October 18, 2016

Every time I find myself alone with God - truly alone - I wind up in tears.

Because almost every time we are alone, He says exactly what my tired daughter-heart needs to hear: Rest. Sit down for a few minutes. Rest the weight of your heavy heart on My shoulder and stop running in circles, trying to be everything to everyone for a moment or two. Let Me carry you. Let me be enough for you.

I don't come alone to Him often enough. I read my morning devotion on the bus surrounded by people, or I skim through a few lines in bed while my sister sits across the room from me, or I grab a few minutes at my desk to hungrily gulp some verses before getting on with my day. Just as with human relationships, I know this is not healthy or the way that our relationship is supposed to be.

So when I do strip everything away and come to Him by myself - like now, like this beautiful afternoon with the sun flowing into the empty apartment, just me sitting quietly at the kitchen table - then He finally showers my heart with the golden sunshowers of love and care that He has wanted to share all along.

I get so tired.

I have been chiseling away at a very, very important blog post for several months now about my heart's deepest hunger and how I only fully knew what it was for the first time this year; but the point is that my heart cries "Abba," searching for my Father, and I don't slow down enough to hear its cry. I don't listen to my own need. I feel it sharply in a thousand ways every day; but just like eating when I'm bored or putting on the television when I'm lonely, I mislabel it as something else and try to treat it with a temporary, ineffectual remedy.

But when it's just us - when I sit down, barefoot and in a tank top, and listen - then I can hear my heart weeping for the embrace of its Father, and I can hear Him tenderly answering in reply.

"Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her." 

My Abba, my Father, my King and my God. Bring me to the desert places and speak tenderly to me ... look at me with the eyes that looked on the weary disciples, and invite me to come with You to the quiet places. Open my heart to hear Your voice; reach out, touch my cheek, turn my head to look up and see the gentle smile on Your majestic face. Please hush the voices of guilt and loneliness and self-doubt that gnaw at my subconsciousness every day. Bring me into Your arms and remind me how much You value me, and how much You love me - remind me that I am nothing and can do nothing apart from You; that all my spinning and worrying is useless, because Your great purposes will be accomplished no matter what happens.

Help me to choose the good part - communion and conversation with You - that will not be taken away from me, even after work and classes and even family and friends have all faded and gone.