I thought it would be much later that I would share this pivotal point in the life of this mama. I found myself in a very dark desperate place of wanting to give it all up. I felt very much like the near death of a soul that Resurrection power had to revive. It was my end and new beginning, taking place just last summer 2011, a few short months before launching A Life Surrendered.
I weep over the pages as the words came alive, defining and divulging the truth that is to become my own as my sustenance. To live “It takes more than bread. It takes a steady stream of words from God’s mouth.” Matthew 4:4 My spirit would fill as if I would burst, unless I shouted from the rooftops the good news. But no sound would escape, and there was no one to hear.
I had to shout it out, and I was mute. In fear, I remained silent.
I journal, pen to paper for my eyes only, but there had to be more I was to be doing with these words of truth. The word that would flood my heart was not meant not be contained in this vessel. I have to pour. Could it be like Jeremiah?
But if I say, “I will not remember Him
Or speak anymore in His name,”
Then in my heart it becomes like a burning fire
Shut up in my bones…”
Jeremiah 20:9
I became weary of holding it in, and I could not endure it.
An extinguishing of my soul began when I closed my Bible and did not open it for over a year. When the reading ceased so did the writing. So did the flow.
Hallowed out, dried out, I would wander up and down the stairs, in and out of rooms, picking up, washing up, loading up, folding up, all the while sinking down, into a dark ditch, begging for the day to pass with a desire to arise renewed, yet facing the new day downtrodden more than before.
I walked weighted by what I should be content doing as a stay at home mama, and heart discontent with nameless longings. My life that anyone could see, was one to be thankful for. I live the privilege of staying home with my children and educating them, while husband and father gives his all to provide. They are healthy. My body healthy, but spirit weak and soul sick, worn away by the seemingly mundane. The inner pain, the silent moans, the invisible suffering was slowing suffocating me, and there was no breath of life for me to give.
Part of my pain provoked from knowing there is a world, a hurting world I desire to touch for God. How can I change the world from here? There are starving little bodies that I want to have a part in feeding, yet I am malnourished. There are lost souls that I want to have a part in bringing the gospel to, and I wander lost. There are wounded, sick, bruised and beaten that I want a part in bringing healing to, and I am weary and broken. There are those that are captive, and I can barely manage my own brood, and the house binds me a slave.
After more than a year of my wandering lost, falling deeper into the dark, I found the bottom near an abandoning of all that I new to be my life. I needed rescuing. He did and he did.
He stands in the gap, between the arrows that fly and my own soul as I wrestle, he wrestles, not with flesh and blood, but with dark forces unseen, carrying, on my behalf, the shield of faith that extinguish the flaming arrows of the evil one.
Husband rescues when I have lost my way and fallen into a dark place, whose hand that reaches cannot be distinguished between his and Jesus’s as he loves as me as Christ loves.
After my rescue, I hobble back onto the narrow path that leads to Life, and I am well on my way to becoming whole. Weary, I lean in close to the Father and have not left His feet. By His mercy and grace I was renewed by the Spirit, whom He poured out on me, and daily I find my renewing. I dove into the water of the Word, washing me clean and providing nourishment to this hungry soul, and resurrecting my life…
And a fast from His Word, I shall never be on again.
But this fast? Yes, He desires. As I arise in new steadfastness and grace and holding to hope, with a fire rekindled to bring Him glory from where dishes and diapers mount, sharing my stories with purpose…
to loosen the bonds of wickedness
to undo the bands of the yoke
to divide my bread with the hungry
to bring the homeless into this house
to clothe the naked
to NOT hide,
so that my light will break out like the dawn
and my recovery will speedily spring forth
and my righteousness will go before me
and the glory of the Lord will be my rear guard,
and when I call to the Lord, He will answer
I will cry and He will say, “Here I am.”
I remove the pointing of the finger
and speaking wickedness
and give myself to the hungry.
Then my light rises in darkness
and my gloom becomes like midday.
and the LORD will continually guide me,
and satisfy my desire in scorched places,
and give strength to my bones;
and I will be like a watered garden,
and like a spring of water whose waters do not fail.
Isaiah 58:6-11
This beautiful river, captured by my camera on my iPhone while on vacation in NC, this same summer.