Musings from a Neo-Recluse

The past months have been a bit daunting for me, to say the least. I got back late last night from another trip for work. I love my job: I work from home and get to travel occassionally. Each time I pack my suitcase, board a plane, and head to my work destination, I get a bit nervous for some reason. The fact that flying is no easy task these days-the airports are busy, security is intense, furloughs are thriving, and the passengers and airline employees seem to have all gotten crankier. What happened to free peanuts and pretzels by the way? I think bringing those back would add a little more joy to the flying process. I also think the nature of my work has some to do with the nervousness-I work in a job that deals with some pretty heavy topics. But I think that the larger part of my recent anxiety is from the uncertainty in this world....

The day of the Boston bombings, I was in Charlotte, NC for work. When I got word that there had been bombings in Boston, I immediately felt the same way I did the morning I learned about 9/11. Except this day was different: I was far away from home and loved ones-not in the comfort of my small town with my family. For some odd reason, all I could think about was how I was going to have to get on an airplane and fly home amidst all the terrorist activity. To say I was a nervous wreck is an understatement. I was around older and wiser co-workers when I found out the news, so I was a calm, cool, and collected nervous wreck on the outside-but on the inside, I was freaking out. Basically, I just knew I was going to die on the plane ride home......

I am glad to say, I made it home safe and sound that week, despite my anxiety ridden airport and plane experience. Only to come home to find that another explosion hit West, TX. Not long after that, the tornadoes tore apart Moore, OK. For some reason, this set me into a deep, deep anxiety ridden depression that I fear I am still sitting in as I write today. See? Even that sentence is anxiety-ladden (I'll let you figure it out...). Remember my Euchristeo-my one word? Yeah, that suddenly all went out the window for some reason.

Every time I check the news, something else has gone wrong: Politics. Scandals. Spying. Shootings. Bombings. Murders. Cancer. Death. Healthcare. Economy. Filibusters. Blah, Blah, Blah. It seems as if all of life has gone wrong. In a nutshell, the reality that life is unpredictable has been ever present, glaring me straight in the face. For some odd reason, it has started causing anxiety. Not the kind of anxiety that you brush off after you see a police officer follow behind you, only to find him turn on his lights to pull over the car beside you. (Although that freaks me out every. single. time.) Not even the kind of anxiety that makes me want to take an ostrich-like stance, put my head in the sand, and not even look at the news or what is going on around me (although that is sounding like a better idea by the minute). Those kinds of anxiety seem manageable. The kind of anxiety I am talking about is the kind that has caused me to want to stay home and become a recluse. The kind that makes me want to shut the door and not answer it when the door bell rings. The gut wrenching, knot in stomach kind of anxiety. The "God is definitely not in control if all this evil happening, and I am definitely not in control with all that is going on, so I am just going to sit here" kind of anxiety. Then the thought that there might be a shooting in my apartment community as it happened in Illinois and Washington slaps me in the face, and I don't even feel safe at home. Basically, I have become a mess. I won't even talk about the sleep I have lost because every sound is probably a murderer. Literally. It's that bad.

Then enters Life Group on Sunday Morning. We are doing a study on Genesis at our church. Sunday was the story of Noah. I have heard the story of Noah a thousand times and quite frankly did not expect this Sunday's lesson to be any different. I sat there, mostly in a depressed stupor from the anxiety that is my life (a bit dramatic, eh?). Luckily I had begged the Husband to stop off at Starbucks, to which he obliged (probably because he was willing to do anything to see a smile on my face). So, I sat there drinking my Starbucks in my anxiety laden stupor not really paying much attention to what was being said. I was in my own little depressed world. Then it hit me right there in Genesis 6:5-7.

"The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only wicked all the time. The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth and his heart was filled with pain. So the Lord said, 'I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth--for I am grieved that I have made them.'"

It was interesting because the Husband and I were just having this conversation the night before. Really, I was ranting and raving to the Husband who works in politics about how I did not want to hear any more about how we are going to hit a time worse than the great depression in a few years and all go broke (unless we prepare and buy gold, of course), or how depraved America is, or how we are all going to hell, or that perhaps right now as we speak we are living in the end times?!?!?!?!?! I was done hearing it all. So you can imagine my delight when this passage hit my eyes. It was the hope I had been searching for. The answer to my plea with God to answer what was going on in this world. There it was: "there was only wicked all the time."

To be honest, I don't know if I fully understand all that this passage encompasses. And I have been thinking about this passage for over a month now. So, I am no Biblical scholar, but from my studying of it, it seems that in Noah's time, there was no good except for Noah. Noah was righteous, but by all accounts seen in Genesis, all other things were evil and God was so grieved that He created it, that He wiped out everything He had made with a flood, except Noah, his family and two of every creature. The reason that this was encouraging to me is because despite all the evil going on around me every day, THERE IS GOOD. Unlike in Noah's time, there appears to be more good than simply one person. So, when people say we are seeing the darkest days this world has ever known, point them to Genesis 6. That gives me hope that there is still good in this world. And it inspires me to be more like Noah, despite the evil. And it reminds me that above all, no matter the circumstances, God still has me in His hands and Heaven still stands.  Now that is something that makes me want to get out of this tiny little home...and shout from the rooftops.

There is hope...I guess I won't become a recluse after all....

Until next time be blessed....and know there is good in this world...let's try to be a part of it....