I scream till my ears pop, till my throat rasps hard.

I wander the house, blank eyes looking for relief, streaming down tears that are left behind in every room.

But relief doesn't come – it can't.

. . . I lost it.

Lost it long ago in the over-eager smiles and bright eyes. Lost it in the future hopes and the great ideals. . . I lost it – in all the wrong places.

Relief.

It can't come; it wouldn’t fit inside this cracked soul even if it could be found.

Though I look in each one, there's not any room left to search.

There's no room left.

This dark billowing up in me, I can’t stop it, can’t make it go.

It weighs heavy and intrudes large.

Like a cloud fogging my view, it envelopes my mind.

It takes over the room.

And I can see no way, how, or why.

I just know it's there. . . within.

My wandering fails me so I stop.
My palms slam a doorway.
Slowly building a rhythm.

There's pain there, tangible, touchable.
I know the source and I can control it.

I can control the source.

It's safer that way.

The first time I paced the house was the day he stood in the next room listening to my aching cries, but instead slowly closed the door and never came back.

The day he stared my dark in the face and counted it as too much effort, too much of a risk.

I went round and round and round that day. Swore I was gonna wear a trail in that ugly brown carpet, this on repeat:

“It's not my fault.
I didn't do anything wrong.
I'm not crazy.”

Who leaves someone in a way that makes them say those lines over and over and over for the better part of an afternoon all the while searching the window to see if the one who instigated the feelings would return with the reassuring relief?

Two months later and the same lines repeat.

My hands are getting red and they sting.

Rest them on the carpet, lean over them and a heave a wail into the empty house straight out of my empty soul.

But no cry can cover the ground left by another person.

No amount of tears can soothe the wound left by someone who cut himself right out, blaming the dark ebbing up in me, with not even a second glance.

This dark. . . the dark in me.

The dark that did ebb up and did pour out and did scald some hearts.

It's the dark in me, the dark that repelled the future light I almost had in hand, the dark that left me groping alone.

The dark that is really the beginning and the end of it all.

And I stop. . . how can this be? How can this be?

This is the source I cannot control.

Not him.

Not the past.

Not the dark.

Not the terror that rises up my throat and spills out.

Not the anxious that I feel day after day.

Not the emotion that unravels my heart.

And I believe that this is the suffering that begs me to surrender.

The pain that calls me to feel all that was bottled up and smudged black over the years.

“Is this why we avoid suffering at all costs? Is this why we desperately try to avoid pain, because suffering is a surrender to the uncontrollable?”

My cries to my own ears sound like those of a newborn.

Quick and striking.

They feel fuller, more alive, more relieving.

Is this the pain of being pushed into a new world that they experience?

Do they not appreciate this suffocating air either?

. . . But they must breathe it.

. . . I must breathe it.

Breathe in the pain, the suffering. . .

Could it be my life-giving, my very renewing?

Am I being made new, re-made, every time this ache slinks back in?

Every time I feel that dark living pain?

Suffering calls for surrender.

There’s no other way around it, no different path, no separate course.

Don't breathe it in and you'll end up drowning above water. Ignore it and it will cause your insides to dry up and dry out.

My eyes stained black stare back in the mirror.

I grip the counter, hands still red.

This is the unsafe, uncontrollable that I avoid.

But deep inside I know it.

Surrender to the Everlasting and His strong arms doesn’t feel like a loss of control.

Rather, an alleviating release.

And I know it's true.

In all the aloneness, in all the cries and soul draining, in all the pacing and constant worrying, in all the wall slamming and heart breaking. . . He was there.

He was there. . . standing, leaning over my shoulder, simply asking, "Why do you forget Me?"

He was there. . . calming, staring my bloodshot eyes right through to my aching soul, simply asking, "Why do you not remember that I am within you?"

He was there. . . patient, pacing that awful path right behind me, simply asking, "Why do you keep from Me the weight that is too much for you to bear?"

"Why do you not remember that I have more control than you ever could, that I have more power to change your circumstances than you ever would, and that I have the wisdom to see the bigger picture better than you ever should. . . Give me your dark."

Relief.

This is what I am called to.

To give away the dark.

Not to struggle and suffer, but to surrender.

He must take it. He can control it.

Give Him your dark.

This is the release, this is the freedom.

My God will turn my darkness into light.

And I rest.

I just know He's there. . . within.