Look Up!

About a month ago, I had another one of those “down days”, where nothing seems to go right and no one seems to understand. And in the midst of my turmoil I wrote something:

“Do you see who I am
Through this smiling façade?
Do you only see laughter?
Or can you feel all the rage?
………

Are you careful enough
To be able to see
The hiding, the crying,
Misunderstood me?
………

Do you look at me as if
I’m just one in a crowd?
Do your eyes pass me over
Like I’m not around?
………

Am I unseen, unknown,
And invisible, too?
Or am really worth something –
Am perhaps real to you?
………

Are you careful enough
To be able to see
The hiding, the crying,
Misunderstood me?”

It is a pretty tragic thing, being a teenage girl. Sure, guys have all these problems, too, but come on – it is the girls who own the real heart-wrenching stuff. Guys, imagine all your troubles, except magnified ten times over and in a slight shade of pink – that is called “girl problems”. [Except mine is the shade of blue.]

Sometimes it seems like everything is just going to completely smash me down. [Sort of like those ads about migraine where this lady gets knocked out in her office cubicle by some giant meteor and all you see of her are her two skinny red-hosed red-heeled feet sticking out from under the rock like the wicked witch’s.] It feels wicked painful, and it’s brought on by pretty much anything. Seriously, anything. [Do not confuse this with PMS. It is not the same. I do not know what the difference is, but I am sure they are not the same.]

We girls will roll up and have a good cry, or, if you are like me, go lie in your bed and wail like a banshee:

“WHY? Why did this have to happen to me? Of all the colors I could have worn, I wore yellow and green next to each other! How un-artistic! I will never show my face again!”

Okay, well, that is grossly exaggerated, but it is pretty much what we do. For whatever reason we feel down, it really, really hurts. We feel like we will never get over it, and that our lives are ruined forever.

[But in my cases, I am usually up and running within a couple hours, having completely forgotten the incident and sure to do it again the next day.]

Why is it that we are so sensitive? Maybe because God made us that way. WAIT! - This is not an excuse to allow you to do whatever you carrotly want for the sake of being female. All I am saying is that God made us more sensitive to things, more able to understand and sympathize with anything unrelated to sports. [Okay, the last part of that sentence is made up.] But we are made that way, and after we have a good howl, we feel pretty stupid for having many a pimple out of blackhead.

And, I am not quite sure where I am going with this note. I am not even sure why I started writing this. I was flipping through my jotbook looking for something legible and I found the song and got to thinking. Which does not happen often.

EITHER WAY! Maybe I was trying to offer encouragement to those who felt or feel the same way I did when I wrote the song. Well, if that is what I was going to do, I guess I had better start:

You are not alone!

This phrase brings memories of late nights with the family watching Hook. In the movie, Peter Pan’s children are kidnapped by the idiotic Hook and his yellow-teethed crew. All seems like certain sadness when Hook devises a plan to capture Peter Pan as well and kill them all. But Pan’s daughter, a cute little girl with a sound mind, makes a poignant scene as she stands facing the sea in her trapped state and sings “The stars are all my friends / Till the nighttime ends / So I know I'm not alone / When I'm here, on my own. / Isn't that a wonder? / When you're alone / You're not alone / Not really alone.” I am sure that as a child I cried at least once every time I saw that movie, and it still brings back a sort of inspiration. When you’re alone, you’re not really alone…

You are not alone.

That is something that I normally cringe at saying, because when one is in “mourning”, it is hard to accept that fact; all we want to do is feel lonely and relish in the moment of tragic despair only found in Shakespeare. Yet it is true; you are not alone. If we will only look up out of our massive cloud of self-pity, we will see just how many family members and friends we really do have. It is hard for me to do, but sometimes, I just have to suck my feelings up and remember that there is always someone out there who really does care for me. And if an ice cream truck runs over all your friends and family, hey, God is still there!

[Whether or not you believe in God is an entirely different matter and I am sure we could have an interesting discourse on it later, but that would best be handled in fbook messages or e-mails.]

God is always there for you. It is not until after the storm that we realize He has been there the whole time, cradling you in the palm of His hand, sheltered by His love.

Look up! He is there!

And He loves you. Even I sometimes choose to neglect that piece of fact; I found another song in my jotbook about how “there is no love in the world” and I am rather ashamed of that page of LIES. I choose not to see it when I am angry, but whether or not we choose to see something makes no difference to whether or not it exists.

God exists. His love exists.

“Great is Thy faithfulness!
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided;
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!”

Our crying and our turning of our faces makes no difference; God is here for us. Our childishly purposeful ignoring of His existenalism is only hurting outselves. Face the fact. Turn to Him for help in all your troubles.

God is here.