Cave

I feared I might cave and look somewhere other than God for relief. It wasn't as though I couldn't have gone to someone for pastoral counseling or prayer support. I am richly surrounded by all of that, and I have made use of it far more often than I'm sure most of these kind people had time for in their busy schedules.

But I knew this was between me and God. He was doing something that I couldn't understand or explain to anyone else. And I had to go through it with Him alone.

I cried every single day. Actually, crying is not a strong enough word. Gut-wrenching sobs is more like it. I was continually blinded by rivers of unending tears. Even when the tears weren't visible on the outside, they flowed silently inside. Without any warning they would overtake me in an instant and spill over into the visible so profusely that I would have to excuse myself from where I was. Sometimes, my insides would be so strongly constricted by sobs that it was hard to breathe. It was not merely emotional; it was deeply spiritual. And I felt as though I were in a battle. A battle for my soul. A battle with God, but with the enemy of my soul. The enemy who wanted to destroy me and had tried so often and hard to do so in my past.

I couldn't explain it, and I didn't even want to try. Once again I had to lay down every dream I ever had. I'd done that in the past. Numerous times. I surrendered my dreams to God and let them die. Then He took away the ones that were not from Him and resurrected the ones that were. The difference now was that these were the dreams I thought God had resurrected. They were the ones He had given me, and I thought they were mine to keep. These had been my joy to think about. And now, it hurts unbearably to let them go. It tore at the fabric of my being. But I had to surrender everything to the One who would ultimately determine whether I ever saw those dreams realized or not.

It was pointless to resist.

I hope.. through it all, I will remain with my heart bowed at my heavenly Father's feet, humbled before His throne, and clinging to the hem of His garment. I hope the reason that I cried every time was for Him, particularly when I thought of all He had done for me. How He had sent Jesus to earth for me. 

Maybe, just maybe, I will soon realized that God wanted me to take our relationship personally. I thought I had been doing that, but He wanted more. What He had done in my life up until that point would pale in comparison  to what He wanted to do in my heart now.

God wanted to have such free reign in my heart that I would allow Him to break it up, pummel it, grind it into sand, and then make something new. Ultimately not just for me and my benefit, but for others as well.

I hope years down the road, I will come to see in deeper measure how awesome and wonderful our Lord is. How worthy of our praise and worship He is. We see so little of His greatness with our finite minds. We are practically clueless in our approach to Him. He desires so much more from us because He has so much more for us. And when we let Him, He will reveal more of Himself to us. As much as we are able to contain.