Here we are. Here I am. Unfiltered, and unedited (mostly). This is going to be raw and unpolished and might come out wrong, but that's okay. Honesty is sometimes much more important than all of that. And I want to be honest with you. I want to be messy and vulnerable and unpolished and offer you little pieces of my heart whispering "Please be careful with this." But I still offer it to you to do with what you will. It is a gift, and offering out of the hope that you will enjoy, you will resonate, you will understand me, and yourself, perhaps, as well, a little bit better. And so I begin.
As usual, I hardly know where the beginning of everything is, and will have to try in my imperfect way to find a good starting spot.
Pain. Let's start here. I don't like pain. I don't like feeling hurt, feeling emotional pain, sadness, anger, frustration, rage. And so I run. I hide, and tunnel deep into myself, or into other things so I won't have to feel that hurt. And so I ran, this spring. From pain. From my aunt's diagnosis of cancer, from the pain of recognizing and acknowledging my desires and seeing them go unmet day after day after week after week after month after month, from a profound loneliness, from feelings of abandonment, from frustrations with myself for not living up to my own standards of perfection. From others, and from myself. I was numb, except for the self-loathing I experienced after I fell, again, and sinned, again in the ways I had sworn to myself I would not do again. I ran and I ran and I ran. I hid from God (whom I was angry at, because I felt wounded by him, after I did not receive a thing it seemed like he had promised me, a thing I only kind of wanted, but had put a lot of myself out there for because I believed he wanted me to and that his provision would come through). I was vulnerable (sometimes) and shared (sometimes) and felt tired and lonely and unwanted (a lot of the time). I was in battle, and it sure felt like I was losing, with no one fighting for me. Not God, not my friends, not even me, sometimes.
I was in battle, a mother lioness with no cubs to fight for, no mate to fight for me, nothing and no one except myself and the enemy. And I was tired. So very tired. A lot of pain, a lot of negative things. This isn't to say that I didn't have good times, didn't feel joy and happiness sometimes, but the underlying emotion was anger and disgust.
And I still feel so very lonely sometimes, all alone with no one to fight for me. All alone, with no champion on my side. This was one thing I realized this past week during the LT kickoff retreat. There was one point, where it was announced that the women were going to pray out loud for the men, and the men were going to pray out loud for the women. And my heart leapt in my chest, a deep deep wordless longing welling up, fear and hesitation mixed in with it. "Oh, is this for me? It can't be for me because I want it so much. Can it?" I have felt rejected and abandoned by my sisters in christ, by my brothers in christ. I have felt so much pain, so much anger, so much hurt, so much indifference from those I have looked to for friendship, for companionship, for affirmation from God flowing through them. Having men of God praying out loud for me, for my sisters and I, was such an amazing feeling. There were many, many tears shed by me, by my sisters. My desire for masculine love runs so deep. I desire feminine love as well, but I have so much more of that already in my life. I have so many heart's sisters, women I love and am open with, whom I share my life intensely with. I have few heart's brothers, few men whom I trust enough to open up my heart and share vulnerably with as a sister. I have few men whom I trust will fight for me, even a little bit. I feel alone and vulnerable, and so fight for myself. I am fierce and protective of myself, of those I love. And the story plays out again and again in the lives of my sisters, fighting for themselves and their sisters because no brother does. There are so many tears here, so much longing for how things should be, how God created us to function. So much desire for heaven, for the way God intended us to interact.
I am not blameless. I have wounded and hurt others, cut them to the quick. I have sinned against them, against my brothers and sisters, and I have so much regret for that, so much sorrow for the pain I have caused others. I have not loved others as I was called to do so, have not loved God with an abandon that made his love overflow into my relationships with others. I have sinned against others, against God, against myself. I struggle with pride, with perfectionism, with legalism, with choosing aloneness over connection for fear of greater pain. I have lied, and stolen, and taken the Lord's name in vain. I have coveted, and committed adultery in my heart. I have dishonored my parents, I have been angry and desired death for others in my mind. I have not kept the Sabbath, I have made idols, and I have put these other "gods" before God.
I have failed. I fail. I will fail. I do not measure up to the standards I set for myself. I do not measure up to the standards of the Law, no matter how hard I try. And so, I'm coming back to Grace. I'm coming back to sitting at Jesus's feet sobbing, saying "forgive me, I need you more than ever, I need you because I have no one left. I have been adulterous, and all of my false lovers have left me more alone and desolate than ever. Nothing has any meaning except for you. Everything is meaningless, empty, and shallow. I will wait on you. I will quiet my soul and wait on you, for you have promised redemption, which I eagerly hunger for. I will wait on you, for the things you have promised, but so much more than that, for you. Because you are worth it. You are worth everything my frail broken heart could ever give you. You are the only thing that matters in this world, in this universe."
And you answer "Here I Am."
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