He knows ME...

even when I don't know myself.  I have been reading this book... Firefly Lane and those of you who know me know that I don't read a lot of fiction.  This book, it is really reflecting my past 35 years back to me.  Not in any one part put in a summation of both of the characters, and their drives, their fears... I began reading it Saturday night and was up until well past midnight.  Last night I read from 9 until 2.  If I don't slow down my pace I will probably have devoured it all by tonight.  But last night when I put the book down, I just laid in the dark and cried.  

I keep crying out to God.  I know that the only way I have made it 36 years is with His grace and His provision... but I have allowed people to tarnish God.  I miss Him so bad that it physically hurts.  I sit in church on Sunday with tears running down my face because I don't feel Him there.  I feel like I am on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride and I just want off.  

I look at all of the hours and days I spent in Bible College, all of the hours in ministry, learning the process.  Ministering to people.  I don't know how to make that compute into the farm.  There is not even high speed internet out there.  No cell phone towers... I don't know how to look at it and not see isolation.  I don't have the ability here today to see a vision of hope for the future.  If I am honest I know that all I see are compost piles and manure for my future.  Ande grew up on that farm, I grew up in comparison on a golf course.  Suburbanista.  Not Rural.  I have never even held a real chicken, or any livestock for that matter that wasn't in a petting zoo somewhere.

I cry in fear, I cry in frustration, I cry in lack of control.  I cry that it doesn't look anything like I thought it would.  I cry because it hurts.  I cry because... sometimes I swear I am screaming and yet, no one hears me.  I cry out to God, to Jesus... and all I hear is a ringtone.  It's not connecting and I cry out for revelation of the blockage so that I (because I am just that powerful) must be able to do something to bring this to an end.  I spend last night crying, awake and in my sleep.  I wake up this morning Ande wants to know if I am okay.  I don't really know what okay is anymore... but yeah for right now I guess okay will suffice as a definition.  I start playing on Facebook and listening to Pandora music and all of a sudden I hear it.  Lyrics that cry out to my soul and I start... you guessed it... crying.  So, somewhere in me I know that God is hearing me.  I choose to hear His voice, and I choose to face one more day. 

Lord, here I am.  Crying out for you.  In Jesus name.  Amen.