Over and Over Again

I sat there for twenty minutes. 

Simple as that. Just sat there. No agenda. No motivation. Really nothing profound about it. I had thirty minutes until curfew, the world on my shoulders, and laundry in the dryer.

And all I wanted to do was disappear. 

So I did.

It's not like it's a hidden away place. If I were playing hide and seek it would be a super crappy place to take cover. But it's mine. The one place I have where I can go and be by myself and nobody actually has to know where I'm going. It's quiet. And better to go at night. I've tried it in the daylight and it just doesn't have the same effect. Perhaps that's just sentiment, but it really doesn't matter. When it's night and it's dark and there's nobody out there except for a few random people in the courtyard, it's where I can just go to disappear. 

So I did tonight. I just had to. There's no explicable reason for why. There are things, but there are always things. But something about this place...the fact that at one point it's the one place where everything was laid out and everything made sense and was logical, even through a thick fog of confusion. There was some level of clarity.

It's ironic to me now that a place where you were once shattered can bring you peace at a later time. That the place you were sitting when you thought, "Oh dear God, this just can't get any worse" suddenly becomes a place you long to revisit because you can close your eyes and it's all right back and is all the same one more time. 

So that's what I did. I set an alarm and just sat there. Eyes closed, attempting to push everything out. 

To no avail, mind you. For some reason, closing your eyes is a perfect venue to open the floodgates and start bawling your eyes out all over again. Despite the fact that it's incredibly peaceful and for once you actual have the slightest shard of some weird kind of peace, you find yourself pouring out the torrential tempest that you were once able to contain, a skill that now seems incredibly invaluable, not to mention ridiculously far away to you now. And so you do the only logical thing to do at the time. Perhaps it's initially driven by the fact that it's the only thing that will keep the stray passerby from thinking that the insane sobs, the depth of which they do not understand, are not the markings of madness, but rather a deeper travail in the spiritual realm. But, no matter what the reasons, you start calling out to God.

It's gotten so old after a time. The same old things, over and over again. At this point, I'm sure that whole verse "no vain repetitions" has been trampled and stomped upon me so many times, that the Lord is probably looking at me going, "Really?" 

But, where the whole rehearsed thing that you've called out over and over again is supposed to roll forth, something new comes out. It crackles as it comes from my throat and it startles me. 

"Okay, I'm just done now."

The doneness has been declared over and over again, but apparently this is driven by a subconcious desire to be done. What that means exactly, I'm not sure, but presumably, that's what I want. Granted, I have roughly a few ideas, which then come spilling forth.

"I'm done asking for you to let me understand. Because apparently that's just not going to happen, now is it? I asked you when this all started if you would take care of it, and you promised me that you would. And where on earth has that got me? I'm sitting here, staring at a wall where a promise used to be. And I mean that literally. It is not here anymore. In any sense of the word. Not. Here. I'm done trying to understand because, even though I thought that nothing could, it makes this hurt a million times worse! You told me this would be okay. And it' s not. And all I can do is sit here as the already broken pieces of the one thing I thought was a sure fall apart even more. And I. Can't. Fix it."

The outburst was surprising. And once again, I sat there, attempting to process the emotions that I didn't know even had words. I'm not sure if I was being real with God, or just being belligerent. And then, it was like He said it.

"Okay. Are you really done now?"

The question leaves me sheepish as I realize the irony of the previous outburst. I mean, I said I was done, and then went on a rampage.

"Umm...yeah. Sorry about that."

And it's the thing He's told me over and over again. That I don't seem to get, even though I've written it out a hundred times, I heard it countless times more.

"Quit trying to fix it. Because you're right. You can't."

"Okay, but yeah. Seriously? Why this thing? Did you have to pick this thing? The one thing I care about more than anything else? I'm serious. Take anything else from me. Just leave this alone. Or better yet, fix it and take care of it like you promised! This one thing! The thing that I hold dearer than anything else in the world? That's the thing that you're letting get destroyed? This hurts! I can't do this anymore!"

 Sometimes I wonder why on earth God doesn't take on the form of a giant hand for just two seconds, reach down, smack me upside the head and go, "For the love of Me, I've told you this a million times before, stupid! Listen!"

But instead, he just brings this back to my mind. The thing that got me through the beginning of this in the first place. 

"But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong;God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God." (1 Corinthians 1:27-29)

In other words, "Quit worrying about the things that are broken, stupid. I broke them so that I could fix them. And not only so that I could fix them, but that I could make them better. Oh, and by the way, that means you, too."