The few perks to suffering

It's getting late on a Sunday night, but I have a few thoughts running around in my head that I need to get out. So here they go.

For those of you who do not know, I have been looking for a job since December 16, 2005. This time of my life is right up there with Not-So-Fun-Fall-of-2001 (NSFF01). I can call it suffering because it feels like suffering. Although there have been times of hope, there have also been times of desperation.

Despite this fog that I am in, I have noticed some good things come out of this. Let me do the best I can with articulating these inarticulate thoughts of mine:

• Relating to others. After NSFF01, it's like I developed this sense to pick up on depression from others. Give me a few minutes of interacting with someone, and I can tell whether or not they are battling depression and/or anxiety. When you go through it, you know all of the ways to deceive others, and they no longer work on you. It's almost like you join this club and you can tell who the other members are. A few years ago a buddy of mine approached me and said he wanted to talk about depression. We had lunch and talked about life. He came to me because he knew I had gone through it. We deal with crap so that we can help others deal with it, too.
• Intimacy. Although it can be sporadic, I have never been so intimate with God as I am now. Several times I have come to a point where I can no longer contain all of these thoughts and worries in my mind, and they come gushing out in the form of tears. All I can do is weep in front of God. It's my way of saying, "this is me, God. This is my brokenness. This is my desparation." I DIG those times. It's like I can't keep this facade up, that I have everything together, and He finally gets a chance to slowly heal my heart. The best part is the immediate feeling afterwards. I physically feel lighter, like this heavy burden has been lifted from me. It becomes this realization that we are not meant to handle everything on our own. We need God's help. Otherwise, we drown.
• Humility. I tend to play it off like I know what I'm doing with this thing called life. How many times do we respond with "I'm good" to the question, "how are you?" Even if we have a horrible day, we don't want to make a big deal out of it, so we say we are doing "fine." I hate this! I hate this but I do it so often. Being in this rut has forced me to be more real with others. It's OK to have a horrible day. It's OK to be doubting God's goodness. It's OK and straight up NORMAL to not be ok. I have had some of the best conversations with close friends of mine lately. This has been a perfect opportunity to share my life with others, the good, bad, and the ugly. We're designed for community, and we can only get so far with people unless we give up this need to have it all together.
  
• Growth. Although I am still in the midst of this season of uncertainty and confusion, I look forward to coming out of this knowing God more and knowing myself more than I ever have. I look forward to saying things like "this one time really SUCKED because I didn't have this, but then God gave me THIS instead because He knew it was better for me in the first place," or, "I'm going to trust God with this because I've had to trust Him in the past, and He likes to pull through."
  

I hope this all makes sense and I hope it doesn't come as a shock to anyone. I was definitely holding off on any blogging for a few months now. I didn't want people to know that I don't know what the heck I'm doing w/ my life right now. Well... I don't! ;-)