I have this thing in my eye as I try to sleep that keeps irritating me and making me blink fast. My eye keeps watering and if I stare straight ahead and don't move my eye either way I seem to be able to ignore it. I can pretend it isn't there but if I attempt to use my eye at all I am quickly reminded and the fast annoying blinking starts again. It is reminding me of this deep anger and agitation that keeps welling up inside me. Like remnants of deep offenses and poor communication. Like something poking at the edge of a wound, not excruciating pain really, more so just annoying. The more that wound gets tickled and poked the angrier red its edges become. Inside me there is this wound that seems to be burning angry red. I don't think it really causes pain, it is too numb and patched up to breathe. I have it all covered up and buried. Safer this way. But it still has control over me because any move, any attempt to now feel anything seems to poke and irritate and tug ever so slightly at the edges that just won't come together to close the gap. I thought I wasn't, but clearly I am paralyzed. Freedom to move and feel is stolen, I am chained to my own anger.
Layer by layer I see the anger is inward. Not really caused by the things I am projecting it towards. I see clearly, it is directed at me. I am reminded of how at one point this inward anger controlled me. How in the past it has been crippling. I look now at the wound in my heart and remember nights when wounds inflicted were treatment and pulling wound edge pain was medicine. A way of release. Wounds much like this one deep in my chest used to bring my numb heart peace. I see all too clearly now the anger I've been locking inside my heart is not stemming from offenses done to me, it is flowing out of the heart of someone who can't look at herself. From a face whose eyes when wounded glare self-hatred.
I never did know how to leave this feeling behind. But if wounds in my youth couldn't do it, maybe healing can.
Maybe the hands of the Great Healer can do what my self injury in the younger years never could. Maybe this God of love can heal deep hatred. Maybe He can plant seeds of love. And maybe the impossible can be done, maybe He can move so deep as to make my heart love even itself.
Time has not moved me forward at all. One wrong move and this fire hate flames up inside me. My recent mistakes like air, fresh, fanning the flame. Old coals turn orange red again and one spark could send this whole place up in smoke, leaving only ashes behind. Instead the pen in my hand and the blank pages set before me bring a cooling calm water over the ready to explode coals. The voice of the Shepherd whispers and breathes calming summer rain.
You will love again.
He promises. I am reminded of all other promises and how right now they feel ruined and wasted. But my wound reminds me of its deep cry for healing, it sparks in me a desire to hold onto His words with both hands clenched tightly. And so I will.
My stone heart will soften and I will love again.
The words in Ezekiel ring in my head like an annoying buzzing truth I reject, but as it fades I realize His words are life. So I listen reluctantly. "I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. This desolate land will become like the garden of Eden. I am the Lord, I have rebuilt the ruined places, and replanted the waste lands."
I am amazed now that while I am pushing truth away and fighting it off even still my relentless consuming fire Spirit of a God will not let me rest until I place myself completely in His arms.
Starring at my wound for what it is, no bandages, no numbing medication, I see it all. Exposed. In some ways it is deeper and more serious than I thought. But it explains my anger and I am relieved to at least see the cause. The air burns and the cool calming wind brings a fresh pain to the wound exposed for the first time to the air. Pain is better than numbness. Numb wounds get hurt deeper and are unable to protect themselves from further insult or infection. Numb skin gets hurt. Dead skin knows nothing. Healing skin always feels. Red, raw, exposed, and in pain but at least it is alive.
I am not saying I am ready, or even that I fully want to be, but Great Healer, if I am to be yours entirely then I must be whole. I'm not asking for clean, step by step healing. But that you would come invade my mess. Layer by layer look deep into my chest wound and show the brokenness that it has no match against your healing hands. Your healing oil.
Let your perfect love cast our fear and cover the multitude of sin. Let love invade even the hateful ways I see myself. Let me look only through your eyes.
In my crumpled, wounded state, in a heart that is all dried up, hardened I still want You. There is this burning desire for You. Like I was made to seek You. Made to stare at Your face. Like being storm-tossed cannot keep me from gasping for air in between the waves and crying Abba with any breath I have left. If I lose everything and find you, I'll do it all again and again. Maybe You are the only one for whom total surrender is appropriate. I should save my total surrender and complete giving of self for You who are worthy. I know deep in my heart that nothing lost in pursuit of You is lost at all. And anything that slows me down, ties me back, distracts me, I hate that thing. Maybe that is where my self hatred comes from, I stop myself from getting You completely. But You are in yourself patience. Your patience will overwhelm my urgency and create in me a long-suffering.
So with burning urgency, yet holy patience, I will seek you. Anything in my way is in danger. I cannot stop until I see Your face. I will meet You, more like You will meet me. In my mess and brokenness. Where all mistakes rest unexplained, but in a place where peace and wholeness are risen like a banner over my mad, wounded pursuit, my imperfect quest.
I will collide with you in the broken places, and love will consume the remnants of hate. Wounds and scars will be made new and healing oil will be hot against my skin. We will collide when my strength is failing, the moment my heart stops beating and your steady beat begins. We will collide in the moments when I am but a heap on my floor. We will collide in numbness. We will collide as sure as the sun will rise. Because if I seek wholly, if I am all in, if I am one hundred percent after You, You will be found. You will place yourself on my path of whole hearted seeking. Always. You will stand in my way and in the wilderness again we will meet. You will come with tenderness and healing and love. We will keep colliding until our meeting is never interrupted, until unbroken communion rises up and like a vine and branch we are never pulled apart.
When we collide again, all of this will be deemed worth it. The precious things that are lost, the innocence that now seems stolen, the energy poured out, the compromises made, all that was lost won't be lost at all. Because once healed, this wound will tell a story of a painful place, of a hopeless path, a dead end and of a Great Healer, a Gentle Shepherd, a Loving Father, who came and overwhelmed the darkness.
Come let us return to the LORD; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up. Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD; his going out is as sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth. Hosea 6:1,3
Martina Sobey
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