Just one more thing that didn’t work out in a chorus of countless others. What else is new?
How do I keep looking forward and putting on “God glasses” when everything feels so bleak and unknown—no doors, no drive, no calling? I feel like I’m adding more to the hard, protective shell around me as I sit and wait for something to happen. I feel damn near dead, void of feeling and forward motion, like some God-like pause button has been pressed on my life.
Then there’s the AW program and group—its tasks and reading—and I feel like it, too, will fail me and not work because I’m that broken and numb to the world. Is prayer even being answered at this point? I sometimes wonder.
I keep calling out, whispering, “Jesus,” expecting a booming voice but in a feeling to wash over me, some God-moment that I cherish, love, and desperately need. But I’m so closed off and guarded that I can’t see or hear God, even if He’s screaming at me.
I just spin and tumble into the next day, picking up more garbage from my surroundings. I feel envious of others in my circle and in my travels who don’t seem as blocked and full of hurt as I am—even though I know, from experience, that the outside rarely matches what’s going on inside.
Sometimes there’s even a twinge of an urge—to lash out, to hurt, to make someone else feel what I feel. Like they don’t already. But my anger, my hurt, my inner child wants to react. Wants to speak. Wants to have a voice. Wants to be the thing that shows up and disrupts their momentum.
I know better. I really do. But the hurt and anger still sit there, like thick layers of dust coating the closets of my mind—filling the space where my skeletons used to be, the ones You took away.
There are days when I just want to level the battlefield with people—to make things even. To project my pain outward when, deep down, I know I’m angry at my past self… decisions, profoundly hurtful comments, and actions. Angry, maybe even at You, God—the One I love and feel so deeply connected to.
I know all the cliché Christian-ease support lines. That we will go through trouble, but not to stress, because you’ve gone through it too. That it’s meant to make me stronger, preparing me for the big things you have in store.
But the steps have run so deep that it feels like I’ve done more than enough “becoming.” It feels like it should be my turn to have some happiness rather than the fleeting, random blips that happen so infrequently.
The kind of moment where you’re on the floor, feeling like you’ve given everything—and you have. And then you look up and see a sympathetic Jesus, holding out His hands, that expression on His face melting your anger.
It’s Jesus. It’s finally Him.
The look of love radiates from Him—the glory and splendor of who He is shining all around Him. Whiter-than-white robes, perfectly draping. You blink and rub your eyes, and suddenly, he’s lying next to you in a field of grass, surrounded by trees, flowers, and mountains in the distance. The sound of water nearby calms you even more.
Always with the water. I find myself thinking
His love envelops you as He raises an arm, and just like that, you’re pressed against Him—Jesus holding you close. His big, strong, gentle hands brush the tears from your face and move the hair from your eyes. He hasn’t stopped smiling at you.
You cave and snuggle into Him, squeezing your eyes shut. Your mind races with all the things you want to ask and say—the list of questions you’ve carefully built over the years—but they all disappear as you breathe Him in. His presence. His… God body spray.
You rub your face against His robes. You open your eyes, and suddenly you’re a child again. Tears stream down like Niagara Falls over rocks and boulders, so strong that your body trembles.
You blink, and now you’re sitting in His lap. From over His shoulder, you glance back just in time to see the result of your earlier outburst—the poor body pillow lying defeated as it dissolves into the man whose lap you’re sitting on.
You try to get closer to Him, to somehow merge with Him, as He holds you tightly, comforting you, rubbing your back with one hand and the back of your head with the other.
You feel His words in your spirit:
“I know you’re hurting, and I see it. Please stop walling it off from me and let me truly take it from you, Tanya. Leave it all in My hands.”
He holds out His pierced hand, and you grasp it with small, trembling hands.
“There’s no need to be afraid, little Tanya. No need to be sorry for not being able to do what I did for you on the cross.I AM here for you, child.”
You fold into His lap as a gentle breeze moves through everything at just the right moment. Jesus is the sun and the light that spreads near and far. His arms are around you, holding you, gently rocking you. He kisses the top of your head.
You feel Him. You absorb Him—feeling good for once in your life. The worries of getting through the month, the concern for where your family will spend eternity—they fade. No more faking it. No more guessing. No more numbing out.
To be with the one who knows you—all of you. All of my squirrels, my rampant space monkeys, and the Tanya-ness He so carefully created.
The tears now are tears of joy and relief. Rest—just to be with Jesus. To finally experience that deep, core peace and rest in your spirit. A place the Spirit has shown you many times before—a place to meet with Him.
He did take the torture for you. He did rescue you out of the darkness and out of the fire meant for the king of that darkness. No—I will not take that punishment.
And no—I won’t stay silent about my struggles or my love for the greatest Prince Charming. Who needs Disney’s fairy tales when I have the truth in the Bible—what really happened!
But it comes with action. I have to get up, get off my bum, and keep moving forward. Keep persevering. Keep fighting the darkness—like Jesus has shown me, even in my nightly dreams, through the voice of my late husband urging me onward.
He is the Most High—the One with all might and power, worthy of all glory—who knows what’s best for you. Even when darkness circles your thoughts, when your mood crashes, and you want to hide from the big, bad world.
You are not alone.
I have the One who is always there for me—who won’t hurt me, won’t twist the knife, won’t choose someone else over me, and is never too busy for my thoughts or my “silliness.”
Because He made that silliness.
He was there, calling me when Jim was gone. In the darkness of that abasement, on that broken sofa, when I cried out to a god for rescue—
The God of gods answered me.
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