Thursday, January 10, 2008

...tilting at windmills

I've been battling for days now....
the overwhelming clouds of sadness,
missed opportunities and losses...

the frustration and pain of my life,
has come at me like waves of grief...
threatening to drown me in deep,
dark, icy gloom...
much like the skies outside...

it seemed as though all bits of hope were gone...
the tree that glowed in the street lamp so recently,
is now naked and shivering in the dank and cold....
the bright sparkling lights of the season,
taken down, put away or if still up...
no longer gleaming...

this is a different place than the hole
that two fellow travelers helped me out of,
about 6 weeks ago...
and even if they were standing right here...
as much as they would want to help...
this is not their job, it is mine...
and can only be done by me...

I know how to get out of this place, the only question is...
can or will I actually be able to do it...
because, to get out of this place...
I must leave a large part of myself here
and never return...

a very wise and loving friend once said that
"the enemy wants us depressed and sad"...
she also made some comments, with the central idea that
"...things that are in the past,
and that have been forgiven by God, are over...
we don't need to be concerned with them anymore...
they make no difference to anyone now..."

what you know in your heart and mind
and what you can affect in your life,
can be two very different things...

my struggle, for as long as I can remember,
is with my sense of being "not good enough",
not deserving of good things,
destined to be alone or
just plain, "unworthy" of love...

until my two friends helped me out of the hole I'd been in...
a hole of total despair and lack of loving contact...
I was so walled off from the healing warmth of His love,
there was no way that I could deal with the underlying issues...

getting out of the hole allowed me to begin
to stop blocking God's love from my life...
to start releasing the piles of "stuff" and things
that I was using to block the pain of isolation... His love...
and anyone who wanted to be my friend...

so why do I still have a "problem" ?

before, there was the hole of despair...
I dug it because of "the problem"...
that part of me I've always been at heart...
isolated...but craving contact....
the warmth of feeling loved...

to borrow from C.S.Lewis...
"...always winter...never Christmas..."
when Aslan is "on the move"...
we hear sleigh bells...and see Santa...

when God sent my friends to pull me out of the hole,
that was the beginning...it was still winter...
and now after the realization that I have to walk away...
from the self I've known forever...
an awful, grief-stricken, tortured soul that has always been me...
I don't know how to do that...

getting out of the hole made me want more...
I'm fighting that nasty little voice that has always laughed at me
for thinking I was deserving of more...
I want to have all that God wants for me
I just don't know how to be "not me"...

I know that "Aslan is on the move"...
Aslan is a "large cat", and not a "tame one" either...
but, I am the Catsinger....
what do I do next ?

1 comment:

Miz Minka said...

Pray, pray, pray... When you can't see the way, when you don't know how to pray, REMEMBER that God knows the way, your way, because He knows you. When you can't see through your tears, He is still holding your hand -- trust Him! Don't let go, and soon you'll be through the storm, and there will be sunlight breaking through the dark clouds... Have faith!

Praying for you!