January 28, 2010 , 2010

Too many questions, not enough answers. True in my second meeting with Ryan yesterday, still true in my meltdowns with Christian this morning.

I feel paralyzed. I try to pray (even inside my head), and not only do no words come, but it feels like a chasm opens up at my feet. I prefer the previous feeling of talking to a wall.

And now, quite suddenly, I morph from the 'girl who thinks too much,' is too introspective (particularly regarding myself), to the 'girl who doesn't see herself clearly and keeps avoiding looking at herself.' Imagine my surprise.

Too many questions, and no clear answers to be had. Tripp's today are predictably vague and particularly unanswerable by me:

1) Where have impatience and disloyalty gotten you off God's path?
2) As you have been waiting, what new things has God taught you about yourself, himself, life in this fallen world, sin, and his grace?

No clue, Paul.

Then I'm supposed to find myself in the story in The Silver Chair with Aslan, Jill, and the stream. But isn't it Aslan I'm supposed to be seeking, and not the things he can do for me? I thought Aslan was the stream. Where am I in all this? I'm trying to talk to the damn lion! And paralyzed not by fear of the lion, but by things I can't even find within myself...

Then (having failed at Projects 1 and 2) I move on to Psalm 77. Pretty sure that what I'm supposed to see is HOPE. Even when Asaph felt as if God had abandoned him, he looked back and remembered that God promises to walk with us through (not around( the hard stuff.

That's all well and good, but all I'm seeing is "my soul refuses to be comforted" and "I am so troubled that I cannot speak." That's what makes me cry. That resonates. God's faithfulness to the Israelites doesn't seem to translate to my reality.

Have there been times in my own life when God has stepped in that I can look back to for encouragement? Sure. But what's on the surface today is all the scum Ryan dredged up yesterday, trying to "unpack" every time in my world that I have felt most anxious, all the times I've been hurt, damaged, forsaken. Small wonder that I've buried so much of it. Also not rocket science that scaring this stuff up might interfere with my sleep or make my outlook rather dismal.

When those dark feelings started to engulf me last night, what was my first response? To CALL OUT TO GOD. And I found a block there. Not that God wasn't listening, but that I was without words. All the words seemed to plummet into the chasm at my feet. There was no way around, so I just stood at the edge of the blackness, waiting for the words to come. But when I tried to explain that this morning, I'm told that my first step should be to repent for not running to Him. I did! Who's the author of the chasm? Probably me, but that doesn't mean that I know how to fill it in.

I know I can't just avoid the hard stuff. But (as with the white noise) it's insanely difficult to look directly at it. "Pray!," you say. "Ask God to help! Ask Him to come find you!"

The only answer I can give is that I'm trying. He knows where I am. And that right now the only options I see are to wait at the edge or to walk directly into the pit. (After all, theoretically my words are down there...)

So I wait. And I ask for help. And I confess my unbelief. And I fail at my many and assorted homework assignments, that are meant to make me see more clearly but mostly so far just seem to muddy the waters. And I do what I'm told, and I answer honestly, and more often than not all this honesty just ends up making me cry.