"My soul, if thou wouldst be enlarged into human sympathy, thou must be narrowed into limits of human suffering. Thou canst not lift the iron load of thy brother if the iron load hath not entered into thee. It is thy limit that is thine enlargement." -George Matheson
I got an alert on my phone today that my voicemail box was full so I started weeding through the month old messages and I came across a message from my dad. I can't even type the word without a lump forming in my throat. Sometimes i feel like I just have pretended that he's dead, because it's easier. I forget how much his absence affects me until I'm reminded that he is somewhere out there in the world not calling me, not talking to me. Shit....I can't even write about him now without wanting to fall into a heap of tears, which I'm sure the kind folks of starbucks would not appreciate on this beautiful Saturday afternoon. I don't think it would be as difficult of a reality to swallow if he hadn't been such an awesome dad when I was a child. Something broke him...life broke him. I get it now, as an adult. The human heart can only stand under so much. It's easier to just check out, shut off and become the rock and island that feels no pain. (Simon and Garfunkel knew what they were singing about). i don't even blame him anymore......my dad. I just miss the memories we didn't create and the conversations I wish I could have with him now. I wish I could ask him about my broken heart. I wish he would know what to say to reassure me about my relationship with Jesus.
I never thought that I would come out of the darkness that I felt after my divorce. i wondered often if laughter would ever enter my bones again. It did. Slowly the pain wasn't all consuming and waking up each day didn't feel so awful. In December I met someone that I thought was "the one". Silly me! I prayed constantly that the Lord would protect my heart and keep me safe from any more hurt. i lamented before Him and told Him to just show me in some way if I should back off, or move on. I even felt like I could surrender him if it meant avoiding more pain and heartbreak. When one prays for these kind of things it is assumed that whatever you hear is absolutely jaded by your desires so of course you cannot trust your own thoughts or voice in the matter. I left the fleece up to God. I told Him that He would have to make it obvious that I should let my heart feel what I so badly wanted to anyway. After a night on my bedroom floor, tears in the carpet, begging the Lord to show me what to do I went to see a friend the next day that I knew I was going to talk to about it so I prayed He would use her to speak to me. Before I had even mentioned him, or my eternal struggle she says to me, "I had a dream about you last night, and I feel like the Lord wants me to tell you." WOW, I thought, God heard me! The dream was exactly what I wanted to hear. I was given permission to feel about him freely. Two weeks later he broke up with me and told me that I was "just not the one." Silly silly me! The part that I can't recover from is the "dream" that I felt was out of God's desire to have relationship with me and make His presence known. My one true comfort in life has been my prayer time with my Lord. I have prayer journals from the last two decades of my life; page upon page of my heart poured out before my savior, my beloved. I even thought He would talk back to me sometimes. Our 'time' kept me going in times I thought I wasn't going to be able to. Where does one go from here? Did I make our entire relationship up? Does God even talk to us? Is He the creator and I am the clay and I am only here to be used for His purposes? If so, then i have reconciled within myself that is still more mercy then I deserve. I guess I just always thought He wanted more between us. i don't know how to pray anymore. It's been so long since we have talked. I feel like I have put God in the same place of my heart I put my dad. It isn't anyone's fault, it just is what it is.
I feel like all this conflict within my heart and head has reached a fork in the road. I met a man a few weeks ago. He is kind at his core and so good to me. He says the things that every girl only dreams about hearing. I feel like if I could reenter into my body and stop watching, analyzing from above I could possibly find a happiness I have never known inside of a relationship. Instead I am stuck, stuck in the in between. If I'm in place where I can't even trust God, how could I ever trust a man.
I had a dream a few nights ago, a nightmare really. I was in a village in Africa and there was a women being raped in front of me by some rebels holding guns. I couldn't do anything about it, I just was forced to watch her innocence and faith disappear in her eyes and she silently took their abuse. I woke up disturbed, but let it go. Last night I had another dream. i dreamt that there was a man who was working in an orphanage and he was discontent with where his life had brought him. I was telling him that it was just the season he was in to prepare him for the life that he had been called too. He needed the "iron" to enter him. I woke up in that moment and the first thought i had was the woman in the village and the baby she would carry, and I wanted to help her. in my half awake state i thought about delivering her baby and helping her love the child that was conceived in the moment she lost all hope. I thought about the iron within me, and the love I would so easily feel for her. I feel like the man in the orphanage. Why am I here, battling my desire for my own piece of the happiness pie, if I'm suppose to have a place somewhere else? Is God just going to break my heart again? He's entitled, but my hope feels deferred and my heart a little sick. I can only muster up one prayer....that I will Love and worship Him all the days of my life.
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