The Sword in the Heart of Stone

Psalm 6:3
"My soul is in deep anguish. How long, LORD, how long?"

Psalm 25:16-18

  "Turn to me and be gracious to me,
   for I am lonely and afflicted.  
Relieve the troubles of my heart
   and free me from my anguish. 
 Look on my affliction and my distress
   and take away all my sins."


I've realized that a lot of my blog posts lately have been inspired by discouragement and generally turn out to be venting post and long rants of bitterness and bad attitude. I often feel a little shame when my readers offer me their encouragement because a lot of things they say are things I should just know. I always really appreciate the encouragement I receive, though, because I'm a words of affirmation person and everything people say to me seems to be exactly what I need to hear. (So thank you to all who respond with encouraging words). 


I wish I could say that since that realization I've come to a point in my walk with Jesus where I have put an unfailing trust in Him and surrendered all my bitterness and discouragement to Him. I'm not there yet, but my hope is that what ever is written will end on a more hopeful note than hopeless. 


However, I do plan on being as transparent and honest as I can because I have a very imperfect relationship with Christ but it is my hope that it will perhaps inspire others to be open and transparent as well. The last kind of person anyone wants to meet is a Christian who tries to act like they've got it all figured out and have their life perfectly together but is inwardly a total train wreck. Hopefully my readers can find encouragement in my road marked with suffering though there is pain in the offering. 


Lately I have felt very much like King David from the Old Testament when he would write out his Psalms of anguish and despair and would be begging God to come to his rescue. I can totally relate to his desperate cries of "Where are you?" and "How long are you gonna take?"  


I took a wounding early on this week. A deep wounding that touched places in my heart that I didn't even know were there. It really shouldn't even have been a big deal, perhaps if I was trusting God more it would only have been a small prick and would have passed quickly. Even now it's as fresh a wounding as it was when it first happened. I've been praying that God would relieve my distress and take the pain away, but it's still there. Sometimes I wonder if it's okay to be angry about it. But I'm quite convinced that the only reason it still hurts as much as it does is my fault and God will perhaps do something about it after I have a more trusting attitude. And if I'm being completely honest, I don't like myself for not having a more trusting attitude. Sometimes I like to think myself a true follower of Jesus. But if I truly followed, wouldn't I truly trust as well?


When I read over my own thoughts, though, it doesn't sound right to me. People tell me all the time that God will meet you where you are, no matter the circumstance,and He will provide comfort. I've also been taught that I have a now God. That if I call out when I'm sinking like Peter did, then immediately Jesus will reach out His hand like He did for Peter. But I've been asking for His hand and I don't feel it yet. 


But, I watched an Andy Stanley sermon on pivotal circumstances God uses to grow our faith and he told the story of when Jesus didn't show up for Lazarus being sick when Mary and Martha asked him to come. And then when he did show up, he stood there and cried for a bit. I never really thought of that before... I would have been ticked probably if I was Mary or Martha. 


Ticked because it was an unnecessary and deep wounding. It would double hurt because they had to sit there and watch their brother die at the same time they were sitting there waiting for Jesus to show up, who didn't until their brother was dead and they experienced the pain of losing a brother. Sometimes it's really hard not to be mad at the fact you got hurt. 
Of course Jesus said he did all that for the faith of the disciples and people watching. Of course Jesus healed the wound and brought Lazarus back. And God used Mary and Martha's wound to grow the faith of others... but I don't imagine that Mary or Martha much enjoyed that hence them being a little mad and irritated when Jesus did show up.


But then, there's the part where you have to trust Jesus, too. I don't think about this very much, but it's pretty amazing that God doesn't get ticked off at how many times He is unnecessarily hurt. I mean, there's a lot of times He asks us to show up to stuff and we say 'no'. People tell us it's okay to say 'no', it just means God will find someone else. But haven't you ever been super deflated after realizing your person wasn't gonna show up and you needed to ask someone else to do it? 


One of my biggest problems (at least I've been told it's a problem) is that my tendency is to heap guilt on myself when things go wrong. But in all honesty, I really do think that things go wrong as a result of me. Like, if I was a better person, people wouldn't do things that hurt me because they'd like me better. Or if I was a smarter person, I would get better grades. Or if I was less of a selfish person, I would be more aware of others and would be quicker to make sure they were feeling welcomed or I would be aware of what things cause them pain and wouldn't do anything to hurt them in my own want for attention. Mostly, I just wish I was better so that people wouldn't hurt me on purpose. I feel like I deserve it when people cut me down because in my head I think that there is obviously something about me that they don't like, something about me that's not good enough for them, something about me that rubs them the wrong way. If only I knew what that was, I would change it. 
I hurt people a lot too, I realized. I don't like that about me either. I do things that are inconsiderate and I miss things that I should notice. I'm not as polite as I should be, and I recycle the same jokes too much. 


And people tell me that God made me special. I've been 'special' my whole life which only translates into words like: Weird, outcast, odd, strange, different etc.
Sometimes I wish I wasn't special. Sometimes I wish I was normal. And I don't like myself for not liking myself because that's bad too. I'm supposed to think of myself as God's creation and be inspired and uplifted just knowing that God made me who I am because that's what God does.. makes people different. 


I don't like myself because I know how I should think about myself, but I can't see any reason that would make me want to. It's like that story by Max Lucado about the little Wemmick with all the dot stickers on him that goes: 

"Hmm," the maker spoke thoughtfully as he inspected the gray circles. "Looks like you've been given some bad marks." "I didn't mean to, Eli. I really tried hard." "Oh, you don't have to defend yourself to me, child. I don't care what the other Wemmicks think." "You don't?"
No, and you shouldn't either. Who are they to give stars or dots?
They're Wemmicks just like you. What they think doesn't matter, Punchinello. All that matters is what I think. And I think you are pretty special."
Punchinello laughed. "Me, special? Why? I can't walk fast. I can't jump. My paint is peeling. Why do I matter to you?"
Eli looked at Punchinello, put his hands on those small wooden shoulders, and spoke very slowly. "Because you're mine. That's why you matter to me."
Punchinello had never had anyone look at him like this--much less his maker. He didn't know what to say.
"Every day I've been hoping you'd come," Eli explained.
"I came because I met someone who had no marks."
"I know. She told me about you."
"Why don't the stickers stay on her?"
"Because she has decided that what I think is more important than what they think. The stickers only stick if you let them."

And that is why I don't like myself. Because I let the stickers stick. I'm too self absorbed to see God's love matter more. Too blinded by myself. Which is another area that I'm failing at... seeing God's love. 

But I'm a Christian.. I'm just supposed to know God's love all the time. Or something like that. Idk. 

And I have an accountability partner who knows of my discouraging wound who called me earlier to see how my heart was doing and how I felt towards God. At the time I was feeling to be on the better end of things, thinking more hopefully and feeling less wounded about it. At the time I could honestly say I was seeing how God was making me to trust. Really, I'm only trusting because it's my only option at this point. I can do nothing but trust. But trusting doesn't take the pain of it away. 

And you can comment with as many encouraging notes as you want to saying God loves me and likes me the way I am, but I already know that. I know that and I feel miserable because I don't feel it. 

I'm a feelings person. And you can chew me out for thinking my relationship with Christ is based on feelings when there's more to it that meets the eye. But i know that already. I know that in a couple weeks or months or years the hell i've been through this week won't look like anything and I'll be able to say, "God grew me through that." or "God gave me joy later." I know that. I still have Faith that God's working for my good. I have faith that God has a bigger plan. But that doesn't change what I'm going through now and this very miserable moment in my current life. 

And I know God loves me and I know that my life has touched the lives of others at some point. You don't have to tell me that or slap me on the wrist for not believing that (Though you probably want to/ might do later) but that doesn't change what I'm feeling right now. 

Honestly, I feel like I took an emotional beating this week. It started rough and everything heaped on top of that didn't help. Every little comment hurt 100 times worse because my heart has been raw for the last couple days. 

And i know you always meet those people who seem really grouchy and ready to bite your head off all the time and they say, "Well I'm just done taking crap from people." I'm not like that. I don't think I'll ever be done because I'll always be me. I will still greet people with a smile and genuinely ask after their day and respond sweetly. I will add my own jabs at myself when you jab at me or my family and play your games with me, just so you like me and think I can take a joke. I will defend my siblings a little and then give up and accept your knife and add it to my collection. I'll pray and tell Jesus my heart hurts a little and He will comfort me and help me to forgive the mean people whilst I put my own little unforgiving knife in my heart for being a person that deserved a knife in the first place. 

People are just like those stupid Wemmicks going around sticking Stars and Dots on each other that our maker tells us shouldn't matter.

But, in the game of life, it's a little more real. People aren't running around with stars and dot stickers, oh no. People are running around with knives and compliments, jabbing at your heart and stroking at your ego. Unfortunately, the compliments act more like stickers and become less sticky with time. The knives? They last forever. I mean, not FOREVER, you can have them taken out. There's a special way, though. A trick to getting the knives out actually. Most people don't know it and so they collect them and let them build up so that there are so many knives in their heart it looks like a pin cushion and there is no room for anything but pain. It's kind of like King Arthur and the sword in the stone. All the other people would tug at that sword and it wouldn't budge. But little Arthur was different... there was something about him. He was the right King. And so is Jesus... the right king whose heritage is forgiveness and it's His forgiveness that takes the sword out. It's the secret trick to all of the pain we carry, let Jesus pull it out. 


But! We're sneaky..or, our enemy is sneaky and clever and we follow suit so easily. While Jesus is plucking out the sword that someone else stuck in our little heart, the devil tells us that we deserved it, and so we craft our own little dagger and stick it in where the sword was taken from. At least, that's my problem. With Jesus' help I can forgive all the nasty people and nasty comments and mean words and heart stompings and guttings, but then I convince myself I deserved that and I sneak a knife in from my own self. And then I can't bring myself to forgive myself. I've blogged about this before. I'm stillllll fighting it. I'm still struggling to be able to forgive myself. It's not that I keep certain people in cages in my heart and take them out and beat them up sometimes..  I keep my own little self in a little cage and take myself out and beat me up. 

That's what Jesus is working on fixing in me. It's a big project and I feel like it will take a while. But I have hope that someday I will be able to like myself for who I am even though a lot of other people don't. 


Honestly, I do feel like God loves me. I do feel like I can believe that my faith will grow through the fire I'm walking through right now. I do feel like God is with me and comforting me, but some things take time. 


My one hope is that who ever reads this and feels like they've been wounded by people one too many times will place their faith in the forgiveness of Christ and let Him take some knives out. If there's anything I've learned from life up to this point is that I am not capable of forgiving people. There is nothing in my human self that makes me want to forgive a wound even if the person says they're sorry. With Jesus, though, I can forgive people and I can experience a deep healing that brings me closer to Jesus.