Conflicted & Confessing

I need a place to confess something, and this is the place I've picked.

I don't understand how God loves all his children, all the time.

I actually do believe He does. ...In my head, where I file all my beliefs.
But in my heart, I am needing to admit I don't always feel it.

Oh, and I should clarify: This is not a question of the "do-badders" or the "do-gooders." I can fathom God loving any & all people, regardless of their actions, all the same. I can allow that God loves each individual person, too, distinctly and by name.

But how can he love *me* just the same as someone else who loves Him more?!

The issue I can't get over, just now, is how little I seem to feel, or work at feeling, for all the important stuff. I know it's just awful, awful, never-a-good-idea to do, but I can't help comparing me to others. (Picture two hands over my eyes as I peek from between the fingers.) I shouldn't look around and judge by the outsides, but some days I do! And other people really seem to love Jesus more. They seem to really want to.

And I seem to want nothing in life harder than watching TV.

My goals for the "right now" are truly so much smaller than I envision anyone else's. Any other person of faith's goals, anyway. ...To seek to PERSONALLY know God? To crave His presence? I just want not to stink-it-up at daily life so much.

And, again, the thing that sticks inside and hangs me up is this big disconnect between my head and my heart. They never seem to be on the same page lately.

In my head I feel *I* want to be one of the people getting to know Jesus more. Or I should want to, definitely. But there's something not quite honest about saying I feel this... because I don't really feel... anything at all (except maybe tired) right now.

It's like my interior life has been reduced to one long, dramatic sigh.

The sigh is a bad sign, I know. I remember. It's like my personal gas meter hitting the red zone, my engine temp gauge going far past halfway. When I find myself sighing deeply and often, I know my soul's machinery is not running well. It needs attention. And so I know that, today, I'm not taking good enough care of myself. I'm not using enough time and space to breathe.

And maybe that's why my feelings aren't feeling anything my head thinks they should.

At least I see where I am, on what precipice I stand. Because, recognizing, I'm much less likely to topple over.

I'm also starting to understand, as I write it all out, that I'm asking the wrong question in my deep confessional. It's not about God loving me more or less, at any given time. It *might* be about me making God smile with my effort to love HIM, with all my heart, with all my mind, with all my soul, with all my strength. It might also be about Him waiting for me to ask, waiting for me to allow, waiting for me to feel more of the joy He's ready to give. Maybe God is smiling at crabby, closed-off me even now? I'm not picturing a shared-joke kind of smile, nothing so large that it threatens to break into a grin... but maybe there's a soft and wistful smile for me in Heaven, to let me know He always feels and always cares, even when I think I don't.

Now this thought I like. I confess, I like it very much...