going to the ocean.

I am nervous. I can tell because my fingernails are painfully short. I am fidgety and distracted by everything. My mind is running down eight different roads, making headway on not a single one of them due to the the seven others simultaneously pulling me back.

I think that I might be losing my mind. Again.

What is so odd about it, I guess, is that I recall thinking not too long ago that my life had strangely--somehow--settled in this place of unusual consistency and normalcy. Joke's on me then if I thought that was going to be a lasting state of being. It seems that ever since then certain areas of my life have come crashing down, yet again.

Losing control is funny. Why do I feel I need control so badly in the first place? What is it I hope to gain by "being in control" of my life? Stability? Happiness?

I suppose deep down I must think that to have control is to have peace--that in order to get along with life it must have to it a certain order in which I manipulate the variables to fit together according to my ideas of how life should be--and I crave peace, all the time.

But perhaps what I should crave is--not the things to be found in God--but God himself.

I accomplish nothing but to completely disgrace the cross with my asking God to bless my life with his sweet gifts of joy and fulfillment while continuing to go about my life according to my own guidelines, doing what I please, forgetting to pray, relying on my own strength and wisdom (if you can call it that), thinking that I can get along just fine, just as I've managed to do so far.

It is taking me a long time to realize that the gifts of God have to be unlocked in my life through the transformation of my heart, which can only be done by God, at the time of His choosing. Control will not fix it. Peace will not magically appear once I reach a certain point of getting all of my business together.

Why can't I seem to understand that the point is to be in the source (God)? The blessings are not the goal. They happen--in fact, they're promised--but they are not to be the objects of desire.

So what is standing in the way?

I am going to the ocean tomorrow. It always has a powerful way of reminding me that God is big and I never really had as much control as I thought I did. Even if only for a breath of really fresh air (perspective), it will be worth it.