Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Under my skin and down through my bones

The last seven days have been like walking on glass. Sometimes I take a step, and it's solid as rock - firm and secure and safe. Other times, I take a step and find myself wobbling on a crack - at any second it feels like the ground will open up beneath my feet. And other times, I take a step and the things that hold me up shatter into thousands of tiny shards and I feel utterly unstable.
Unstable is how I feel. Like the things I hold tightest to are hanging by a thread and will cease to be entirely at any moment. This has left me in emotional shambles, and my thoughts have run wild. After a serious breakdown of my emotions and thoughts over the weekend, I was forced to take a look at why I felt so insecure, so unsafe, and really really alone.
The Lord has funny timing - I was sitting in a dark, loud room, between two of my closest friends, and my skin felt like it was on fire. I couldn't stop myself from crying, and I could feel my body temperature sky rocket and plummet in seconds. I shook like I haven't shaken in a long time, and physically I could not sit there any longer. I could hardly even speak the words I needed to, to the friend next to me before practically running from the room. I had a serious panic attack, and in the most random, unexpected place and time. Granted, several things had happened in the two days prior that looking back, I can see were the final catalysts catapulting me to brokenness.
So I have been forced to start looking at what is in my heart that has left me feeling the way I do. I want to avoid another scenario like that at all costs, and I know there's only one way to do so. But I really don't want to, because I'm terrified of what I will end up seeing about myself. I've spent the past three days slowly creeping in to that place. Begging to hear from the One who saves me, but knowing full well that I have built a wall between us. I do not understand where He has me, and why He has me here, and I realized that I have been really mad about it. And I did with Him what I tend to do with anyone when I get mad - I just shut down and avoid it because I really don't want to fight about it. Which, in theory, would work out fine, but the relationship ceased. As I've begun the process of slowly evaluating these things, I have come to realize that as I shut down and stewed in my hurt feelings I became entirely self-seeking and self-serving.
If no one is going to take care of me, then I will take care of me.
And I'm seeing now for the first time in probably 5 or 6 months, that all that has done is tangle me up in a web I am terrified of being in, that clouds my vision, steals my joy, and hinders me from ever moving forward in every aspect of my life. And as I quit trying, I didn't just float, I was carried back down stream. If you don't swim, you will not just float, you will go backwards.
I have no choice but to trust Him. I can not trust myself. I still feel everything I felt before - I feel emotionally sunburned, like every movement reminds me of the situation, and every movement hurts a little. I am hyper-sensitive and nauseatingly aware of my depravity. It would be really easy to turn out all of the lights, fall in a heap on the floor, and just wallow in self-pity. But I no longer want to be in charge of the outcome. I don't want to be responsible for bringing to fruition God's promises. I never really was.
As scary as it is to me, I have to start tearing down the wall brick by brick. Much like the outrageous mound of laundry piled in my comfy chair, things have to get uglier and messier before they will ever get better. I dread it. But it is necessary. And slowly I think my heart is becoming more and more desperate for that kind of purging. Brokenness, heartache will do that. When you come to the end of yourself and are faced with the mess you've willingly and carelessly left at the feet of the One you love, it's a little easier to want to be better than you are.
I don't know what the next few days, few weeks will look like. I am cautiously sober-minded and guarded with my thoughts. I want to avoid catalysts to fear, worry, & panic no matter what the cost. I don't know if that is possible, but at this point, it's what I'm hoping for. It's a scary thing, letting yourself be turned inside out, completely exposed for the mess you are on the inside.
But it is worth it.
He is worth is.

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