.briellga

This week has been another rough one. I've been feeling this sort of half deadness. Like in Pirates of the Caribbean, where all those cursed pirates would rather be mortal than have the "food turn to ash" in their mouths and all that jazz. Probably not the most helpful of analogies for me to be dwelling on. It's in between normal and out-of-body experience. From the times that I've done google searches, I know that this is not unusual for the lyme-diseased.

A lot of it has to do with goals and desires. I don't have career ambitions. I feel useless, pointless. I don't have that life in your blood feeling - the thrill and wonder to live. Thinking about this has causes some little breakdowns a few times this week, especially when I'm trying to fall asleep at night.

I've dealt with sadness, depression, and even bitterness over this issue. I've spent most of this afternoon tearing up. The lifelessness makes me question why I should even live. I quickly become bitter wondering why God would have me be here but not have my heart all here. What a silly question. I'm not sure what made me think that I need to have my heart all here. JC Ryle addresses this in his booklet Sickness, writing that "Surely anything that obliges us to alter the way we measure earthly things is a real good." He says that sickness "exposes the emptiness and hollowness of what the world calls 'good' things and teaches us to hold them with a loose hand." In this specific context Ryle doesn't state the following, but I believe the idea is incomplete without this - that measuring earthly things correctly, and holding them with a loose hand opens us up to this: holding with firm grip, and being ever more held by, the reality of heaven, the truth of God, and the hope in eternity. The goal of seeing this world as temporary is to see God's glory as eternal. I don't just let go of old dreams and old goals, I get picked up and carried forth by new and greater ones. That is why it is good when sickness makes me re-evaluate.

Also, reading this was a huge huge help.