Breaking up my fallow ground. This is what God is definitely doing in my heart right now. In the middle of Bible Study this morning, I reigned in the tears more than once as I realized God was messing with things. Things I had let settle for years, decades, really. This ground had become so solid, so tread upon that it was just home for me. And suddenly, in an hour and a half, everything was breaking loose and weeds, long-since accepted as commonplace, were being uprooted.
For so long, I have struggled with the insecurity that said I wasn't good enough, wasn't worth the investment as a friend, one to be trusted, called upon or enjoyed. Then, as I looked at the relationships which surround me, women pouring into other women, relying on them during the rough times and laughing with them during the good ones, I realized it wasn't them shutting me out. It was me.
Independence has been a blessing when I feel called to follow the Lord in unconventional ways. I have rarely found myself as the one who seeks approval from others in my convictions. I follow what I know to be true, what God has called me to do. And that's good, I think.
But my independence runs deep. Very, very deep. While I have learned to let others care for me in physical ways, providing for what I lack or meeting my needs when I am unable, I have kept the door very tightly sealed when it comes to my emotional needs. I am very uncomfortable at the idea of relying emotionally on anyone. And it took me a long time to realize this fact.
Unfortunately, while admitting you have a problem may be the first step, it is not the only step. While I recognized my inability to depend on others, even while crying out to be allowed to do so, I did not know how to fix it.
Though I had spent nights literally crying myself to sleep, begging God to send me one genuine friend - the kind I could call in the middle of the night with an urgent need, or when I have the best news and need to share it - the kind I had seen all around me but to whom I had not allowed myself to open up, I became like those in Hosea's time, of whom it was said, "And they do not cry to me from their hearts when they wail on their beds" (Hosea 7:14).
Because this was the real root of my problem, the root God dug up today and shoved right in my face, it wasn't just people I had been shutting out, allowing to meet my physical needs, but not my emotional ones, it was God Himself.
While I deeply believe He will always provide for our needs - income, a house, furniture, food, bills - and I am absolutely willing to follow wherever He leads, I had not trusted, truly trusted, Him to be my all in all. To take all of me, every emotion, every up, every down, and love me. I constantly feel as though He is disappointed in me, for some failure to do something just right. I'm not watching the right thing on TV (or turning it off altogether), I'm not serving food to the homeless, I'm not seeking out the poor or speaking to the lost; I'm not furthering His kingdom; I'm too lazy, too selfish, too proud. I'm too human. He may love me, I supposed, but He doesn't really like me. How could He? How could anyone?
And there it was. My fallow ground. All broken up.
I wish I could tell you my rosy ending, but I just can't yet. Because this is where God and I are, just finishing the pulling up of the weeds, preparing the soil of my heart for fresh seeds of Truth, the sowing of righteousness and his redemptive rains, the ones He has promised to those who seek Him.
1,000 Gifts:
163. Our lives, entwined with those around us.
164. The roots of this tree which has grown so much in the past five years.
165. Gratitude and Joy, walking hand-in-hand
166. The Word of God - proof of His unfailing faithfulness
167. Knowing we have trained two other babies to sleep on their own; we can do it again.
168. A husband who knows me deeper than anyone and continues to love.
Taking Time for Play: Beauty
There is a definite beauty in Truth
The song which has been playing in my heart today:
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