Today has been another trek through strangeness. Been alternating between fear, self-pity, and gratitude, all day. Pain is kind of weird for also really inhibiting the ability to perseverate or fixate on the inconsequential (which is a sort of self-exaltation, anyway). Not enough energy as to allot attention toward attempting to do anything more than simply trust and do whatever's immediately at hand. So long as something needful is at hand, at least.
Staying busy has been very helpful, in other words--whether listening, reading, doing...praying or praising. So long as there's been something to do: even conversation to enter prayerfully, seeking strength and wisdom to be capable of engaging...or some slight task to undertake, needful, but similarly prayerfully seeking strength to enable ability...
...so long as there's been something to distract from self, things have proceeded peacefully. Even unto gratitude for the Lord's keeping and strengthening in the midst. Without self-consciousness, for the most part. Just doing as prayer. Each moment requiring rest in the Lord, or otherwise incapacitated from ability to proceed.
Incapable of thinking, even--otherwise, incapacitated per having been distracted from the Lord, Who is actively giving strength and peace to proceed.
So weird.
And given one of the conversations today, and the events preceding it--a conference discussing terms of the soon-expected conversation which did then actually manifest, immediate--except that the Lord is preventing from anxiety and despair, even per distraction of pain, things would be much more difficult.
She reminds me so much of my Mom. So much. It would have thus especially been so much more difficult to have entered and endured that conversation, except for being distracted unto reliance.
I'm grateful to still be largely distracted from such anxiety.
Never expected to be so grateful for pain. Not as to cling to it, but grateful for the freedom the Lord has granted in the midst, per it. Freedom from anxiety, although anxiety initially attempted to overwhelm per vulnerability wrought through exhaustion.
Doesn't matter, though. Just...another day.
Bittersweet, really: Heartbreaking to meet others across the divide and have no ready means of traversing to easy communication. Not even being able to compromise, effectively, for reason of necessarily refraining from duplicity--rather to be entirely forthright, despite that it is not wanted, not well-received. Even if entered with love, forthrightness can still often be perceived as callousness per not constituting a desired response. Especially as never perfectly done.
Another sorrow, then, brought to the Lord. Even witnessing of Him and directing to Him in the midst of such dire conversation is likewise sorrowfully surrendered. Reminding He is God, we are not--no matter how we might delude ourselves or aspire otherwise--gently, lovingly prodded...is no less, still, a heartbreak surrendered, imperfectly conveyed.
Hurting, as others hurting. But unwilling to manifest a lie for the sake of proffering a temporary, false solace--prayerfully enduring and entering the painful path of speaking and clinging to truth.
Similar to the time with family: Being convicted by my own actions as grieving the Lord, so withdrawing from such actions, then providing explanation for doing so and clarifying an inability to return to prior interactions as grieved the Lord alongside others. Having been grieved by sin, withdrawing from it, explaining why, then being very much despised, as result.
So tempted, so very tempted for months to speak false words redacting the limitations against sinful indulgence, as to eliminate distance instituted thereby. So, so tempted to go back to the former way, for sake of gaining a false peace. For sake of being accepted, again, rather than despised.
But the dilemma wasn't a matter of emotional preservation, not a matter of merely wanting to be freed from the terror of ongoing, random manifestations of rage. My actual dilemma hinged upon realization that redaction of convictions would thereafter constitute reentry upon the grievous course of convicted sins again, thus again to be continually desperate for deliverance as grieved by my own actions. Again and again, the temptation came to redact my refusal to engage in particulars--just for sake of having some sort of peace. Over all the months endured thusly, I very prayerfully and continually besought the Lord to direct me, no matter the cost to self.
Willing, again and again, to be utterly humiliated if so to honor Him. So long as He would guide, assuredly.
But continually restrained from seeking a false peace, despite the terrors.
And His peace...was deeper still, thankfully. Though the terror was so loud.
Same now as then, in so many ways.
I cannot begin to understand how He must grieve to endure scourging, scouring, and chastising us, given the infinite depth of His love. Love enough to endure it, Himself, that we might be delivered from the worst of our due.
He would rather have endured it, Himself, than that we would. His Son, in our stead. And how much more, even then, would such love seek to direct and preserve us from what otherwise would destroy us?...and what grief, to mete our just punishments upon His own son. Just so that we could be redeemed.
All entered and endured for sake of our salvation.
How precious a gift Jesus is, Himself. Beyond measure.
So it's an honor and a privilege to be permitted to enter anything along what sufferings He endured: rejection, mockery, being slighted and despised. For sake of His name, His truth, His direction.
I never in my life would have expected those who would despise and reject me most vociferously would be pastors, after coming to know Christ. Like being despised by one's nearest kin. Which...isn't off-point, itself, as matters stand.
In unfortunate ways.
On that point, and of the whole, communication is such a strange thing. Like even with these lines here "penned"--only bits and pieces strewn, and I'm not exactly thinking deeply on how they settle, nor of what potential shapes might seem to form in the gaps, from the midst, between the lines. Just bits and pieces. Only the Lord knows what else--I'm not concerned, except that sometimes after the fact He makes apparent some particular possibilities for interpretation which aren't realized prior.
Especially right now, though, I'm not concerned. And in general really needn't be. He'll do as He will, and it's not my concern.
I'll seek Him. I'll continue to press on toward Him. And when situations like the one today arise, I'll trust Him to walk me through. No matter how difficult, no matter how painful. He got me through the six-month cold war, entirely surrounded and with ongoing attempts at manipulation per all possible means by which to do so. He'll get me through this, too.
Doesn't mean it won't hurt. Doesn't mean I won't grieve, over process.
Doesn't mean I won't plead for deliverance and restraint, for wisdom and strength.
I will trust Him, though.
And if He so chooses to use me as periodic instrument for speaking and defending truth--lovingly though uncompromisingly--then it won't be without pain.
I remember what it's like to be in a position of unyielding torment. I remember what it's like to be confronted with a truth that scorches and defies every ability to attempt denial. Being enraged, shattered, devastated, and unraveled from the inside out, feeling totally helpless, grieved, and betrayed even by oneself. Feeling destroyed and defenseless.
It hurts. Life isn't our plaything, though. We're blessed to receive.
Better to come to know the truth, though the process of being stripped of cherished lies is excruciating, in an ultimately vital sense of the word.
It hurts to speak truth, uncompromisingly in love. It hurts.
And if that pain ever ceases to point in despair unto the Lord, pleading His direction and help and guidance and healing for those so prayerfully approached, then something has gone terribly awry.
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