And I still don't understand all that,

my past, my previous post.
There was never a clear explanation, nor do I expect it to ever be laid out plainly like a math equation on graph paper.

All I do know, is my Ebenezer, my turning point, the event to which all I need is look back and recall to know that God indeed loves me and is involved in my life.

Actually there are two.
One is my love, my honey, my future husband.
My encourager, uplifter, who treasures and makes me laugh every day. The one who entered my life out of nowhere, and at a timing I could have never predicted or foretold. From day one it was easy, obvious. We belonged together and it just works. Period. Peace in the gift. In the growth, in the miracle, in there existing someone I could not believe was out there.

And he entered my life so soon after my other memory 'stone' of God's nearness, that they are practically intertwined...

Jesus I Come

I've been thinking a bit lately about how I want and need to write my story.
Sis and I were talking about our mutual need to do so, and many who know me
have encouraged me to write it. I want to, but sometimes don't know where to start.

 I have had the opportunities lately to share some of my story with friends I haven't seen in years.
And it has been very healing to do so, and I am slowly accepting more and more the different
parts of my story, the parts that have been too painful to embrace for so long.

 When I think about the thick darkness that dominated my life from May 5, 2009,
until May 20, 2011, I still weep. I weep because I remember the intensity of my pain,
my confusion, my loneliness, my fear, my longing.

When God felt SO far from my heart, and it ached every day for Him.
Over his absence, His abandonment, the lack of His presence.
And I still long for Him.

 There were many months wherein I doubted Him, resented Him, cursed Him.
I did not know how to pray, how to believe in Him or His goodness.
I had friends and family intercede for me, as we all cried out wordlessly for His saving of me.
 And He did, He miraculously did.

 For months my heart believed that chaos reigned, and in addition to random destruction,
something intentionally sinister was plotting every minute detail against me.
Every tiny subsequence was for a dark purpose.

 I didn't want to live. I didn't know how.
 For months, for a few years, I could not see a future for myself.
I no longer had dreams or visions of what I hoped for.
There was nothingness, there was grieving, there was profound loss.

 I no longer knew myself. I no longer cared. And God was distant.

 And yet I went to church, most Sundays and Thursdays.

 And every week I wept. I could not make it through a service.

 I would mostly bawl through the entire thing. So desperate was my heart for God.
So abandoned I was by Him. So very alone.

 Everything I had known of Him and loved of Him seemed nothing less than a sick lie.
Every word we sang in church sent me into a rage, my soul screamed "BULLSHIT!"

 What kind of protector, deliverer, defender of the weak are YOU?!
WHERE WERE YOU WHEN I NEEDED YOUR PROTECTION??
What were you doing, what were you thinking, did you watch, did you look away???

 And my soul grieved the loss of my closest friend, my safety. My hope.
Among other personal things.
Because surely this was no God to rely on or care for.
Surely this is not how anyone would treat their child, not even their enemy.

 And a sadness, a bottomless, fathomless sadness drowned me for two years.
And I made foolish choices in its wake.
And I got hurt more by selfish people who took advantage of my lostness.
And I got judged by people I trusted.

 And I was ALONE.

 I knew it would be easier to forsake God and live a life denying His existence.
Much easier it would be to reconcile my experiences to reality.
We are just complex molecules made by chance, floating through space,
why wouldn't horrible things happen in a world where entropy is the only reality?
How much simpler if I didn't have to reconcile it all to a "good" yet omnipotent God?

 And yet I could never "quit" Him. My heart though it seethed at Him never ceased to acknowledge deep down that He IS. My unconscious self would not let go of Him, and I know now that it is because He never let go of me, despite how it felt and appeared.

  “Then Samuel took a stone, and set it between Mizpeh and Shen, and called the name of it Eben-ezer, saying, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.” 1 Samuel 7:12 

...to be continued :)