In Light Inaccessible

I've been in a thick fog lately - struggling to think clearly but sinking further down with every flailing attempt to re-surface. I hate my weak self; I hate to admit what, deep down, I know myself to be; I hate to be shown the dark spots of selfishness that eat away at everything I do; above all, I hate to have my weakness and bewilderment exposed. Yet the God I love is dedicated to shedding his light on the very things I long to bury and forget. When he begins his work in me, I reach for him in desperation. Blinded by my refusal of the light that exposes me, I grope in the darkness for my God, and he hides himself in a thick cloud.

Slowly, I am coming to realize that there is a pattern to God's withdrawing from me. He hides himself when I refuse to admit some aspect of his character. "God, come and comfort me, but don't shine your light on my weakness. Don't let me be ashamed - " this was my prayer, were I to admit it. Even as I began to see and confess it, I rationalized my thinking - aren't there multiple verses in the Bible that tell us if we trust in God we won't be ashamed? (“…and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” Romans 9:33) But, ah, I read my own hopes into those words. It is in trusting in him that I'm to be kept from shame - not in trusting myself! Indeed, the more I trust in my own ways when I know them to be different from God's, the more shame I have.

I'm still a bit lost. I hardly know where to begin dealing with the flotsam that has surfaced in my turmoil of soul. I don't know how to stop being the person I sense that I am in the carefully hidden recesses of my self. Again, I realize that whether or not he does help me, I need God to help me. He is the One who can make me whole and my life complete. Lest anyone say that I worship him because he speaks kindly and softly to me, helps my favorite basketball team win, saves me the best parking spaces at the mall - let me tell out of my misery who is that high and Holy one who withdraws when I reach out for him in desperation...

He is Light. He is Love. He is Truth.

As I become willing to accept the consequences of knowing Love and Light and Truth, my blindness is departing, and I begin to see - not the kindly father/comforting teddybear/soft-hearted auntie-God-all-in-one I was reaching for, but the Living God, the Most High, in whom mercy and truth are met together. I cried for comfort, but he is too good to give me a thing so small. Instead he offers healing through pain. I'm too weak to reach for it, but I choose it, and he will give it.