Seeking Numbness

Sometimes when i feel drained physically and emotionally, i long for a numbness...

i suppose that's why many people escape into tv land.
where the make-believe lives of others work out somehow, whether you move or not.
where u can look at forever-motivated superheroes working tirelessly in hospitals, crime scenes, homes, and you can relish their successes with them. nothing depends on you, you are not responsible. u don't have to smile, nor listen, nor talk if you don't feel like it. u don't have to try to understand if u don't wanna. they won't get hurt, nor will there be any other consequences.

taken to extreme, this numbness we sometimes seek is a little like being dead isn't it?
it's like a temporary pretense that nothing in this moment matters.
Maybe that's what "relieve stress" is about to some... to escape from the reality that every moment has a consequence.

i resort to escaping sometimes.
hours parked in front of the tv, crying away with some serial.
surfing n reading about anything and anyone.
chocolates, bread, comfort food.
gyming or running the day away.
shopping, dancing, reading...

but after it's all done, as the numbness recedes, the aching tiredness returns.

usually i feel a little worse from the guilt of the time wasted or empty calories consumed. come to think of it, only gyming, running and dancing makes me feel better, coz they give the body a boost of energy and the brain some adrenaline.

Really.
there is no short cut is there.
we are meant to know, we are meant to be aware.
and i wouldn't wanna be so used to a numbed-out life that i become enslaved to the fantasy world.

just now as i walked down the stairs back to the staff room, i had that sense of tiredness again. long week behind, long weekend still ahead. fully-packed days, fully packed nights. feel like spacing out, yet i can't let my students down, can't let my kids down, and yet, don't wanna just choose an easy life out.
i felt an inner scream to escape again... chocs! movies! holidays!

then i heard God telling me to go to him.

so i came back to my desk, and read several pages from a book of Bible Promises, and... as i read, God talked to me. Through the verses i read, and also through that familiar soundless voice, that familiar sensing from deeper-than-within ... and it is only at that place that i can ever be really lifted from everything.

"When our spirits aren't all well,
we can sense it.

it's like feeling a pain when our finger touches a flame-

it's for our good that it hurts!

Escapism, Fantasy, Indulgence.
They come in and try to be pseudo-Gods,

trying to trick us into thinking they are the solutions

to the tiredness or aches or emptiness in our hearts.

But we can let those pains and aches work for our good,

if we would respond by turning to God,

in prayer, in the Word, in worship.
and the healing would be deep and real."