Moses, Where Art Thou?

It is a hard thought to trust that God is working when we do not see Him working. I think of how bitter I would feel being an Israelite, working in Egypt day after day, trying to have faith that God is a God that fulfills His promises but "Ummmmmmm HI I am down here working and I think you forgot about me, God." I always have a tendency towards self-pitying, thinking maybe I am the one person that God missed when He was scanning the earth for the day. God, as the good God that He is, longs to teach us patience, long-suffering as the Bible so kindly names it. Ugh... what an awful word "long suffering". He desires to teach us while we are still in Egypt, doing what seems like the mundane. "BUT I DON'T WANT TO BE IN EGYPT ANYMORE!" Well, me not wanting it doesn't change it and if I give up on the hope of His eventual promises it doesn't change the outcome, it only changes my attitude in the meantime. And then there is God working on the details in the background of the story. I am so thankful that we have the benefit of looking back over the Bible and not being the humans originally living it out and having no one's stories to look back on for reference points. We see him working as he is calling Moses in a field through a burning bush while I (as said pretend Israelite) just want to pretend like I am slaving away in Egypt and He is doing nothing. God is working. God was working on behalf of His people- to bring them deliverance, to lead them to their Exodus, but it didn't come in a day. Sometimes God is unfolding bigger things for your life than you can imagine. The Exodus, His promises, might not seem within reach right now. Maybe they seem completely impossible but trust that God is greater than the possible. He might be "setting a bush on fire for you" in this moment, and you may never even know it until you are sitting around a campfire in the Promise Land one day and your Moses says, "It was the craziest thing the way God worked this all out..." So do your best to serve God in today and let tomorrow worry about itself. Tonight rest your head on your cozy pillow, take a deep breathe, and know He is still working in the unseen. He loves you. He has a plan just for you. Sometimes plans just take a little more coordination than a day. How ever would we learn long suffering if they didn't?

What if no one could accept me or love me as I am? What if even God himself has turned his back on me and is ashamed of who I have become? Broken... apathetic... unknown to anyone... what if my secrecy leaves me more alone than I know? 4/7/2019 I wrote the above a year and a half ago. I wrote it as I felt lost, alone, scared, and ashamed. Truth be told I am still all of those things. But I look at the first sentence I wrote and I just sit here and cry because people do now know me and they still found it in their heart to be able to accept me, to love me. It has been the greatest reflection of Christ I have ever known. Now I just have to find a way back to loving myself... I wept in the bathroom mirror before I took a shower this morning, viewing my naked abandoned body aware that I was not enough to keep or to hold. What else did I need to be? What more did I need to become? 7/4/2020

You Again

Somehow I see you in every decision I make. I see the endless girls you led on and though I strive with all my might to fight against that which I hated, my choices mirror those you once made. I wish that I could beg you to explain to me why. I wish I could ask you if the struggle was worthwhile. Would you have done anything differently? It is easy to dissociate from my decisions sometimes. I wake up in the morning and tell myself that it is a new day, but this only blinds me from the monster I have become. I wonder if maybe you did the same. The morning after you slept with another woman, did you tell yourself it was a new day? You see... I once was innocent. This journey used to be less rough, but once that innocence escaped me it is as if the very will to fight did as well. Existence now seems to be an uphill battle. It is a constant war raging within my soul for the side I will take. In some moments though, winning feels like losing and losing feels like winning. At least this is the lie my flesh speaks to me. I remember hearing you and thinking that you had all the right answers in your head but could never apply them to your heart. But I now realize that maybe this isn't true. Maybe your heart had the right answers as well, but it was simply your hormones that couldn't get it figured out. I think about how you left all of your life behind, and I wonder if maybe it would be wise for me to do the same. But I have come to the conclusion throughout the years that you are who you are no matter where you go. The Bible says, "Flee from temptation." But there is only so far you can flee when the temptation is consuming your heart. One day... Perhaps this will all make sense. Maybe I will look back on this moment, and I will know that it was all worthwhile. I just hope that the one day comes. I just pray that the struggle will one day cease. But then I hear my thoughts and think, "It's you again." 9/2/14