I've spent most of the day picking at old wounds. Not trying to heal them, or see if the bandages are secure. Just killing time, picking.
This weekend, I was told that I'd need a specialized therapy to heal my particular flavor of damage. And rather than be brave and brace myself for it, I've whined about being tired of trying. About wanting to just be normal. To just be anyone else that's not me.
Adding salt to my ego wounds, I heard a sermon a couple of weeks ago about cynicism, sarcasm is just a form of complaining. The pastor cited the children of Israel in the desert. See, between Egypt, slavery, and the Promised Land, bliss, the Israelites wandered for years, years, in a place that takes weeks to cross. In that in-between, God gave them bread from the sky in the morning, water from stones, clothes and shoes that didn't wear out.
They had food. Clean water. Shelter. In the desert.
And they bitched. (The Bible's kinder. It says they "murmured". Pot, kettle.)
Moses got sick of it and told God. God's response? They're not bitching about you, Moses. They're bitching about Me.
So they wandered.
And murmured.
Oblivious to miracles.
Distracted.
Dissatisfied.
Scared.
They followed an unfamiliar path to a place they had to trust was better than what they left behind. When it was hard, when a month of tomorrows looked like a week of yesterdays, they balked.
They claimed returning to the dehumanizing, vile past was better than continuing to trust a God Who loved them in a way they couldn't control or anticipate.
Tales of arrogant people in an arid land on the other side of the world shouldn't discomfort me. Except that in my Egypt childhood, God and I made a deal.
He said He would love me. I said I'd let Him, and trust that He did.
That was an easy choice when I was small. Beatings were bearable when I focused on a life without them. My body could be a defiled temple because it meant I survived another day. All the dark would go away one day, be wiped out by the light.
I'd be free. I could forget.
It'd be like it never happened in the first place.
Older now, I still wear shoes that remind me what I had to come through to get to where I am. And in the monotony of putting one foot in front of the other, hope seems a threadbare, pathetic thing. Feels like all I do spend most of the day kicking up sand and ghosts.
Sun rise, sun set.
God and I made a deal.
He would love me.
I would let Him.
Another dune, another day.
God and I made a deal.
He loved me.
He loves me.
He will love.
Out of Egypt.
Through desert.
Into Promise.
This weekend, I was told that I'd need a specialized therapy to heal my particular flavor of damage. And rather than be brave and brace myself for it, I've whined about being tired of trying. About wanting to just be normal. To just be anyone else that's not me.
Adding salt to my ego wounds, I heard a sermon a couple of weeks ago about cynicism, sarcasm is just a form of complaining. The pastor cited the children of Israel in the desert. See, between Egypt, slavery, and the Promised Land, bliss, the Israelites wandered for years, years, in a place that takes weeks to cross. In that in-between, God gave them bread from the sky in the morning, water from stones, clothes and shoes that didn't wear out.
They had food. Clean water. Shelter. In the desert.
And they bitched. (The Bible's kinder. It says they "murmured". Pot, kettle.)
Moses got sick of it and told God. God's response? They're not bitching about you, Moses. They're bitching about Me.
So they wandered.
And murmured.
Oblivious to miracles.
Distracted.
Dissatisfied.
Scared.
They followed an unfamiliar path to a place they had to trust was better than what they left behind. When it was hard, when a month of tomorrows looked like a week of yesterdays, they balked.
They claimed returning to the dehumanizing, vile past was better than continuing to trust a God Who loved them in a way they couldn't control or anticipate.
Tales of arrogant people in an arid land on the other side of the world shouldn't discomfort me. Except that in my Egypt childhood, God and I made a deal.
He said He would love me. I said I'd let Him, and trust that He did.
That was an easy choice when I was small. Beatings were bearable when I focused on a life without them. My body could be a defiled temple because it meant I survived another day. All the dark would go away one day, be wiped out by the light.
I'd be free. I could forget.
It'd be like it never happened in the first place.
Older now, I still wear shoes that remind me what I had to come through to get to where I am. And in the monotony of putting one foot in front of the other, hope seems a threadbare, pathetic thing. Feels like all I do spend most of the day kicking up sand and ghosts.
Sun rise, sun set.
God and I made a deal.
He would love me.
I would let Him.
Another dune, another day.
God and I made a deal.
He loved me.
He loves me.
He will love.
Out of Egypt.
Through desert.
Into Promise.
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