I am leaving, I am leaving, but the Fighter still remains...

*crying... again... 3rd time today...*
There is only one person on this earth that can comfort me right now.  She's off having the time of her life somewhere that is not here.  All I can do is bawl into my pillow that is still covered in the pillowcase she made me and listen to the Billy Joel CDs she gave me.  I'm afraid to fall asleep because I only know I'm just going to dream about her again like I have for the last I lost track of how many nights.  If you are not going through the same pain and aggravations that I am, please let me know how you have managed to avoid them/get through them.

Couldn't save you from the start
Love you so it hurts my soul
Can you forgive me for trying again
your silence makes me hold my breath
All time has passed you by

for so long I've tried to shield you from the world
you couldn't face the freedom on your own
Here I am
left in silence

You gave up the fight
you left me behind
all that stands forgiven
You'll always be mine I know deep inside
all that stands forgiven

Watch the cloud drifting away
Still the sun can't warm my face
I know it was destined to go wrong
You were looking for the great escape
to chase your demons away

for so long I've tried to shield you from the world
you couldn't face the freedom on your own
Here I am
left in silence

You gave up the fight
you left me behind
all that stands forgiven
You'll always be mine I know deep inside
all that stands forgiven

I've been so lost since you've gone
why not me before you
why did fate deceive me

Everything turned out so wrong
Why did you leave me in silence

My sloth of a roommate is out for a walk after again doing nothing all day.  The only person that I now label with the respectful title of "friend" down here is studying for finals tomorrow.  I am alone and lonely.  Had an enlightening day which was spent almost entirely in the library reading Emotionally Healthy Spirituality.  Learned a lot, started trying to put some of it to practice, which worked then, but now I'm here again.  Need more practice.

I utterly failed at even making dinner tonight.  I tried grilling turkey burgers and ended up wasting all of it because it either fell through the grill or didn't cook because the coals didn't catch.  I had to duck out of work on an early lunch break and never ended up coming back because I started crying in frustration after texting a few friends back and forth.

No one to talk to but this blog that I'm not even sure who is reading.

How many more tears do I need to shed?  How many more times do I have to break down?  How many more stabs in my abdomen and heart throughout the day must I endure?  When will this all end?  I feel cursed.

The book I'm reading calls this time in my life the Dark Night of the Soul.  Every word of this book fit with my symptoms and case verbatim.  Literally the only hope I have right now is in what this book promises will come from enduring this Night.  There is much more I want to share from this book eventually.  If you are not familiar with what I'm talking about and am going to be quoting, read Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, Chapter 6: Journey through the wall:

"Judas's 'stuckness' [in his going through his own Wall] eventually resulted in him quitting Christ altogether, resulting in perhaps history's saddest account of a wasted opportunity!"
Those who are stuck "fail to see the larger picture of the transforming work God seeks to do in them at their Wall.  The disorientation and pain of their present circumstances blinds them.  And they feel unsuccessful in finding other companions for such a journey."

Symptoms of going through the Wall:

1. we question ourselves, God and the church
2. we discover for the first time that our faith does not appear to 'work'
3. we have more questions than answers as the very foundation of our faith feels like it is on the line
4. we don't know where God is, what he is doing, where he is going, how he is getting us there, or when this will be over
5. we see very little visible fruit in our lives

"When we make it through the Wall, we no longer have a need to be well known or successful, but to do God's will... We have learned, like the apostle Paul, "the secret of being content in any and every situation" (Philippians 4:12)  We have become, finally, our true selves in Christ."

The Wall is there to purge us from 7 deadly spiritual imperfections:

1. Pride: having a tendency to condemn others and become impatient with their faults; being very selective in who can teach you.
2. avarice: discontent with the spirituality God gives; never having enough learning, one constantly reads many books rather than growing in poverty of spirit and interior life.
3. luxury: taking more pleasure in the spiritual blessings of God than God himself
4. wrath: easily irritated, lacking sweetness, having little patience to wait on God
5. spiritual gluttony: resisting the cross and choosing pleasures instead
6. envy: feeling unhappy when others do well spiritually.  Always comparing.
7. sloth: running from that which is hard.  Aimed only at good feelings.

"Though it is important to pay attention to our feelings in order to know God, the Wall protects us from worshiping them."

"God powerfully invades us when we persevere patiently through this suffering.  Our great temptation is to quit or go backwards, but if we remain still, listening for his voice, God will insert something of Himself into our character that will mark the rest of our journey with Him."  --> this statement and those that relate back to it are the only reason I have not given up yet completely.  Because now I have a promise, a reward, an incentive, for getting out of this alive and not ending it all.

"How long will it last?

- It may be months.  More probably, it may be a year or two... or more.  Sorry, I know this is not what you want to read.  Ultimately God chooses the length and level of intensity.  He has a unique purpose for each of us, knowing how much there is to cleanse out of our inner being, and how much he wants to infuse of himself into us for his greater, long-term purpose.  Our Father knows how much we can handle."

"How and when God takes us through is up to Him.  We make choices to trust God, to wait on God, to obey God, to stick with God, to remain faithful when everything in us wants to quit and run.  But it is his slow, deep work of transformation in us, not ours."

"Going through the Wall breaks something deep within us--that driving, grasping, fearful self-will that must produce, that must make something happen, that must get it done for God (just in case he doesn't).  

Greater detachment is to be desired:

"The critical issue on the journey with God is not "Am I happy?" but "Am I free?  Am I growing in the freedom God gave me?"...We are to live our lives as the rest of the world--marrying, experiencing sorrow and joy, buying things and using them--but always with awareness that these things in themselves are not our lives.  We are marked by eternity, free from the dominating power of things."

"I rarely realize how attached I am to something until God removes it... God: No, you don't need that.  You need me!"  When we put our claws into something and we don't want to take them out, we are beyond enjoying them.  We now MUST have them.  The Wall, more than anything else, cuts off our attachments to who we think we ought to be, or who we falsely think we are.  Layers of our counterfeit self are shed.  Something truer, that is Christ in and through us, slowly emerges."

This book is giving me yet another good road map to follow in this time of what is supposed to be growth, but I guess I'm still germinating because I cannot even see a sapling popping up from the rocky bottom I've hit.  

If I tell you
Will you listen
Will you stay
Will you be here forever
Never go away

Never thought things will change
Hold me tight
Please don't say again
That you have to go

A bitter thought
I had it all
But I just let it go
Hold your silence
It's so violent
Since you're gone

All my thoughts are with you forever
Until the day we'll be back together
I will be waiting for you

If I had told you
You would have listened
You'd had stayed
You would be here forever
Never went away

It would never have been the same
All our time
Would have been in vain
Cause you had to go

The sweetest thought
I had it all
Cause I did let you go
All our moments
Keep me warm
When you're gone

All my thoughts are with you forever
Until the day we'll be back together
I will be waiting for you