Prodigal Medic....

There is so much pressure right now. Pressure to succeed, pressure to heal, pressure to be someone that I am not always. I am struggling to find my own voice. My tendency is to compartmentalize, internalize and then file whatever is bothering me away in some distant vault in my head, leaving the memories there to explode at a later date, on some poor someone who triggers the same emotion. I have to fight this. I have to understand and realize and give myself permission to be myself, to be social when I want, to withdraw when I want and to not to feel guilty for any of it. I hope that the people around me understand this. I’m not sure that they will. I have this sneaking suspicion that they instead will manufacture all manner of reasons in their heads that I will be found guilty of “friendship treason” aka not sharing what I’m thinking, not giving proper reason or notice, or providing enough details. I was reading in a book the other day by Don Miller about how his friend described being in love. He was talking about how as close as he was to his wife, there was a place that she would never know. I think that in our current churchy/Christian culture, there is a tendency to want to know everything about another person. Sometimes though, the hiding place of a person’s heart and the relationship of working the inner workings of that heart in relation to God needs to be worked out, alone (not lonely), in quiet (not conversation) and in peace (not busyness).