So God, I just want to clear up some things with you. You see, I've never been to the hill country before. This is new terrain for me. I mean, I've been living on the beach my whole life, and I thought that life would be easy with you. Sure, some days it rained, and sometimes my house got a little bit flooded out, but I was so used to sunny and 75. Everyone around me agreed with me. They told me that the walk wouldn't be easy, but it seemed pretty easy to me. And it didn't look difficult for them either. So we were all together, on the beach, telling each other it would be hard to walk but never actually walking. We thought we were walking, but we weren't. We were just talking about it.
Then one day you sent me a letter inviting me to stay with you for a while in the hill country. At first I was confused, because I thought you lived on the beach. When I showed the letter to some of my neighbors, they sort of hemmed and hawed about it and shrugged it off. So I packed up and left. My neighbors, I think they thought I was sort of weird to leave the beach. But I wanted to see if you really did live in the hill country.
It took me a while to get started. The road was uneven and unpaved. I had to pass some friends as I left, and it was awkward. I didn't want to leave them. I wanted them with me, but I couldn't force them to come with me, because they were happy at the beach. Maybe you sent them letters, too, telling them to stay there. I don't know. I still don't want them behind. But I don't know what you're doing with them, and I can't question you. So I keep walking.
Now that I'm walking, it gets harder and harder. I've started to reach some of the foothills and I'm stumbling a little. It's weird out here, and disillusioning. I have to look twice at my surroundings because it's all unfamiliar to me. Every time I look back I trip over something in front of me on the road. And as I look ahead I see these terribly looming mountains. They scare me. Do you live in them? On top of them? This is so different from the beach. On the beach it was all flat land and I could see clearly all around me for miles. But now there are so many obstacles and my vision is limited. Sometimes I'll see other people traveling, and sometimes I'm even lucky enough to have some conversation with them, but they're on their own journey, and I'm on mine, and I understand that.
Something I'm grappling with is the difficulty and humility this journey to your house requires. The concept that you want me to struggle is foreign to me. Having some one tell you that you are going to suffer for Christ is very different than actually suffering. It's like someone describing light to someone who has lived in the dark their whole life. It's not something you can describe; what would you say? Or trying to describe red to someone who is color blind. How would you do it? It's impossible to understand until you experience it.
Yet perhaps, in that case, we suffer so that we may know You. How can we know You until we suffer like you? But at the same time, I look at people who have disorders, like my dad, or anorexia, or mental disabilities, or who are emotionally or physically abused, and I want to turn into a mass of tears and ask you "How can you let this person go through this? How is this helping? What happened to your compassion?" I am unworthy to ask these questions, I know. Maybe if I had real faith I wouldn't ask. Maybe if I weren't so weak I could trust you more. I don't know anymore. I just keep walking and stretching my legs. I can tell I'm not in shape because it burns. Maybe I never was in shape. "No pain, no gain", right? Well, I'm exercising now, aren't I?
God, why do I keep failing people? And why have you made me so that I always take the fall for others? Why is it wrong to ask why? Why does it signify a lack of faith? Why am I ALWAYS wrong? Why do I always take the blame, and why does it feel sort of satisfying?
"I need you like a hurricane
Thunder crashing wind and rain
To tear these walls down
I'm only yours now
I need you like a burning flame
A wildfire untamed
To burn these walls down
I'm only yours now
I'm only yours now."
--"Hurricane" Jimmy Needham
(Please, don't leave thoughtless comments. Pray first.)
2 comments:
I wrote something tonight at first wednesday. The whole thing was centered on the word healing. Patience's blog has the video of the song we sang and then the guy's testimony as a link. As I was listening to Pastor Matt talk about healing I wrote this...your blog helped me write it.
It's about going up the mountain not staying on the beach, even after the storm - even after God may heal you from the storm He doesn't want you to just stay at the beach. After He has healed you He seems to want you to start climbing the mountain, to bring Him the Glory. ...And maybe, just maybe he wants you to start climbing the mountain before he even heals you.
It doesn't have to do with this blog besides the point of me wanting to thank you for writing it...then watch you hurl as you take the compliment. ;)
When you wrote that blog about how you wanted to get rid of everything you were and I talked about how I didn't want to get rid of EVERYTHING of me but just the things that were not of God, I didn't understand where you were coming from. I do now though.
This reminds me of The Shack, because the main character got a letter from God, to go to the mountains. This place was the hardest place he would ever go to. ...You'll have to read it to understand. The journey there was hard for him emotionally, he had to leave his best friend because he knew he had to go alone, it was hard for him emotionally because of his feelings and because everything in his flesh inside of him was telling to turn back. But once he got there it was the best experience of his entire life. If he hadn't gone through the journey of getting there he would have never experienced all that God had for Him.
I'm proud of you girl, more than you know, because you are taking the step that God wants you to make. I know it will be hard, and at times the altitude will make you stop and fall to your knees, but keep going. It'll be worth all the hurt and the tears and the misunderstanding that living the life going to the mountain entails and it will bring.
I ask you to pray for me. I want God's will for my life... And I want to talk to you soon. We really need a sleepover, and I don't want to just, you know, talk about it. Well, are you busy tomorrow night? A bunch of us girls are going to the movies to see Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants at 6:45. I really hope you're not working! Text me!
Wow. I can't believe I forgot to check your blog in so long. This is something I wish I had seen before I left because i want to show it to my youth. This is life with Christ. You nailed it babe. This is what it's like, and even for people like me...this hits home. I chose to walk the path now I just have to get used to the rhythm of road.
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