There is an empty hole inside of me, a deep sadness void of lasting friendships. All of my friends growing up either moved away or moved out of my life. I have never really had a best friend. My relationships have always been shallow, though my deep calls out, longing to be heard. But there’s no one to listen. I took the repeated blows square in the chest and it caved in. The rubble heaped around my heart and this excavation feels like an execution. I’m not scared of feeling anymore. I want to let you in, but this all has to come out first. Putting my confused emotions into words is a struggle at best. To be able to articulate my distress would bring relief, but it’s never enough. Nothing I do is ever enough.
This is why I read books and get into games because in those worlds I can become someone else. I am immersed in a different environment, a different age. I am a well-traveled hero with old friends who have gone through great trials and adventures with me. I accomplish and overcome significant feats and help people. I can do the impossible and use my power to fight against the evil in the world, saving lives. I have great fame and strangers look up to me. But the best part of these stories are the characters, not the plot. And characters, though they never truly are, often feel alone.
This past year on the race, I met so many incredible people. I gained a handful of lifelong friends with whom I’ve gone deeper with than anyone else before. But yet again, they scattered to their homes across the country, leaving me alone with my thoughts and a year’s worth of memories. They don’t tell you what it will cost to do something great. When you come back a different person and see how little of your old world has changed, you are isolated from everyone you used to know. They don’t know what you went through and you would never be able to tell them. The only ones who get it were there with you, experiencing it by your side. But they aren’t here anymore. Your story and theirs intersected for a while, but that chapter is over. Turning the page to start another one, doesn’t mean the emotions written in the words before are left behind, they carry over. The isolation doesn’t evaporate like water, but it is still a cycle. A cycle of remembering and forgetting.
“I learned a lot about being a friend when I was alone.” // Tigers Jaw
Now I must acknowledge, Lord, that You have always been there. You see me and know my name. You have something incredible for me. But You made us relational beings for a reason. You didn’t do life alone. You had Your disciples, some of whom were Your closest friends. So where is my community? Where are the real disciples? I want to be with them because right now I am weak against the attacks besieging me. You showed me the power of healthy community and our strength is greater when we are together. But I’m always stripped of my friends. Every time. Everyone except You. Are You so jealous for me to break my heart in order to bring me through a new doorway of fellowship with You? So be it. A gold heart doesn’t lose its worth if it is broken in two. The price of gold is valued by the ounce. That’s good because my heart is heavy.
“Faith being worked out into reality must experience times of unbroken isolation.” // Oswald Chambers
Please know, this is not self pity. Self pity is selfish and has no place here. I’m just trying to heal. Though I don’t rightfully know what this is, I feel it must happen. Like years wrapped in a cocoon, I’ll emerge either a monster, having succumbed to the dark or I’ll be something great. This sad song dropped into the middle of my album has to be played out if I want to make it to the ones I want to hear. To be able to fully feel those songs, I have to be fully alive, completely awake.
Yes, God hit snooze on my friendships and community, but I will never lose joy because my joy isn’t found in circumstances or blessings. It comes from the throne whose river does not run dry. We are never left without hope. Through facing my emptiness I’ve found within myself, I am being taught how to fight and how to love. Jesus is showing me what is really important in this life. I just wish I didn’t have to feel all of this to learn it. People living life in the fast lane have the luxury of running from themselves. They put their head down and run hard because they aren’t willing to feel. But we are called to the slow life, where we walk along the path with our heads up to take in and feel everything that comes our way. Living it out means confrontation. One of the scariest things you can do is look yourself in the eye, to hold your own gaze and step out into the open. To stand before whatever steps out from behind your facade and fight it or forgive it. To come into the light and be exposed. To risk to be known.
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Wow what an amazing article. So much feeling summed up in those words. Speaks right to the heart. Thank you!
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Thank you Tabby! I’m so pumped that your heart heard these words.
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You are on a journey Josh………..I know the Lord is with you and directing every step….keep walking with your eyes on Jesus…..and tell the world what you see…….Grandpa and I love you so very much….!!!!
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Thank you Grandma! You’re the best!
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thank you for risking part of yourself with these words, junior. you aren’t alone in this, that’s for sure. continue to make your authentic self known – you’ll never regret it.
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… don’t we all wish we could just sometimes just snap our fingers and it’d be all okay?Then, again, if that would be, we wouldn’t experience the growth and the frustrations, which seems to be part of it. There would be a non existence of true feelings. God gives what we can handle, we have always been told, from the Bible’s word. There may be times God want us to learn more, being a part of it, as He may be testing our endurance and faith. Josh, you are one special man. You have seen more in the last few years than some will never have the opportunity to grasp .. even the friendships developed, the sharing, the trying times, opening up, seeing what others lack, what they desire spiritually, and finding you’re not alone ever, and finding God, is really everywhere. Take time. God has a plan, I feel it. Your writings, and doing what you can say and do at the moment, will all become part of the big picture. You will look back and realize … yes, this is why God had me wondering why. You are amazing. Even little moments all can see and hear you…setting examples. Do you realize the little mustard seeds that are planted in your pathway of another? Experience the thoughts, and yearnings as they come, while never feeling like a chain is holding on, but know it may instead be Jesus keeping you safe with His anchor. Let that mighty lion, in you, roar! I love you, Grandma ❤
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Amen Grandma! Thank you so much. I love hearing your thoughts and perspective.
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