My Persistent Accuser

Jesus,
I need your embrace. To heal this persistent accuser, I need your comforting presence. I need your encompassing power to infuse the space I’m in. For years now this voice has crippled my ability to stand, to jump with excitement, to laugh in abandon. It screams at me and I take it in, adopting responsibility. Shame coils in my gut and disgust crawls along my skin. I toss in bed at night, writhing with the severity of physical revulsion, battling the guilt stamped on my forehead.

“You didn’t do enough. You should’ve given more. You have failed to protect, and failed to restore. You are unwilling to give what they need because you are selfish, flawed, and worthless. You are not enough! Do more! Do! Do! Do!”


How long will these attacks ravish my spirit? Since I was a little girl, I have fought stomach aches, nightmares, and sleepless nights from this insistence to do more. How much longer will this message have control over me? How long will it demand audience? Will I continue to attend every time the lights go down?

Jesus, I am trembling here with my helplessness. You are already present with my thirty nine year old story. You have walked it with me. I want to surrender to your loving embrace and give to you control. Hold me here in this broken place. I’m exposing what you already have witnessed, admitting what you have already graced. Wrap me in your strength. Calm the anxiety racing through me.

I am yours. You have claimed me as your own. My identity rests securely in your love. Who I am is precious enough that you would give your life. I am adored and pursued by you. I am whole, in the middle of this infinitely tattered world, in my deeply torn story. I am accepted, beloved, forgiven, and free.

The idea of doing enough means that I am somewhat in control. That I have the power to make things better or worse. That I hold influence, that I made the difference, that I am needed and important.

Though it’s true that my choices hold influence, I do not have the power to make or break a life, my own or another’s. I am a product of the Fall, wanting to be in control, wanting to declare myself to be powerful. Truth is, I’ve done what I could with what I was given. And you know I’ve hurt others and myself along the way.

It is not the final word. Thankfully, I am not in control. This is part of letting go and falling back into your arms. Knowing that you will make all things good in your time. That you will take my mistakes, my regrets, my deficiencies, and make them work towards the growth and good of us all.

Today, I can raise my head knowing that who I am is enough. I don’t have to earn status by my efforts. I am enough, accepted, beloved. I can relinquish the inauthentic control I wrestle with, and watch the guilt for not doing or being enough slip away. I can feel the solidity of being important enough to you that you would create, free, pursue, and heal me, preparing my heart to be united with yours. And I can trust that you will keep your promise, taking my failures and showing your grace through them all.


Hold me close in this truth and let it permeate every fear. Lord, soak me in your adoration. Show me it is who I am: your creation, your child, your daughter, that is gloriously enough. Wash away the lies that destroy and teach me again that it isn’t what I’ve done, what I’m doing, or what I will do. It is who I am, the core of me belonging to you, inhabited by your Spirit, justified by your love.

I am enough. You are Protector, Restorer, Deliverer. You are all they need. All I need. I am authentic, healed, worthwhile. I am enough right here, right now. I am free to be! Be! Be! Be!

The Meeting by Peter Young

My Heart ignites, leaps, both prey and beast as she enters the room; sweeping waves of joy and craving are centered on her, beneath The Seeing Eye.

My Eyes, impressed, reply to every detail, seeing the world, her single form of visual explosion. Such beauty, deilcacy, shape, grace- Will they ever recover?- beneath The Seeing Eye.

My Ears resound, shaken, moved by silence and symphony as she moves through space. I am sense, receiving every part of her, recording this moment alone, beneath The Seeing Eye.

My Mind anticipates her approach, alerted, focused and spinning as she challenges the mazes of my soul. I submit to an intimacy never known before, but desired beneath The Seeing Eye.

My Hands, touched and touching, a vision of thier own, caress a softness they've yearned for, graze a delicateness, fondle the parts of passion, stroking with hunger, appetite beneath The Seeing Eye.

I must breathe- What! a fragrance, redolence, an aromatic universe hypnotizes me, mesmerizes, swimming in scent, sensual and arousing, and a colliding of it all beneath The Seeing Eye.

And in His Seeing, He enjoys us, relishes the reflection of Love, Him, knowing what He has always known about the excruciating beauty of us.

Confessions

In just a few months, I will be getting married. This man that God has brought into my life will take my hand and I will take his name. My grateful heart feels the exquisite joy of such a precious gift, this godly man who continuously adores me and tenderly cares for me, the overflowing love I am abundantly free to feel and show. I want to spend my life growing with him, cultivating our love, excluding anything that tries to come between us, and learning everyday the new wonders that consummate love can bring.

There’s a deep fear in my heart, a feeling of inadequacy rising up and squeezing my throat. I wonder if I can love him like he deserves, if when things get tough, I will make the choice to honor him anyway. I’m afraid that my selfishness will take over, that I’ll hold on to old habits, rolling my eyes at annoyances, disregarding his feelings. I’m afraid that I will fail him, and myself by allowing destructive voices to speak, by giving room to negativity.

I’m terrified that unspoken words will gain power and begin to erode what I so desperately want to protect. That resentments will build, that scripts from our pasts will demand rehearsal. I’m afraid that I’m not good enough, not whole enough to be all I want to be. That I will damage him by making petty complaints to friends, or slight him with careless humor, or push him away with the protective walls I’ve worked so hard to tear down. I don’t want to fail here. I don’t want to ruin this.

God whispers to me, telling me that perfect love casts out fear. That this love He has given is patient and kind and healing. That His never failing strength is made perfect in my always present weakness. That He has me safe and secure in His arms and that nothing can separate me from His love. He tells me that He is bigger than my fears.

But I know my past, and I know that my new husband and I will make mistakes. I know that we will fail each other. And what I fear is that we will allow those failures to erode the priceless intimacy we have created.

We’ve found such acceptance in each other’s arms, such honesty and love. We have witnessed each other’s struggles with these human bonds, with scars and wounds that want attention. We have heard the stories of betrayals and heartaches from our pasts. And yet, we’ve been given this time where positive illusions have wrapped us in a cocoon of safety. We have listened attentively and felt the inexplicable sorrow of one another. Validation has been offered with passionate gifts of connection and the joy and vulnerability of being known so fully.

What happens if that stops? What happens when the betrayals are to one another and the heartaches are crashing in our safe place? What happens when we’re too busy to hear, to see? When daily life whittles down the energy it takes to love attentively?

Is it possible to preserve what we’ve found, to continue welcoming God between us in prayer and worship so that He can hold us in the safety of His abiding love? Are we capable of stepping back when things get rough and making conscious choices to love anyway? To accept in spite of the disappointments? To honor regardless of frustration? To offer ourselves no matter the risks, to love no matter the costs?