I thought it might be a fun little exercise to record musings from my personal journal (sans the details that are too near and dear to me) each Saturday of each week. We will see what God does with it, but I hope it to be cathartic for me, and along the way, perhaps it may bless the reader.
Lord, when my smile grows weary, hold me. When I lack hope, hold me.
Writing these words, as my heart felt a million timelines away, I began to breathe again. Really breathe, as I had not since I had sat alone in the early dawn in Lookout Mountain. Jesus met me there, as I wrestled within myself and with Him.
There’s this phrase that Christians all say, when they’ve gone through a trial, and they look back and can see with eyes that know now what they did not know then, in the struggle—God carried me.
One evening, during the liturgy (for really, ‘worship’ can’t quite sustain for me the experience) at Summit, I battled. I battled with my own life. I battled everything that I felt inside. I battled with truth that no longer rung true within my soul. I battled deep loneliness and hopelessness. And above all, a distance that had begun to grow between God and myself. It was like the harder I battled and strove to be close to Him, the greater the divide became. And it angered me. I wasn’t angry at God—I’m not sure we have the right be angry with Him—no, I held wrath for my own self. I could not imagine why I felt the distance, though I knew in my head that He is never far. I wept as I sat there in the darkness, desperately holding onto the truth that was sung over us,
I begin to lose myself until you call my name//Then suddenly Iʼm me- who Iʼm meant to be. I am whole. I am home. I am seen. I am known. I am me.
I didn’t know that He was waiting for me to stop, so that He could carry me. Too intent on my own feelings of distance, I mentally kept slogging through mud that was sucking me down, down, down. Blaise Pascal once said that our desire to run from the present moment is because it oftentimes hurts deeply. And I was running. Running like the hounds of hell pursued me, running to what end I could not tell you. God knew what I was running from, all these months. He revealed it to me, but not until I was broken down enough to bear my soul’s vulnerable desires before Him. I don’t think I could have seen, until I stood still within the mud pit, closed my eyes, and allowed my soul to be delivered into the place that God was waiting.
Christ’s omnipresence isn’t something that ever crossed my mind on the daily. It didn’t resonate with me, nor did it give me pause. I preferred to take in information, even biblical information, before I ever basked in his presence. But as Summit came to an end and I returned to my home, the chaos of the world hit, and it hit like a tsunami wave. Randomly, I got lost in my camera roll, reminiscing on my time in Germany in last year’s August. That girl couldn’t have known the path before her. Farther back, in 2015, a toothy grinned girl that cuddled with a new puppy in her bed, oh how I cherish her and smile with eyes that stream, knowing what Great Goodness would come from great sorrow.
If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me, Ps. 139v10.
Until my walls were broken down to the very dust, I could not see that Christ carried me. He longed for me to see, to rest in His embrace with a trusted sigh. It is in the suffering that He upholds. I empathized with those who said God carried me. I knew that it was true He carries us through times we could not have walked through on our own two feet. But in truth, I don’t think I really knew. What’s wonderful about it all? That He waits. He waits until our hearts are ready to be held by His hand. And the funny thing is, my heart was always in His hands. It just took the pain of circumstances for me to recognize His gentle grip.
In order to rise gloriously, we must fall in humility.
Sometimes the redemption we must have and the healing that we crave must come on the winds of change and the realization of loss.
Evening cannot last, for the dawn is near. And, oh! how glorious the view when the sun at last rises.