I Don’t Know What I’m Doing Anymore Except

Life. It’s been a hard go.

I’ve been wanting to blog with a regular rhythm all year long despite my travels and increasing duties with Your Other Brothers and this life whose rug has lately felt pulled from under me. Or maybe I pulled the rug on myself. Or both.

I have several saved drafts of posts from travels made this year that have yet to see the light of day. One about a golden tree I painted in Canada. Another about the colors and lava flow of Hawaii.

I’ve seen some gorgeous places this year. Oh, the beauty. The heartache.

Here’s to establishing a new blogging rhythm in a more consistent effort to capture both. I used to care a lot about sculpting these posts days, if not weeks, in advance. But then hardly anything has gotten published.

Enough of that.

So now I’m giving myself one hour to write, no heavy-duty editing, a featured image that may or may not make sense, every single Monday. For better or worse. Whether 100 people or nobody reads. I need to get stuff out. I can’t keep hiding behind the veil of YOB — despite the good work and occasionally revealing some really personal stuff over there.

I’m setting a lot of new goals in this transition time. New rhythms for content production. Morning push-ups and evening runs. Sabbath rest and intentional conversations. Volunteering — I joined a dozen people from my church at 7 this morning and gave a hundred elementary kids high-fives on their first day of school.

It’s amazing how getting out of yourself can make you smile more than you have in a long time. God, I constantly need to escape this me-vortex.

I’m joining church groups and recovery groups and any gathering, really, where Jesus is invited. I need it. Need him.

More Jesus. I need firehoses of him.

I’ve made an idol of many other things in recent years, months. Addiction patterns. Escapism. Travels. Personal growth. YOB. Community.

Dear sweet community — how I’ve set even this noble pursuit of fellow Jesus-followers above the savior himself.

Last month I moved alone to a studio apartment in the country, and I’ve been starting every day with Jesus. For better or worse. Whether I feel it or not. Whether I messed up the night before. I keep a devotional book on my kitchen table (which is also a dining room table which is also basically a bedroom table), and I look at it every day.

I used to hate devotionals. They felt like a crutch. Did I really need someone else’s fancy book to help me open up the Bible and connect with Jesus?

But the alternative has been my hardly ever opening up the Bible to meet Jesus on my own. So, if it’s a crutch — I’m crutching away. Crutching harder than I have in a long, long time.

I’m reading about this Jesus I’ve known for decades and yet hardly know at all. Reading about how he disrupted everything everywhere he went. He upset the religious. He upset the crowds. He confused his closest friends. He healed the people. He didn’t heal enough people. He spoke bluntly. He spoke vaguely. He overturned tables. He told the little children to come.

Tells each of us to come and rest.

Tells me.

I recently wrote about my “Jesus-journey” over on YOB, how a kid who grew up in the church has had to constantly meet and re-meet this Jesus of his youth on this long road twisting into adulthood. That adulthood makes it increasingly difficult to believe with the eyes of a child.

That faith and hope and love are devastating things to cling to when worlds fall apart.

I see physical health issues escalating with my family.

Emotional health on the rocks.

Financial shakiness.

Relational struggles.

I see blogging and podcasting and videoing and community-building quite clearly on my plate in the form of YOB. A path destined before me whether I like it or not.

(I like it a lot.)

If only the rest of life made as much sense.

I’m now living alone for the first time in two years. I’ve only ever lived alone, at most, for twelve weeks, another tumultuous time of yesteryear, and I’m currently going on seven at my new place.

I’ve cried a lot. I’ve cried alone in my car and before bed. I’ve cried into the arms of another. I’ve cried with heavy gasps and oozing trickles.

I’ve struggled to fall asleep some nights; on others, or the same ones, I’ve awoken at 3am only to lie there and twist and groan til 5:30. I’ve skipped meals. I’ve asked God what is going on with no response.

Do I need to stay?

Do I need to leave?

Do others need to change?

Do I need to change?

The slate is wiped clean. I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. Nothing makes sense anymore.

Except for ten minutes every morning. When I wake up. My sixty push-ups in the grey — and the devotional book on the table.

I stagger in my boxers to the chair and sit. Open to the bookmarked page. See and hear and breathe and know and trust — dammit — the only name I can’t escape after 31 years of journeying, despite the addictions, despite the relationships, despite the debts, despite the idols, despite the clouds, despite these sleepless nights and tears.

A man who invites me to come. To rest. Just rest.

If only for ten minutes.

Morning by morning.