Fear and Insecurity.

[unedited] I'm afraid. Even though I feel far away from Him...I know in my head what I should do. What needs to be done. God must want me to feel this way. Maybe so I will learn to trust him, even moreso than I used to. And I can't go wrong with trusting him.

...but I'm afraid. What am I afraid of? Afraid of losing what I have. Or anything of what I have left. What good can come from this fear? What does God want me to learn? How does he want me to react to this fear, or this feeling of being far, or...the feeling of not really doing much with my life?

Why have i been alowed to centre upon this fear? To recognize it: to embrace the fact that i am afraid... Perhaps I'm making excuses for myself... maybe in hopes that someone will feel sorry for me and take away the mental/emotional crap *for me -- feelings that i'm *letting happen to myself.

This spiritual darkness has blinded me.

That must be it. An excuse.
I tell myself i'm afraid so i won't get off my lazy ass and *do something about it.
I tell myself i'm afraid as a justification for not doing anything.
I'm afraid of losing what's left of me. What's the world's shaped of me.

God, what do you want for me? Just trust.
Why am I afraid to trust you? You're afraid of losing yourself. Afraid of losing a lot of what you've worked for.
Afraid of what may come when I'm not in control? Afraid of what I might do.
You could bring more pain into my life. Or I could do the opposite. Sometimes you force me to allow pain in your life. So you will learn to trust me even more.
I don't wanna feel afraid, or anger, or jealousy, or hurt...why do you let it happen to me? I can only do so much to your life and *in your life without your consent. I gave you freewill; all you have to do is use it to trust no one else and *nothing else* but me.
I've broken others' trust. My trust has been broken by others. I can't even trust myself sometimes. How do I learn to trust that which I can't see, let alone even feel right now? Faith.
...Faith? I *know you're there -- I felt you before... Faith that I will learn to trust again? And hope that I have something planned for you. Something greater than what I'm letting you go through. Though the sorrows may last for the night, My joy comes with the morning.

..............I have to learn to use this pain to help others.
To learn to stop focusing on being and feeling hurt, and to start focusing on getting back up.
It doesn't matter if I'm afraid, or if nobody really cares.
I have to learn to stop focusing on myself my hurts.
"To do what's right for your brothers and sisters, not for yourself."

What happened to me? How did I forget?
I want to learn again -- to love the way Christ does: unconditionally, self-less.
"It's not think less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself *less." How did I forget?

...God, we're in this for the long run. Please remind me every moment.

I miss people.

School has been keeping me busy for the past couple of months. Well, I wish i could say that. The truth is that I have been doing quite the opposite of "busy with school." I have about 5 weeks of Win2k labs that need to be done. Today. (For night school.) And now that I want to work, none of the 3 labs I can use are open. I have about 3-4 weeks of math that I need to study up on: my exam's next week.

Yet, I'm not worried so much. I just want to go out there and serve already. I miss working with people on stuff. For people. With people.

(I know there's more, but) Stuff that I remember since RLC:
Time Management. Scavenger Haunt. E2 Christmas Party. Planning sessions. Those darned E1 kids. Camp preparation [East 2 Music (e2m!)] and camp. Pre-con band [One Step Closer (osc!)] . Improvising activities and fun stuff for KFC everywhere in between. I miss that stuff. Planning and leading is where I feel right at home. I want so much to do something. The kind of stuff that says, "E2 is about Faith, Freedom, Fun, and Fellowship... So come on down: We wanna share it with YOU!"

And I wanna be a part of that. Whether it's up where I'm heard, or behind the scenes planning...

...I love doing that stuff because I know what it's all for -- Who it's all for.
I love organizing and sorting things -- even though one look at my room,
       or one look into my study habits may say otherwise.
I want to work with a group of people on some "impossible" YFC projects, because "[we] can do all things through Christ who strengthens [us]." (Phil 4:13)
       ...because I believe that it's a big part of my purpose.

And I have ideas. I've been doing some "idea-gathering." I'm sure people out there have ideas, too. Whether we -- in our service to Him... Whether we go through storms like the March camp (Let Go and Let God) and OSC, or things run as smoothly as Scavenger Haunt, I wanna see them all happen. Because it'll make us all a part of the history of YFC Toronto -- no matter how big (cluster/sector) or how small the event would be (our own chapter). I wanna be a part of something that's bigger than me, bigger than my needs and wants. So we can all share in what God has planned for us. (Jeremiah 29:11)

God has no hands but our own. I miss watching people grow in what God has planned for them. I wanna do more events that can make that happen for people.

As much as I'm comfortable leading and planning, I know God hasn't given me alone all the tools necessary to make those events possible. I always look to Scavenger Haunt in that. Long-term and Follow-through planning is what I love, what I'm good at -- the tools that God gave me to be a leader; visual and tactual "hands-on" creativity is not. And I know He did this so that we would depend on eachother's gifts...

Speaking of which, I miss following each other's leads. Envisioning the ideas from scratch; then, watching synergy in action: observing how one idea from one person creates 50 ideas just from adding another 4 people.
As much as I love leading others to God, I love to follow others who also want to lead me to Him.

It's only been just over a week since the last CFC / KFC function. Only just over 2 weeks since Pre-con. A month since camp. Only about 6 weeks since the name OSC was born, just over 2 months since we first got together as a band.

I miss everybody. I miss being in the thick of planning and organizing and leading.

But even the feeling of missing things... God's plan for me is here somewhere. Patience, patience.