Dying

It's the nights where you toss and turn in pain...
...that lead to the mornings where you wake up exhausted.

"I'm dying."  Those two days I felt semi-human last week?

Still a Cynic...

I've made a deep discovery:  I know why I don't write.

I don't know HOW to write about being actually happy.

Sure, there's a lot of stuff going wrong in my life right now...but overall, I'm pretty content.

And I do NOT know how to write about it.

Take my wedding day for example -- I've been telling myself to write about it since day 3 of marriage. I had my journal on the honeymoon and was sick and tired with plenty of optimal time to sit and write out all the beautiful details of the best day of my life.

But I didn't.

I'm 4 months in and I still haven't.

I also haven't watched the long-version of our wedding video.  I just...can't...

I don't know what to do with happiness and joy.

The only times this year I've been tempted to write have been when life has been a bitch to me.

Like my ears and lungs....or my sex life...or my need to forgive people...or my desire to go back to work.

But I can't write.

And it's systematic of this much deeper problem -- I don't know how to stop and record happiness.

I haven't taken hardly any pictures since I got engaged, besides the professional ones.  Ben and I have gone out on dates, we had a honeymoon, we've had plenty of time to take moments of this early joy of sharing life.

And I don't capture it.

I don't want to be one of those people that only looks at life through the lens of their cameraphone.  But I do think that given my penchant for photography, I should be out taking pictures.

What am I afraid of?

Why am I hiding my happiness?

Why do I only share the darkness?

I wanted to write today about some really tough stuff we're going through, but no, I have to admit this first problem to myself.

Jessica,

It is good and right to take delight in the joys that life brings.  Cataloging it won't make it disappear.  Sharing the joy won't diminish it.  Do you only want to have journals and blogs filled with pain?  Do you not want to share the love and joy in your heart with others?

I know you're afraid of having to face your past again.  I know you're afraid of losing Ben.  I know you're not sure what to do with your life with God right now.

But don't be the girl that only bleeds and screams and hurts.  Be the girl that also loves, rejoices, triumphs.

You need to get out and take pictures. The tabebuia are blooming early this year.  I know last year was rough and they didn't bloom until April and you had lost Ben and Gio and a major work battle.  This year isn't the same.

Be thankful. And yes, take a look at the serious, hurting stuff too.  But share any little joy you may have.

God, can we just face this and be done?

Can I trust you to take me through this round of Shadowlands?

I need to.  I need YOU.


Help me to trust you.

- Trust that we WILL get through this.
- Trust that I am not alone in this.
- Trust that you have a plan in this.
-

Psalm 70

Oh God, Hurry to save me; Eternal One, hurry to my side. 

Of onions & brokenness

oh God.

I'm running and running and running...

& the lungs of my heart hurt....

Why won't I go and be alone with you?

Why am I postponing this doctor's appointment with the Healer?


[because]

How many times do I have to go through this?

How many times will my heart break?

How long, oh Lord?


This thing is my onion, with never-ending layers and tear keep streaming and streaming.

I am so tired of crying over this onion.




What does surrender mean?

What does it even look like?


I am haunted

by memories
by dreams
by my life


I thought each time it would be easier...and the last time we did this song and dance it was the hardest yet.  It lasted a few dark years where I drank to keep the insanity at bay.  I raged and cried and died daily...died to you or to me?  I don't know.


I only know that I've spent yet another week hiding from this.

It affects our relationship, God.


And the big difference between this onion layer and all the others is that I have this husband you gave me to consider.

I want to run away.

Please help me.

New years day

It's the first day of 2014 and it's time to begin the dig.

the descent.

The descent is the decent thing to do...the life-giving thing to do.

And yet I'm afraid.

I'm afraid of who I am.
I'm afraid of what will need to change.
I'm afraid of reigniting pains I've managed to stuff down.
I'm afraid I'll break again.
I'm afraid I won't be a good wife.


So God, I know 2014 is destined to be a year that goes deep into my heart.  My cringing selfish little heart.

Help me to come out into the light.

The Day I Stopped Writing

& before I can move forward and marry this man, I must consolidate.

[console i myself on dates long past]

As I sit on the floor going through box after box of journals and poems and papers and notes, I see ME staring up from the pages.

& I realize:

I haven't written in years.

Not even when I had Gio did I truly write.

I didn't try to purge my soul.  I didn't pen things I would be terrified for others to read.  I didn't...

...didn't...

& now?

I feel a shock of numbness. A jolting overload.

underload?

The Deep End of Fear & Shame

& so here I am: back here.  For the first time in a long, long time.

But there are things stirring deep within that are not for everyone to read over @ my website.

Things from this realm, this lovely distant land that I wandered from into a wilderness of agony.  And there are things from that realm of agony that touch on the edges of this land too as I lie trapped in the middle of the old new me and the new old me.

Things like

Surrender = Sir, rend her.

Sir, rend her heart so she can truly, finally surrender.

And so I stand in the valley of the shadow of life, with all my ancient woundings and plain-old tiredness shaking their shackles like horror movie villains.

And I?

I decide to air my deepest fears and shames. Or more aptly, err my deepest fear.

[deep breath]

#1:  I don't want to be a mom.  I don't want to be a mom!! It burst out of me in the quiet of my shower, the only quiet I get some days.  I want to turn  in my "mom badge" and call it quits.  I've had a good run, but now I'm tired and I'm selfish and I don't know how to keep doing this mom thing.  It was foolish of me to embark on this journey without a husband at my side. I can't be his mom...I can't be a good mom.

#2: I don't want to work anymore.  I've been through "SMH" to borrow the youngster's slang. I have worked long hours and long weeks at a ministry I both adore and dread. I cannot picture leaving anymore than I can picture staying.  And so I am starting a new position soon, but not before moving offices twice (still on one leg) and finishing out this busiest of seasons in my old role. I can't keep giving all me away. My close friend teased me, "Do you want to retire already?"  Of course not -- there is so much to do, so much passion and purpose bottled up in this little person.  Which leads me to...

#3: I want a break.  At least one month, maybe longer.  Do all people feel this way?  I am ashamed to feel this need, this longing so desperately. How can other people do this day in and day out? And raise a family? I've only been a mom for 4 months and in my current job for 3.5 years and I am flat-out DONE. Toast.  Each day is a new journey into "his mercies are new every morning". I don't want to be someone's boss, someone's employee, someone's mom or...

#4: I can't handle a serious relationship.  If being a mom has taught me one thing, it's that I am utterly, inherently selfish.  My deepest fear is that I only love the way he loves me...not love him for who he is deep inside.  There are so many little things about him that I know I don't love...and I'm sure that must be true of all couples, right?  ....right?  They are the dumb things, the things I'd be embarrassed to voice. They are trivial and I wonder at my own self-centered, self-righteous ways and think that he loves me for me..and I don't know how to love like that.

#5: I'm a martyr, a fake, an attention-getter, and a downright selfish, hurtful person.  Where did I ever get the arrogant idea that I would help others?  Work at a ministry, volunteer, foster parent, on and on -- why? Is the compulsion truly from God or is it from somewhere else?

#6: I can't be the only one in the world who feels like this, but it does feel like most of my friends don't have this struggle...at least not like this.  Will I ever learn to get out of crisis mode?

#7: I used to have a more passionate, vibrant relationship with Christ...and now it seems if I do talk to him, it's only when I really need something.  I know the cliches and I know the platitudes, but what I don't know is how to actually, truly get to where I need to be with him.

And so it brings me back to surrender.  Sir, rend her.

And I am rent and restless and wrecked and worked up.And these things keep pressing my insides with each swing of the crutches I take. I cringe as the hot-poker of Truth meets the sharp knife of Shame.

I want to be through this.  I actually want to be more normal. My soul runs deep, carrying my heart and mind into the shadowlands as I both search for and hide from the Light.

Oh to sojourn in the valley of the shadow of life! And yet there is a part of me that isn't quite willing to say "Do what you will to me, Lord."

Oh God, of all the things I could pray for out of my deepest fears and shames and hurts, I pray you will make me willing and hungry to be who you want me to be...to be like you.