Like a Pair of Broken Headphones

I have this pair of headphones. They're not expensive headphones, they're not insanely comfortable headphones--but they're nice and squishy and have a noise-blocking setting that I use a lot.

Anyways, I was carelessly wrapping them up to put them away when I accidently tore the left ear-phone cushion out. I have done it before, and it's easy to fix it--but I didn't take the time. I said, Oh, I can fix it later. I'm too busy right now.

They lay there on my desk, in their pitiful broken state, and when I had to use them, I tried to ignore the discomfort because I didn't want to have to fix them.

And honestly, that's what my life has been like recently. My life is like that pair of headphones--broken, laying around, useless and uncomfortable.

The last few months have been dry months. Dead months. Silent months. I pushed God into the back of my mind, and replaced Him with school and friends.

In the mornings, I would leave my Bible sitting in its corner, and would pull out my journal instead. I would pray--but would I really pray? No. I would pray about shallow things--things that didn't really matter. I didn't really pray. I didn't really give God the time that He deserved.

I went through the past few months of my life without God: working hard at school, socializing with friends, journaling, blog designing, going to church, saying the right things, listening to the right music--even managing to pray and leave God out of it!

Honestly, I was scared of surrending my life to God.

I have tried to completely commit my life to Jesus many times in the past few years. Sometimes it's just a verse that I come upon.  I break down and say "God, I can't do this anymore--please help me." But then I fall back into old habits, old sins, old mind-sets. Other times, it's just a resolution late at night--and then I break promises and I banish God from my mind.

Somehow, I thought that if I said, "I'm going to commit my life to Jesus now," enough times, I would truly commit my life to Him.

But anything that I say, or that I do, or that I think--it won't turn my life around.

It has to be Him.

I don't know how to describe my life--except by saying dry. And dead. My feeble attempts at surrendering finally collapsed.

I would take two steps from the side-lines to the field, only to become frightened of what other people thought of me or what they wouldn't think of me and I careened back to pretending.

And I was sick of doing that. I could feel myself falling back, hesitating, pulling away. And I hated that.

So I stopped. I stopped pretending. I stopped hesitating.

I did commit--but to the wrong thing--I commited to ignoring God. I pulled away for good--or so I thought. I was sick of God and how He seemingly messed up my life and then took off.

Everything went wrong. I tried to immerse myself in friends, only to find myself ruining the best relationship I had. I tried to focus primarily on school, only to become more and more stressed and lose more and more sleep. I tried to act happy and carefree, only to realize that other people were noticing how different I acted and asking if they could pray for me.

Life is a wreck without God. I've tried to live without Him for the last few months--and they were the worst of my life. Dry. Dead. Silent.

That's what comes from trying to do everything on my own.

And the worst part was: I couldn't talk to anybody about it because I was scared of what they would think. Would they judge me because I "hated" God and didn't want anything to do with Him? Would they try and pray for me?--because that's what I hated the most: someone praying for me when I told myself I didn't need it.

Then Ab posts, and it seemed like God was trying to speak to me. I kind of acknowledged how wonderful the post was, and then moved on with my broken life. I wished that that could be me--that I could do what she did and completely surrender. But I thought, It never will be me.

Then Hannah and Marissa post, both of them opening their heart and sharing their journey and how their relationship with God needs to become something better.

God truly urged me to join with them, dancing on that field, becoming one with Him.

I'm sick of how I was living: independent, and because of that, sad and lonely. I can't live without Him. That's just the truth.

I regret those months living apart. Those months could have been beautiful, but because I chose to divide myself from Christ, they were so cold. Cold. Dry. Dead. Silent.

I fixed my headphones. And you know what? It took five minutes to fix them. Five minutes.

I chose a week of discomfort over five minutes of effort.

And again, this mirrors my life. I chose months of loneliness and deadness over talking with God and renewing myself in His word.

What did it take for God to wake me up? Just three blogs and a pair of broken headphones.