unsettled.

What is this beast wreaking havoc inside of me? This restlessness that has me nearly undone? Is it just because its spring? Is it just because every year since I was five I’ve been in a rhythm of structure that lends itself to unraveling about this time of the season? I speak of school, of course. It’s the first spring I have not been in school and usually this drive to run away can be associated with a pile of books, a few huge papers to write, and dreaded exams looming in the near future. But this year, this spring, I can’t tell you why in the world I want to run away. I guess the thing that really bothers me is that restlessness doesn’t just haunt me in the spring. It wraps its chilly fingers around my being far more often than that. It has for years.

I finally started cleaning my room this morning, after three days of intending to but never following through. Most days I love cleaning. I love the fully satisfied feeling that settles when something goes from filthy to spic and span with just a bit of sweat. Today, though, I had to force myself to put away my laundry, pick up my scattered belongings and fit them into drawers and shelves. You want to know why I had to force myself? Because the whole time I was fighting back an overwhelming urge to just pull out a few boxes and start packing up. The other urge I was fighting was to start putting half my stuff in a bag to take to Goodwill. Maybe its because for the last three springs, in the middle of studying for exams I’ve been packing to move out of a dormitory. I’ve had seven different bedrooms in the last four years.

“I-I-I gotta get out of here...” Its a line from a song. I can’t tell you who sings it. I just know it plays over and over in my head way too often. I want to run away. I just want out. I can’t tell you why. I have no idea. There’s no reason on the planet that I should feel this way. I have a good, good, good life. Especially now. Especially here. I can’t tell you what I want to run away from or what I want out of. I just know there’s an ache boring a hole in my chest right now, and a scream is welling up inside of me.

Sometimes I wonder to myself if I could really escape. I mean really run away in such a way that no one would know where I am. Which is silly. Ridiculous actually. I love my family, I love my friends, I love the spiritual family God’s put me in. I love being with people, even! Actually I would absolutely hate living by myself. But I wonder. Often, these days, actually. I wonder if I could disappear. Not forever maybe. Just for a while.

Ahh God. I remember a day when You so wrecked me that escape meant a plunge into a sea of fascination with You. I remember months and seasons going by where running only meant getting to You faster and disappearing only meant having You to myself in utter enlightenment. I remember moment after moment where seeking a thrill meant another outburst of Your freaky divine intervention in my life.

Lord! The hole threatens to consume me. Will You rescue me from myself once more?

Lindsay, I search you and know you. I know when you sit and when you rise up. I know your thoughts far before you do. I’ve searched out your path and I know when you lie down. I know all of your ways. Even before a word is on your tongue, I know it. I hem you in, behind and before. I have My hand on you. Such knowledge is too wonderful for you; its high and you cannot grasp it.

Where can you go from My Spirit? Where can you flee from My Presence? If you fly up and up, I’m soaring with you. If you make your bed in Hell, I come and spend the night. If you discover places no man has been, even there My hand is holding you and leading you. If you say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me and the light about me be night.” Daughter, even the darkness is not dark to Me. The night is as bright as the day to Me. Darkness is as light to Me.

For I formed you on the inside. I knit you together while you were still in Darla’s womb. You are intricately and specifically fashioned. Your frame was never hidden from Me. When you were being made in secret, when no human being knew who you were or who you could be, My eyes saw you. My eyes saw your potential, your dreams, your destiny. Your days I wrote out in My journal, every single last one of them! You should see the things I have written about you, Linds! My thoughts about you are vast in number. You couldn’t count them any faster than you could count the sand on the beach. When you wake and when you sleep, you are always on My mind.
-psalm 139