The meaning of the above words are pretty intense.
“Tortured” means “great mental suffering or anxiety”.
“Tormented” means “severe physical or mental suffering”.
Why do these two words keep popping into my head when I think of myself at this moment?
My life is good. I like my life most of the time. I have everything that I could possibly need. And I’m talking about the things that are really important – the things that, if I didn’t have them, nothing else would matter. Health, above all. My mother used to tell me all the time, “If you have your health, you have everything.” So true. If you have your health, you can do ANYTHING. I have my husband and my son. We have a house that we don’t owe a penny on, a house that we can afford to cool in the summer and heat in the winter. We have food on the table and a working car so that my husband can earn money for our family. I have family and friends that truly care about me and my well-being – people I can be completely honest with and not have to worry about offending when we have disagreements or differences of opinion. People I can truly be myself with. Little things that I do and places that I go that make me happy.
I am blessed to still have my mother in my life, even though we live very far away from each other. That was MY choice – not hers. I made the choice to move far away from my mother, from the place where I grew up, and from everything I have ever known. I made that conscious choice.
Sometimes I still wonder if it was the wrong one…
No one can go back and change the past. You make decisions in your life, and you have to live with those decisions. I’m not trying to live in the past. I’m not dwelling on decisions I’ve already made in my life. But sometimes, more often than not, I think about what my life would have been like if I had made a different choice.
I used to believe very strongly that everything that happened was “meant to be” – FATE. So, how much of life is the actual choices that you make, and how much of it is your destiny – or “meant to be”?
How much of it did I really have a choice in?
Sometimes I think that maybe I would have done better on my own. Maybe I would have made better “choices” if left to my own devices. At the time, when I made certain decisions, they seemed like the right ones.
And – sometimes they don’t.
Why don’t I have this? Why am I dealing with that? Is it because I made the wrong choices?
Is it MY fault that I don’t have the things I wish I had but don’t?
Or is this the way it’s supposed to be? Is this how it was “meant to be” all along?
I bring up the words “tortured” and “tormented” because, despite all my blessings, this is how my mind and soul feel a good part of the time. My life is GOOD. I have absolutely no right to feel this way.
And yet – I do.
I’ve been trying to fill the moments when I feel that way with GOD. In 1999, the Christian artist Plumb released a song entitled “God-Shaped Hole”. I was in a VERY different place in my spiritual journey back then. I was the mother of a two-year-old, and that year in November I experienced a life-altering event that completely changed my view about something. And yet, I still struggled. My husband was on a very different path spiritually, and I felt like we were now traveling life’s highway together in completely opposite directions – and that our roads would never cross again. I felt lost – and alone.
When life is busy, you don’t have time to think so much and dwell on these types of feelings. I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing. Or where I’m going.
Am I making – or not making – the choices? Or is life unfolding the way “it’s supposed to”? Is there somebody else “in charge”?
I’m finding it difficult to make even the simplest decisions a lot of the time. In a lot of my Christian reading – daily devotionals, scriptures, inspirational online pages and groups that I follow – I keep hearing that God has His “will” for me.
I want SO BADLY to know His will for my life. But I have absolutely no idea how to find that out.
And yet – I keep reading. And searching. Desperately searching…
It is my mind that feels tortured and tormented, more than my soul actually. I cannot…stop…thinking. During the day…in the middle of the night – sometimes SEVERAL times in the middle of the night… I think about EVERYTHING. From the smallest, what seem like really insignificant things – to the important BIG things that I believe I am supposed to be doing in my life.
I’m anxious about most things, most of the time…
Why can’t I travel effortlessly? Why can’t I just go – and DO? Why does everything have to be a huge struggle in my head?
Why can’t I just STOP…THINKING…about EVERYTHING…
Reading about God’s promises for my life takes away some of this anxiety – so why don’t I do it more often? Considering how I feel a lot of the time, I should be reading the Bible 24/7.
But, that’s not practical really. The day-to-day chores of life still need to be taken care of. I should still definitely be doing it more than I am. I can watch the news and reruns and scroll on Facebook for hours on end if I allow myself to. Why am I not dedicating that amount of time to God?
They say that something becomes a habit after you’ve done it consistently for 30 days. My writing makes me feel better too – it always has. I keep telling myself that I will write and read for my spiritual fulfillment at specific times, like when my husband is out of the house, either working or when he goes out to play darts. I tell myself that if I make this commitment during these quiet times, it will become second nature, and I won’t even have to think about it. I will just – DO.
Sometimes I wonder if I feel in my head that God is a magician of sorts – that if you pray long and hard enough for the same things that He will “grant your wishes”. Of course, I know in my heart of hearts that this is not the case – never was and never will be. God doesn’t work like that. He says “Yes” and “No” – and sometimes “Not yet.”
How long am I supposed to wait?
Is He making me wait because He is trying to teach me someting and I haven’t learned yet? To change? To truly rely on Him more?
I’ve heard it said that “worry is a slap in the face of God”. I can’t continue to worry and be anxious and still truly trust in the Lord. There’s a WHOLE Bible verse about it! “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”
Still desperately searching for that too – PEACE.
Something happened in my family when I was 13 years old that destroyed whatever “peace” I had at that time in my life. Nobody was physically hurt, nothing incredibly horrible occurred – but the event devastated my little family, and life from that point forward was never the same. Shortly after, something was said that I believe ultimately shaped the person that I was to become, the person that I am today. The person who deep down is still that awkward little 13-year-old girl who still feels like she has to be perfect, that nothing she does will ever be good enough…
I need to laugh more, not take everything to heart and so seriously. Things that other people think are funny, I don’t find humorous at all. People think they are joking when they say certain things to me, and instead of laughing it off or responding with my own attempt at humor, I take it personally and very easily get my feelings hurt. I got teased a lot when I was a kid – by my brother, even though that’s typical among siblings – but by some of my older cousins as well. I’ve always been sensitive. I cry and get easily upset very often. Why can’t I lighten up and not take everything so seriously?
Ugh! I just wish I could get out of my own head! I used to tell people that I wish I had a tiny door at the back of my head with an on/off switch so I could TURN OFF MY BRAIN.
I’m sitting here right now with a heavy feeling in my chest because I overreacted to something my husband said before he left for work. I do that A LOT. Honestly, I’m really surprised that by now he hasn’t said, “You know what – I can’t deal with you anymore.” My husband is a good man. I don’t deserve him.
I make so many things worse than they need to be. WHY do I DO that??
With some things, I feel like I am constantly being watched…and talked about…with regard to decisions I have made in my life that have put me where I am right now. One of the most important people in my life, whom one of my decisions has affected, tells me all the time in her own way that I was not wrong – even though my decision put her in a tailspin at the time. And even though I know that truth between us, and her opinion is the only one that matters, I feel like I still didn’t do right by her. And other’s opinions about how I am handling things now – and have handled things in the past – is judgemental but shouldn’t matter.
What gives you the right to judge me??
I shouldn’t care about what others think. It’s not their life – it’s mine, and I’m the one making the choices, the decisions. And yet – I continue to overthink everything. Why can’t I just relax and go and do and “be anxious for nothing”?
I have SO much that needs working on. But I simply get overwhelmed by MYSELF. They say you’re your own worst enemy. I come from parents whose best qualities I possess. But I am also the recipient of their worst personality traits as well. So going back to what this post started out with – is it nature, or nurture? Do you become what you grow up around or are you a product of your life’s experiences? Or is it already too late? You are who you are, and there’s no going back…
Bottom line is, God is the only one who can fill my emptiness. Whatever it is…however much there is…and wherever it comes from…
I need to look for Him more…
“There’s a God-shaped hole in all of us, and the restless soul is searching. There’s a God-shaped hole in all of us, and it’s a void only He can fill.”
Oddly Enough 