Keep Going

  Today I'm taking part in the Your Secret Name read-along over at Marla's.  We're responding to chapters 12 and 13, which I must confess hit me hard.

 Last week I wrote about some of the consequences of broken relationships that we are currently experiencing.  Leaving our church has not been easy.  Compared to some of the other consequences I'm facing, that has been an easier one.  Like Kary, relationships have caused me pain.  Because of the pain, he withdrew, locking away his emotions.  Unable to stifle my emotions, I have simply stopped trusting.  Without trust, my world has become filled with fear.  When my husband is late, I begin to seriously wonder if he has finally had enough and left.  While hanging out with friends, I wonder how long it will be until they end our friendship.  When a small child attacks me in a store, I keep quiet for fear of getting in trouble. (Yes, that did happen.) Making new friends and maintaining current friendships drains me now because of all the fear.  It would be easier just to hide.

 I've tried hiding.  But my husband makes me go to church, reminding me of my marriage vows when I get particularly stubborn.  Before this season started, God blessed with me two amazing friends who live in my complex.  Though I've tried to run away and hide, these amazing friends won't let me.  Trust is something I struggle with, but less around them because of their transparency.  If they didn't like me, I'd know.  Still, I just want to crawl into a hole until Jesus comes back.  This is too hard for me.

 So this is where I am, this place of deep hurt and broken trust.  Trusting God is challenging too because it was obeying Him that got me into this mess. (Side note: It was Jacob's obedience to his mother that landed him in exile.  I wonder how he responded to that and how it affected their relationship.)  With all this fresh in my mind from chapter 12, I then read this:

 "God wanted to transform Jacob, but transformation is never easy and always involves pain."p.141

"As author Oswald Chambers wrote "Before God can use a man greatly, he must wound him deeply." Even though at times the hurt is excruciating, we simply must stay in the fight." p. 141

"In this final stage, many of us give up and go back to our Given Names.  Wrestling with God takes its toll, and even though we're only inches away from a new identity, we let it slip away once more." p. 142

Does this mean there is hope?  Given hope, I can keep going.  Perhaps if I think of this in terms of childbirth, this deep time of pain as transition, then I can make it through.  In transition, it is easy to panic.  That's the time when many labouring mamas start to get discouraged.  I can't do this, it is too hard.  But in reality, they are getting closer to meeting their little one with each new wave.  During this time of intensity,  a doula offers words of encouragement such as "Just keep breathing" "You're almost there!" "You are doing such a good job!"  Perhaps this is what I need to remind myself.  I want this new identity, to be birthed into the fullness of what God has planned for me.   Just like I longed for my babies to be OUT, now I long for that freedom.  And it is almost there, I just need to keep going, taking each day, each breath at a time.  That I can do.