Busyness

I was on such a roll of blogging and now it has been over a month. But beyond marking another blog notch I was really making progress in healing some of my brokenness. What happened? Well, work got really busy for one, and that was actually an answer to prayer for me....my job was so boring that I felt like I was going to die of boredom. In mid September I was "loaned out" to another to department to help with project management. My regular job was Telecom Analyst which had morphed from doing a ton of interesting things to basically doing a tiny bit of this and that, replacing headsets, mundane tasks and hunting for things to do in between killing time on the Internet. I was miserable work-wise, but actually had time to work on improving myself, seeking God, writing poems and such, all while "working."

Since September 20th it has been a whirlwind of activity and I certainly have not been bored. I traveled 3 separtate times to another state to my compainies IT Mecca, so to speak...our IT Operations center...All of three trips were in less than a month period...Ironically enough I said I would love it if I could travel about 3 times a year...I didn't know it would be 3 times in such a short period, and that even included a long planned Promise Keepers conference!....My wife loved that! Well, actually she did very well with our 3 children that she homeschools, her Masters Program and just living...but she was very glad when I got back. I now am leading a project, backup on another and inheriting a new project....The project managment department may keep me for good....

So I went from deadend boredom to a fratic whirlwind of activity. I lost all balance and normalycy and am trying to stagger back into a new "normal." It is quiet in the house: My wife is at class and all 3 kids are asleep...but it was all I could do to resist just zoning out in front of the T.V.....making myself busier. Why do we sometimes do that to ourselves? I find that sometimes I don't want to slow down because then I will have to be silent with myself, alone with my thoughts and alone with God. When I was out of town for work I had the nights to myself. I had an "assignment" so to speak, for counseling. I had a picture that I was to draw. It was a picture of a bridge with one side of left side of it my past and the right side of it my future, I can make it anyway I wanted to make it, and then I needed to put myself somewhere on the bridge, where I think I am in relation to my past and future. After work I found an art store, picked out some drawing paper and some really cool woodless pencils...By the way I like art and various times have drawn and painted....Anyway I was really looking forward to spending a lot of time working on this. I bought the art supplies on the 2nd day of my 2nd trip. That night I went out to eat and later went to a Barnes and Noble that was right accross from my hotel. I set myself up with a Starbucks Coffee at the Barnes & Noble Cafe and then started doing some "practice drawing," sort of to warm up. I found myself drawing a pine tree, I love drawing or painting trees. Well my practice turned into the actual bridge piece with a big pine tree at one end of the bridge. After I finished the tree and some of the bridge that sort of looked like the Golden Gate Bridge, at least in outline, I suddenly started taking the black pencil and scibbling over the whole picture. I blackened the whole page. I kept going back over the tree so it could still be dimly be seen. I also went back over the bridge, that used to be black, with the white pencil so it could be still seen. I also made a broken piece of the bridge falling down into the water and wrote on it, "My Parents Divorce." The whole page was then blackened. I was breathing hard and had to get up and walk around to look at some bridge books. Ironically I found no "bridge books." The whole drawing incident was rather disturbing for me. I had really been looking forward to this excercise, but it shook me up. Before my business trips I was planning on working on my bridge picture every night. I did not work on it again the rest that trip that had 2 more nights. I also did not continue with the picture on my next 3 day trip. I kept being "busy." Stayed late at the office, till about 6:30 a couple of times. Went out to eat, went to other Barnes & Nobles, read some books, wrote in my journal some--I did not open the bag again that contained the picture and pencils, although I packed it and had on my 3rd trip.
I only came back to it on the day I had counseling again. I took a little longer lunch to work on my "homework." I was still disturbed. I started a 2nd and 3rd pagel; each page was more like a snapshot of a point in my life rather than a timeline. Almost two weeks have gone by and I have counseling again this coming Monday and I have been "too busy" to draw any more.

During this past month and half I have I have had a great time with all my new work responsibilities, but I have been hiding from the pain of the past. I have almost been on high with all the new work excitement, almost drunk. The "buzz" of everything has masked my need to look back, to do the hard work of dealing with my pain, my brokenness.....
I need to slow down and draw close to God, so I can hear him above the noise, his voice that is often quiet and whispers...

Psalm 46:10
Be still, and know that I am God