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I have had such deep and abiding joy since I surrendered both my heart and my mind to God over the past few weeks. In some ways it feels strange not to be in a continual state of struggle, to have prayers composed of tears and beating fists. In many of my prayers over the last several weeks and months, I have asked to be brought to a place of peace and rest. Now that I am there, it feels somewhat strange and foreign. I am by no means inactive, but I am resting. It is a sweet and blessed place to be.
I am continually in awe at how God can use whatever choices we make, whatever we offer to Him in order to mold and shape us into the fullness of who He created us to be. I have no idea whether or not He intended me to explore a traditional and ancient mode of faith, or whether that direction was one of my own choosing. But I really don't think it matters, nor do I feel a compelling or pressing need to figure it out. No matter the choice, Yahweh can bring about blessed and beautiful fruits from it.
He knew my heart was not fully His, nor was it ever fully mine. I was so selective about engaging my heart not only in my faith, but in my relationships with others and with myself as well. I can see the beginnings of my stoic tendencies back to my earliest days, denying forgiveness for playground offenses, steeling myself against the pain of childhood betrayals. When teased and taunted in middle school, I drew inward, becoming cold and numb. This carried through to high school and eventually to college where, in a moment of despair, I told a friend maybe some of us just aren't meant to be loved. It was my way of numbing myself against the pain of rejection and betrayal; what I did not realize is that I was likewise numbing myself to goodness and joy. How this must have grieved the heart of God!
There were times throughout my personal history where I allowed myself to receive and to feel, to experience both joy and grief in all their fullness. But I was so selective. My heart was on a leash and the moment I sensed the slightest risk, I called for a retreat, stuffing it quickly behind a thick and prickly armor.
As I walked through the catechism and experienced the traditional Catholic mode of worship, it appealed to that very stoic and guarded part of me. There was something that was intellectually appealing about prescribed prayers and proper forms, of calculated motions and genuflections, of consistency and historical rooting. But the more I began to intellectually assent to these things, the more stifled and distant my heart became. I felt the chasm deepen and widen; I started to feel as though I was choking.
Anyone who has followed here knows the rest of the story: how I struggled and faltered, how I cried and plead and beat my fists on the floor; how I eventually leaned away from my own understanding and threw myself heart first into the arms of Jehovah-Shalom; how in that moment of surrender I began to trust without a doubt that I have been, am now, and will be sheltered safely in His arms and in the center of His heart; how in that place of childlike abandon and utter trust, two parallel lines intersected inside me; how I returned to a church home ready to welcome me back; how my heart and I danced and still dance in worship, singing, shouting, raising hands to heaven without even a twinge of self-consciousness. My body, my voice, and my mind are responding to a faith that is heart-first. I dance like a prisoner set free of her chains, sing like someone who has long been denied her own voice. If I could, I would defy the laws of gravity and fly; and it is so very good that it does. My heart's tethers have disappeared altogether.
I would have not chosen on my own to struggle, fight, and suffer as I did, but neither would I trade any of it for what I have now. I am more His than I ever was; I am more the child as an adult than I was on the playground. I am His, and it is good, it is true, it is so indescribably beautiful.
I know the day will come when I will talk to the priest, when he will ask me why I have not returned to the parish. And I know by what he taught me that when he learns of my return to my church home, of how I will not be converting, that he will think I have fallen out of God's good graces, that I am apostate, that I will most certainly not be welcome in heaven. Even now I pray for the grace to respond in truth and with love, to explain that I belong to Yahweh; that my return to my faith home came as an act of complete and utter childlike surrender to God; that I am at the center of Jehovah's heart, and that He is at the center of mine.
Blessings and peace.
peder & annie's baby
06 January 2008
inexorable trust
playing with light photo by kirsten.michelle
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8 comments:
How lovely Kirsten. I'm so moved by your unfettered crazy love for God. It's magnetic. It's a wild force pulling us all in. Thank you for inviting me along.
And if it makes you feel any better, I once had a Catholic priest slam a big book shut that was laying open in front of him because of something I said to him. It was scary but oddly satisfying. Speak truly Kirsten. You never know what might come of it if he falls in love with your wild story.
Beautiful.
This has been quite an interesting journey. Love how you looked it straight in the eye and never, ever flinched. I don't know anyone who has walked this path, personally. Thank you for sharing your life.
"Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord shall be praised!" (Proverbs)
Your love for the great I AM is inspiring, Kirsten. Consider yourself praised, my friend.
Your line about "maybe some of us just aren't meant to be loved" broke my heart . . . because you of all people are so beautiful, so lovable, so irresistible, so full of vibrancy and life, so laughter-filled, and so . . . just lovely.
I sucked in my breath real hard when I read the paragraph about what you expect to have happen when you finally tell the priest what has transpired in your heart and mind and faith. Is that what he (and the Catholic church) truly believes? I didn't realize that, and it shocked and pained me, just the fact of it, because we love Jesus.
So, so thankful for your journey, Kirsten Michelle. So, so blessed to walk beside you.
Terri - thanks so much for saying that. I think this is the first time in my life where I can truly say that I am enamored of Him. I am blissed & over the moon to be in this season now & am so happy to be sharing it with even more beautiful souls.
Wow. I can see how that would be scary, but oddly satisfying. As if you had some kind of power to name yourself, some kind of internal volition of your own soul, huh? :o) I'm not uncertain, but neither am I looking forward to that conversation.
Have I mentioned in the last 5 minutes how thankful I am that our paths have crossed!?!!
23 Degrees -- Wow. Your response stuns me; I did not expect that. If I had to walk this path, I'm so glad I've been surrounded by such a faithful & open-hearted community of wayfarers. Thank you.
Christianne -- it breaks my heart to remember those words too, my friend. Because I know they aren't true. That's what came forth from an open & oozing wound, one that had been healed & reopened time & again; I was desperately trying to understand why I felt so alone & unreachable at the time, trying to steel myself against it & not feel it anymore. It pains me to remember this part of my history, but it is the truth of where I've been.
From what I learned from the priest, places in heaven are reserved only for the Catholic faithful who die without the stain of unconfessed mortal sin on their souls (anyone who's learned otherwise is free to correct me here). This was something I couldn't assent to intellectually or in my heart. Not because it made me uncomfortable, but because I don't think this resonates with the God I see in the Bible, with the Christ of the gospels, with the story God is writing & has been writing throughout history. I say this without judgment to those who believe it, but I just don't agree that this is true.
I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that you & I, that all those who claim Christ as Savior & live the truth of this in their lives & from their hearts will have their true & final Home in Him.
I was moved nearly to tears by your line about not being meant to be loved. I don't know you well, but I see the comments here and the faces of the people you're with in your pictures and I see that you are loved. Imperfectly, but definitely. And that beyond the imperfect people, the hand of God that holds you, like a child holds a bird's egg that he found on the ground. Yahweh is yours and you are his!
Praise God!
I felt led to share an amazing study with you which will keep you in the arms of your Bridegroom. I almost posted it on your other blog, but thought I'd do so here.
http://www.songofsolomondevotional.com/
Stay in the safe and loving arms of Jesus. There is none other like Him!
Kirsten,
Your story moved me – really. It’s so easy (yet deplorably painful) to become callous to the taunts of others when we are forced to defend ourselves so often against people who themselves are simply broken and hurting. As the skin thickens to combat the barrage of hurtful things hurled at us, it is very easy to build an emotional tower in which to barricade our aching soul. We lay it brick by brick, block by block, carefully filling in each crevice with anesthetic mortar, all in a vain attempt to protect ourselves against the risk of being injured in a world that just doesn’t play fair. As our strong tower takes shape, we find ourselves in a place of exceeding defense, but stagnant solitude. In our well-intended attempts to insulate ourselves from the chance of being harmed, we have cocooned our hearts into a position that can’t risk love either. At the end of this defensive maneuver, we stand utterly lonely and listless in the top of a well-constructed tower overlooking a moat of misery created by our futile efforts to protect our heart. It is safe, but not satisfying; familiar, but not friendly. But what a magnificent moment it is when we respond to the serenading woo of the Holy Spirit and lower our drawbridge just long enough for Him to warm and elucidate the cold, dark halls of our heart’s castle and flood our torpid abode with vivifying air. We take a deep breath and realize our castle – our man-made strong tower of defense – was nothing more than ill-contrived dungeon of despair to which we sentenced ourselves – completely vacuous of vitality and that all-important quality: otherness. We need each other, and we need to risk the insult and injury that too often attends this need. It looks like you’ve taken the gamble. Hidden beneath the words of 2 Cor 10:3-5, is this amazing picture of structural building and demolition. Just as this carnal castle and stronghold was built brick by brick sandwiching mortar, so it is demolished the same way. For although we are walking in the flesh, we do not wage war in a fleshly way, since the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly, but are powerful through God for the demolition of strongholds. We demolish arguments and every high-minded thing that is raised up against the knowledge of God, taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. How wonderful it is to capture and be captured by the emancipating presence of the Lover of our souls! Thanks for taking the risk and being transparent enough to invite me into your world.
Nathan,
Thank you so much for stopping by and taking the time to read my story. I only recently made this blog open to comment, because I was precisely as guarded about these topics as I described over the last few posts. Sometimes it feels as though I'm exposed in a way that can be utterly terrifying to me at times since it centers around thoughts that are so precious and that come from the deepest recesses of heart & soul, but I've learned that I can trust the community of bloggers that come here. I put my vulnerable infant heart out in the cold, exposed & unswaddled, trusting that it will be safe in the hands of Him (and those fellow journeyers) to whom I entrust it.
Your comment immediately struck me both as strikingly beautiful & stunningly accurate. I can tell you know intimately what it is to guard yourself against hurt and how putting up those walls likewise distances you from all those things that are good and right. When I came to this place of surrender, of letting down those walls, I was amazed at the brilliance of the light to which I was exposed. For the first time, I was struck with the reality that those defenses I had erected were, as you say, "nothing more than [an] ill-contrived dungeon of despair to which [I] sentenced [myself]".
To your words "How wonderful it is to capture and be captured by the emancipating presence of the Lover of our souls!" I say "amen, and AMEN".
Thank you so much for your thoughtful & inspired words. I am thankful that our paths have crossed and that we've found some common ground in our respective journeys.
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