Sunday morning: Here I am again. Breathless, tear-stained cheeks, all the rage having left my body, I feel shaky and full of regret for another failure. I’m alone, having successfully sabotaged my personal life today. I am missing a meeting for a marriage ministry class with my husband and our church service. My husband is supposed to speak this evening at our relationship ministry gathering. Of course I am here again.
I haven’t gotten a complete blog post written in a week. Not for lack of trying, but because I can’t seem to find the way to finish my thoughts, to tie together the strings of what I want to share in a way that is honest and hopeful. I’m stuck. And I am not living in the freedom that I know is available through Christ.
I didn’t wake up today angry, but a sense of unease has been building inside me for days now. Discontent creeps up and presses on my heart until I suddenly find myself breathless and angry, spewing words of poison, taking aim at everyone near me, everything that matters. I long for love, and I reach for God and experience His love personally. I have a moment of connection and intimacy with the God of my heart, and I feel unparalleled joy. But the spaces between these extreme experiences are never as overwhelming and all-consuming and my tendency is to pull back, not press into God and ask for more. I am drawn back into the old feelings of inadequacy, or fear, or just plain exhaustion from the struggle of life. And I just fall farther and farther back, picking up more weight and feeling more pressure until I crumble and destroy what You are building in me and through me. I find myself crying out, holding all the pieces of my life that my discontent has shattered, asking for You to fix my mess.
I have felt stuck for so long. Stuck being me, stuck with the life I had, stuck with the memories of every bad decision I had ever made, with the consequences of everything anyone had ever done to me. I’m telling you, it’s heavy some days. And I’m not talking about my rock bottom, getting sober, salvation story either. That story is easy. Jesus saved me. But the “Me” that has the capability of lashing out at my family without warning, that feels attacked by those who I know love me, that pushes away everything in my life that is uncomfortable, that resists all efforts by the Holy Spirit to grow me into something more…. That “Me” showed up this morning before I even drank a sip of coffee. I used to think she was only part of my life when I was drinking, but I have no defense, no excuses left.
The discontent that lives in my heart is much deeper, more suffocating than alcohol ever was. It’s a hard place when you believe you have been saved, but don’t see how God can use you for anything good, and don’t live in freedom from your past. I spent over 30 years of my life without salvation, without knowing God through Christ. And I believe that those years were so hard because my spirit was lost and crying out to belong to a Father, and I looked for any way to fill that void or sever my own connection to my spirit. I was saved by the grace of God in the moment my spirit cried out to Him. I have felt the Holy Spirit, and I have experienced things that I cannot explain away. So why am I crushed by the weight of my own failures, unable to hold on to the promise of God to make me new, unable to access the power of the Holy Spirit to change me?
I’m not. I’m not a failure, until I give up. I can’t quit on God and expect to live in freedom. If I don’t let go of my own wounded heart, how can He heal it? If I don’t give Him the things that are suffocating my soul, how can I ask Him to break me free from them? I must pursue a relationship with Him, so that I can be empowered with His Spirit and serve a purpose in His kingdom.
Monday morning: And that is where I stopped writing Sunday, and had to rejoin my life already in progress. My husband was kind enough to bring fast food and no judgement after church service, and we spent time with our small group where I was able to find some peace and connection with friends and the Holy Spirit. My husband and I even tag-teamed prayed for someone else in our group! THAT HAS NEVER HAPPENED. We sat in the car together for more than hour while he worked on his notes, and worked together on finding verses that supported his thoughts. He was spectacular when he spoke, and I saw such confidence and vulnerability from his honest delivery… We ended the night with him reading this draft of mine, right up to where I agreed not to quit on life and what God is doing in it. I told him my fears about what God is calling me to do, and he spoke life over me. I was vulnerable and honest and it was powerful and intimate. Then today I found a prayer I wrote last week, in one of my other unfinished posts. While I was living in the chaos and disappointment and fear of my old self, God was working on my prayer for growth.
Here’s the thing: I have been spiritually gifted by God. I am not sure what the gift looks like, because I haven’t opened it. It sits wrapped in front of me, and I know it is good because it is from God. But I also know I cannot open the gift until I come to accept that it has been given freely, and I have done nothing and can do nothing to earn it. I also have to let go of the fear of rejection that I cling to, preventing me from being vulnerable and intimate with my husband, with God.
“Oh, God! Thank you for this life you have given me. It is not the one I expected, not the one I asked for, and yet…. If I honestly examined my path to this place, I would see Your hands holding all of it, turning each mistake back to good, patiently waiting for me to turn to You. Thank you, God, for the opportunity to have everything in this life that brings me joy- You, my family, my friends. God, forgive me when I fail You and them, give me Your grace for my immaturity. I want to know You, and be known by You. I want to know and love the people in my life the way You do, and I humbly ask You to keep close to me as I stumble, making Your presence felt in my heart and in the lives of those around me. Speak clearly to me, God. I know Your Spirit lives in me, and I want to fan this spark into a fire that consumes me, purifying me, destroying the parts of me that hold me in bondage to this world. God, I am willing to stand in this fire of change, to look to You and trust You. Father, remove the fear that binds my tongue from speaking my heart to my husband. Hold my tongue when it is full of poison, align my heart with Yours so that I can spill praise and life over others, but give me words that edify and empower those I love. God, I want to experience the fullness of relationship with You, with my husband, with my children, with friends. Consume the fear that keeps me separated from Your Spirit, give me strength to boldly proclaim what You speak to me, to live each day aware and guided by Your Spirit. Amen.
Chelsea Finds Jesus 
Leave a comment