LT13 closing ceremonies

Tears and snot pour down my face as I weep, head in my hands as my Brother and Sister in Christ support me on either side, their comforting hands solid on my shaking back.  Around me - the masses of my friends, singing praises and promises to God, paying little attention to me.  I had been holding it in all evening, ducking into the bathroom to cry and hoping that my friends didn't notice my tear-stained eyes, but here where there was no chance of well-meaning but unwanted comfort I was letting it all out.

"Oh God! Why?! Why? Those arrows, aimed right for my heart, for the deepest oldest wounds. 'You are forgotten.  You are so unimportant those you look up to forget about your very presence.  You are a child.  You know nothing.' They say, they shout to the very rooftops, trumpet to the tops of mountains, proclaiming shame and fear over me. Why?"

"There is a room locked deep in your heart that you haven't given me the key to.  Your victories this summer mean nothing if that room is not unlocked and dealt with now.  Will you trust me?"

Hesitatingly, "Yes."

"Take my hand"

We approach a plain wooden door, leading to the dungeons of my heart, where all of the deep evil lives.  I hand God the key, and watch as he fits it into the lock.  It is as he turns it that I realize I had been wrong.  It isn't a door to the dungeons, but to the treasury, and rather than being plain and wooden it is made of gold and encrusted with jeweled flowers and birds.

***

'The door slid open.  A blast of grief, of the deaths of children, of crippling diseases that took beauty at once but withheld death; of unconsummated love, of love lost or twisted or grown to hate; of noble deeds that proved useless, that broke the hearts of their doers; of betrayal without reason, of guilt without penance, of all the human miseries that have ever occurred; all this struck them, like the breath of a slaughterhouse, of the blow of a murderer... just this she had feared, had half-expected; yet the reality was much worse than what her tired mind had been able to prepare for her.

'Greetings, said Maur's head.  I did not think to have the pleasure of seeing you again....

'She opened her mouth to gasp, and despair rushed in, bitter as aloes.  Tears filled her eyes, but she pushed herself away from the threshold... "This---is why---we've been---so---tired---all along."

'"Yes." The sibilant hissed in the silence like adders' tongues...

'"We must get rid of Maur's head...." She walked purposefully up to the low platform where Maur's skull lay; the shadows in the eyesockets glinted... She set her shoulder in one of the ridged hollows at the base of the skull and heaved.  Nothing happened but that Maur laughed louder; its laughter crashed in her head like thunder, and her vision was stained red...

'You shall not bully me again! Aerin said, and, almost not knowing what she did, pulled Gonturan free of her scabbard and slapped the flat of her across the base of Maur's head where once the backbone had joined.  Blue fire leaped up in sharp tongues that lit the entire vault, with its many shelves and cupboards and niches, and doors into further strongrooms.  It was a ghostly unhealthy color, but the skull shrieked, and there was a crack like a mountain splitting, and the skull fell of its pedestal to the floor....

'Maur had lost its ascendance once Gonturan had struck it, and while the skull still stank, it seemed almost an organic stench now, under the open sky; no more than the faint rotting smell of ancient carrion.'
~The Hero and the Crown, by Robin McKinley

***

Lies instead of truth, despair instead of hope, darkness instead of beauty, were in the treasure places of my heart. The dragons' heads that I put in places of honor still send out whispers of lies, but it's different now. They are losing their ascendancy in my heart as they are attacked by the Word of God, which is the sword of the spirit. And that gives me hope.

A Slice of my Life

Note: I wrote this back in December, December 13 to be exact, but I wanted to share it with those of you who read my blog. :)

*******

    I grew up in a loving Christian family.  We went to church every Sunday, were involved in many of the ministries, and even talked about God at home during the week.  I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior when I was three years old, to a large extent because my brothers had and I wasn't going to be left behind.  I did believe in God, but he really didn't impact my life too much.  I followed the rules, was a good christian girl and as long as my behavior followed the standards I had set for myself, I felt pretty good about my life.
    However, I was incredibly lonely.  I had friends at church and school, but spent a lot of time alone, feeling left out and sad.  Especially after a few deeply wounding experiences, I didn't trust anyone, not truly.  I never told anyone anything important about my life, afraid I would be laughed at, dismissed, and betrayed again.  And I transferred these beliefs to God, not trusting his heart towards me.  Oh, I told him things, important things even, crying out to him in my pain, but I didn't believe he was out for my good.  In high school I really struggled with believing in God.  I believed he existed, but I didn't understand when he acted in ways that seemed contrary to my good and happiness.  The worst of it was that I wanted so badly to believe in him and have the kind of relationship my mom, and my older brother, and my friends seemed to have with Him.
    Everything came to a head four years ago in my senior year of high school at a youth conference.  I finally broke, sobbed my eyes out on the floor, snot dripping down my face, as I finally let go and decided to trust God with myself.  Later that evening, I even told one of my youth pastors and a few of my friends one of my most closely guarded secrets.  They listened to me and loved me.  It was incredibly freeing, and the journey since has been more beautiful and wonderful and terrible still.
    Over the past four years God has become more and more real to me, and his character has opened up to greater and greater extents.  I now have that relationship I had envied in high school, and it is beautiful.  Not everything is smooth sailing of course.  Things are, in some ways, harder than ever.  Every day I wake up having to make the decision over again - will I trust God today?  Will I let go of my own plans, my own attempts at self-righteousness and control?  Will I stop grasping at everything apart from God that promises me life, all the little indulgences and sins that my flesh hungers for, but I know don't really satisfy?
    This past year, I've been on a books and movies fast, as those are the things that I give my heart away to in return for the promise of life, my personal idol as it were.  My flesh hungers for escape from pain, and stories provide that to me, if only for a little while even as they numb my heart.  There have been so many ups and downs this year, many starts and stops to my fast, and I've been on my knees, raw and sobbing out to God more times than I can remember, because, God, I just want to be happy!  I don't want to feel all of these negative emotions!  But my purpose on this earth is not to be happy but to bring Jesus Christ glory.
    This means saying no when I want to say yes.  Allowing myself to feel when all I want is numbness.  And trusting that when God brings me to a cliff and tells me to jump, I won't crash and burn but instead mount up on wings like eagles.  And so when at Fall Retreat God asked me if I would let him break my heart, I timidly and fearfully said ok.  For Jesus Christ came to help the sick and the hurting and the dying, and restoration and healing often involve lancing the old wounds and letting the pain and anger pour out before new growth can occur.  The past few months have been a time of such deep pain, as God systematically uses the sucky things in my life to remind me of and bring me back to old festering wounds from my childhood so he can heal them.  Yes, this fall has been full of pain, but has also been a time of healing, and learning at a continually deeper level that God is good, God is trustworthy, and if I wait on and trust in him instead of trying to find life on my own, he will satisfy me.
    And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. John 17:3
    But those who wait for the Lord [who expect, look for, and hope in Him] shall change and renew their strength and power; they shall lift their wings and mount up [close to God] as eagles [mount up to the sun]; they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint or become tired. - Isaiah 40:31 (Amplified)

Imagining Reality

I am on a battlefield, dusty and dirty and tired.  My scant armor is covered with a thin sheen of dirt and my eyes feel like I haven't rested in weeks.  Here and there on my clothing are bloodstains, dried to a crusty brown color, some of the wounds beneath them scabbed over and healing while others are still open to the noxious fumes of the battle.  I appear to be alone, dirty lukewarm fog drifting in small clouds around me, obscuring vision beyond a few yards.  Further away I hear shouts and clashes, but only my own heavy breathing echos in my own ears.  My sword arm aches with the effort of holding my weapon in a ready stance, and my other arm has given up under the relentless barrage of enemy fire (which mercifully seems to have given up for a moment) and has rested my circular buckler on the ground.  The enemies' attacks had slowed and stopped as the noxious fog rolled in, and now the tepid humidity in the air is making me cough and splutter, my eyes watering at the smell and feel of the fog.  My head becomes dizzy, and the sounds of my companions fighting their own enemies grow dim and fade away, sounding muffled and unreal.  It is now that I realize the fog is an attack of its own, but I cannot seem to muster up the energy to raise my shield, though how it could protect me I do not know.  I make an ineffective sweep of my sword around my head, but the mist continues to swirl closer.  I realize that the fog is full of whispers, so quiet and persistent that I cannot make them out individually, but which come together to make my head pound and my ears ache.  My heart has sunk in my chest, and my mind begins to make sense of the words it hears in the mist.

"You are alone. No one is here for you. Where has your brilliant general gone?"  They taunt me.
"The plan has failed. You are a failure. Why send out a green little girl like you to do a man's job?" On and on.
"You are worthless, less than worthless. You cause more damage to your own army than the enemy. No one will ever come to your aid." Still they come.
"You are cannon fodder, too unimportant even to deploy in a strategic spot. Not trusted, not worthy of trust.  Utterly useless"  I have sunk down to my knees under the barrage, my head in my hands, sword on the ground, trying to shut the whispers out.
"Utterly forgotten.  Utterly forsaken. Utterly alone."  With this the words fade away, leaving me in the deafening silence of the dirty fog which completely swallows up any noise. Utterly desolate.

As I huddle there a whisper in my heart urges me to call out to my companions in arms, saying that they will hear and come to my defense, but the voices in the fog have silenced me, my tongue lying mute in my mouth from fear. They will not come. They are surrounded by their own battles and fogs and noxious whispers. They will not know how to fight for me and even if they did, I am not worth fighting for, I am not worth defending, I am totally alone.

******

This is me.  This has been the last two weeks.  This is how I've been, relentlessly hammered down by an invisible force that keeps changing tactics until I have very little heart left and stand mute and fearful.

Will you stand with me, with us?  Will you fight side by side with me?  Will you ask me how I am and really mean it?  Will you pray fiercely for me?  Will you be willing to speak on my behalf, to risk much for me, and for your other brothers and sisters?  Will you?