Unended
8.8.16
This is the raw background to my post about hope. This is what I wrote, stuck, before I was able to turn my eyes to the hope of Christ. It has no satisfying ending--it is in fact, unended. This is not my testimony complete, only the ugliness of my hurt.
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I wish I would have been writing, tracking, mapping this season. It's been so full, full of things I want to forget... Things that crush and break me, things that made me weep without comfort, when I never thought I could be whole again. Full of darkness and pain. My greatest fear come to pass.
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3.14.17
How hard this year has been. The hardest of my life.
I sat down today in tears, weeping for sin, hating it, hating myself, hating that it conquers people I love. I am struggling to love people who are broken. I'm yelling at them to choose life. Beating them over the head and bullying them into the abundant life. Why can't they just choose what is good? Why can't they save themselves? It's right in front of you! Take it! Without it, all is lost!
I did not realize until I began to write, stumbling across this old post, this is where my desperateness began--in my loss. I can't stand to see another beloved choose sin. I can't stand another loss. Another distance, the distance of life and death.
So I push and pull and tear and bite--wrestling people to the foot of the cross.
And the Lord, with his still small voice, comes to me. Child, do you trust me? ...do I? I thought I was growing into trust. Thought I was moving into hope. Letting go my complaints and seeing the Father's goodness. But now I see, there is more work to be done. I am not yet done beholding the face of Christ. I need another Easter, and lo, here it comes just in time.
This is the raw background to my post about hope. This is what I wrote, stuck, before I was able to turn my eyes to the hope of Christ. It has no satisfying ending--it is in fact, unended. This is not my testimony complete, only the ugliness of my hurt.
---
I wish I would have been writing, tracking, mapping this season. It's been so full, full of things I want to forget... Things that crush and break me, things that made me weep without comfort, when I never thought I could be whole again. Full of darkness and pain. My greatest fear come to pass.
That chair. The chair he sat in for days. Dying.
That house, full of refuse, evidence of days gone by without help, without care.
They haunt me.
I don't know what to do with them. They feel so gruesome. I can't stand the thought of him stuck there, dying, refusing to call for help, holding his fists to the world and not letting anyone care for him.
I hated the day he sat me down at the top of the stairs, interrupted from my dolls, and told me he was leaving. I hated his absence at games, at birthdays, at moments where I longed for him. I hated that he moved away from me.
But I loved him. From the beginning, I loved him. I loved him in ways he never knew. I loved him enough to want more from him. Not the love he gave on the weekends that were his turn, not the love he gave in taking me fantastic places or buying me the best things, not the love he gave in making me belly-aching-laugh. I wanted more.
At eleven I shared the gospel with him, answering hard questions about hell and my daddy. I wept through it, wanting more for him than that. I wanted life for him. That's when he really left me, though. Our separation began there. The distance was more than states and miles... it was the distance of life and death.
I prayed and prayed, I poured out my little child's heart. Asking that the Lord seek him and find him. For years and years I prayed, hoped, felt that I had almost received my desire, and was again crushed. A lamb lead to the slaughter, again and again.
My young woman's heart feared for him. After decades of fervent, tearful prayers, I began to fear that the Lord may not answer me. That he may not reach out and save my father. Three months of nightmares--watching my father die in front of me, blaming the Lord for not choosing him. My father's death established as my greatest fear.
As it became more and more clear how real that was, as his health sank and sank, and his drinking grew and grew, I began asking deep friends to pray for my faith, unsure of how I would survive that loss. Would I turn away from the Lord? How could I possibly walk through something devoid of hope? A father unsaved. A father in Death. A distance nothing could cross.
I hated and hated that distance. I hated that he kept moving away from me, farther and farther into his sin, moving into death eternal. And the love he did give me dried up, poisoned by alcohol, poisoned by self-love, self-hate. Years passed without talking, without even texts of "happy birthday" or "merry christmas." I had no father.
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3.14.17
How hard this year has been. The hardest of my life.
I sat down today in tears, weeping for sin, hating it, hating myself, hating that it conquers people I love. I am struggling to love people who are broken. I'm yelling at them to choose life. Beating them over the head and bullying them into the abundant life. Why can't they just choose what is good? Why can't they save themselves? It's right in front of you! Take it! Without it, all is lost!
I did not realize until I began to write, stumbling across this old post, this is where my desperateness began--in my loss. I can't stand to see another beloved choose sin. I can't stand another loss. Another distance, the distance of life and death.
So I push and pull and tear and bite--wrestling people to the foot of the cross.
And the Lord, with his still small voice, comes to me. Child, do you trust me? ...do I? I thought I was growing into trust. Thought I was moving into hope. Letting go my complaints and seeing the Father's goodness. But now I see, there is more work to be done. I am not yet done beholding the face of Christ. I need another Easter, and lo, here it comes just in time.
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