Twos and Threes

I am generally a pretty even-keeled kind of gal.  It takes a lot for me to get angry and I am generally pretty happy-go-lucky.  On my roughest days I tend more towards becoming quiet and introspective rather than outwardly angry or irritable.  The last few days for me have been uncharacteristically moody for me.

Usually I can chalk one day of feeling this way up to lack of sleep or not feeling well.  Both of these things were true earlier in the week.  However, the black cloud hanging over me has not lifted in three days now.

This should be a joyful time for me.  I just got great news about my house, my favorite season-spring-is here, I'm leaving for Turkey in a little over a week, I just found out I got a raise at work, my sister-in-law is about to give birth to my second nephew....but I am not joyful. Something just feels "off" to me right now.

I know that anger is a secondary emotion and that it's rooted in something else.  I know part of it is that I am a bit disappointed that the next season in my life is one where I am going to be venturing out on my own.  There is a real part of my heart that is still grieving over the fact that no matter what happens this September, I am being asked to do it by myself.  I know that wherever I go, there will be people there.  I won't be completely alone.  But, honestly, I have always hoped that someday when I was sent out, it would at least be with a friend. 

There are a lot of men and women who have gone before alone.  I wrote a post about this last August.  I don't know how they did it.  I think I have felt alone for so much of my life that the thought of being even *more* alone is almost physically painful. 

I think about Katie, the 21 year old in Uganda and I don't know how she does it.  I think about my friend Pete in Tokyo and I don't know how he does it.  I think about my friend Miki, virually alone in Japan, and I don't know how she does it.  And there are others I am sure I am leaving out.  How is it that these people and many others seem to be able to make a go of it alone, while I, who have been nothing but alone can't seem to get over this to feel joy?

I don't want to go alone.  Yet, the reality that I am probably going to go alone is becoming more and more tangible to me.  I think this is why I am on some days reluctant to leave....being as lonely as I have been these last few years, at least I have had housemates and family and co-workers.  I have hardly had a friend, but there have been enough moments of fellowship to keep me from going totally insane. 

Jesus sent His disciples out in twos and threes (Mark 6).  Ecclesiastes talks about a three-chord strand not easily broken.  The very trinity itself speaks to relationship.

There is a lot of emotion here, as I wrestle over the fact that the loneliness I have been living in for the last few years is not ending but quite likely going to continue.

Blessings,

Erin