So I hit these "lows" sometimes... Part of it is emotional, part is spiritual, part is maternal, and part is definitely hormonal. I'm learning to deal, to be proactive, to be gracious, to communicate better, and to warn my husband. I wrote this at the end of one such low:
There is a soothing coming... a gentleness. Peace. Release is just around the corner. I can hear it, both in the quiet and in the song. I can read it in the words, and feel it in the air.
There is a soothing coming... a gentleness. Peace. Release is just around the corner. I can hear it, both in the quiet and in the song. I can read it in the words, and feel it in the air.
But why do I tense up in anticipation, why do I retreat? Why the temptation to minimize all these pages, to push away the peace that so gently beckons? To deny the sweet offer? But I know the reason... all too well.
It's because I would actually rather stay here and sit, just wallow in the darkness that has been my own, my home, my selfish sanctuary for quite a while now. To venture out of it would mean to really see it, to acknowledge it and call it by its name. To recognize the ugliness. But that's not even the hardest part. The real challenge is what comes next... the contrition and the pleading for forgiveness... the painful repentance... the admission that, yes, once again, I have blown it. To pieces.
So if I just sit here in the dark, talk to no one but myself about these fears, continue to indulge these feelings, keep on wallowing, then I won’t have to see it from the outside. No reality check. No accountability.
After all, I am the miserable one being smothered, the paralyzed victim, right?! I'm the one who doesn’t get what she wants, who has all these unmet needs and has endured all these terrible frustrations and losses. Oh, these LIES are so easy to believe in the dark, when they are all I hear.
But I know that if I get up and walk, if I allow the Light to draw me out, I will be forced to see this darkness for what it really is.... MY SIN... the cage I’ve willingly walked into and did not fight against, the voices I heard and eagerly agreed with. It is the ever-inviting company of self-pity.
And I have been in here for days.
I don’t want to leave. Not because I don’t want the freedom, but because I don’t want to feel the painful regret... taste the bitter tears of remorse. I know I will find forgiveness in His eyes, and in his, but I will also find pain - the pain I inflicted upon him, and them, and I will feel it searing.
It’s just easier to sit here. I am afraid I cannot change. But of course, I cannot. Only HE can change me. My Creator is not finished... there is no end to the work that needs to be done on this lump of clay and dust. I just don't want to return here, when the voices call to me again. I am afraid of repeating these same travels, over and over and over again. So it's really my pride that is keeping me immobilized then. My pride keeps my feet still and my heart cold. My pride feeds my fear...
"It’s only pride’s hunger for perfection that paralyzes a heart, keeps us enslaved to fear... Slip on humility, make humility the mainstay of a heart’s wardrobe, and the world enlarges. Open humility’s drawer and there lies courage."
Humility: state of being humbled, and being... humiliated.
I say it over and over, and I slowly begin to feel this new garment, replacing the old, stiff gray rags of pride.
Oh, Lord, my Creator, Elohim. Change me. Keep chiseling away. Move me. Move these feet. Shift the gaze of my eyes from myself and up toward You, toward Truth, toward Freedom. Bathe me with Light and Life, so that I can be the me you created me to be, for him, for them, for YOU.
I get up, brush the dirt and ash from my pants, wrap my new garment tightly about me, and start walking.
The Light is blinding, and His grace abounds.
