“Have you heard it was good to gain the day? I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won.” Walt Whitman
Part I.
It is difficult
becoming who I am.
Growing into
God’s original contemplation…
grabbing hold with understanding
of the maiden grains of dust
uniquely blended by Magnificence
that
are
me.
Who am I, Lord?
I have spent years surrendering all
so much effort spent in forgetting
so eager to leave behind
the tarnished life, the waning over-being,
the pain-drenched whore I knew as sin
(but mistakenly thought was me).
And in that exhilarating exodus
I forgot myself.
So eager to lose myself to Christ
I lost sight of all the iron and spark He loves,
He made, He gave, He created that is me!
Fleshy flesh
and boney bone
became a fragile precipice
where I only saw myself as good
when my reflection glistened
with the glimmer of approval
in the eyes
of
others.
Only others.
The “other-self”
became
my best self.
The hollow projection of a falsehood
the pseudo-woman
the chalky-christian
A second skin
so that they could not see
what I was terrified to see
that I was just
me.
Part II.
It’s hard
becoming who I am.
As I, in a cage made of bones and blood,
wrought by the hands of deception,
with door swung wide open
by my God
sit still
in the darkness
of fear and anxiety
faithlessness and worldliness
victimhood and co-dependency…
doubting and dumb.
How do I take the identity of God
while retaining the self He made?
The self He adores?
Died for?
Lives for?
No answers.
No answers.
Yes…
there is enmity between
the spirit and the flesh.
But the flesh is not the person
not the heart,
not the Divine Interior Intent.
Somehow the enmity
that was an arsenal for my sin
became a lead-ladened whip
for my personhood
my holy origin
my
self.
Fine line.
Fine line.
(As fine as where bone and marrow meet)
Somehow loving You became an expression of self-hatred
As I sat at Your feet
astonished by Your holiness,
Your love for me
Your tenderness
and the sheer, raw power of Your sighs and thoughts
my glare of self-contempt grew so hot it seared my eyes shut.
I could not see the unique
woman
in which You have
(and have always had)
a consuming
unabashed
saving
delight!
(In truth, I still don’t see her!
But I sense she is near…
Close…
Strong
and
growing
stronger.)
I have been so consumed with the brokenness of the vessel
I forgot
it
was
beautiful!
No answers.
No answers.
Yet.
Only an open cage
and the freedom of the brave beyond.
The wide expanse of faith
where I no longer
hear my Jesus singing alone
but my voice is lifted with His
in a rapturous, raging, resurrecting revelry…
a raucous, chaotic, hilarious peace.
The swell of it
laboring to be heard, felt and known
pressed into, pressed upon and pressed outwards.
Do you sense the stirring?
The rumbling,
the intensity of the increasing realization
that the great I AM
thoroughly
enjoys
how
I
am?
I am becoming
free
and
powerful
God-glorifying
self-celebratory
and well-possessed of
my Jesus
and
myself.
My heart has heard Him say
“come up, into, through and for”
Become,
become,
become…
And this becoming
begets yet even more
becoming.
March 29, 2014
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