Full disclosure - sometimes when I'm alone and bored, I go through my gmail account and read emails I wrote (or were written to me) months or years ago.
It's wonderful that gmail has so much storage space (don't ask me how "internet storage space" works - I just think it's cool), because I'm a believer that it's good to keep challenging/encouraging/loving notes from people who love and care about you. Call me emotionally needy, but I like to re-read emails from time to time - to remind myself of relationships that don't always seem present. I just think they're good reminders of God's faithfulness through people, so I like to re-read.
It's also good for me to read emails that I wrote. Sometimes it's borderline traumatizing to read things I've written in the past, because sometimes I'm like, "Really? I feel like there's no way I could've actually written those words, but there they are on the screen, staring me in the face, like "yes, Lauren, you not only thought that at one point, but you actually expressed it to another person.'"
Recently, my biggest struggles in life have been very self-focused. When I get stressed out or upset or sad, I just kind of leave it at that. Like, yes, I'm stressed out, and it makes me upset, but I'm just going to live this way for now. But I've been delving into that more lately. Like, WHY do I feel this way? And when I dig in, I realize the reasons are always very self-focused. This isn't going well for me, or that's not the way I expected it to be. And so on. Self-focused.
I think I've often thought of the emotional/spiritual/mental growth trajectory as linear and increasing. Am I saying those math words correctly? Like, time is on the X access and growth is on the Y access and they just kind of go up together. And sometimes the growth is slow so the line doesn't go up much, but it doesn't go backward. The line's just always moving up and right, or staying still.
But recently I've been thinking about how maybe that's not true. Maybe I was more mature and stronger in some ways when I was younger. Is that possible? Yikes. And is it possible to accept that, and not feel like a failure for regressing?
So tonight, I read through some emails I sent to some of my best friends while I was in Kenya 3 and a half years ago, and the biggest thing I noticed was that my struggles were mainly not focused on me. I mean, some of them were, because I was alone in another country, and also a Wheaton College senior, so yes, there was some focus on myself. But mainly, I found that I was struggling with God in a bigger way. My current struggles with Him are mostly about me and my life - but I have electronic evidence that they used to be bigger. And I want that again.
Overall, on my life trajectory of growth, I'm going up. (As I re-read that, I was like "WOW what a nerdy thing to say." See? It doesn't take years for me to regret the things I write. Sometimes it only take 15 minutes. And I'm leaving it there to prove my point)
Am I more emotionally and mentally mature than I was 3 years ago? So much more. Not even a question. And in a lot of ways, am I more spiritually mature? Definitely.
But am I as selfless and bold in my desires to see God work? Do I think of life in terms of what God's doing overall, and not just what he's doing in my life? I don't know. I think I go backwards sometimes.
And I think I'm making God smaller by focusing everything on myself. If all of the personal things I'd like God to improve suddenly improved, then what? Would I be happier with a smaller God? I mean, that's terrifying to me.
I feel like some people are so content in their lives, even though there are clearly many areas of their lives that aren't exactly what they'd want. But they're still content with who God is to them. And I kind of have a hard time with that. Like, uhhh how can you be content when not every minute of every day is meaningful in the way you'd like it to be? Non-sensical.
I am - by nature - a restless person, so that line of thinking to me is... crazy.
I've never been able to figure people like that out.
But I think I'm sort of getting it now. Maybe, for those people, their struggles are way more focused on others, and way less focused on themselves. So they don't need everything to be personally relevant - or perfect - in order to be joyful and content. Is that right? Is the person I'm describing you? If so, feel free to confirm or deny my revelation.
We are selfish people by nature. I think that is the default setting that we fall back into if we aren't careful. I've spent alot of my life there...making God small and my stuff big. It's a daily effort to not be self-focused, but I think as we stay tightly connected to God our desire to be self-centered lessens.
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