important to reflect on frequently in order to keep you on track. 

And I have definitely not been on track. I haven't been doing anything majorly sinful, but I have turned off. I am realizing I have a bad habit of shutting off my feelings. It starts with distracting myself with something because whatever I'm feeling becomes too much-for me, it's boredom with life, ready to move on to something bigger; something different. And then, I start to pull away from making plans, going out of my way. I start to just come back to my room and spend many hours on the computer or my phone or watching movies and reading books. Anything to escape into a different reality. Then I have a moment where I start to get frustrated with how much time I'm wasting and the energy I haven't been using for anything actually good. But I go on as a robot-knowing, but not feeling. I really start to notice when I haven't gone out of my way recently to see people-aside from those I live with (praises I live with people or things could be a lot worse). And then finally, I wake up. Like I did this morning. I look around and see that I have been living quite unintentionally. 

So that's where I am. Realizing my less than inspiring habits. And recognizing its time for a change. My bad habit of turning off my feelings when I get overwhelmed has got to stop. I need to feel, even if it makes me "that girl"-the one who cries at sweet things and talks about their feelings too much. I need to feel the weight of new blood pulsing through me. That since 9th grade, when I chose to go into that water, my blood was replaced. The Blood that spilled out at Golgotha is pulsing inside of me, keeping me alive. It's sustaining everything I do. How can I take that transplant and then go on living a life that does not live up to my purpose when I was given a second chance? 

Can you imagine if the man this morning had gotten the transplant from the 19year old girl, gotten better and then turned around and cheated on his wife, left his family, and started shooting heroine into his bloodstream? It would have been a huge spit in that young lady's face, knowing she saved his life and he turned right around and ruined it.

I have been given new blood. But I am turning around and spitting in the face of the one who gave it to me. I am still living as if I am dead, not alive. 

Romans 6:11-13 says,

"In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness."

My bad blood has been replaced, but I am still acting as if I am dead. God has brought me out of that death, given me the purest blood possible and invited me to be an instrument in His Kingdom. I want to stop turning off my emotional response to that thought, and start really feeling it. I want to let it wreck my bones, seep all the way to my core until I don't have the strength to stand anymore under the weight of that truth. Real, raw feeling. The kind you feel when you're so overwhelmed with one particular emotion.

When I think of being overwhelmed with emotion, I think of my senior year in high school. Let me set the scene. I was in an extracurricular class called "Ready, Set, Teach", where we went off site for an hour and worked with an elementary school teacher. One day my spring semester, I was having a really tough week-stressed with school, overwhelmed about college, and had been having fights with one of my best friends. I made the decision that day that it was better that I didn't go offsite that day because I felt like my performance would be affected by my mood, but I didn't want to talk to my RST teacher about it or have to sit alone in the classroom with her for an hour. So when we all went downstairs to get on our buses, I made a bee-line to the theatre room (my home away from home) and hung out in there until the next class period. That afternoon, my dad came into my room and said the secretary at the elementary school (who was a family friend) called my dad, worried about me because I didn't show up and my RST teacher had come looking for me.
The next day, in RST, I got my first ever referral-I HATED getting in trouble at school; cried about it then, still probably would have cried now. So I had to go down to the VP, and she told me I was suspended for a day. I have never been so ashamed in my life. I didn't know how I was going to tell my parents that I got suspended from school for skipping a class! It was so out of character and I knew I would be dead meat. Fortunately, I was able to talk her into giving me Saturday School.
After school, I didn't go home. I think I had play practice, but then I just hung out in my car until church. I cried off and on all day, so ashamed that I had broken trust with my teacher, and was lying to my mom (dad already knew unfortunately). But I went into class at church that night, barely made it through the singing before I went to the back of the room, buried my face and sobbed the entire rest of the class time. I prayed fervently-more fervently than I've ever prayed in my 22 years. I was so overcome with shame, I didn't know how anyone could ever forgive me. Looking back, it was such a stupid teenager thing, but those emotions were so intense. And when I finished crying in bed that night, I felt God's peace rest on me and I knew that as stupid as my mistake was, it wasn't enough to separate me from Him and His love. 

That is the kind of earth-shaking, bone-quaking emotion that I want to fill up my life. I want to connect to God and His sacrifice truly and deeply. But also to look at those people around me, and feel such a love for them that I can't help but be emotional in one way or another with them. To feel. To feel deeply. And to stop turning the feeling off.