The Fight, Day 1: The Blahs of Winter and Finding My Motivation

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I showered at 4 pm and the barf bucket has been our constant companion. This day is winning.

I hate this time of year. I have very little motivation and I really just want to sit on my couch in my comfy pants drinking lattes and watching The Mindy Project. I’m trying to find someone who will pay me to do this, but no luck so far.

I think it’s a combination of factors, including but not limited to:

1.   I am so over this cold, dreary, sometimes wildly fluctuating weather.
2.  I had influenza recently and cannot kick the cough. I could never be a smoker.
3.  I cannot hear about (or see) Donald Trump anymore. This is Hitler all over again people.
4.  I am tired of the same old thing. I get this way this time of year, when it’s not yet spring but it’s not “fun winter” (i.e. Christmas) anymore. I’m ready to go swimming or for a (warm) walk or go on a trip. Anybody up for Florida next week?

So I’ve been feeling like this for a while. I was really motivated until I got sick. I was reading the Bible and spending time with God every day. I was writing regularly. I was working out EVERY DAY, you guys. I was becoming a disciplined adult. And now I’ve reverted to a college student going to class in her pajamas.

The interesting thing is that I got sick at the same time God Is Bigger came out. We made it available for pre-orders on a Thursday night and I woke up Friday feeling bad. By Saturday I felt like I’d been hit by a truck.

Earlier that week I had also joined a 5 am prayer group called The Fives. (5 am, five days a week, for five weeks. I KNOW.) If you know me you are aware that I don’t ever want to see 5 am. I know the sunrise is beautiful, but the live version is surely overrated. Instagram captures it well enough for me. But some friends were experiencing amazing transformation from this group and I have some areas in my life where I really want to see some change. So I committed, even though I knew it would be hard.

Since that week, things have not just been hard. They have been horrible. I got influenza and was in bed for over a week. My fever got so high I had to go to the doctor, which I had been trying to avoid at all costs since I knew it was the flu (and therefore not treatable with medication, thus a wasted doctor visit in my book). My mom was just as sick at the same time. My dishwasher quit working. I paid to have it fixed but it still is not working, which is always fun. Now Ben and my dad are sick. My dad has already had a lot of heart problems this winter, so him getting sick just does not work at all. It’s been lots of leaks and breaks and crises and just one thing after another.

Then Ben woke me up at 3:30 this morning because he’d thrown up ALL OVER his bed. He got in bed with me and threw up a few more times just for good measure. We did not get back to sleep after that, although I did get really good at saying, “You cannot fall asleep if you are talking. It’s just not possible.”

So I’m really worn out.

I will be honest and tell you that I’ve been pretty frustrated. I got some really bad news yesterday and just yelled at God for a while. I realized I was rather angry with Him, the way you do when you explode on someone and unleash six months’ worth of junk you didn’t realize was lingering. (I’m sure you don’t do that. That must just be me.) None of this is fair. I’m doing the right things (spending time with God, reading the Bible) and even some really great things (God Is Bigger, The Fives), so my life should be blessed, right? Things should be easier, not falling apart!

I really wish this was the way it worked. I wish doing good things just paved the way for an easy life. But Jesus was really into the whole laying down your life thing and warning that we would have troubles. The Bible tells us that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Eph 6:12). That may freak some of you out, but the devil is not happy when we accomplish things for the Kingdom. When I told a friend that I was feeling really sick and having a hard time she said, “I’m not surprised. You’ve written this amazing book about God that’s going to be seen by lots of people. It’s going to be a fight.”

Sometimes we’re in a fight but we don’t realize it. Or we don’t want to admit it. One of the things that irritates me the most is fake Christianity. I don’t like blogs and churches and people that make following Jesus look easy and position it as though if you are not having an easy life then something is wrong with you. I completely understand (and believe in) the principle of sowing and reaping and I get that we bring a lot of our junk on ourselves. But I also think we have a lot of Christians walking around acting like things are great (or who are very vocal when things are great) but they never want to be honest when things are hard.

So this may be crazy or stupid, but I’m going to blog for the next 30 days about all of this. About my frustrations, my fight, my revelations, my relief. I’m not going to promise you eloquence or artistry every day. Some days you may get “It’s just bad today” or a picture of my dog on her blanket. But I’m going to be honest. And I’d like you to be honest too. I HATE the portrayal of Christians in the media. But I can’t complain about it if I’m not going to put something else out there.  

I really wish there was a way that I could watch tv all day and somehow change the world. But there is not (or at least I haven’t found it yet). Apparently I have to get up and do things. This is not the biggest battle I’ve faced. I’ve dealt with much worse so I know how to do this. I have to pray even when I don’t feel like it. I have to worship when I don’t feel like it. I have to get my mind off myself and my junk. I just have to get off the couch, put my big girl pants on, and fight.