I have been feeling this feeling that I can only name as akin to when I have had the stomach flu. You know when you feel it coming on, but you are hoping against hope that you can override the unrest. You keep it at bay, even though the keeping it at bay takes effort and makes things worse in one way. You don’t want to go there. You want to hold off as long as you can. Then, finally it is just too much and you give in. The process is messy. It tastes awful. It smells awful {sorry girls} and yet, when you finally let go of all the junk you’ve been holding together inside, there is this feeling of freshness where there was résistance and suppression.
Grief. It’s kind of
like the stomach flu.
Some people who know me in my day to day life might find it
odd that I am writing about grief. They
might say, “I didn’t know you had a death in the family or another loss
recently.” That’s the thing. It’s not recent. Well, there were recent injuries that set
this chain in motion, but those are not the big chunks of grief which have been
haunting me – taunting me. I’ve been
avoiding them more than processing them and when I do touch the injured places
I feel like I’m touching a hot ball of lava – the tears come so readily. For a girl who is great at helping others find
peace in their own journey, I can really keep vulnerability and difficult
emotions stifled until they just won’t hold.
Weakness was never safe for me. I only survived by being stronger than the
pain. And I would think, maybe you would
think, that after seventeen years on a specific healing journey with an
amazingly supportive mentor walking alongside me I would be so free I would be
through it all. I always wanted a
graduation from the muck. I learned a
while back that my goal isn’t to graduate, but to grow. And grow I did. God stepped in time and again - into dark and
ugly memories – into cavernous wounds and barren, hopeless hurts and He brought
Himself into those places.
You would think after all of that freedom and restoration
and redemption I would be jumping up and down, “pick me, pick me!” when it came
to the next round of healing. I would
think that too. But what I am finding is
far different than my expectations. Each
journey of the heart has been risky and difficult. Each pain I touch feels like it could consume
me with fiery lava. Why do I dance
around this stuff instead of diving into the deep end? I find ways to distract myself, to provide
temporary comfort, to keep it all in a safe and tidy bundle while
functioning. But at certain points it
stares me in the face threatening to unravel big.
And God, He just refuses to leave me here in “good enough,”
“far enough” “functional enough” “useful enough.” He wants more. He is relentless in His care for the
innermost places. He waits and He woos
and every so often He applies a little pressure to bring things to the surface
which I wanted to keep buried and gone.
Just this morning I was touching the places that are longing
for more healing and I felt I couldn’t write.
When I think of writing this for anyone to read I picture people who
have rejected me and I feel too small to type.
Then I hear His whisper – “write for Me … Focus on Me not them. I will hold you. I, Myself, will stand in the gap to protect
you as you do.” And, I get a glimpse of
His plan and the vision He is longing for within me.
It has been many years
since I felt the fear that He was out to get me – the angry Old Testament God
Who was standing by with lightning bolts in hand and me wearing a T-shirt with
the Target logo emblazoned upon it. My perception of Him harkened back to the blows which sent me sailing into walls and
furniture, the belt coming off pants then raised over me in unrestrained anger about
something like me playing with a balloon and irritating him with the noise it
made. Those scenes were transposed onto
God somehow and I feared Him – not in the biblical way, but deep in my unspoken
places. How can a Father be safe if my
father was so unraveled in rage? How
could a parent be effective if my mother couldn’t stop him and she did her own
version of damage when he was away? God
has to contend with this residue in my relationship with Him – it has been a
wall of the thickest variety between us and then that wall transformed into a
bridge brick by brick over time by which I tentatively walked nearer to find
Him completely and unexpectedly different than anyone I know or will know. Safe, oh no, He isn’t tame. But good … He is very,
very good. I only wish I could express the goodness He has shown me here in black and white.
When the dawn is breaking over the hills, yet it is dark,
you have hope, the glimmer that something bigger and brighter is coming. The unknown is on the horizon – hiding
promise and something never yet tasted.
He says, “Behold, I am doing a new thing.” Yes, He remains the same, but His new thing
is constant. He is bringing us to places
unchartered in our souls. He walks us
into greater freedom and love. The
journey there is not without peril and pain.
As a matter of fact we don’t get there on the high and easy roads. We must go by way of the cross. This is something I have understood only a
little and I imagine I have yet to understand it much more than I do now.
The cross. I must die
to be reborn. I must go into the pain,
not away from it.
The pain is the way of redemption. As He wanted His cup to pass, so do I. And, yet, there I stand, with Him in the
Garden, saying, “Not my will, but Thine be done.” For the joy set before Him Jesus endured the
cross. This joy – the joy of redeeming
lost souls – this was worth the physical pain of crucifixion and the emotional
and spiritual torture of separation from the Father.
So I sit, overwhelmed with self-created messes from over-commitment
in my life. Projects needing completion,
demands from others on my time and life, possessions scattered across our back
porch from when the moths invaded our pantry two weeks ago all remind me of the
uncontrollable overcrowding in my heart.
I can feel as unsettled and scattered as those miscellaneous items
strewn across an otherwise purposeful table.
I long to have more of myself to give and more time to spend
creating.
I must declutter my
heart.
I must allow Him into the clutter to teach me His ways and
lead me to become both more and less in Him.
This is His gentle invitation.
And I hear His whisper – life can be different, very, very
different – but you have to trust Me and there will be big changes in how you
use the word, “no.” I am catching the
vision God has for me and how I move in life.
It’s the letting go that is so hard.
Ever stop to see the white knuckle hold you have on the status quo, no
matter how uncomfortable and ugly parts of that reality are? I feel Him, gently prying my fingers away in
invitation to allow Him space to make things different. When I look up and see Him, I soften and give
way. But when I recoil in old fear I
grasp even harder. I long to let go and
answer His call, but there is a chasm of unknown between here and there. And this journey – this time around – this is
between me and Him. I don’t have a
soul-journer at my side. I don’t have
the comfort of a mother figure in the faith holding my hand through the darker
waters. I don’t have the affirmation
that all is well from outside myself. I could gather that up and muster some
sort of support, but instead I hear Him now.
This call is for me alone. I need
to be strong enough to be weak. I need
to let go alone.
Photos Courtesy of WikiCommons
Photos Courtesy of WikiCommons
