reign in us

Things lately have been looking up! Yeah! I started doing one of those read-the-Bible-in-a-year things and I think that even though I've read the whole Bible before, just reading it is doing my soul a lot of good. I can't remember the last time I felt peace, even just a little peace, and now I'm finding it.

However, I've tried to read the Bible several times throughout my recent struggles, and it hasn't really done me much good. So I think the reason it's doing me good now is because I had a "rock bottom" moment last Sunday. I tried to write about it- about how it felt and what happened, but I had a difficult time doing that then. Now, however, I'm feeling up for the challenge.

I've never felt anything like that before- I was in the shower before Bible study, and I felt this....sort of pain, both physically and non-physically, come over me, and I started to just cry- I have never wept like that- I couldn't cry hard enough, it was the craziest thing... And as I wept, it was like my soul opened up and I saw what it really looked like- what was really down in there, and it was all just pain and hurt and turmoil and torture- this great culmination of every struggle I've faced and not overcome- I saw and felt and comprehended my flawed, bleeding, troubled, lost soul. And I felt my soul groan out without words, without my overly analytical mind in the way thinking always thinking- it was just ME- only me, crying out.

I don't know if any of you have had a similar experience...but even though it was a moment of unspeakable sorrow, it was also a harbinger of peace. To see the true condition of my soul and feel THAT for just a moment or two also felt so good to me. I believe that was the single most genuine moment of my life- my only moment of unhindered, uninterrupted reality.

Being allowed to see and feel and experience that essential part of me, however scarred and damaged, was a privilege to me and what, I believe, has enabled me to grasp at things I have never been able to grasp before. I've been learning about the soul, and about what it means to be a soul created by God, for God- a soul that has a home, not in my body, but with Jesus. I've been learning that God is not as concerned with my behavior as He is with the state of my soul, of my heart.

I'm learning that God is not who I thought He was. And I'm so glad that He is not the angry, unfair, power-tripping god I've been searching for and blaming these last three years. I am so glad that I did not find that god, but am in the process now of finding THE God. MY God.

"Oh Great and Mighty One, with one desire we come- that You would reign, that You would reign in us. We're offering up our lives; a living sacrifice- that You would reign, that You would reign in us." -Starfield

"Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?" -Matthew 16:24-26