"so come and look for me.i'm sorry but it's like that sometimes.
i hate to make you bleed,
unless it leads you limping homeward.
so come back to my house
and i'll give what they can't offer.
it's just blood on the couch,
we'll clean it up together."
I heard this song a few weeks ago & cannot stop listening to it. The lyrics haunt me, the sound moves me to tears. I hear this song & I imagine my Father singing it to me. Willing me to draw nearer to Him, telling me He'll make things right, reminding me of His goodness.
Lately I've been caught up in my over-analytical brain, worrying about what my next steps will be & constantly second-guessing myself. My focus has been gradually shifting away from God because I've been too concerned with worldly expectations & desires. The shift continued, until last week I noticed I couldn't feel Him anymore, I couldn't hear His voice. This happens from time to time, but it sneaks up on me & always seems to throw me completely off guard.
I don't know why it does... I should come to expect it by now, especially when I allow myself to go 2, then 3, then 8 days without acknowledging Him or intentionally spending time with Him. I suddenly find myself far from His presence overwhelmed with feelings of frustration & confusion. Logically I know the only reason this has occurred is because I have moved. Not Him.
Life gets in the way & I forget to come into His presence.
The feeling of loneliness creeps up on me, until finally it's undeniable & threatening to choke the life out of me. This time it happened in the middle of the night as I was climbing into bed. A heaviness began to set in & then an uncontrollable need to cry out in the darkness. Tears came without reservation as I realized that I couldn't feel Him or hear Him. I couldn't even bring myself to call out Him.
It's one of the worst feelings in this world: feeling utterly & completely alone. The pain & desperation are palpable. The fear is unshakeable.
But today I sit here in the daylight, listening to the beautiful words of "Penny & Sparrow" & a revelation begins to form. I see that while God yearns for me, He does not force His presence upon me. He allows me to temporarily walk in a direction that isn't in alignment with His will because He knows that I am still walking towards Him.
He is everywhere & in everything. Which means that if I willingly walk a path of destruction or rebellion, He will ultimately use that to bring me back into His presence.
And if I walk a path of loneliness, fear, & pain, He allows it to happen because He knows that eventually I will limp Homeward. To Him. Always.
Because that's just me.
And that's just Him.
This is how He works in my life. He lets me make my mistakes & lets me take a different road, because He knows that I learn by experience. People can't tell me what to do (right Mom & Dad?). It just doesn't work because I'll ultimately make my own choice & if I fall, so be it.
Mistakes are what I do. Sometimes I repeat them over & over until it finally sinks in how destructive or pointless they are. Sometimes it only happens once for me to recognize that I need to go a different direction. But always, ALWAYS, I learn.
And the biggest lesson I learn is that even if I don't feel Him or hear Him, He is always there. I simply have to turn around and there He is.
Today I'm limping Homeward. I'm humbly accepting that the past 2 weeks have been a prideful battle of me trying to take the reins from Him. I'm acknowledging that EVERY time I try to take control instead of letting Him guide me, I fall. Sometimes hard enough to hurt myself. But He is gracious, loving, & kind. He offers His hand to me & helps me off the ground & pulls me back into His arms. He shows me the way to go & reminds me of His goodness.
What a beautiful God I serve and what an ever-expanding journey He allows me to take... with Him always by my side.
