I'm a little disturbed by the darkness of my heart tonight. In the midst of some of my interactions, I caught myself becoming easily annoyed, frustrated, and caught up in a certain degree of arrogance. It really, really bothers me. The situation didn't warrant any of the above. And I'd just been in a place that should have been calling me to an attitude very much the opposite of what I was acting in. But there I was, becoming irritable at something that I had no place being irritated with; becoming frustrated when I ought to have been rejoicing, etc. It saddens me, and it breaks my heart.
I've found that sometimes it's the nights when I am finding myself most met by the goodness of God, most caught up in the wonder of who He is, that my flesh tries to rebel the most. I had a choice to make, and honestly, while my actual interactions may not have betrayed it, I didn't make the right choice for a little while. I did eventually. But it took a while - longer than I'd like. Longer than honors God. I didn't immediately take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ; I wasn't letting my mind be renewed. Instead, I was acting out of the flesh. It shouldn't really surprise me any more, that my heart still has so much nastiness in it, but it always does. It also shouldn't catch me so off guard any longer that when God is doing marvelous works in my life, when He is revealing Himself more fully to me, that my flesh would more actively rebel. Yet, all too often, it does. I need to be more aware, more on guard, more careful to prepare for the inevitable attack that the enemy and my own flesh will bring.
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I want to go. Out, away, someplace where it's just open sky and thick forest, someplace with streams and at least some high hills. I want to just drive and not come back for a while. I'm feeling very enclosed right now, in a lot of ways. I don't really know how else to explain it, and I don't really understand everything tied up in that feeling myself in a lot of ways. I just know that I want to be free, to feel the wind on my face as I drive across country with the windows down, enjoying the fesh air and the sight of God's creation, just worshipping Him and praying and meditating on Him and His word. I don't really have time to go, and I don't really have money to go. But I want to. I'm looking forward to Glorieta, because there will hopefully be some opportunity to simply get out, up in the mountains, and be away a bit. But it's a ways away, and there's something else I'm hungry for. I don't know. I get this way sometimes, and while I think a good long drive might help, I don't know that it would actually deal with the underlying longings in my heart. I've come to associate this sense of wanting to go, along with several other related feelings, with my longing for my real home. Not Colorado, though it's beautiful. In a lot of ways Colorado makes me ache even more for my real home, because I catch deeper glimpses there of the beauty that we will see in heaven. It's less tamed, less covered in the fabrications of man, more true to how it was first made. It's still fallen, of course, and that's why it's just a hint. And there are other hints - the first glimpse of dawn in the east, the last fading color-laden hints of a sunset; the first morning of birdsong in the spring, the cool crispness of a late autumn morning; the gentle wonder of a descending blanket of snow, the rhythmic beauty of a sun-soaked beach...
I want to go. But there are things - many things, many wonderful things! - to be done here first.
God bless you all. I hope this rambling post is some encouragement to some of you, somewhere, at some time. Go in peace.
- Chris
I've found that sometimes it's the nights when I am finding myself most met by the goodness of God, most caught up in the wonder of who He is, that my flesh tries to rebel the most. I had a choice to make, and honestly, while my actual interactions may not have betrayed it, I didn't make the right choice for a little while. I did eventually. But it took a while - longer than I'd like. Longer than honors God. I didn't immediately take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ; I wasn't letting my mind be renewed. Instead, I was acting out of the flesh. It shouldn't really surprise me any more, that my heart still has so much nastiness in it, but it always does. It also shouldn't catch me so off guard any longer that when God is doing marvelous works in my life, when He is revealing Himself more fully to me, that my flesh would more actively rebel. Yet, all too often, it does. I need to be more aware, more on guard, more careful to prepare for the inevitable attack that the enemy and my own flesh will bring.
-----------------------------
I want to go. Out, away, someplace where it's just open sky and thick forest, someplace with streams and at least some high hills. I want to just drive and not come back for a while. I'm feeling very enclosed right now, in a lot of ways. I don't really know how else to explain it, and I don't really understand everything tied up in that feeling myself in a lot of ways. I just know that I want to be free, to feel the wind on my face as I drive across country with the windows down, enjoying the fesh air and the sight of God's creation, just worshipping Him and praying and meditating on Him and His word. I don't really have time to go, and I don't really have money to go. But I want to. I'm looking forward to Glorieta, because there will hopefully be some opportunity to simply get out, up in the mountains, and be away a bit. But it's a ways away, and there's something else I'm hungry for. I don't know. I get this way sometimes, and while I think a good long drive might help, I don't know that it would actually deal with the underlying longings in my heart. I've come to associate this sense of wanting to go, along with several other related feelings, with my longing for my real home. Not Colorado, though it's beautiful. In a lot of ways Colorado makes me ache even more for my real home, because I catch deeper glimpses there of the beauty that we will see in heaven. It's less tamed, less covered in the fabrications of man, more true to how it was first made. It's still fallen, of course, and that's why it's just a hint. And there are other hints - the first glimpse of dawn in the east, the last fading color-laden hints of a sunset; the first morning of birdsong in the spring, the cool crispness of a late autumn morning; the gentle wonder of a descending blanket of snow, the rhythmic beauty of a sun-soaked beach...
I want to go. But there are things - many things, many wonderful things! - to be done here first.
God bless you all. I hope this rambling post is some encouragement to some of you, somewhere, at some time. Go in peace.
- Chris
sometimes ... when we can't get away ... we can ask God for that place of escape within our hearts. this post i wrote references a devotional i read many years ago and have kept:
ReplyDeletehttp://amexpression.blogspot.com/2007/01/it-was-too-late.html
this woman could not leave, but she found a place to escape to worship her God that man could not penetrate. really cool.
thank you for your prayers. though i long for that mom and dad i never had, i also know that i am not creating the same longing in my girls.
for my parents, who abused me in every way possible, and i to have a healthy relationship, they need to make some really hard choices that perpetrators rarely make. they are still very abusive, and my distance from them is to protect myself and my girls from their abuse.
what i do pray for is that the man i marry have a wonderful family who will lovingly adopt the three of us as their own :) my girls so desire parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins ... perhaps God will bless us with such a family :) that is my prayer and desire.
i've written about it often in different ways, but the wounds inflicted on me are ones that, though healed, have left many scars and deformities along the way. yes, sometimes God removes such; often He does not. there is a lot that my parents and ex husband "took" from me that i can never regain. but God is bigger than that. He does not often remove as though it has never been there; rather, He redeems.
i know that this great pain and longing for what i never had from my parents, though we were all created to have, may never leave me till heaven. still, i am content most of the time. i am accepting most of the time. i am blessed. i am thankful. i am forgiven.
and i have forgiven. forgiving my parents and ex simply means giving up the right to get even, letting go, giving them into the hands of God, releasing them. it does not mean that i must accept what they did. it does not mean that there are not consequences to what they did - many of which i must bear. actually, my pastor said that forgiveness also means accepting the consequences of the other persons sin, because there are always consequences to sin to us personally and most often to another also.
i have forgiven them; but i also protect myself from them. they are unrepentant; therefore they are not safe. and that is okay. it is what it is. and God gives them the freedom to choose. only God could give us the freedom to choose even when our choices hurt another.
the pain does not leave; nor should it. it is how God created us. He created us to need a mom and a dad to fill the "mom-spot" and the "dad-spot" deep within. yes, He can come into those places and heal and care and nurture. but because God is God, and He adheres to His own character, He allows pain in this world.
the pain i bear, my girls will never know.
i fear, deep within, that if God ever grants my desires for a wonderful, loving, kind husband who does not abuse in any way, and a family to go with him, that i wil not know how to receive such love. it's a consequence of such deep abuse from those whom i was supposed to be able to trust. they will need to be patient as i learn to trust and love.
i'm glad you cannot understand these things. i do not want you to be able to understand them. if you did, it would be because you had experienced the same.
i think wisdom and maturity come when we can say to/about another and their life, "i do not understand, but i care. and i will let your life be what it is even if i never do understand it."
***
take sometime to ask God to take you away to a place of rest inside your heart and soul; may He refresh you in new and amazing ways ... right where you are. ask Him to lead you to a place on campus or within an easy-reach distance that will become your special place to escape and worship Him. that would be really cool, wouldn't it :)
Ame-Amen to what you shared with Chris. Thank you. They echo my prayers for him as well.
ReplyDeletejust popping over from Ame's blog...
ReplyDeleteYou are truly my son; you react so much like I did at the same age; you desire to get out and away just as I did at the same age.
ReplyDeleteThe getting out and away is not a bad thing as long as it isn't with the secret intent of trying to run away from the things which are troubling us. Why? Because we always take them with us.
Since I did not really know the Lord at your age, I had no other way to attempt to cope. But the time away, if even for a couple hour drive was good for the soul. That said, watch your speed, when you're wondering in thought. I got a ticket. ;)
As Ame said, ask God to lead you to a place where you can be alone with Him and He will take you there.
If He says take a drive out by the lake like we did when your mom and I were there in the fall, go there in freedom and be blessed in the time. There will be provision. Just the little bit of scenery change can be enough.
Thanks for stopping by, Jada's Gigi. I'll try to visit your blog sometime this week. I hope!
ReplyDeletePapa - thanks. I may indeed take some time like that this week. Yesterday helped, but some time away would still be really good.
Ame - as always, your wisdom is a boon to me. Thank you, and thank you for your prayers.