Calling Out

It felt like yesterday when I wrote my last blog. I guess it's because life is normal, everything is the same, and all you have to do to get through the day is to follow the motions. But today was different. Something changed. A big something. My parents left me in charge of the house for a week.

Yes, they went on a trip and I'm home alone. I bet you're thinking, "So what? I stay home alone all the time." But have you slept alone, eaten alone, gone to school alone, and come back to an empty house for a week?

It's only my first day alone. They left this morning. I dropped them off at the airport, saw them walk into the terminal, and I was alone.

At first, when I thought of being alone, I thought of FREEDOM!! and no parents nagging me to do my homework or no parents making me eat dinner with them, or having to do a chore for my mom and dad.

But when the time actually came, reality sunk in.

I guess there was always a feeling of protection towards my parents and how they were close to me and would be my "knights in shining armor" because without them, I found out that I'm lost.

Lost in a world bigger than homework, bigger than my cello, bigger than my house. I had to function like an adult, making sure I ate properly, feeding my dogs, taking out the trash, and driving constantly to and fro without a guardian. I feel small. Smaller than small, tiny.

When I was with my parents, there was laughter, conversation, and a happy vibe around the house. Well, now the house is silent. Nothing is heard but the clicks of the keyboard throughout the house.

To be honest, it kind of scares me. I jump at the sound of car doors being shut by my neighbors even when I know it's them. My senses are all heightened and I can feel everything going around me, the air conditioner blowing, the keyboard with the stickers falling off, the quiet hum of the computer running.

At that point, I began to think about how God was always there, and was always protecting me. How he is always present in our lives, and all we have to do is reach out and grasp him.

The troubling thought is, we don't always go to grab him. We don't go to reach out and call for his presence. We only want him when there's something troubling going on.

But why not reach out even when there isn't something troubling? What keeps us from doing that?

As I thought about that for a while, I came to a conclusion. A quite startling one in fact.

We treat God like crap.

We call upon him when WE need something and when we don't we throw him aside like a broken toy. We trash him and put him in the junk pile, until we need it again, and so we pull him out and reuse him. Then, after all is said and done, God goes back to the trash.

God is not something disposable. He is everlasting. He supports us and helps us in the hard moments, and we praise him for that. But what we have to learn is that we can and must call out to him even in the great moments of life. We have to learn to be able to call Him any time, any place, and constantly.

Without that longing for God through the good times, the relationship between us and Him dwindles, until it finally disappears. Sure, our connection in tough times is strong, but if our connection through the good times is nonexistent, we distance ourselves from God. There has to be a constant connection between us and God for it to remain strong.

I know that I'm struggling with these very concepts. Even just last week, my days were fine, nothing bad happened, and there was no connection between me and God. Well, after the feelings of fear of being alone, I called out to Him. I called out to Him in my time of need. I NEEDED him. When I didn't need him, I practically forgot about Him.

I know now that I have to be constantly reaching out throughout the good and the bad times, stressing and rejoicing constantly with God, for without the constant connection, the relationship I long for between God and me is corrupt, hollow, and brittle.

hahaha I hope this made sense.

To my journal,

Phil