Blackberries: face-puckering goodness that is free to
whoever is adventurous enough to go after them. This is a great blackberry year, and now is
the time to pick them, but more on that later.
I have now been back home for almost two months, but I have
not felt like blogging. My parents have
encouraged me to at least close my adventures in Mexico. The only problem is that while my presence in
Mexico has been removed, I have still been sorting through the aftermath of
this past year, and the sorting has been slow and painful.
While this last school year was difficult, I did not realize
how much damage it caused until I began to try and pick up my life again back
in Anacortes. The problem with “picking
up where you left off” is that nothing is static. Life continues on whether I am part of it or
not. I returned to a place I thought I
knew, but in reality I did not recognize.
This “glitch” in my logic helped plunge me into a deeper depression. Everything I knew had changed. I could not (and cannot) find my identity in
being a Teacher, a Professional, Self-sufficient, Independent—all of those
things were gone. Now I am just a
28-yr-old overqualified and unemployed person living at home with her parents—I
don’t rank very high on that “success” meter.
To come to this end after six years of working, providing for myself,
developing friendships and a “life” is devastating.
So now that I’ve been stripped and laid bare before my Maker
and everyone else, I find that I really do not have anything to offer God
except myself. All of my skills and talents are not
enough. Whatever skills and talents I
possess are not because of what I
have done. God does not need more great
teachers, professionals, self-sufficient, independent people—He needs more
willing hearts to wait on Him to be used by Him. Yet I still find myself trying to offer
everything I can do instead of
everything I am. This is a difficult concept, especially for
someone who defines herself by what she can do.
Now I find myself waiting on the Lord, not because I want
to, but because I have no other options.
God is funny like that. There are
so many things that come out of patience though. For example, since I have been home I have
been ogling the blackberry bushes around my parents’ property, knowing that
towards the end of August I would be able to ambush them and use them in delicious
jams and desserts. Only time would bring
these berries to ripeness, no matter how much wishing, praying, and checking I
did. I feel like that is where I am
right now in life. I am not ripe yet, so
God is not picking me.
In the mean-time, I want to keep growing towards the Light,
because the Sun is what causes the fruit to ripen. And I want to be so heavy-laden with berries
that when the time comes, I will hang low enough to be accessible to others so
that I can truly be used in the capacity for which God has created me.
Can you tell I’ve been picking blackberries with God
recently?
