Running into nothing

If you have been following my facebook at all, you know that I've been in kind of a brooding mood lately.  I have been asking myself a lot of questions lately and have been very discontent with myself.  I wondered about this to my mother and her conclusion was that God was preparing me for something.  This struck me because I hadn't considered it before.  It also struck me later when I considered what else God had taught me in the last few years of my life.

He has taught me to do without food, money, comfort and convenience by depriving me of it.

He has taught me to enjoy simplicity by steeping me in it.

He has taught me the value of friendship by starving me for it.

Now he is teaching me the value of honor, valor and service.

I haven't had to use any of these lessons except as I was learning them.  God doesn't teach us things in vain.  I don't think I was a bad person before learning these lessons so it's not like God needed me to change because I was a horrible human being.  I think God is preparing me for something.  Maybe something where I have to do without, be comfortable with simple living, rely on friends, and be honorable and courageous in my service?  I don't know.  Sounds like a tall order.  Especially since he is actually (I feel) calling me away from mission trips and other organized service.

All of those lessons and I am having the most difficult time dealing with this one.  I feel as though I'm on the brink of something.  When I consider this lesson, especially along with all the others, I feel overwhelmed.  Not with fear or anxiety, but with something else.  Frustration maybe.  So I find myself asking some very cheesy questions of myself in pure desperation.  Who am I?  Who is Jonathan Wehmeyer?  What is my purpose?

Prior to this lesson I have been very comfortable with who God has been forming me to be.  It hasn't been easy, but I've always liked that person, now all of a sudden I dislike myself.  Not in a self hating sort of way, I just dislike who I am.  I like who I have the potential to be, but I don't see a path of how to get from who I am to who I could be.

It is difficult because it constantly weighs on my mind.  I am never free of it.  It's not a thought that comes and goes and it isn't ever in the back of my mind.  It's always front and center.  I can't think of anything else.  When I'm asleep, watching a movie, checking my email, giving a lecture, talking on the phone.  It doesn't matter. Ack.

I have been running from time to time.  I feel a little better on the inside when I do.  Almost as if running, training my body, is the first step in that journey.  Generally, in terms of what I'll do, running is what I think about.  I don't always run.  I miss it when I am too lazy to do it.  It's the one thing I've been looking forward to today.

Well, anyway.  There's my frustration.  No, I don't feel better now that I've gotten it off my chest.  It still presses on me.  Making it hard to breath.  I thought, perhaps, it was worth sharing with everyone else though.  How do you deal with a change that you are being pressed toward and desire greatly but cannot achieve?