Deliver Me From Me

I'm being soothed as I type - listening to Mark Mallett - that's his CD on my sidebar - sometimes I let others' music speak to God for me.

Every day just seems to get more painful instead of less. I'm not handling it well. Tears are under the surface and flowing over every time I turn around. It is a familiarity I do not welcome. Five years ago I had a nervous breakdown and these tears are reminiscent of that time. Tears that came unbidden over darn near everything. All I am clinging to right now is that as painful as that time was in my life, it brought such deep healing. Today all I have been able to say to God is that I feel broken. "I feel broken Daddy," is my cry. For so long my conversations with God have been about me showing up and He doing His work in me. I keep telling God that I trust Him to work in my life....that I open myself fully to him to do His will. Must it be so painful? I have moments when I tell myself to get a grip and a perspective and smarten up already. But they are only moments and I seem to have no will to do any of those things and I suspect that is a good thing. I say it because I feel like a 5 year old kid and my tears are making lines through a dirt stained face...and it is so uncomfortable being present in this moment.

Before church this past Sunday I talked with Father Charlie about my faith journey. About how when I come to Mass I lay myself bare before God in a way I have never done before and don't do elsewhere. There are no secrets, no hiding places when I come before Jesus. I am in His presence and I am known in a most intimate way. Knowing how deeply I am loved at my most honest and worst gives me hope. Hope while stuck in denial is different than hope grasped for in reality. Thankfully God continues to have hope in me either way.

But I do confess that becoming who God created me to be is a different picture in my head than the reality I live day by day. I can't see the transformation taking place - and I know too well how deceiving a mirror can be. How come a person is always so shocked when they see a photo of themselves and it doesn't match what they see in the mirror?

I am trusting God has this pic of me in His head and it will outmatch anything I could dream up on my own. Despite feeling like God is doing skin grafts I keep surrendering. Walking through the fires. Crying the tears. Seeking His comfort. Being in the moment. It is free for the asking but it costs everything.