Desperate

How is it that I left my bed for all of 3 hours today and I’m utterly exhausted? The world seems more and more foreboding every day. The thought of interacting with another human being clenches my heart with anxiety. I’m so tired.

It’s weird to know that my increasing pain scares people. Apparently my ability to put emotions on paper is disconcerting. Honestly, what I write isn’t even close to the depth and breadth of what’s going on inside. It couldn’t be captured with language, layers upon layers upon layers of fractured consciousness embedded with still-explosive shrapnel. There are some places inside me that I still can’t touch. They’re like white hot metal. I try to get a grip but the burns are too severe. It’s just not possible. I sometimes turn to these places for brief seconds, like testing the heat of an iron with your fingers. I despair because I don’t think they’ll ever cool to a point where I can touch much less diffuse them.

I was reading a ministry blog today. The author is experiencing a season of deep pain. She didn’t divulge details but she explained how God fed her through the sermon at her home church that Sunday. The sermon was about being in a place of needing God, of being powerfully aware of that need and how that is a blessing. Surprisingly I did not throw my computer across the room (though I contemplated it). God has been speaking to me about thankfulness, about adopting an attitude of thankfulness to Him NOW. I’d be a big fat nasty liar if I said I am there. The last two mornings I have uttered prayers of thankfulness through tightly gritted teeth. I absolutely don’t feel it but I’m trying so so hard to follow His lead. I’m trying to trust that if He is prescribing thankfulness it is the bandage my hemorrhaging heart needs. I hope that at some point the prayers of gratitude will flow from my heart rather than being pulled painfully and grudgingly. Honestly, if that day comes it will be a miracle, literally.    

One of the comments on the blog read “Oh the joy and the freedom of being face down in desperate need, awaiting miraculous provision.” My first thought was “yeah, wait until you really suffer.” I get an attitude sometimes about people throwing words like “desperate” around. I’m trying to reel that in but I’m not always successful. But this comment struck a chord with me because it sits exactly where I used to be… where I am no more.  

One of my greatest fears is that I will never love Him like I did before, with the wild abandon and open joy. I trusted Him, completely. I really did. I don’t now. I want to but I don’t. Did I just say that out loud? Yeah… I want to fall back in love with my God but I honestly have no idea how.

What do you do when all the “right answers” don’t work anymore? I don’t know but I’m going to the source and relearning everything I ever thought I knew about my God. I want to know who HE says He is, not what my church tradition teaches or what I want to be true. I need to know what is true. Jesus says God’s Word is truth.

I am face down in desperate need…