A Desperate Cry for Jesus...

Psalm 13

1 How long, O LORD ? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
2 How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
and every day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?
 3 Look on me and answer, O LORD my God.
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death;
 4 my enemy will say, "I have overcome him,"
and my foes will rejoice when I fall.
 5 But I trust in your unfailing love;
my heart rejoices in your salvation.
 6 I will sing to the LORD,
for he has been good to me.

It's 2 am and I can't sleep.  My flesh longs to be comforted.  I long for the arms of my husband but he sleeps peacefully and I know that is not what God has for me this evening.  I slept well last night after a beer and the thought crosses my mind that I should try that again, except in my heart I know that isn't what I need at all and if I succumb to the desire tonight that tomorrow night it will come again.  So instead I read Bible Gateway and I search for my heart to sing when I read something.

I long for peace.  I long for comfort... I long for God and despite I know His hand, I know He is up to something, He is working in my heart- the comfort that I seek I can not find.  My emotions get the best of me and crying would feel really good except that the tears won't come and all I am left with is tension and sore muscles.  My world fell apart six months ago today and tonight, well tonight I long for my old life, my old friends, my old comforts and God continues with the "new well" routine and I just am so tired of drilling in this rock and I wonder when the water will be released and when the pressure and the noise will subside.  

Yesterday, Father God took me back to one of defining moments in my life.  He took me back to the place that I denounced Him 10 years ago.  He took me back to the scene of a horrible accident that changed me and my beliefs.  It's almost as if these last 10 years he has been trying to show me what life would be like without Him.  

We had just finised praying over our Jed Clampett like caravan.  We drove through downtown Atlanta as the trailer came unhooked from the back of the Penske truck crossed 3 lanes of traffic and carrened into a concrete barrier.  In the 30 seconds that it took, my entire life passed in front of my eyes.  For the first time in my life I was scared to my core.  As unrealistic as it seems, I thought that my entire family was going to die and I was going to be left to watch.  

That moment has defined me for the last 1o years.  I remember that Christmas following the accident my Father in law asked me about my relationship with God and I told him that there was no God.  I completely lost my faith in God and all that I knew about Him.  I lost myself in the years that followed and allowed myself the will to do anything and everything that I could find to do to fill that void in my life.  I lost my conscious.  I ran head first into disaster and found it.  Numerous places.  It took me 4 years from that moment, to get my feet back under me.  The next 5 years, I was working on my relationship with Christ.  

In November 2007, I went to a Women of Faith conference in Charlotte and on the way home we saw a trailer fish tail in front of us.  In my mind my only option was to crawl out the window of the church bus.  Ok, realistically the windows are 6"x8" and there is no way I could have made it out the window.  But the instinct was very real.  It was my first thought... crawl out of the window and get off the bus.  Forward from there 4-5 months and after an awesome Encounter with God I was able to drive behind a trailer.  Then over the course of the last year I have had times I have had to drive with a trailer attached to my own vehicle.  Small steps but I either didn't realize the magnitude or somehow I thought I could just push it out of my mind.  

Yesterday morning I was already driving before it hit me that I was going to drive IN Atlanta and not just TO Atlanta.  I haven't experienced panic like that in years.  Everyone kind of blew me off as I was beginning to panic.  I called Ande, he was a voice of reason and encouragement and I was able to keep going.  By the time I finally parked at the Civic Center all I wanted to do was vomit.  My flesh was screaming to be comforted, to do something.  My spirit however was at rest.  I knew that the Holy Spirit had been with me in only the way that the Holy Spirit could.  I had a car full of middle school boys, and my son would have been mortified had I allowed my panic to show.  Oh, he would have done everything that he could have to comfort me... but I didn't want him to have the crazy mom.  

As we are walking through the exhibit at the muesuem I realize that I have broken out in hives.  Not typical for me.  Don't know that I have ever had hives before.  My first thought was that it was the soap in the bathroom.  I really didn't think too much about it.  Then it came time to get back into my truck and to head out of town.  I literally was getting hives on my hives.  My flesh was going to freak out, no matter how it did it.  By the time we stopped for ice cream I was a wreck but I didn't say anything, like I said, my flesh is trying to control and my Spirit knows.. and is at peace.  

So we get home and by the time we arrived, the hives were gone.  I knew that I had just shown more courage than I ever had.  I tell my kids all the time that courage is doing it scared.  I did it scared and I survived.  God had taken me to Atlanta to show me that I wasn't the same woman I was then.  He assured me that I was going to be okay and that He was taking away something that didn't belong to me at all.  This fear had been crippling me for 10 years.  I know in my heart right now that if I had to drive to Atlanta tomorrow I could do it, without fear because in Christ I am more than a conquerer and God loves me enough to set me up for success.

Even experiencing that yesterday isn't providing comfort to my weary soul.  My muscles scream tonight from the tension of yesterday.  I have been to battle this evening.  I am broken, I am weary and I just long for answers.  I long to know what my tomorrow looks like.  We have been in limbo - literally for 10 weeks.  Knowing that we are leaving yet not knowing when or where.  I have continued to lay my head on the pillow and cry out for relief.  It usually goes a little like this, "Lord, thank you for allowing me to survive one more day."  Because I feel like that is all I have been doing for the past few months.  Surviving. Crisis mode.  I look back and see how far I have come.  I feel like I climbed to the summit of Mt. Everest, but the trip isn't over.  

Lord, I have laid in the bed and sought your thoughts.  Lord, I see your hand, I see it on the trip yesterday.  I see what you are trying to do.  Lord, I beg for your mercy.  I beg for release.  Father, I beg for this season to come to an end.  Father, I implore you as your favorite daughter to release me from this place.  Lord, only deliverance will suffice.  I can't fight any longer.  I can't hold it together any longer.  Only you can carry me through this valley of the shadow of death.  Lord, I cry out for you... I cry out for you Father God.  My hope is in you... I will do what you desire of me Father.  I will hold fast to your love and your promises.  Lord, I want to be willing, let me will be willing.  To love, to trust.  To understand and to walk through these dark places knowing that you are guiding our steps.  The only comfort I find is in the tapping of these keys... hear my heart Father.  Even if my flesh doesn't always line up... hear my heart.  I love you... I need you... only you satisfy.