I do not want to write this post. I do not want to share. When I accepted this blogging assignment I expected to write about the great things the Lord would do in missions for the gospel and the ministry, not the deep things he’s doing in me.

We like to talk about the hard and messy things when we’re on the other side - after we’ve made it through, made it out. Even in writing this blog post I feel this weight and pressure to have it all together, or have a lesson for the reader at the end.

But today I have no neatly packaged lesson.

For I don’t feel neat or put together. My heart is weary, confused, and honestly just a mess. I’m not feeling on the “other side” of this. I don’t even know yet how to name what “this” is.

I’m not through, I’m not out.

If you don’t know my life’s story, which you probably don’t because I don’t like telling it - the simplest way to describe it is that I grew up hard. Really hard. There was so much brokenness and trauma around me on a day to day basis that I still don’t even recognize much of it. It motivated me though - to build a life that I could count on.

I have reached a comfortable level of success. I am substantially educated, I have financial stability and a career that I LOVE, real friends and community, and I’m spending a year abroad. It’s a social media jackpot. I worked so hard for these things. I put so much effort (while acknowledging
God’s grace in it) into cultivating this life.

Looking back, I realize I spent so much time always working on the “next thing”. So much of my prayers were asking God for guidance about what’s coming next that I didn’t invite him into the past. Nope, Lord, don’t touch that. I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to talk about any of it. Look at me now, no need to go back. I built up walls and distractions around my heart to protect myself from engaging in any of the messy stuff.

Now I’m learning those walls have had me trapped and deceived into believing I was further along than I am. And those nice, cute Instagram worthy moments, those false walls of security, are tumbling down faster than Jericho.

I told you in the last post God has been asking me to go deep. Deep with him and deep with community. But what I didn’t know is that he’d ask me to go deeper still… to the places I refuse to touch. To the deep, dark, messy places you must walk through to get to healing. I don’t want to.

I don’t want to think about it, talk about it, share it, nothing. I don’t even want the healing honestly, I’m fine with the pretending. It’s comfortable. But I’ve made a sweet friend here in Barcelona, Estivaliz (pictured), and she keeps dragging me out of the shallow waters and nudges me into the deep. She looks beyond what I say, and speaks life into what I’m intentionally not saying. Even though I want to avoid anything remotely emotional or vulnerable, she gently keeps starting hard conversations and reminds me of who I am to be in Christ.

I still don’t want to deal with the mess, but I DO want to honor him. I DO want to live a life totally surrendered to him and to obey what he calls me to.

Deeper, still.

When I consider all the steps and vulnerability it requires to go on a healing journey, I freeze. It’s like I see this wall of fear in front of me and I can’t see above it, beside it, or around it. And that’s how I know I have to go THROUGH it. I want to retreat, I want to protect, I want to cower. Yet Jesus says, come to me.

Deeper, still.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28

I’m sure my “deeper still” today is not yet deep enough.

But today?

Just naming that I see it?

At the moment, it’s all I’ve got.

Here’s to not yet being through, not being anywhere even close to out, BUT being IN the presence of the Father.

Today, I will go to him. With this weariness, with the burdens, and I will stay here until I find the rest.