Thursday, July 24, 2008

A Personal Post

Most of my posts I write with an audience in mind. This one I did not. I wrote it for me. Writing for me is cathartic. It helps me feel better to release the emotion through words. I was not thinking I would post this when I wrote it. But, it is how I was feeling today. I feel better having written it. And I want this blog to portray a true picture of this period of my life. So here was this morning’s truth:

I would like to take my heart out and put it on this page. I want to see the pain in the words on my screen. I want it diffused into a trillion little bytes floating out in the great expanse of space.  I need to let this emotion run out my fingertips. It is too much in me.

I am slipping off the high I have been riding. Today is a harder day. It is not the same pain it was nearly 6 weeks ago. It is more of a dull ache now. I haven't ever felt physical pain to compare to the internal pain of mid June. I imagine it would be comparable to amputating a limb without any drugs and the phantom pains that follow.  

This pain now is like a headache. Sometimes it is in the background, dull and distracting. Other times it is throbbing and demands solitude. Then there are times it overcomes me like a migraine, making me physically ill and spontaneously producing tears and pleas for it to go away. 

We are swimming at my sisters.  I am cold in my wet suit when I get out of the pool. I lay on the warm cement like I did as a child to warm my body and dry my suit. I can feel the heat of the sun baking into my back. The hard surface beneath me exchanges heat for my chill and together they create an equilibrium of warmth.

My big floppy sun hat covers my face.  In the dim light of my sunglass-shaded view I can see the kids playing in the pool. I can smell the rich deep scent of the rosemary growing profusely behind me. I am still here.  Yes, I am still here.

The tears ebb out. I wonder if they will sizzle on the searing heat of the sidewalk. Alas, they are silent. There is no sound to my sorrow. There is only the sound of silence- the silence of absence, the silence of longing, the silence of drowning.

And yet, in the painful silence there still is a peace. In the sorrow there is a pervasive peace. How these two coexist, the peace and the pain, defies logic. They partner to dance gracefully across the stage of my life in this unwritten act. In the end, their dance will be the one I remember. I watch daily as this dance transforms me into a new being.

How I hope the Lord accepts this offering, this attempt to endure well His will. I so want to be a worthy servant in His work. But, of course, His pleasure is evident in the presence of the peace.

“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled neither let it be afraid.” John 14:27 

May peace prevail. 

May I live worthy of His grace that brings that sweet peace to my soul. 

May peace prevail.