All I Know…

All I know is that I need You.

And that I need Your version of me to show up in the world.

I’ve looked around.

I’ve let the world control my mind, my thoughts, my emotions, my decisions. All around me and in me is chaos. All I thought I knew for sure are really only half written sentences strewn horizontally across blank pages, without punctuation, without any sense at all, leaving me empty and invisible inside and out.

I am beyond lost

I don’t know who I am, what I am or where I am. I only know the darkness and the feeling of falling effortlessly down into the abyss that has no ending.

But…

I’ve escaped!

I’ve showered.

I’ve dressed.

I’ve left home.

I am calling for help.

I am seeking Your help.

You haven’t forgotten me; I’ve forgotten You.

For the last month, in the moments between working, sleeping and picking up kids from school. I have laid on my bed or sat in my car scrolling through Facebook and Twitter (X), one news reel and video after another, filling my mind with the opinions of others, losing track of time, not really sleeping, not really working, only half listening to the kids, as if nothing else mattered except the information I was gathering about the world around me…the dark world around me. The only break I gave myself, the only interruption I allowed myself from this dark reality was an evening of field hockey. Sounds so dumb and lame to admit it, especially since I held others who were addicted to social media in such low esteem.

I would wake up angry, yet reaching for my phone. I would vow to pray, but click on to just one more political review of the present administration. I would convince myself that this mode of media held no ropes on me…yet I could not put my phone down. I would not put my phone down. Two days ago I uninstalled Facebook and Twitter. Two hours later I reinstalled them both.

What’s worse is that I had no desire to connect with You. No breathing. No meditating. No reading. No writing. I even put the laptop away in the studio, inaccessible for the most part, unless I wanted to drive out of my way to retrieve it. Each morning I would wake up insisting that this day would be different. But it never was. Within minutes I had the phone in hand scrolling the latest reels. Mindlessly.

The days melted together, one in the same. Nothing really wrong but nothing really right.

A four door metallic-blue Civic Honda just passed me by in the parking lot. The windows were down and the woman inside was on her phone, shouting angrily, “I don’t owe you a fuckin’ thing!”

I don’t know who she was yelling at, but that could be You admonishing me … the Old Testament definition of God.

But the God I believe in hasn’t given up on me yet. He watched His Son die on a crss after being brutally tortured, so that I’d have a chance to say “Here I am Lord.”

It doesn’t make any sense, the theology around it, but it is my truth. “I put Your Son there. I played a part in His death. His blood is on my hands, for all the times I’ve walked away saying “What do You know? I can do it better.”

The tears Jesus shed over Jerusalem, He shed for me.

I’m sorry! I am so sorry!

I know You have no obligation to care. I’ve fallen off the cliff into the arms of the world too many times to imagine that You’d actually care what I said any more. But You told me, “If My Word is in You and You remain in Me, then ask anything of Me and it shall be given.”

I am heartfully sorry for having offended thee, for having ignored thee, for having walked away from thee – and I detest all of my sins that placed me above You, my things above Your Word, my thoughts and desires above Your World. “Please forgive me.” Sounds so lame; but then my life looks so lame. So please forgive me. Take my life and make it Yours, that I might see with Your Eyes, hear with Your Ears, speak with Your Lips, work with Your Hands, walk with Your Feet, think with Your Mind, and love with Your Heart – Amen

I love You whether You reciprocate or not. Today I choose You – and only You –

“…The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord; they forgot the Lord their God and served the Baals and Asherahs.”…”The anger of the Lord burned against Israel so that he sold them into the hands of Cushan-Rishathaim…” (Judges 3:7)

But then came Ehad, and after him others, because God never gave up on His People – and He’ll never give up on me – or you – whoever you are, for we are his people, the flock He shepherds…

“Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?  And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders  and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’  I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.” (Luke 15:3-7)

Ah, my daughter…my people…

“I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brother.” (Luke 22:32)

“For you make me glad by your deeds, Lord; I sing for joy at what your hands have done.
 How great are your works, Lord, how profound your thoughts!
 Senseless people do not know, fools do not understand,
 that though the wicked spring up like grass and all evildoers flourish,
    they will be destroyed forever.

 But you, Lord, are forever exalted.“

(Ps 92:4-8)

“ The seas have lifted up, Lord, the seas have lifted up their voice; the seas have lifted up their pounding waves.

Mightier than the thunder of the great waters, mightier than the breakers of the sea—the Lord on high is mighty.

 Your statutes, Lord, stand firm; holiness adorns your house for endless days.”

(Ps 93:3-5)