in the downpour

I hear it. In songs. In conversation. In the middle of Econ 202, in Jim Cannons sarcastic, cynical comments. I hear it when i put foot on the bus at 6:32 am. I heard it today when i drove my car down icy streets.

Be still. Don't look to the left, or to the right. Be still. Let the Lord fight for your worth, your purpose. Be still.

Stones. They are still. The Lord brought water out of the rocks in the past.

This hopelessness is drowned out when compared to the God of all history. "From the beginning"...From creation, to the prophets, to the Word, to birth and life of Jesus, to conquering death, overcoming hell, and rising victorious. To the right hand of the Father. There is nothing beyond His control, and praise be to God that includes my hopelessness, directionlessness.

There are streams in the desert.They are small streaks of water right now, but they are there.

The Lord is frustrating any plans, calling me to deeper trust. So what can i do in the meantime?

Learn to love the ordinary. The small. The laughter and giggles in friendship. The ability to run, lift weights, enjoy the physical world around me. Buy nail polish, and write letters. Eat a whole chocolate bar, watch a movie. Bless others. And perhaps most importantly for me, give to others.

After the last 'melt down' i finally got a bit of a reality check. It was a conviction i haven't yet before experienced. conviction that the tears and the panic are flat selfish. This seasons of unpleasant loneliness is, indeed, part of the plan. Its to my disdain, but it is to my benefit.

So i finish this evening with a glass of wine, and a hopeful prayer that tomorrow will bring the clarity to my heart/life i desperately pray for, and a touch to dismantle the cold feelings of loneliness.

There is much more working for me than against. My yesterday is gone, i need to stop looking at its failures. Tomorrow is ahead, bright and beautiful in it's own unexpected way. Yesterdays has a history that has left me changed, and holds questions that, as best i can tell, will never have answers. But i am certain i don't want my disapointment to color my view of brt, nor the pain caused cheapen my self confidence. The reality is broken and hurt people will hurt and break people. I do it, just as everyone else does. There is grace and forgiveness that is sufficient to cover all things. Sufficient because it doesn't come from the deep places of me, but because it is overflowing from the Father.

I feel more free tonight than i have in a long time.

*sigh. Ready.

The Lord is working on my heart in this state of hopelessness.

It's in the quiet, early hours this morning that the Lord has drawn near. There are places in my heart He is touching, but the healing is slow and the thoughts painful. I feel abandoned, but He hasn't left me. I feel worth-less, and rejected, and doubtful that my life will ever feel fulfilling. And yet, He promises He is doing a new thing. There are streams in this desert, and they do make glad the way of the Lord.

Today, i trust there are greater things ahead. Today I choose to think well of and hope good things for a person, that if i'm honest, i want to suffer for the decisions he made. I didn't know i could be capable of feeling that way about someone else, but if i'm real and raw and honest with myself, i do feel rays of resentment towards him. The Lord knew these things before i did, and it's His faithfulness that draws the ulginess out.

He's working on me.


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“Your whole spirit . . . .” The great, mysterious work of the Holy Spirit is in the deep recesses of our being which we cannot reach. Read Psalm 139 . The psalmist implies— “O Lord, You are the God of the early mornings, the God of the late nights, the God of the mountain peaks, and the God of the sea. But, my God, my soul has horizons further away than those of early mornings, deeper darkness than the nights of earth, higher peaks than any mountain peaks, greater depths than any sea in nature. You who are the God of all these, be my God. I cannot reach to the heights or to the depths; there are motives I cannot discover, dreams I cannot realize. My God, search me.”

Do we believe that God can fortify and protect our thought processes far beyond where we can go? “. . . the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). If this verse means cleansing only on our conscious level, may God have mercy on us. The man who has been dulled by sin will say that he is not even conscious of it. But the cleansing from sin we experience will reach to the heights and depths of our spirit if we will “walk in the light as He is in the light” (1 John 1:7). The same Spirit that fed the life of Jesus Christ will feed the life of our spirit. It is only when we are protected by God with the miraculous sacredness of the Holy Spirit that our spirit, soul, and body can be preserved in pure uprightness until the coming of Jesus-no longer condemned in God’s sight.
We should more frequently allow our minds to meditate on these great, massive truths of God.

Well.

Here is to another quarter, another start, another beginning, another new year.

It's an interesting feeling, trying to describe the rolling thunder and silent calm that coexsist in my chest. I am peaceful knowing that life is returning to a routine, but i am restless. I miss my room, my bed. I am restless to start a new year - restless and longing for things to look so drastically different from what the've been.

The Lord is doing a new thing. It's true because scripture said it is. I cling to this, not necessarily convinced in the depth of me it's true, but desperately wanting it to be.

I tried my best to reason with the Lord in the shower with my tears - begging Him to do a new thing in me. I'm not sure it was as much spiritual as much as it was selfish. I'm ready for the ending of old things, and the heartache that came with them, to rest, and for fresh starts to begin. I'm ready to be done with this fire, this aloneness. I hope for things to change, pray and beg for it, yet all the while terrified circumstances will not change for the better.

What is the plan Lord? I really want to run from this place and into what's next. How much longer? Have I been faithless? If i've been faithful, than be near, and save me from all this distress, this rolling thunder.

I believe He has good things. But i wonder, like so many in my place, if His 'goodness' will extend to the ache in me. If His goodness means the healing and redeeming of my spirit and my heart. And if so, will this take months, or will it take years?

" Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.  "

I'm ready to test. i'm just not sure how.