Back in the Saddle Again

I've been a long time gone.


A long time since I wrote anything, let alone bothered to express my thoughts in some way that might make since to another person. Let's see what happens tonight.

I could go through the list of reasons why I haven't written all summer long, that I broke my right wrist and have hardly been able to journal in my moleskine, and if I can't write there, I can't write anywhere else, but that's not precisely true. It's accurate enough that I've been lacking inspiration, but not because nothing exciting has happened.

Lot's exciting things have taken place. Exciting, heart-wrenching, death-defying tales have filled my summer nights (not so much the summer days, still spending those trapped inside an office), but it seems that I still have nothing notable worth reporting.

Mostly, I've been distracted and distractable. I've been looking for any sort of excuse not to engage with my God in a real and meaningful way. If seasons have names, this has been the Summer of the White-Washed Tomb. I am the white-washed tomb, clean on the outside, but filthy on the inside.

I've spent my summer full of my own pride, of my own deceit, of my own ambition and my own ignorance. For most of these days in between then and now, I've been running away from the truth that I've known all along.

I still don't trust God.

I know he's in control. I know that his plan will prevail. I have entrusted my soul, and the remainder of my life into his hands, but I don't trust him. I can't figure out why. I know his character. I know all the Bible verses. I see the creation, I've heard his promises. Hell, I've taught his promises.

This place that I'm in, that I've been for so long but am just now willing to admit, reminds me of a Jeff Buckley lyric (as always, the only thing that I genuinely know how to relate my life to is music) "It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah."

Hallelujah means "praise you Lord." That much I know I will do. I will praise Jesus Christ as my Lord. I don't have any other option, for the rest of my life I will praise Him. I've come too far and seen too much to believe there is any other purpose to my life than to follow Him, and it's a bold statement, but there is nothing that will take me away from that. Nothing that will make me give up.

But I still don't trust him. Wierd, huh? Yeah. It doesn't really make sense to me either. There's something in there, deep deep in there, that I can't get out of my heart. And I don't know what it is.

Here's the thing: I did trust God once. (Or did I? When I think back to that time, I often second guess myself). In that time when I trusted him, he betrayed me. But see, that's not even true. God can't lie. He's can't decieve. He can't betray. He can forsake, but he has not forsaken me.

I'm thinking in circles again, my favorite thing to do. I think it's time for me to read what I've written thus far, maybe figure out what the hell is going on with the words that come pouring out my fingertips. Whelp, this all makes alot of sense to me. Probably not to you. My apologies. You can stop reading now if you'd like (Sierra, I know you're the only one who reads this ... ).

Okay. I think I have a thought that might explain where all of this insanity came from.

LOVE KEEPS NO RECORD OF WRONGS

All I've been doing lately is keeping a record of wrongs. A lot of the things I've been keeping record of aren't even wrongs, mostly they are annoyances and inconviences, and affronts to my own supposed wisdom. And this long long list I've been keeping in my mind has been puffing and puffing me up with my own self-righteousness, my own vanity, and my own -----

And it's true what my best friend said from across the kitchen table, that the weight of this realization is crushing, that I am completely and totally insuffiecient in the way that I love. My love is not unconditional. (Funny that not many days before I shouted to this same friend over the phone that I of all people knew how to love unconditionally. I'm so full of shit.)

I know I'm supposed to end this with some sort of moral. Some sort of analogy about how God always wins, and even the worst kinds of pain are bearable because someday, I'll get to heaven and all this will be over. That's true. But don't have it in me to try to package all this up in a lovely little metaphor about life or trees or dreams or anything like that.

Maybe it's not that I don't trust God right now. (But secretly, deep down I think that might be it, and it scares me that I don't know how to fix it.) Maybe it's the fact that I don't have any hope right now. Maybe it's that I don't have hope that God will come through on his promises for ME, that one day I will stop treading water and be able to rest. Because that's all I really want. Is just a little rest.

It seems that's not what God wants for me though.

I am a spoiled selfish child. I always have been. I pray to God that I won't always will be.

Sorry for the ramble. My sincere apologies to to whoever made it this far (Sierra ... ).