Diary of a Lonely Heart

.s.incer.e. (88) presents….

^{THE DIARY OF A LONELY HEART}

As Told By: Marcus Christopher Hollinger

Loneliness is defined as being affected with, characterized by, or causing a depressing feeling of being alone; or lonesome. The medical classification: one who cannot properly assess, manage, or deal with others emotions properly or otherwise remain disconnected from social interactions for lack of good psychological equipment as well as basic commitment can be likened unto or understood as: Asperger’s Disease.

Journal Entry 1: The Opening Leak

In all honesty, I wrote this first section to kick my exposition off to expose this past of being a hidden hypochondriac and a self-analytical ‘I’ll figure me out, if it’s the last thing that I do!’ type of person I used to be. In all seriousness guys and gals; In my past, I made many empty attempts to psychoanalyze myself to try and figure out what was wrong with me and why I couldn’t be who I wanted to be or at least who I felt like I could be, or who I really was or even what the media was over-influencing me to be like. I thought that if I had enough knowledge about what could be going on that was wrong inside of me that I could better deal with my emotions and conditions and find a way to properly ‘grow up’ or what have you, and live my life freely, to do what I ultimately saw fit to. Sadly, I was only fooling myself into thinking that complex lofty thought, an understanding of medicines, reading scholarly journals and peer reviewed writing columns, science and other medical dictionaries, interviews by doctors and intellectuals on YouTube and Wikipedia articles partnered with a myriad of random Google searches, would assist and temporarily satisfy my longing to know, who I am, why I’m here, and what causes me to feel like I do, and what can I do to change things in my life. I never could answer these questions for myself. Even when I found some sense of security, identity and comfort inside of the church that I was raised in, at the end of the day, ultimately, if I was honest enough with myself, I would have found my lived out freedom in Christ a lot sooner. But instead, I would escape back into a place of clandestine emotional listlessness (a downward spiral of thought and feeling) that would afford for me the opportunity to play cat and mouse with so many thoughts of suicide, hate, fornication, and Sac-Religious mind traps. Understand that these thoughts were not all at the same time in my life and they ranged throughout my life based upon varying circumstances and life milestones as well as discrepancies. So put more plainly, I knew how to mask my issues and live on, as if nothing was going on in my head, but I secretly harbored unresolved pain from years of personal and social negligence. In fact, I dealt with it so well, that I developed good enough façade that not only fooled the people around me into thinking that I was ok, but I also found a way to start this process of denying my heart. It was very difficult of a road to walk, because at my core was a need and a sense, like everyone else in the world, to not only receive love, but to reciprocate it. I had a lot of love in my heart, a lot of it. I really did. In fact, it’s never died; but I possessed a mentality of victimizing myself that was disturbing enough to break my trust in so many people that I’ve lived with throughout my life. It’s like I would never give someone enough time to understand me. I would understand people and learn people and want them in my life, so quickly, because of my void of loneliness; but I wouldn’t give them grace to do the same thing unless it was in my time frame of life. So I would unconsciousness judge people for their short comings and ultimately become hurt by it, even though I was always patterning myself to deal with this mess of a mindset.

(Selfishness)

You see i realized that I'm selfish today

sad thing is that i always knew this truth

but I'll finally, honestly say

That i blew it with my friendships

i dropped the ball multiple times

when you asked for my opinions

around my heart i drew the line

and kept back the real me

'cause i was convinced that you'd reject me

and force me out of your life

and teach yourself to just forget me

'cause i didn't fit your mold

of who i was supposed to be

i knew you back and forth

but you never knew me

i wasn't good enough for the birthday invites

left alone in the back of classrooms

and picked on by you at lunchtime

feeling like the size of a cashew

intimidated by your demeanor

so I ostracized myself

to a place of leaking faces

crying and begging for help…

selfish

helpless

unprotected

ill-effected

stricken

afflicted

restricted

constantly hit with

intricate

clippings

from misfits

and big kids

drowning in sorrow

only reaching to get lifted...

Loneliness was stricken unto me for such a long time, that it was my tried and true black cloud that would never cease to stop following me. No matter where I went, it would ultimately find some way of reminding me that at the end of the day, no matter what happens, we’re gonna be the couple of choice and inextricably woven until the end of time. And I believed it, and it’s truly been the longest lasting battle besides codependency that I’ve had to battle for my entire life. In fact, codependency stemmed from my loneliness. But because of my mindset that was put onto me at an early age (the victim mentality) it was easy to sit in that mess of life and not really do anything about it. Many people who struggle with loneliness also have a victim mentality. They almost work hand in hand. It works like this. I had something happen to me in my past, and it’s effecting how I live my life now. I’ve been told that I am needed and I’m of great worth to someone but yet I won’t fully accept it because I want the chase of someone to follow after me. I want zeal and a passion to consume me and to pursue me. But when it comes I’ll decide how much of myself that I want to give out, because unless I’m understood in the way that I want, and how I want it done, I don’t want it. But the fact that its coming gives me a little bit or maybe even some satisfaction; but it’s not good enough. The truth is, how good is good enough? Try pleasing an inconsistent list of good deeds?? – Good luck lol. But seriously this mindset creates the most consistent form and pattern of ultimately being lonely. It’s a way of wanting everyone to meet your impossible list of standards and when they can’t you drop ‘em. There are some expectations that we place on people that the other people often times have no clue they’re being held up to, and we create an opportunity of losing people that if we understood what ramifications it held, we would stop being such selfish introverts and start opening up to the people that we need the most…

.i.ntroverted

I always feel this way

I feel as if everything I submit to others

Selfishly gets thrown away

I feel like I submit love and acceptance

Understanding and good moral

To people that I know or once knew

And yet they step all over my shoes

I feel like what I give is never what I get back

No matter what I try to do

I always get back from people

An attack

I let myself die to wants, desires and needs

And try to open myself up

As a safety net to people

But they trample over me like leaves

They chew me up and spit me out

Over and over again

And never think about

My feelings

My wishes

My stance or my opinion

They even try to get slick

By asking what I think

But I know it’s just another facade

Another way of pacifying me

Just long enough

So they think that I won't think what I could be thinking

But it’s past too late

You always know how a person see's you by the way that they respond

And this black cloud of hate always keeps me from seeing dawn

'Cause I once was a spawn

A fawn of emotional freedom and recompense

But these feelings I have now

Kept me at bay, ever sense

The first foreshadow of dealing with the human condition arrived

I was so ill equipped I would constant duck down

Run and hide

Because good character and moral won't deal with this type of malice

It's only a fruit of what’s on the inside

But I've forever long been so good at dealing with the outside

Rather than the inside

I tried to look like I had it all together

And tried to be a really good person

I tried to help people throughout it all too

But it's impossible to do this and succeed

Because sin has a festering, perpetual, unstoppable bleed

That can't be fixed by merely making life changes

It can only be fixed by being inter fixed, betwixt the Love of the Most High

You'll die if you love politics

And you'll waste your life trying to be good on your own standards

Like I used to

I tried and tried

But my heart was so seared

I was afraid of letting people know what I was dealing with

Because they already had me on such a high petastool anyway

I just lived up to their expectations

And dealt with it all

Introverted

The place where I became misguided and perverted

In shackles of oppression

The place that I dare not enter

But constantly go...

Just like anything in life, habits create characteristics that define lifestyles. It’s a scary truth that I never really grasped when I first heard it. It’s sobering to know that behavior modification will dictate to the people around us who we are, what we’re about, what we allow and what we stand for. The only way I can call someone a thief if by way of a pattern of behavior traits and dispositions that I’ve identified with him and know him for. Thus is the same way in loneliness. We know lonely people by their actions and if we’re not free ourselves we can become succumb by it, because misery loves company. But the truth is that Christ is the way out! Christ knows the taste of loneliness…

Matthew 26:36-46 –“Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” 37 He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38 Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” 39 Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” 40 Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter. 41 “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.” 42 He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.” 43 When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. 44 So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing. 45 Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour is near, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. 46 Rise, let us go! Here comes my betrayer!”

He even cried out on the cross, “Father why have you forsaken me?” The son of the living God asking the one who sent Him to the earth, why did he leave him alone in his time of need. Especially when the ones who he called friends deserted him and were ashamed of him thereafter; When He needed people the most, they abandoned Him and had to reason or connection enough to come for him. They didn’t understand the reasoning for his death when it happened either. They were just terrified and couldn’t do anything to help Him. It was so sad but God had to absorb His own wrath and deal with his anguish…alone. Apart from His manifested unique relationship he had with His creation. So what’s makes us even begin to think that God isn’t faithful enough to heal us in our inner most parts? Who are we to think that He doesn’t know! He knows! He knows every scar and every detail and every need to be met in and for your life…

It’s truly apart of the web of life and the proof that the human condition is in need of a Savior who can empower us to live like He lives and Love like He loves. It’s the human condition to only be concerned with self-preservation and only concerned about what happens for you. It’s a perspective of being victimized that will allow you to keep everything in you at bay from others, when they want to do everything to help you…

I eventually asked the Lord to show me ME, and don’t hold anything back from me. I asked Him to expose my heart, and if you’re really real like the pastor said you were, not only would you depict to me, my insides in their entirety (because you’re all-knowing) but you would give me the way out like you’re word says that you do for the one’s you love (healer and chain breaker). And He did just that, but only when I finally humbled myself out, without fleecing God and truly asked Him for His ear and His voice. Nothing else; I had to start learning how to go after His heart and stop asking for His hand. That’s why my answer was prolonged. After my years of church exploits, Christendom, ‘knowing what I was supposed to do’ – that’s what my theology has afforded me. I was a spiritual brat and the only active member of the lonely hearts club. And on some real talk, it just plainly sucked. It sucked to know that there were just as many reasons for me to feel justified in my loneliness as there were for me to be ashamed of even entertaining the feeling of being lonely. That’s why I needed a Savoir...

But this is the truth to all of you readers who feel alone, forgotten, scared, and left for dead, a church casualty, walking in a sea of faces, overlooked, shunned, pushed away, ill-mentioned of, spoken badly about, lied on, cheated on, not given what you gave back, unrightfully done to, spit on, mocked, hated, feared, ostracized, dichotomized, or excommunicated – The Lord’s blood runs deeper than our chains. And the truth is, the more we focus on what we have going on around us, the longer will we overlook the real situation at hand in our mind and hearts. The truth about being lonely is that the first channel of freedom comes the Cross of Christ and the more you run from that, the more you’ll continue to really just fool yourself in thinking that you can get over this psychological cancer that’s still ripping apart hearts and ruining solid relationships today as it has for 1000’s of years. The second channel of freedom comes from knowing who you are in Christ, because you were worthy enough for the shed blood of Jesus to be spilled for, so know that just because people fail at remembering your worth, your eternal worth (which is much more important anyway) will never cease to be His first thoughts of you. You have a God who is jealous for you and wants you to put your problems at His feet and watch Him walk you through all of it, as you spend time knowing Him and adopting His ways. The third channel of freedom comes from going to the people who have wronged you and asking them for forgiveness. This is crucial and it takes a lot of tenacity and humility to do this. Especially when you feel like they were the ones who wronged you; you didn’t do anything! But this isn’t the case. At the core of every lonely person is a seed of bitterness and unforgiveness (no matter how big or small) and if it doesn’t get put to light, it eventually begins to grow into a tree, with roots that will get deeper and deeper as you continue to justify your actions. The fourth channel is to live and move and have your being in Christ in all that you do, and to guard your heart in all diligence because out of it flows the issues of life. (Acts 17:28 and Proverbs 4:23) This could be the most important one because when you come out of this pain, there are too many devils targeted towards you now because you have the keys to life. You must walk freely but you also have to guard your heart against other people’s baggage, hurts and everything else that could upset you enough to lead you back into your formal state.

Trust that none of this is possible without time spend with God, reading the word, and being so filled up with Agape Love, that you can’t get mad J My intent with this project is to point you towards Christ, to expose my condition and to show you how I got out. Because truthfully, I didn’t fully come out until this summer. Yep. Summer of  2012. The Lord told me earlier in the year, that a baby was going to be born on my birthday. And I wasn’t 100 percent sure what He meant by that. I mean we had a married couple in the church that was expecting children close to my birthday, but I didn’t give it much thought either than that. But now I see what He meant. He was referring to me and my psychological state. A man is finally being buried and a baby is being born on my birthday this year and naturally speaking – for the first time in my life, do I really feel like I’m turning my age and hitting the first mile stone in my life on my Birthday. Most birthday’s throughout my entire life, were pretty similar – in fact the only birthday that was seemingly significant to me was my 21^st birthday – in which I celebrated being with the Lord for 3 months in my relationship with Him. But this July a new person and a new chapter and a new opportunity is coming out  – not resurrected, but shaped, sculpted and handmade (brand new). And I’m more than stoked, because truthfully, I’ve never cried this much in my entire life. This whole year has been tears of dealing with my heart and being honest before God and letting Him work out the catacombs in my heart and breaking ground up to finally come to its original purpose: to bear fruit as the Spirit wills. I really appreciate you all for staying with me this far and I pray that if you feel the same loneliness that I’ve felt, Google www.biblegateway.com and search John Chapter 1 and start to ask the Lord to begin to reveal Himself to you. And don’t waste your time with God, He loves you. Dive into Him if you you’re hurting or hungry for more of Him and He will meet you where you’re at and bring you back to His banquet table, a place that you were born to be at.

This concludes part one of The Diary of The Lonely Heart the second installment of my 5 ‘freedom’ installments – and I invite you to dive into the poems and the rest of the project.

This is what I want to say to conclude this body of work. Being by yourself is not the same thing as being alone. There is nothing wrong with enjoying time spent without other people giving your life influence. In fact, you should plan that kind of time. But the void of feeling like you’ll never have anybody to share life with, or that no one cares about you, or that you’re not good enough, or that you’re not strong enough; are thoughts that breed poison into your life and baggage to your testimony. I’ve purposed in my heart that before I got married, I would let God strip me down and streamline my faith and my life so that I would really be an offering to my wife and before God. I want to be the best husband for her. I want her to have a new reason to fall in love with me every single day. I want nothing from my past, AT ALL, to try and come and choke out what we now have. And my prayer is that she does the same. And if she’s worth it like I’ve concluded that she is, then nothing will stop my investments in Calvary and in the Heart of God as well as her heart. I put my trust in the power that not only saves souls, but heals and restores hearts as well. And I can tell you today that the Lord really has been good to me in more ways than one and I’m in debt to continue my life in Him, because that’s really the only way to give Him maximum thanks and praise is to follow Him now that you’ve been adopted into His family. That was the hardest thing for me to understand. When my FCFC family broke up, I had many bouts with loneliness. Even though I had some people in my life that knew what I was going through, like I said earlier, I was a brat, and I wasn’t really satisfied because I was so mad at God for never giving me what I felt like I deserved. I mean come on God; this is the closest thing to family that I’ve ever seen! What are you doing? And why me and not another? Haven’t I gone through enough negligence in my life? Why doesn’t someone else feel this pain for once? Why can’t I have an off day? Why aren’t the other Christians around me having to live by the same thing? How come I can’t always say what I’m feeling? I want to say what I feel too! I want to have a safety net in someone to where I can express my deepest of shames and secrets and know that they won’t judge me, because they hold the reflection of my heart…

I would as God things like this from 2006-2012. And it wasn’t until now that He really brought me into a place of freedom and recompense that my heart truthfully, had been dodging because of the fear of being exposed. With the loneliness followed trust issues. I couldn’t trust anybody with my heart anymore, and before I moved to Tampa last September in all honesty, my heart was closed down for repairs. I shut it down. And up until this past Christmas break did I really learn what it means to get honest before God about the garbage of my past. All of my past. I had to break this mold and I had to find out what the Lord was telling me all along in His love letter to me, also called the Bible. He was telling me to truthfully let go, and let Him break me free and loose me from my past, and awaken me into this new life of perpetual celebrated freedom and declarations of faith, hope and love. And the greatest of these, is love.

You are not alone.

You are not forgotten.

You are not left for dead.

You have hope.

You have life.

And you are loved.

God knows your name, your circumstance, your likes, and your past.

And it still will not separate Him from pursuing you in your entirety.

In fact, you are the single most important person in the universe.

And no one can do what you can do.

Welcome to the Kingdom brothers and sisters.

The Diary of the Lonely Heart of Marcus Christopher Hollinger