Laugh a little

I don't know what has been the problem with me for the past week. Honestly, it has been the most difficult week that I can remember in a few years. It wasn't that travelling to Mexico was tough on me, well maybe it was, but I don't think so. Rather it was tough on me spiritually between me and God. It had already been a tough few weeks and this was easily the worst, which stunk since I was doing ministry in another country.

How can it be bad when I saw so many people get healed? I don't know how to describe it other than just saying that to me it is more important to feel the Father's love than to see His works. I was not feeling His love and therefore anything else that was good didn't seem to matter to me.

It probably didn't hurt that in the midst of me going through this, everyone around me was seeming to have a blast and going to new levels in God while I felt that I had hit rock bottom. I became increasingly frustrated each time someone asked me if I was feeling (discerning) anything as I prayed for someone or went into a situation. I suppose that I was getting frustrated at God, because after our second evening meeting I was so fed up that all I could do on the ride back to our base was cry.

I struggled with so many negative thoughts that I don't have anything to offer that I really didn't even want to minister. I also got stuck playing drums (like real drums, not the djembe), which I have realized that I don't want to do again. Basically I felt inadequate, unwanted, unloved, and like the person that had to do everything that nobody else wanted to do.

Yuck, I don't even want to talk about it. I hate being in a situation where I just want to be alone but I have no place where I can go and be alone. Even the bus ride back to Redding. Even today at school. I didn't really want to be there. I didn't want to hear how other people's trips went, because mine was hard. I didn't want to go up with my team to share testimonies so I just sat behind the group as they tried to stand and got drunk in the process. I was pretty annoyed when I got called up to share a testimony. I just wanted to hide.

Even up to tonight. I nearly just left church to go home and sleep because I was feeling so horrible. As I had unsuccessfully tried to soak I knew that if I could just manage to laugh and really mean it that I would feel better. But I could not just force myself to laugh for some reason. For whatever reason I made myself stay and I ended up reading some in the Bible to get caught up.

It didn't seem like anything that would really encourage me, but the more I read the better I felt. By the time I went to the prayer meeting before youth I was feeling so much better. Still not my normal self, but I felt like I had been raised from the dead. Right before youth started I found my way to the Burning Ones. The youth with the fire that you can feel. They started to laugh, I started to laugh, I felt more like myself again. And now, oh so abruptly, I will go to bed.