Do you want to know what I hate?

My biggest character flaw?

Being a contradiction.

Being on two complete opposite ends of the spectrum. For example: being perfectly happy and sad. At the same time.

It is the most exhausting form of feeling. As if I am afraid to feel just one or the other so I just am both. Simultaneously.

It is being both excited and full of dread on the first day of school. Then feeling guilty for not having a better attitude.

It is a tug of war and my arms are the ropes. It produces constant tension.

It is wanting to be alone but being terrified of being by myself.

It is wanting to be noticed but having attention gives me a knot in my stomach.

It is responding fight or flight to a non-threatening situation.

It drives me crazy because this has cost me trust, grades, relationships, opportunities, segments of life that cannot be retrieved.

It convinces me that I am crazy because I know what is right and what is wrong but desire equally to do what is right and to do what is wrong.

It is wanting to go to Europe but then not wanting to be there.

It is buying a bottle of wine but being a proudly recovered alcoholic that sometimes still cannot walk down the alcohol aisle at the supermarket.

It is longing to be emotionally stable and being in love with instability.

It is wanting to be thin but wanting to be healthy and knowing that they cannot both live in the same house.

It is a monster that has taken root inside of my head and disrupted my decisions and my feelings.

It is a venom that spreads its poison into my arms and down my legs overtaking my entire being until I am nothing. Foolishly convincing myself that it makes me seem edgy and desirable.

It is internal agony.

It is wanting to be gentle but wanting to be rebellious.

It is feeling inadequate to be a make a difference and knowing that I will.

It is desiring death and being excited about my future in the same microsecond.

It is wanting to know if it is normal. But being terrified to put a diagnosis to the problem. Because ya know diagnosis is really dishing out more money to therapy, drugs, and higher insurance premiums.

Growing up I was always told who I was. Described to those around me as something that I did not always believe to be true. Maybe I am at war because I would be praised for being beautiful and shamed for being fat in the same breath. Maybe it is because my young voice was challenged by trusted authorities which meant that I must have been wrong because they were the adults and I was the child. I was told that what I thought to be true was not true even though it was. Confusing right? Maybe it is because I wanted to report my abuse but was told it would ruin lives. Maybe that is where it began. When I wanted justice for a wrong done to me but told that I shouldn't. I am not trying to place blame or point a finger. When searching for truth, shame should not be hiding beneath the same box waiting to attack. They are not synonymous.

See this is only my daring attempt to understand why I do what I do and feel what I feel. To try and convince myself that I am not crazy. Maybe this is the war to loving myself because I am not entirely sure what I am fighting for. Maybe I am fighting to be the Godly woman I desire to be. Maybe this is that spiritual war that my caring God warned about. Maybe this is what Galatians 5:17 meant when it said "For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want." Or when Paul writes in Romans "For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin."(7:15-25)

A lot of people have a really hard time trying to understand this complex piece but to me, it makes perfect sense. And no Paul is not saying that he will choose to sin and he was not blaming his actions on the fact that he is a sinner. Paul is saying that he is a sinner because he lives in the world. Paul is talking about the contradiction between his heart and mind. Paul is describing the war he feels between his flesh and the Spirit. Then he says the sweetest part. He says that relief comes through sanctification. Which is just a big Christian word for change to look more like Christ. Through clinging to God and following Him. But full relief will come when we are fully sanctified and reunited with God forever.

And maybe it is actually all of these things. My upbringing, satan's lies, and the spiritual battle. I am both a product of God and a product of my upbringing. They go together because God orchestrated it to be so. They work together because I am both a sinner and a child of God. They go together because I live in a sinful and broken world. But it is ok. I will fight the good fight because heaven is my future and there is no sweeter finish line.

The irony is that this post is probably just one big contradiction. The irony is that that biggest argument against the Bible is that it contradicts itself. But in research and an unveiling by the Holy Spirit I know that to be untrue.

Not today satan.

Not. Today.

Haley Orillion