Vast And Overwhelming

I sat in my bedroom completely overwhelmed. My emotions were a train wreck for no good reason. I was holding my breath, which was increasing my anxiety. I was looking around, trying to find a direction and finding no clear path. I was…am…a mess.

As I worked through my emotions and thoughts and remembered a few days ago when the rover landed on Mars. My family is big on the shuttles and space and that fun stuff. They were trying to show my oldest daughter how cool it was that there we landed on Mars. She burst into tears and we were all just kind stunned. I asked my wife to pull her aside and ask why she was crying. She said she didn’t know, that she just felt like crying.

I never did get a clear answer from her, just that she felt like crying. I have a suspicion though…

The idea of Mars, the sheer distance and difference is unfathomable for me, who understands distance. Can you imagine what that might feel like to a kid? It could be daunting. It is so big, so far. I think she was just overwhelmed with the idea and it overflowed into her emotions. Again, not putting it on her, but just watching the situation play out and knowing my daughter, it is a very real possibility.

The reason this popped up in my mind is because it made so much sense to me.

I have a vision for my life. I feel a calling drawing me to something, something big. I have summarized it in my mantra, which is, “Make God’s Greatness Known.” The problem with this is that it is too big. It overwhelms me. My fear and anxiety wells up and tells me I’m not able to do that, that I’ll fail. My anxiety tells me it isn’t possible because it isn’t specific (like being a doctor). There are so many people able to tell me parts of what that means, but they can’t tell me what that means for me. I’ve even tried to rephrase it to “seeking God, and he will make his Greatness know.” Then I was like, “how do I seek God?” I can read. I can pray. I can do all the things, but that doesn’t translate to motion, movement towards something. It feels like I’m trying to peer pressure God to showing up in my life. That doesn’t seem right to me. Since I can’t grasp this big vision, this far out call, it overwhelms me and shuts me down.

I haven’t figured it out yet, so I can’t tell you how I solve it or what the answer is. I can say what I am doing right now. The first thing I did was realize that my emotions were messing everything up. I had to get the idea out of my brain and into the tangible world so I could wrench on it like just like a mechanic on an engine. An an engine is a thing, no emotions. If it is broke, the mechanic works on it until it is fixed. Once it is fixed, it is replace in the car. That is what I’m doing now. When I get this figured out, or at least pointed in the right direction, I’ll write a follow up.