I call out for that which I refuse

What is in me that blocks the truth from touching my heart? What stone, what concrete, resides in my soul?

I feel so incredibly alone. Yet, somehow, I know that God is there, sitting beside me, waiting for me. He has been sitting there all along, incessantly calling my name and whispering of His great love for me. I tried to hide myself. I yelled for Him to leave me alone. How I despise Him sometimes. Not so much for His persistent yet unrequited love, but because of WHO He loves, for loving ME!, this wretched, unlovable spec of a thing.

I feel nothing but guilt, shame, fear, loneliness. Pain. Yet my pain is so little. It is based on what? It means nothing. It is nothing. And even that I do not feel some days. In an attempt to protect my broken and bleeding heart, the concrete engulfs me, numbing the pain by burying it deep below the surface, hiding it from sight. Yet this cold relief is unwanted. I long to feel. I NEED to feel, to know that I am alive. And I know the state my heart is in...small, shrivelled, yet still beating, almost frantically. I can see myself trying desperately to hold its pieces together. But with every beat I can feel it falling apart between my finger tips, beneath the concrete that would form its very tomb. I do not know what to do. I have no more hands with which to hold it. And I am tired. So very tired.

I lift my eyes for a moment and see God still waiting there, always waiting.

I was His once, wasn’t I? And He was mine. He was everything. Before, before all of this happened. But somehow a wall got in between us, some invisible wall of a different kind of concrete, a clear concrete. I try half-heartedly to knock it down, but I know my heart is not in it, and I am not sure why. So He is there, waiting for me. And I am here, dieing quietly, sitting here, alone

When will this end? I am so tired of this! So tired of myself! Somehow I know this is all my doing, these walls. Help me, Lord. Take this cursed concrete from between us, and break the stone which surrounds my soul. Give me Your hand. Please. Lord? Can You hear me? Please, just give me Your hand.

But wait. You already have. You gave me both hands. Pierced and bloody. You gave Your very self for me, so that I might live. Your body, beaten and bruised. Have I forgotten that now? Have I blocked those images from my mind? Where have they gone? They used to sear my brain, break my heart, rip my soul. But now they have become mere paint splashed on cardboard, a picture on a wall, an uneasy weight in my heart. Oh Lord, forgive me! Forgive me for building these walls, for half-closing my eyes, lifting my hand so as not to see You there. You called to me, but I pretended not to hear You. I plugged my ears and screamed my own lies every time You tried to tell me “I love you”, and I wept when I felt unloved. I danced and I ran as You tried to hold me. I pushed You away, and then cried myself to sleep when I missed Your arms around me. What have I done? Oh Lord, what have I done! And yet You sill love me? After all this?!?

Yes. I look up again. Still You wait, though I no longer hear You, though I have shut out Your voice, and blocked Your piercing words with my stone and concrete. I know what You want from me. But I am not ready to give it. I can not even give You my hand. No, not even one. My heart would surely crumble if I take my hand away from its place of holding the pieces together, even for a moment. Yet my heart is crumbling anyway. And I do not know why I am in such turmoil, why I feel so conflicted...why it should even matter if my heart shatters, why I am so preoccupied with myself, with my pain, with my emotions, with my life. I am nothing. I am nothing, yet You bought me with a price. I am nothing, and yet You died for me. I am nothing, yet You love me. I am nothing, yet You call me Your own. Surely I can trust You. For You are bigger than my heart, You are bigger than any reference I can make, and You are good. You, the creator of the universe, love me. And no matter what I do, or how I feel about that, You always will. I cannot change the fact that You died for me. I am Yours. And You will make me into something new, if I just give myself to You. You will pick up the pieces from my broken heart with Your great hands, and build a new one, one through which You can shine Your light out of...for other people to see, other people with broken and shrivelled hearts, other people hiding behind their walls of stone and concrete.

Yet I continue to sit here, alone, pushing away the only One who can save me, calling out for that which I refuse.