she was not meant to harbor the dissimilation of all she thinks, doubts, feels, sees, and she is harming more than just herself if she tries
This is a post, caught deep in my layers of post "drafts" that I stumbled upon today. It was written at the end of a semester that was packed with so many good things that my schedule, my life, my brain was packed right up to overload, and I came close to overloaded burnout. The draft date was May 14, 2017, and I have more thoughts to be added as the months have been added between that day and this day. I considered leaving it in drafts, but decided not to. Here, then, is a finally-sit-down-and-pour-out heart plea of deep exhaustion but deep desire from months ago.
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God, this semester, I've tried.
I tried to figure out what it meant to live a life worth living. I tried to see the meaning tucked inside each minuscule moment. I tired to push for a powerful existence. I tried to do ever more than ever before.
And I had some results.
I found out that I have a limited capacity, but I serve a God who is unlimited.
I found out that following my own "wisdom" is not always the wisest decision.
I found that I can perpetually doubt (everything) and questions (everyone).
I found out that I can make wrong assumptions and not be able to solution everything.
I discovered that maybe I am much more of a coward than I would like to admit, that maybe I play my life safer than the safest sailor and that I would rarely rarely rarely take a risk (ever) -- my abilities just allow me to do "more," to do more that people would consider risks. But they aren't. They just aren't for me.
I've discovered that I'm afraid of love (or maybe) that I may really not know what love means. I've realized that I really don't like making up my mind but that I am, at the same time, incredibly stubborn.
I've realized that some non-decisions are really decisions, and that safety at the expense of comfort can mean a comfortably miserable existence and that time is an illusively gifted responsibility.
I've realized that I need people, and I need truth. I need facts outside of my mental reality, a mental place where I am both creatively whimsical and calculatingly analytical.
I've realized that sometimes I try to evaluate my own self from a self removed from self. I intellectualize my way away from where the Spirit is leading me, and I hold onto my head to the degree that I lose hold of my heart.
I second-guess my ability to second guess, and I choose the comfortable, easy best over what may actually be the really best.
I deceive myself when I cease spending time with the Son. I search for truth, but if I don't ever come to the truth, how am I supposed to find it?
I think that I know better or can figure it out, but maybe I really need to figure out that I need others to do the figuring with me. Maybe I need to cease so much figuring and start more of the acting. Maybe I need to stop so much internally musing and just muse on the fact that I can delight in the One who delights so much in me and so much in the people and in this world that He has crafted. Maybe I need to craft my life after the Crafter of Life and lay down my existence to with obedience as my heartbeat.
Maybe I must trust.
Trust that I am not enough but I serve the God who is way more than enough.
Trust that I do not understand but I am actually understood.
Trust that I do know what I must -- I know the One who does know, and that's exactly where I need to go.
I'm afraid, Abba; afraid to move in a direction because I do not want to be judged (by man), but I must realize that there is only One whose judgment holds weight, and I want to be faithful into that judgment day.
Do I trust you to write that story?
I'm trying,
and I know I've tried but can try harder still.
I'm being conformed into the image of You, Christ, and who am I to be impatient in the process. I must simply be faithful, but I must be a fired faithful: relentless.
I want that, Abba. I want to come back to not asking what I want or need or think is a good idea but asking--and not just asking but seeking--your desire for my next step, for I do not even need to see more than simply that.
Lord, please keep me from my self and from my selfish, flesly ways. Grant me grace when I need it but grant me truth when I need to preach it and be preached by it.
I crave freedom and peace and trust and truth and gloriousness un-burdened by burdens that I was not meant to carry but only burdened with what burdens Your heart. I need to be channeled into You. I need to lose more and more of myself to ever find what it means to be found in You and to be truly alive.
I need to come back; I need to come back to what you've told me since the beginning, to come back to the (non-complicated) and oh so simple truths. I need this truth maybe most of all, a heart guarded by the beautifully simple and simply beautiful reality.
Lord, please keep me from the reality that is so focused on myself and which is introspecting myself to death, instrospecting it farther and farther away from you. Keep me from pursing things that smell of the fragrance of death. Inspire me with your vision. Infuse me with your hope. I want to be found freed in the fullness of You, forever thankful. Lord, Your favor is so undeserved that you give to us. Thank You, oh Abba, thank you.
Refresh me, revive me. I need You.
© 2017 Deborah Hope Shining
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