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10:47pm

All the lights outside my room are turned off, and my bedroom's dark curtain is pulled shut.
The day has been enveloped by night's embrace. 

This exterior darkness surrounding me echoes the dark sea roaring loudly within.

Fear.  Frustration. Overwhelmedness.

Swirling around me, the thunderously crashing waves of many emotions, sensations, reflections, and regrets from what I encounter each day  - scholarships, colleges, tests, friends, beauty, transcripts, defeat, family, future, failing, popularity - all form one major, dark, chaotic sea inside of me that screams a million things at me in the same moment.

Each wave is a new surge of this battle God has called me to fight daily.

But every time I get out from under one wave, I get sucked under the next.
This time, the wave has a magnetic pull that is drawing me to its depths and holding me there, holding    me     there,                  holding             me          there ...

It feels like I'm in the same cycle of the same 'ole same 'ole.
The rush before a wave's arrival, the sharp cracking as it reaches me, and breathless incapacity as I am pulled down to the deepest parts.
Repeatedly.  Repeatedly.  Repeatedly.

I know, every time, the wave does not hold me down for so long that I drown; although at some points its as if I cannot breathe, I have a Saviour who always reaches me at the darkest moment in the current. 

But this time, I feel as if I've given Him enough time, 
as if I have patiently trusted for a long enough duration.

Alright, God, anytime now ...

How much longer can I survive beneath this current's immense weight and amid its deep darkness?  I cannot see anyplace ahead of me; I cannot work my way out on my own, and I cannot hear You coming to my rescue.  All I have to go on is hope, and all I have to live by is faith.  Yet, how long will my breath last, for I feel as if I am bursting already...

How much longer must I wait on you, Abba?

All the more my heart whispers that my wave is ridiculous, and I chastise myself for being stuck in this depth again.  Being trapped in this ocean of doom, experiencing small abates, yet being continuously sucked down again, I muse:
What a ridiculously silly cycle to be caught in.
For how many years has this torrent abused me? drowned out valuable things in my life? filled me instead with this unremitting, pressure?

However, the reality is, the wave being silly or not, I am still drowning.

This ocean is real to me.

"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms" (Ephesians 6:12).

This fight I am in is real, and it's a battle for my freedom.
The battle lost, I can be engulfed in its darkness and drained of joy.  It is inviting me to give up fighting, to be swept away in its tide and embrace its ways, forsaking a pursuit of God.

Be discouraged.  Lose heart.  This cycle   will   never   end.

I'm loosing breath at the bottom of this wave.

"Yet I call this to mind, and therefore I have hope: Because of the LORD's faithful love we do not perish, for His mercies never end.  They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness!  I say: the LORD is my portion, there I will put my hope in Him" (Lamentations 3:22-24).

Hope yet lives

My.  Saviour.  is.  alive

"Hungry, I come to You 
For I know You satisfy.
I am empty but I know 
Your love does not run dry.

So I wait for You.  So I wait for You.

I'm falling on my knees
Offering all of me
Jesus, You're all this heart
is living for"

(Joy Williams, Hungry Falling on My Knees)

Jesus Christ is greater than I am, I who must die to fleshly gain, comfort, and understanding.

How hungry am I willing to get?

How long am I willing to wait?

How blindly am I willing to endure?    

  All I will do for the sake of Christ.

"Jesus, You're all this heart is living for."

Here, holding my breath amidst darkness, I am waiting for You, Jesus, to save me.
You have a plan.  You know when the time is right.  You will not give me more than I can bear and will finish what You started in me.

I trust You, Lord, that once You have brought me to this wave's top, you will show me the light.  There, Lord, I can see that each wave is bringing me closer to shore, closer to a new season and a new adventure in You.

You will rescue me because You are good.  You are faithful.  You are all powerful.
You will not leave me in this darkness forever but will light the way ahead of me.

"Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?  Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him, my salvation and my God" (Psalm 42:5-6a).

Don't give up.
Don't give in.
Don't stop fighting.

Have faith.  Take heart.  Be of good courage.
In Christ we are able to do all things.
For Christ we must be willing to bear all things. 

 Jesus, You're all this heart is living for.


 © 2013 Deborah Hope Shining


Slavery.  It is brutal.  It wretches families apart and creates broken hearts.  It has caused mass destruction around and inside of people.  The thirteenth amendment helped abolish this practice; however, slavery, albeit in a different form,  still exists today.  Thousands of girls are sold as slaves into human trafficking each year and are forced to live a slave's life.  Below is a piece I wrote last year about thirteenth amendment slavery, but many of these feelings are still experienced by young girls daily.  May we pray for these girls in horrendous circumstances and be the change we wish to see in the world. (For more information on human trafficking, please visit "Take A Stand" blog at http://suguna11.blogspot.com/)

 .    .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .

I am Tennessee. I have seen haughty arrogance and spiteful prejudice. I have seen the sharp, wild gleam of terror in eyes. I have heard the screams of anguish as families were being torn apart. I have felt the chilling despair of empty, black hopelessness.
I am a plantation. I have seen the backbreaking work that speeds up the aging process. I have heard the soul songs of deliverance from the heart of the persecuted. I have felt the solid words of hate and the burning hot crack of the whip on bare flesh.
I am the dwelling of a small slave family. I have seen the family’s careful, attentive lookout for each other’s safety.  I have heard the hushed, stoic discussion of pained parents by candlelight. I have felt the never ceasing yearning for freedom.
I am a cave. I see Destiny and Mathias, seven year old twins. The children talk hurriedly of their longings - longing for parents, longing for a bed, longing for enough food, and longing for secure normality.  The humor they once possessed so abundantly is evident no longer. I have too many times before seen fugitives and hunters, heard the hushed conversations of children who are children no longer, and felt both panic and pride.
I am a blade of grass. I see Travaris, an eighteen month old baby. I see his big eyes watching a nearby ant crawl up a stick. His eyes show a sense of thoughtful wonder, a wonder of the changes he is facing traveling by means of such secrecy and lack of playfulness to him – by means of the Underground Railroad. His eyes also show a hint of biting confusion and stinging sorrow, feelings which no baby should have to experience. I have often in the past seen grown men duck and lie still; I have heard the cry of a hidden baby. I have felt soothing words sung in reassurance.
I am a hidden cellar. I see Saidat, a sixteen year old forced to lead her siblings to freedom. She is penning a letter that she knows may never reach her dearest friend from birth whom she had to leave on the cold, harsh morning the day she ran with her siblings. She was not allowed to say goodbye for the fear that was evident in the hearts of all blacks planning emancipation for their loved ones. During these unjust times, I have repeatedly seen young men and women forced to be made strong. I have heard the prayers of the brokenhearted full of peaceful faith. I have felt the thick longing for friends torn away.
I am a wood. I see Tyron, a twelve year old boy standing stock still against the back of a tree. He is trying to breathe as quietly as possible; he is focusing all of his rock hard concentration and determination on this task of making himself invisible to the eyes nearby. This rock hard mentality once was used against his friends in mind games they used to play, and it was used to fire his endurance to beat them in a race. Alas, in the past I have frequently seen the stiff boots of vicious, hating bounty hunters and heard the crying out of the desperate, desperate to know joy once again. I have felt the fear of the hunted.
I am broken.
 © 2013 Deborah Hope Shining
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About Me

Deborah Spooner is an analytical creative enamored by ideas and addicted to dripping words in candor. Serving as a Marketing Strategist for LifeWay’s Adults Ministry, she loves all things big-dreaming, difference-making, and Jesus-pointing. A pastor’s daughter with a background in communications and theology, you can find her at her local church with her students (and probably way too excited about the color yellow) as she seeks to know Christ more and make Him known.

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