She was too young with a veiled clarity for the blackened white in the midst of swirling greys, but we probably shouldn’t blame her-a habit of youth. She blames herself enough already.
You came. Soft, slow, seducing. So she gave. Every last ounce of her heart and soul, and then the final prized token of her unfailing devotion so you would finally know her love. Her first and final hail mary.
She never was the same.
Times broken pieces to put humpty dumpty back together again, and just when she thought all was healed, you dropped in again.
Why here of all places? The teeter-totter of mind over emotion, knowing this is the exact place she wants you to be but your arrival seemingly caused the ground to fall away beneath her and she doesn’t quite know how to get back up. The jekyl of wanting you to know Christ like you have never known him before but the hyde of wishing you would have chosen somewhere else to take your pursuing heart.
Why would God do such a thing?
Yes, I know. You have great plans for me. Really, You do. And it is crazy insane how You are doing a good thing in me through all the debased pits of my weeping heart. So I do hear You. Really, I do.
You know how I have struggled with this for some time now. You know how I want so much for this to not be a big deal, but then within seconds it is erupting inside bigger than life and then I just don’t know how to breathe. Spirit and flesh battling inside for the final victory over how I will go on with life now that his presence is in my midst.
Life does go on and we live in the here and now. I cannot recreate the past with all its veiled clarity, but I can use the vivid picture You have revealed today to move past this moment. I am not defined by my past. I must trust that You alone can show Him truth and think not of the me he knew, but choose instead to see the me You have made me to be. But really, it is not me at all he needs to see; it is You we all need.
I will choose in this moment to step out of my pit of pity, for pity really is the base for my wallowed pit. And I will live in the spirit over the flesh, knowing You clothe me with righteousness and see not all the wretched shame of my past. When I stand in Your fathomless glory, I fall to pieces inside because I am reminded of how very unworthy I am. His presence reminds me of my guilt-choosing his hail mary over the bloodied sacrifice of my Jesus. But I no longer live that life of lies, and though it haunts me still daily, I am not defined by the veiled past. Satan would try to tell me differently, but as we sang today, when the lies speak louder than the truth, remind me I belong to you.
I cried a lot today. Weeping for the past that I cannot alter and for how much You love me in spite of me. And if I am honest, weeping also for all the he’s whose hearts I played around with in my downspiralling implosion of youth. I was a blackened mess. But You pulled me from the muck and mire and gave me a new name, so I can either sink into the regret of the past or embrace the hope of a future You offer freely, a gift I can never earn but desperately need.
I will take your offering. I will kneel at the altar of Your love because it is the only place I can be whole again, and I will gladly welcome him to do the same even if it is right beside me, because that is Your desire, and all I want is to have Your heart.
