Dear Jesus,
I don't want to be awkward around you. I just want to love you. Like I want to love Karen. Or Natalie, or Lauren, or Liz, or Aly, or Maggie... Or any of my friends. But you're my savior too. I know I've spent a lot of time away from you. I'm not dumb, and neither are You. I know I am weak in both flesh and spirit, and sometimes, I revel in that fact. I drench myself in it in the most miserable of ways. And I know my legs can't carry me as far as they once did alongside you. And when I feel as though I've been left behind in the dust, how many times have I told you I'm coming back, I'll catch up, don't worry? That I'm fixing my life up, that one day I'll be just as close to you as I was when I was sixteen and it will all be okay again when that happens...
In all of my greatest pits, how many times have I looked to someone else first, to be my source of wisdom, or my comfort, my resting place and crutch in seasons of weakness. But has wisdom comparable to Yours ever been shared so that it hits me and fixes my weakness at the root... Companionship is good and healthy, but how many times have I abused it as a life source? These past few months I have been missing you... a lot. There is a kind of God-shaped hole that I consciously know you could fill, that I've let you fill before, but now I force you back at arms length as if anything I've done in the past three years you don't already know about. Yet I fight against welcoming you wholly into my being with every ounce of effort I can possibly muster, because You are too good for this. I'm back to feeling the same emptiness I felt that one afternoon in elementary school. Staring out the windows of the purple room.When I realized that I was incomplete and needed You more than anything.
And I have to laugh at myself because I make it sound so dismally romantic. Like a milky grey painting of the human reality or something: Me, a lost young girl, having this inner light and awareness at a young age that is choked out by the world's harshness as I grow older. A hopeless wanderer lost in this cold playground we call Earth. The relentless chaffing of my heart against worldly circumstances that are thrown at me eventually have turned my innocence to deep seeded callouses. And once my complacency has hit its climax, and I ignore the call of the spirit trying to come alive within me day by day, I have become content in living in my numb state of fighting this inner pull. And I've convinced myself to become way too terrified to deal with it, and now I am too afraid to get my hands dirty by pulling the fear up at the roots.
But no, its not so dramatic, or even like that for that matter, I have a good life. But sometimes its overwhelming, Lord. Because in reality I won't get my hands dirty, but I'll get my mind dirty, thinking about it all. Over and over again, the shame, the guilt, the separation. But when will I actually do something about it? How do I return to that state of innocence I used to have in You. Or maybe not even innocence, but curiosity and understanding. Because I can be as innocent as I want and I can still be as dull and vapid as I want. Don't get me wrong, innocence is valuable, but in all honesty, its not what helps you grow in life. I want to grow. In You, through You, and for You... So I need curiosity.
Curiosity seems to slip by peacefully. Like worn out seeds on a dandelion. One that has taken a home in the garden you've been too busy to tend to for a few weeks and you've sort of lost interest in. You're surrounded by all of this beauty but the passion behind it all has been lost, and you're left just staring at bunches of withering flowers among powerful weeds, and of course, vices don't need any help outgrowing virtues. And Lord, my heart is an overgrown, tangled mess. But I mean, on paper it shouldn't be... I've read through the gospels many a time. And Romans? That's some of my most intricate highlighting work I've ever done, and honestly it was the birthplace of my color-coding system. *Pats self on back* Not to mention I've had my fair share of late-night dates with C.S Lewis, and have stacks of notebooks splotched full of sermon notes. I mean, these are all habits of someone who is seemingly committed to the "Christian lifestyle" and should be thriving in You, and yet I feel so barren and dry. But I guess paper means nothing.
But God, I'm not here to make flower metaphors. I just want to be humbled. But I think the thing I want to be most, is to be rid of fear. Its this fear that I cannot deal with that is keeping me at arm's length with you. Because I know for a fact that I can live with a heart that's alone to its own desperate thoughts and devices much more easily than I can live with a heart who is afraid of its own creator. Especially when I know its so insensible. So what do I do instead of digging deeper and getting my hands dirty with You? I go through the motions. I speak to friends and children about you and the wonderful testimony you have given me, and your faithfulness, and how they never need to fear you, and what you have redeemed us of, and the dark places of my soul that you have wiped clean. But why can I not accept that too? And what lies beyond this fear that I cling to, beyond the restraints I have set up for myself? What is it like to walk with You there, and not only on the safe familiar grounds I limit myself to?
God, I think I am so uncomfortable to go before you, because I am so ashamed of where I've been... and I keep trying to repair for myself a veil so I can hide behind it...but its so futile. How could I ever hide from You? And I think I am going through the motions as a servant, because that's easy, that's simple. Servants adore their master, they try and do good things for their master...but they never have to stay too long in their master's presence. But beyond a servant I am not willing to view myself as your daughter, as someone who in Your eyes was worthy of Your sacrifice... and I can't bring myself to your dinner table knowing how dirty and confused I am, and was. But I am not dirty... I am clean. Right, Father?
Where's my curiosity? Unselfish pure curiosity? What would happen if I were to just let go? I want that curiosity again, the kind that wants to know what it would be like to sit in silence for an hour just to wait on you. So what can I do, Lord, pray for a renewed heart? No. I'm tired of those words. Over and over again. I think instead I'll pray that I could take You more and more seriously everyday. That you would hold me upright Father, because I know I am weak on my own, and I pray that you would please break me down. I need it. Make me curious again. Don't let me be okay with where I am with you. Help me grow towards you. I love you.
Amen.
