gasping for air

i have found myself the last few days submerged under a huge, seemingly endless wave of doubt, fear, insecurity and impatience. i can't seem to get my head above the darkness. i have tried flailing my arms to reach the surface to snatch one tiny whiff of freshness for my soul, but to no avail. i have surrounded myself with friends, kept terribly and horribly busy with work, slept, talked on my phone and read books to tried and keep my mind from realizing that this wave of black could crush me.

i am a good faker. i can fake happiness and carelessness when i absolutely need to. yesterday i needed to and i did. i was carefree at ice cream time after the service but when i got home and was by myself with no distractions the tears came. they weren't the drip, drip, drip of sadness...they were as torrential as the storm raging outside my window last night. i tried to ward them off by calling a few people. everyone was out or busy or just added to my wave of darkness. so when all phone calls ended around one in the morning, i just sat on my closet floor babbling to God about nothing and everything with an incoherency that only He could understand. i was talking out loud, but if you had been sitting beside me on my dark closet floor, you would have left in confusion. i had my window open in my closet and was watching the storm thru my tears. when i was at my peak of anger and frustration the storm accelerated to it's fiercest. the lightning was so bright i had to close my eyes. the thunder so loud i felt the whole house shake. i then realized no matter how dark my soul, or how desperate my tears or how black my sin, my God is more powerful than all of myself. my God has the power to send lightning down to earth and incinerate whatever He chooses. my God has the power to bring nations to their knees. my God has the power, that in His righteous anger, to bring a storm so big it covers the whole earth leaving none but a handful of people. but my God also has hands that are so tender that when His little child's heart is torn and broken, and when His little child is gasping for air, He lifts her up above herself and her darkness. the awesomeness of that difference, and the perfection with which He performs that astounds me.

my darkness resulted from holding on too closely to things in this life. i was grasping for temporal things and trying to bind them to myself forever with my pathetic scotch tape. i was trying to control circumstances and manipulate my life into the utopia i thought it could be. but there was the problem. it was all what i wanted. i was "happy" in my little life. but when i am in control, things go insane. things spin out of control. my heart gets black and my soul tired. you would think that after years of failure and time after time of coming to the end of my rope that i would understand that it isn't me who will create a successful life. it can't be me. in my babblings last night to the Lord i was trying to show Him with my hands what i was doing with my life. i couldn't put it into words, they just wouldn't come. i had my hands closed in the tightest fists i could make showing Him how i was holding the things that He had, in His grace, given me with the expectation that i could give them right back. i showed Him then with cupped, open hands that i have to hold everything without grasping, without greediness, without desire, in the center of an open heart.

today has been rough. my actions have been sluggish and empty. my body is tired of putting up the front, so my face reflects the tiredness of my soul. i was looking thru blogs at lunch time and came across this. my soul cried out with joy! i would like to quote a little from the post. if i were eloquent, if i could express myself, i would have said this in the same way. thank you jen!

"The character of the God-Man is such that He can reach out and touch the sinner without compromising His own holiness. And in this ministry of “touching” us in our defilement, he is able to cleanse us from it – and to stand strong FOR us against the approaching waves that would defile us again.

So, what’s different? In the past weeks, I’ve believed this about our God: through Christ, He indeed can touch us, even as we face the continual onslaught of temptation arising out of our own lusts. He’s not only a Refuge to which we run for safety; He’s a Commander who insists on fighting right there in the frontlines with us in the fray.

And when we finally ask Him to stand with us, He … does. The waves still come, but He’s waist-deep with us, holding us up with HIS righteousness. We still feel the crush, we still feel the tugging tides beneath you, but more important is the promised Grace, the overarching Love and Power of the Almighty, Who has everything at stake where our sanctification is concerned.

I hesitate to call it a victory. I’ll likely fall again when I in my weakness forget these truths and resort to old habits. But here’s another blessed truth: this isn’t about me, it is about Him. It’s about what can He can do. It’s about the security of His promises:

Philippians 1:6 (KJV) Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ."

this is the God in whom i have asked to be in control of my life. this is the God who loves me beyond anything i could ever imagine. this is MY God. the God that walks along side me and holds my head above the waves of blackness with tender hands so that my soul is no longer gasping for air.