I held on for so long.
Knuckles white. My heart beating fast and strong. I prayed for redemption. Reconciliation. Hope. I pursued it with everything I am only to find myself slighted by the hand of time.
You beg sometimes. Knees bruised. Face wet. Heart heavy.
You beg, to hear from God.
To just hear anything at all.
When the silence is louder than the roar of life an unsettling feeling sets in.
Is this real? Am I really walking by faith? Am I just thrusting myself towards my own devices hoping that it is in the name of the Lord?
Today I finally heard Jesus release me. He answered a question I had forgotten I still was asking.
He whispered choice words in my ear.
“Sell it, take the money, share the blessing, buy your freedom. Trade in your rusty hole riddled hope for a hope that never will fade. Trade in your human security.”
I’d waited for this day. A day I couldn’t arrive at of my own doing. A day that only Jesus could lead me too. The cathartic relinquishing of my self-inflicted duty. The day that a command to leave something would mean more than heartbreak.
I’m so sick of leaving for heartbreak.
This time it’s for healing.
Letting go has been a process and a struggle.
Sometimes we don’t want to let go.
……………………………………………………..
Winter
I hold onto pain like it is the most important possession I have.
Yet pain nestles up close to my ear and slightly clicks his filthy teeth.
“I will possess your heart.”
Thinking I am the master. That I hold onto a comfort few can find. A comfort in tears and sorrow. Where others find themselves in sunshine and blissful moments, I find myself resting in the dark night of the soul.
The things we think we can control and contain are often juvenile experiments in physics.
As my two hands try to grasp around past events and memories they just seep through the cracks in my fingers.
I should’ve known I could not hold yesterday in my hands anymore than I could see tomorrow if I looked with all my might.
Yet once again I find myself fooled.
As two hands try to clasp the pain in my life tightly until I can find my identity in it, make a memorial of it, and even share it, I find them withdrawn and stained and sticky with emotions and hurt I never should have spread around.
I should’ve known I was to never engage my pain. That was not my place.
Like thick oil it coats my arms and cloys my throat. I find myself trying to well up just an ounce of joy only to be fully and utterly consumed by the black darkness of my own painting.
I can’t get this pain off of my skin. What have I done?
Spring
I looked at the calendar today.
Was it really so recent?
The days and moments stretch on and scream to me that more time has passed then I can really feel. I almost feel lost in the lethargic ebb and flow of time. As if years have grayed my hairs and wizened my brow.
I learned a lot about pain last winter. I learned to let go of the past and have slowly moved on from being defined by memories to making memories that refine.
I used to find my identity in the pain I felt.
I don’t know how to describe it really. I desired not pity, I didn’t like a sad story. I just was lost in the darkness of my own narrative.
Sometimes I welled up all the pain inside until I felt I would violently heave emotions upon the next willing soul. Yet I reserved this pain for the perfect soul.
Well, an imaginary human one that never came.
I don’t know what I was looking for.
I sat waiting to let go of just one more little wound. One more slight. One more tribute to false hope and shattered dreams. I held onto it.
I was waiting for knot in my soul to be untied. A pardon to be issued. Freedom to be proclaimed.
Every step forward I tried to take was still chained to a place I refused to leave.
Today those old rugged bonds seemed as mere faded memories replaced by rainbows and bright shining lights.
Amazing Cause it Is – The Almost
Jesus didn’t come for us to live a life of existence.
He came to give life abundant. He came to give that bright eyed dreamer hope to people so broken and lost that the clergy of the day couldn’t stand to be near them.
He came to free us of our guilt and shame. Yet that’s so trite and overstated.
He came to ERASE our guilt and shame and then cover that newly cleared slate with a brand new name.
A beautiful name.
Today at communion I thought about betrayal. How Jesus wasn’t just God. He was human. I thought about the truckload of gall and bitterness welling up in the stomach after divorce. Affairs. Death. The loss of a child. Knowing something bad has happened and being unable to stop it. Then I thought about the tears and gall of betrayal.
I don’t know if anything hurts more.
Then to know the foundation of trust you build relationships on with other people has been mixed with clay and lies. The brittle stones fail and the whole building caves in on itself.
Jesus was betrayed by everyone.
EVERYONE.
The whole thrust of the earth. Untold billions wallowed in sin and muck as He lay upon that cross feeling the full weight and emotion of betrayal not in his “Super distant deityhood.”
In his flesh.
In his breathing, sweating, cries when people die, laughs when Peter fall in the water, sneezes when he’s sick, self.
Jesus. Fully human.
He bore so much pain. SO much betrayal.
He held onto that cross.
He didn’t hold onto his pain.
He held onto us.
He never let us go. He didn’t just die for us.
He lives for us.
Sometimes I don’t take that life.
I get caught up in hurt and the past and holding onto dreams that maybe I should have let go of a long time ago.
It’s not even wrong. So much as… not the abundant life I could live.
Oh, Jesus, I’m so grateful for you.
I’m so happy that you love me, you chose me, you walked towards me and picked me up. I love you, I love you, I LOVE YOU. I hep that I’ll see you soon, friend. I miss you everyday. I miss you so much. I know sometimes I hold onto this world more than I should. I can only imagine the hurt and betrayal so much of my life caused you. Yet you tell me it’s in the past. It’s almost ridiculous that you could forgive all my betrayal. And then I have the audacity to cling to the past, to walk back to Egypt, to live in dead-hope, or weak faith. Oh Jesus, I’m so blessed by you. Thank you for wiping my tears away. Thank you for saving me from new tears. For holding me close to you. Oh, friend, come home soon. We miss you.
I’m so happy Jesus. It’s a brand new day.
Some kind of magic
Happens late at night
When the moon smiles down on me
And bathes me in its light
I fell asleep beneath you
In the tall blades of grass
When I woke the world was new
I never had to ask
Its a brand new day
The sun is shining
Its a brand new day
For the first time
In such a long long time
I know
Ill be ok
Most kind of stories
Save the best part for last
Most stories have a hero who finds
You make your past your past
Yeah you make your past your past
Its a brand new day
The sun is shining
Its a brand new day
For the first time
In such a long long time
I know
Ill be ok
This cycle never ends
Gotta fall in order to mend
And its a brand new day
Its a brand new day
For the first time
In such a long long time
I know
Ill be ok
