The Effect of Cooking (Alternate Title: This Isn't About Adam Young)

I don't know what it is, but there's something about cooking and baking that makes me feel nostalgic and reflective.  As I'm sitting here typing this, my bedroom window is open to let the approaching Spring night's air into the house, greeting me like an old friend with its slight coldness and sweet smell.  The house is filling with aromas of lemon and herbs and garlic as dinner is close to being finished.

Whenever I begin to create something, whether it be food or photography or artwork, the business of my hands often leaves my mind open to think and wander.  Which is funny, because when I was younger, I used to love to think.  To be left alone with my thoughts and ponder the things I have observed in life, the allegories I saw around me that could allude to our walk with Christ.  But where I'm at now in life, being left alone with my thoughts and the heaviness of nostalgia is one of the last things I want to happen.

I am going to admit something here.  As much as I love Owl City and the witty lyrics and the vibe Adam's music gives off (happy music is a good thing), I hate it just as equally.  Why?  Because it makes me want to fall in love.  It doesn't even have to have anything to do with the lyrics.  The sound of his music makes me want to experience that moment of being head-over-heels in love.  Which is why I have done my best to not listen to his music for the past year and some few months.

Pair Owl City with cooking, and my thoughts go on a roller coaster of insanity.

Life is changing so quick and so swiftly lately.  And for someone like me, change is hard to deal with.  Of course, it depends on the type of change - little things here and there I can cope with.  Big, life-altering moments that happen to the people around me that I'm close to, and you can't spell disaster any more clearly.

Is it possible to fall in love with someone whom you have never met?  No.  Because that's not really love.  You only see a very small window of who that person is, and no matter how good they appear, they are still human and still have their faults.  To love someone is to know both the good and bad about them, and choose to love them anyways.  Choose.  It's a choice to love, not an accident, not magic, not something you fall in to.  It's a conscious decision.

At this time right now, I want nothing more than to shun love forever, to lock up my heart and throw away the key, to forever be done with the possibility of getting hurt.  Life happens, people change, they come, they go, they promise to be around and then aren't.  Depending on people, is a ridiculous thing.  We are fickle creatures, white hot with passion one moment, and coldly dark the next.  That isn't to say you shouldn't have friends that you can go to and build relationships with.  You just shouldn't depend on them in ways that they will inevitably let you down.

So where does that leave me?

I am so torn between wanting to love without abandon, risking the cost of being hurt, if it means that it'll draw me closer to Christ.  But at the same time, to love and to be loved - completely, fully, purely - scares me to death.  And I can't help but wonder if it's worth the risk.

But then, I see people around me.  People who have found love and who are so evidently joyful of what they've found.  People who have loved and lost that love, yet still press on, hopeful that love will come again, that it is still worth loving.

And here I am, a person who has never been deeply hurt by a broken heart, taking preemptive strikes against the possibility of being hurt by refusing to make myself vulnerable.

I see people who are in my life, and people - like Adam Young - who are watched by the whole world; each person that I see desiring to seek God more, pursue Him first, and let love rule their decisions.  And I want to be like that.  I admire people who are so evidently hungry for more of Christ, and who feed that hunger by praying, worshiping, loving with all they have.  I want to be like them, but ultimately, I want to be like Christ.
But my life is a twisted road going up and down hills.  I seek Christ, something happens, I try to fix it on my own or lose focus, and then lose the progress I made.  And back and forth.

I am sick of living like this.  Of being up and down all the time.  Of relying on myself more than I rely on Christ.  My heart is screaming to be let out, to take off like a bullet, chasing after Jesus.  To seek Him first, foremost, and always.  This desire, this hunger, is waiting to be filled.  To keep my eyes on the prize, not walking to the finish line, but sprinting towards it.  To forget everyone else around me and only be concerned with what He thinks.  To never be satisfied, never let go, but to use the tenacity that I've been given to struggle and fight for holiness, for purity, for love.

Perhaps it is time to take the risk.

It's another moment in time where the morning is approaching.  I've been awake for hours, wanting to write, but not entirely sure how to go about turning the hurricane of words in my head into proper sentences.  This has been my problem of late: wanting to write, but either having nothing to write about, or struggling with where on earth to begin.

But here is my attempt.

I'm sure I've mentioned before how for some reason, being up so late (early) my guard with my words is down.  I become more open, more honest, more raw.  My thoughts cannot be caged at this time, unlike during the day when I'm able to trap them and ignore their cries to escape by staying busy with work or other things.

You know the saying "be careful what you wish for," right?  Or the more "Christian" version, "be careful what you pray for?"  You pray for patience, but instead of God granting you exactly that, He'll present you with opportunities to exercise patience; and thus by exercising what you lack, you gain exactly what you prayed for.

I haven't prayed for patience, or anything at all, for that matter.  I have, however, been seeking God in an area that I [so very clearly] desperately need changed.  With anything, only so much progress can be made depending on my willingness, and just how much I actually hand over to God to be changed.

I suppose I can say progress has been made.  Well, progress in the sense that I'm more open to being changed.  And have prayed for those who struggle with the issue of not being fully open to love as well.

But then things happen.  Event occur.  Life changes.  And these things make me want to seal up my heart more tightly than ever before, and be done with the whole process.  Who needs love?  Why risk getting hurt so deeply and so often?  It's not worth it.  Not if things like this are going to keep happening over and over and over again.

And I hate every single thing.

Then the emotions and the drama pass.  And I'm able to calm down, to try to think about these things logically.  While I have not been praying for opportunities to be open to love, or to accept that the possibility of being hurt is a part of love and life, I have been seeking change.  Trying to let God have complete control over that area of my life.  And it's kind of the same situation.

Events happen, and instead of building the walls I have already built up to new heights, I need to step back.  Of course these things happen because life happens, and it's a normal part of life.  But instead of hiding in a corner hoping it will all go away, will I do the right thing?  Will I bring my cares, my worries, my insecurities, my wounded heart, my childishness to Jesus and surrender it all to Him?  Will I cast them at His feet, letting it all go, and rest in His peace, knowing that whatever happens I am safe in His presence?

I so desperately wish that my initial reactions to the hard things that life throws at me would be to pick them all up, turn around, and run straight to Jesus.  But I'm afraid that is not what I do.  I pick up each thing, examine it from every angle, try to fix it with thoughts and logic.  I wait until I am completely weary, broken, crushed, wounded, and still try to fix things on my own.  It is only until I have no more strength to fight, when I give up.

But it's only just giving up.  Not giving up and turning to Christ.  Simply "I can't do thing anymore," and I set it all down and ignore it.  I still don't turn to Jesus for help.  And I am saddened that I don't do this.

So here I am.  Awake, and the rest of the world is dreaming.  The birds outside are beginning to wake, singing their morning songs.  It's getting light.  My thoughts are still jumbled, my heart still heavy, the world still feels upside down.

And yet, as always, there is hope.  Because I know what my problems, what my weaknesses, are.  And knowing this means that I know what needs to be fixed.  I know what I lack, and Who to go to for help in the midst of all the chaos.  Now it is only a matter of choosing what to do when the time for help comes.  Will I once again try to fix things on my own, or will I turn to Jesus, who so obviously cares and loves me enough to take my burdens from me?

I sincerely hope that I will do what is best for me.  That surrender will become second nature.  That I'll once again rest in the peace which surpasses all understanding (Philippians 4.7).


"I feel your love that surrounds me 
My world can shake but it won't drown me 
'Cause I'm trusting you 
No matter what I'm going through 

That even when my heart breaks 
And everything's shaken 
I'm left alone in the rain 
You won't, you won't, won't 
You won't let me go 

When life's insane 
And everything's crazy 
You carry me through the pain 
And you won't, you won't, won't 
You won't let me go."

Won't Let Me Go - Addison Road