No, I’m not referring to my sister’s home. I came down New Year’s Eve with some of the worst crud I’ve had in a while. By the time I got to my doctor Wednesday morning it had turned into a nasty asthmatic bronchitis with a little Pink Eye added just for kicks. Bleh.

I’ve spent the last two and a half days laying on my couch wishing I was comatose, or at least could stop coughing and shivering with chills and fever. But things finally began to break late this afternoon, and I’m starting to feel a little more like myself. It’s nice.

It was kinda crappy to be all feverish and chilling on New Year’s Eve. It was especially hard to go to church that morning. I hadn’t gotten much sleep since the fever started during the night. I ended up dozing through the sermon — and I didn’t even care. And I was on the second row.    HA! Guess that’s the good part of having a fever; you don’t have the energy to be embarrassed by your own actions.

Despite all that, I had a good New Year’s Eve celebration. We just hung out at my sister’s, ate good Christmas candy and watched the ball drop in New York at midnight. Much of the day was spent watching the second season of Lost, which, thankfully, doesn’t take much energy. Oh, and we watched the dogs go crazy with all the fireworks going off. They just didn’t know what to do with themselves; running from the front of the house to the back and then back again, searching in vain for the source of the crazy booms and barking at us to either set them free to find them or to shut them up ourselves.

And while we’re on the subject, what’s the deal with the South and shooting off fireworks all year round?? Every time I hear them I’m completely thrown off. They are illegal throughout most of Southern California, so it’s hard for me to wrap my brain around the idea that most cities/counties in the South allow people to own them and shoot them off whenever they want. I keep thinking of all the fire hazards and risks people are taking with every pop, whizzz and whistle/scream I hear. At the same time, I got very used to hearing gunshots during all my years in LA. You’d think those would  send me through the roof more than fireworks, but, hey, you hear them often enough,  you get desensitized to the sound. AND they do sound remarkably like a firecracker going off. So often, my first thought when hearing them in LA was that someone had set off a(n) (illegal) firecracker. It usually took a second for it to register it was gunshots. And like I said, I got pretty desensitized to it. I’d pray for the people involved, but rarely called 911 to report shots fired. Now, oddly enough, living here in the South, when I hear fireworks on any day other than the 4th of July, it’s really hard for me to remember that its fireworks, not gunshots, I’m hearing. And my first reaction is to pick up  the phone and call the police. Cuh-razy.

Well, I got off on a tangent there, didn’t I. Guess I’m still pretty much a cotton-head… Hope your week has been better.

Sometimes I wish I could take back something I said; a joke that didn’t go over, a flippant comment that hurt a friend, a rant made in anger laced with mean words I didn’t really mean, I just wanted someone to hurt as much as I did.

And then there are those times I say things that clearly reveal the selfishness, the self-centeredness, of my own heart. Being a self-centered creature, those are the ones that haunt me the longest, and the ones I wish I could most take back. I hate when I expose the darkness in me. I can get forgiveness, and absolution (if Southern Baptists actually qualify for that sort of thing), from others for all the other regrettable comments, and put them behind me. But I cannot seem to grant myself forgiveness for exposing the ugly truth of my own heart.

I will regret this day for some time to come. I was doing so well too; leaving a good impression, always important when making a new friend. Then something pushed my own desperate need to the front of my mind, pressing it against that part of my brain that queues up the next mouthful of conversation. No, I thought. I cannot say that. It reveals too much. But something pushed it to the front of the line — I thought it was God, but now I’m not at all convinced it was — and before I knew what was happening, my own selfish need was pouring out of my mouth like water from a fire hydrant, and that was that. Good impression gone, replaced by harsh reality.

God, I’m so sick of myself. I am so sick of the self-focus that has so dominated my life the last three years.  I need to become someone else.

Driving home tonight, I took a hard look at myself. It wasn’t pretty. At least I didn’t think so. There was a time when I thought more of others’ needs than my own, more of others’ hurts than my own; when my conversations with God were more about Him blessing others than of healing me.

I realize that there was a lot of co-dependency in those conversations. My happiness and sense of value was directly tied to the happiness and well-being of those around me, especially those closest to my heart. So my prayers for them and focus on them was actually selfishly motivated. The last two years of digging through my past and honestly facing my own brokenness taught me this.  But I had to wonder tonight, am I any better a person for all my knowledge? Yes, now I know my own feelings, I’ve learned to feel them instead of run from them, and to acknowledge them instead of burying them in the deepest crevasses of my heart.  That is a good thing.  But, dang, Lu, when are you going stop crying about yourself all the time and start crying over the pain of others again? When are you going to spend more time talking to God about something other than your own brokenness? Isn’t that the point of all this intense digging into your soul, and all the counseling you’ve been getting, to become someone secure enough in her own identity in Christ that you don’t need to constantly focus on yourself? When does it shift from staring at your own navel to seeing the world around you?

Aaaauuugggh! I’m so frustrated with myself. I know what is right, what I ought to do — what I want to do. But I don’t do it. Its the things I don’t want to do, the person I don’t want to be—that, I do and so, so very naturally. Aaauugghhh!

But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can’t keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don’t have what it takes. I can will it, but I can’t do it. I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don’t result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time…. I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question?

The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different. — Romans 7:17-25, The Message

I’m pooped, but I can’t sleep… I need rest but I can’t shut myself down. I’m so sleepy but I can’t get my mind to shut up so my body can sleep (man, that thing is a talker!). I’ve read, checked all my favorite blogs, written some, journal some, meditated on the Word some, prayed some. And I’m still unable to sleep. Every muscle in my body aches to move but when I move, they all scream in distress at the disturbance in their "rest".

I’m wired wide asleep… or is that exhausted sound-awake… ah, jeez. I can’t even put a sentence together. And yet I cannot sleep. AAaaauuuggghhhh!

Ever had this problem?

Someone help me

I mentioned a few days ago that I am, with my doctor’s permission, getting off the anti-depressants I began taking two and a half years ago after my parents’ deaths and overseas team implosion and my subsequent medical resignation from the IMB… (any questions as to why I needed anti-depressants at the time?).

I’ve experienced mild (and a few not-so-mild) withdrawal effects, as my brain says, "whaaaahhh…are you doooooo-iinnnggg??" and begins adjusting to life without serotonin help.

Today, however, I’ve had a big effect smack me in the head: dizziness. Extreme dizziness. Sometimes its all I can do to stay upright. It feels like the whole world is spinning; like I’ve just gotten off a very fast moving merry-go-round where I forgot to keep my focus on just one thing. Wwwhhheeee!

It’d be a rather fun experience, except it also happens when I’m driving.