Pain in the Offering

Psalm 38

6: I am bowed down and brought very low; all day I go about mourning.
8: I am feeble and utterly crushed; I groan in anguish of heart.
9: All my longings lie open before you, O Lord; my sighing is not hidden from you.
10: My heart pounds, my strength fails me; even the light has gone from my eyes.
15: I wait for you, O Lord; you will answer, O Lord my God.
17: For I am about to fall, and my pain is ever with me.
18: I confess my iniquity; I am troubled by my sin.
21: O Lord, do not forsake me; be not far from me, O my God.
22. Come quickly to help me, O Lord my Savior.

Floored.

I'll be completely honest with you and say that I envy those who can hear God's voice. I know he communicates with everyone in different ways, and (as of yet) that isn't how he speaks to me.

But at those times when he very directly speaks to me, I am no less floored. Often, it will be something that may seem common or trivial to those who weren't in on my prayers or thoughts. A sudden coincidence, and a very clear reminder of what is on my heart at the time. Or a song will come on the radio as I'm praying in the car, and the lyrics will clearly answer the questions I was asking him. And every time, the only thing I can do is sit in stunned silence and awe. It's very humbling to be addressed by the Holy King, no matter how it is that he speaks.

I had a moment like that a few minutes ago and was so moved by it that I knew I needed to write it down, because it's times like these that I like to look back on when I'm wondering where he is. As if he ever leaves.

For the backstory, please scroll down to the bottom of the post.

Here I am, just home from work and cranky and I sit down at my computer to check my email, all of these thoughts circling through my head - how I'll wait 'til I hear from him again to unload all these things on him, things I need that I'm not getting, and that I don't want to talk to him anymore and this isn't worth it to me. I'm sitting here almost looking forward to the moment that I can turn tables and make him feel as dispensable as he's made me feel.

I open my "Encouragement for Today" daily devotional from Christianity.com and again, sit here in awe and disbelief that still, that what God is still asking me for loud and clear is patience and perseverance. Even in the face of rejection. (God, you never did say it was going to be easy.) I'm floored.

Here it is, the answer to my questions, titled "Rejected Again?"

Now of course, there are two different dynamics here. There is the relationship side and the spiritual side. As far as a relationship is concerned, things are not good. But I have been telling God for 5 months that his sanctification is more important to me than our being together, and that is still true. God only knows why we've been put in each other's lives, but if I'm in his to help renew and restore his heart, it is disobedient to turn away when it gets hard.

And maybe through these things will come something stronger and more fruitful between us than whatever we could possibly have had before. Only time will tell that.

I do know I need to go about things very differently to preserve my own heart though.
Above all else, guard your heart; for it is the wellspring of life. (Prov. 4:23)

Lord, I know you never said it would be easy, but I know you won't test me beyond what I can bear. Lord help me to keep my eyes fixed on you as I walk with someone who is suffering and to release the heaviness in my own heart. Take away his heart of stone Lord and replace it with a heart of flesh. Give me the right words to speak Lord and the endurance and patience to keep going when I want to give up. Lord I ask also that you give me the courage to pray with him next time I see him. Thank you for the incredible transformation in him that you're already making and for the opportunity you give me to work for you. In Jesus' ever patient name I pray these things. Amen.



The Backstory: In the Spring I was dating this guy who I had an instant, crazy connection with and deep care for, and vice versa. Everything seemed as close to perfect as it could get and I never thought I would see the end of it. If you've read earlier posts, you'll remember that he's the one who taught me about God and the gospel and led me to Christ. Impactful, to say the least.

For reasons not totally understood by me, he went from hot to cold very soon after I became a Christian, which caused me a great deal of anxiety and heartbreak. I couldn't understand what I'd done wrong and was consumed by it. As I soon learned, he was deep in a spiritual struggle, knowing what he should be doing and doing very much the opposite. Bad habits that he had repressed all returned to the surface. He drank a lot and smoked a lot and refused to come to church. He lost his convictions and gave up trying.

Every day as I sat in prayer, distressed and hurting, I asked God how he could be this way all of a sudden and what I should do. Even though I felt like the only answer was to break up with him, I kept getting this strong overwhelming feeling as I prayed that I needed to wait and to be patient.

And I tried. It was a month of his being completely shut down and my worrying before he broke up with me. I told him it didn't feel right, and about my prayers. He asked me later after he left if it still didn't feel right; it didn't. He said he'd be a fool not to listen to that, but it was never brought up again.

Over the past five months since we broke up, it was ugly. We saw each other a couple times and it was bad. Really crazy coincidences would happen all the time pointing right to him, and I tried to brush them off. My heart wouldn't heal, and I finally convinced myself that we really were never going to return to the way it was when we were happy. Nonetheless, I thought about him every day, and his heart and strength in the Holy Spirit was the only consistent thing I prayed for daily, even though he was harsh and critical and hurtful when we talked.

It wasn't until a few weeks ago that I saw him again and things seemed dramatically different. He had a gentleness about him again, and the kindness in his eyes returned. He was humble and respectful, and apologized for all the things he had done and said over that time. We were on the phone all night, talking about how we'd never been able to get over each other and he said it just hadn't been the right time. He told me again and again how much he needs me in his life, and that the people he's surrounded by lead him towards the sins he feels he can't escape. He said he needed my influence on his life, that although he as the man is the leader and the "head," that I am the neck, which supports and guides the head where to go.

We decided to be very intentional on taking it slow this time. We started seeing each other every few days, and it felt like he had become the incredible guy I first met again. All at once he quit smoking, cut down drastically on drinking, cleaned his apartment, and got his stuff together. I can't describe the joy of seeing a heart being restored after the hours and hours of tearful prayers and blessing my 'enemy.' In some ways it feels as though he was in my life to guide me spiritually, and now maybe I was there for him in the same way.

After a few weeks we made the mistake of getting too comfortable and saw each other a few days in a row. I think it freaked him out and he shut down, yet again. I thought to myself, "how can this be happening again??" Not only is it painful in a relationship, but it makes me feel devalued and broken. I knew I needed to do it differently.

So instead of worrying and asking what was wrong and pleading for time together thinking that was going to fix it, I left him alone. We didn't talk for days and when we did see each other again, it seemed like everything was back to normal. But, yet again, it seems that he's switched off and become selfish again, and it brings me right back to that anxious, hurt feeling I had before. I don't want anything to do with that. I can't do it again. I shouldn't have to walk on eggshells and pretend I don't want to talk to him for days at a time for fear that he'll become that person.

So all last night and all today I have been praying, asking God what to do, but thinking I knew full well what I needed to do. I've come up with all these conversations I wanted to have about how I deserve a lot better than this and that I don't want to have anything to do with him when he's like this. And those things are both true. But it was the way that I was planning it that I just realized is not the way God wants it. It was coming from anger and frustration.

Awakened.

*Before I start, I'd just like to say,
I made it onto the Motion writing team.
It's an empowering feeling to be able
to use a gift the way that God intended me to,
for his glory.*

My church set this week aside to focus all of our attention on God so that we'd be open to hearing what he had to say about the coming ministry year for our church and for ourselves.

There were many spiritual disciplines that we were going to practice, none of which I had experienced before. But I went all in. Here's what my week looked like.

• Wake up at 4:45am.
• Be at church by 6am for contemplative prayer and quiet time.
• Leave at 7am for home, pray, journal, read, and get ready for work.
• Work 9:30am to 6pm. Use lunch break to study the bible. (I also wrote down any verses that stuck out to me, which as I write this entry and read over them, I realize how closely they correlate with the events of the week. I've included a few.)
  
• Drive straight to church for evening service.
• Worship/pray from 7pm to 10pm.
• Drive home. Journal or read, pray.
• Sleep around 11pm.

(Repeat)

I was also fasting. I have been reading a lot about and have been wanting to experience it for myself. I'd planned to fast only lunch, and to use that half hour a day to read and focus and pray, but I felt called to push myself further than that. I can't say I was completely consistent though, there were two nights after church that I really needed to eat something. I also fasted from the things that normally capture all of my attention: internet, TV, etc. I really spent all of my time (minus work) devoting my energy to God.
It was intense, to say the least.

I went into it with expectations, or at least hopes, that I would get a clear message from him; a word, a phrase, an image. I wanted to know if I'm in the right place, doing the right things. I wanted to know what was up ahead. I thought I could ask God for what I wanted to hear and I would get the answer I was looking for. But that wasn't what God was calling me for.

"Many are the plans in a man's heart,
but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails."
Proverbs 19:21

They said a lot about how we were there to be ministered to, but also to minister to other people. I didn't know how I'd fit into that. I had never prayed out loud, either in a group or for someone. I didn't see how I was fit to minister to anyone. Who am I to do that?

"His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness
through our knowledge of him who called us
by his own glory and goodness."
2 Peter 3:11

There were a lot of moments where God pushed me beyond my comfort zone. I had honestly never vocalized a prayer, not even by myself. And the first time was in a group with people I didn't know, and my assigned prayer was for the last few months of George W.'s presidency (which, if you know me, was pretty ironic), and I have to say, I was so worried about if I was saying the right things that I don't think it was much of a prayer to God but to the people in my group. It got easier each night, as we were led to pray in groups over different things and I became a lot more comfortable. Another first was praying for someone out loud. Thursday it was for healing of a girl with cystic fibrosis, and it was a strong experience of loving a complete stranger.

To be completely honest, I spent the first few days in self-serving expectancy, praying that he would speak to me, please! God, where are you!? All I can hear is my voice echoing back at me! The leaders kept talking about how if we couldn't feel anything or hear anything, it was probably because there was something standing in our way. And I knew this must be true, but all the self-analysis in the world couldn't have gotten me there. My prayers turned to a longing to know what was in my heart that I didn't see.

"Ask and it will be given to you;
seek and you will find;
knock and the door will be opened to you."
Matthew 7:7

When I finally started to just be still and quiet, God uprooted some significant truths about myself that I hadn't even been aware of. It took one sentence in one prayer I received from a girl I'd never seen before to reveal a lot of pain I had so hidden away I couldn't find it. I felt like I'd been broken in half.

"But we have this treasure in jars of clay
to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.
We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed;
perplexed, but not in despair;
persecuted, but not abandoned;
struck down, but not destroyed."
2 Corinthians 4:7

I ran across the hall to talk to someone in the prayer room and my story came spilling out, along with all of my worries and fears and doubts about God's love and about ever finding someone to love me like that. Things I had never been honest about, not even with myself. The girl I was talking to sat listening and didn't seem to know quite what to say, but I just felt like I needed to get everything on my heart out. When the service ended, I sat on one of the couches and wrote in a journal they had for people to write in. In a jumbled mess I tried to recount all the things that had come up. I prayed for God's help in keeping that wall broken down so that it could be healed, and not concealed again.

Of all the things that resurfaced, one major theme was how much emphasis I put on what people think of me. I spend more energy and thought on earning people's admiration than I had any idea, because deep down I'm afraid that people will leave me. I can say a million times that it's God's opinion that matters and no one else's, but in reality, I am incredibly self-conscious. The more I thought on it, the more I realized how many years worth of bricks I had laid down in an attempt to build up a person that people would like and respect and stick with; so much so that I don't even begin to know myself. One of the most painful things about it was the fact that I have never truly worshipped God, because I've always been so concerned about what people will think of me. It's never been from the heart; it's just been singing.

I'm still far from letting go of the concern about what people think, but realizing how much it affects the way I live is the first step to releasing it. It was on Thursday night that I truly worshipped from my heart for the first time and wasn't thinking about who was watching. It was the first night that I've been filled by the spirit in months.

It took God all week to answer my prayers that he break down the barrier keeping me distant, but he did, and I am so thankful for it. As intense of an experience as it was, I couldn't have asked for anything more.

As an end to the week, we spent Friday night recounting all that God had done in our church. They had a few people get up and read excerpts from the journals people had been writing in, and it felt like the floor beneath me dropped away when they read my journal aloud to a packed room. I wanted to cry and hide and smile all at the same time. After my journal entry, they read one written by a girl on Thursday who had been prayed over; she wrote about how thankful she was for prayer for her cystic fibrosis and how she was reawakened to the joy and comfort that only God can provide.

Not only did my Heavenly Father remind me how much his love doesn't need to be earned but is given freely and without limit, but he showed me how he is using me to love and comfort and minister to others, even when I don't believe I'm capable of that myself.

"Whoever finds his life will lose it,
and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it."
Matthew 10:38

The most peaceful truth I can sink into is knowing that the most powerful, mighty creator of the universe who knows and sees all, loves me more than I will ever be able to comprehend, and is eternally faithful.

I wear my 'Awakened' dog-tag (which ROCKHARBOR had imprinted and gave out) now as a reminder to keep my eyes not only fixed on him, but wide open always.

I ended this week tonight, in a celebration service with all of my new team members, and when they asked if anyone had anything to share about this past week I got up in front of my church (wow, you really don't realize how many people are there until you're standing in front of them holding a microphone) and described everything that happened. And after the service I had all kinds of people come up and thank me for sharing my story. I continue to be in awe of the fact that I would be able to minister to anyone at all, being so new in my faith. Then again, God doesn't really have a track record of only choosing the most mature, sinless, righteous people for his works.

"Do not comform any longer to the pattern of this world,
but be transformed by the renewing of your mind."
Romans 12