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Thanks for visiting my diary. I've been journaling since 1984 and have chosen to share some of my entries online. They are not all positive thoughts, but I hope that reading them might be a blessing to someone who needs encouragement.
If you are just coming to my diary for the first time, please read my introductory entry, where I share some background that is important if you plan to follow this diary regularly.
Please also visit my music page, where you can hear samples from my debut CD, I Believe, which features songs written based on experiences shared in this journal.
What is missing in my life? Can all of my needs really be filled by just You? Or is that a misinterpretation of trusting in You to supply me what I need? What does all this mean anyway, to trust You to supply my every need? Sometimes, in order to avoid putting You in a box, I assume it means that I really don't know what I need and that You know better, that what I think I need isn't what I need. Maybe this is true, but so often I find that bitterness arises in my heart because I try to live according to the implications of this belief. I find myself ceasing to pray because the cries of my heart mean nothing, regardless of how anguished they may be.
But surely this is not what You meant at all. You know my needs, and I've heard and even believed that You long to supply them and can supply even more than I could imagine. My prayers alone cannot elicit a specific response from you. But somehow I also know that You are moved with compassion when my heart cries. You are not an impersonal God who lives and requires me to live by the letter of the law or who would withhold any good thing from me. You are a Father, and I am Your child. You know that I often take Your love and presence for granted though I do not mean to do this. Yet still You are there. But sometimes I am blinded by my tears and my ears are stopped up by my screams. I cannot see or hear You. In my terror I flinch at Your touch and try to run from You. Yet You wait patiently until I blow myself out, and there at the end of my sorrow I find You have never left me.
I don't come to You often enough. All these years I have wished to learn to pray without ceasing; yet I am still doing well if I can pray a little each day. Sometimes I fear to ask for anything because I have not spent time with You. Will You look at me and reprimand me for asking for a sign rather than believing in You?
But my heart is crying, Father. I will not tear around the house this time looking for you in my pain-induced blindness or calling to You without stopping to listen. Instead I am standing here before You, hoping to overcome the shame in my tears so that You can look at me. Am I standing in the right place? Will You see me? Will You hear these cries?
I have spent an entire lifetime searching for something. More recently, I have denied my need for it, trying to convince myself that the ministries You have called me to are enough for my satisfaction and incompatible with my own need for companionship. I have believed a lie: that I do not need a companion in this world. But my heart is reaching, Lord, holding out arms and fearing there will be no response. Even in the deepest parts of me, the parts where I believe that I can tolerate being alone for any reason or length of time, there is a storehouse of appreciation for companionship which I cannot deny and a deep- seated need to be held and reassured of my worth not only as Your child but in the eyes of Your Church. For so long I have been trying to find words to give voice to this need but have been unable. Perhaps I was trapped in that self-condemning belief that I should not desire anything because it is selfish to desire. Perhaps I believed what society and even at times my own family told me in their efforts to absolve themselves of guilt and responsibility for meeting my needs: that being alone is the normal way of life and that I must learn to accept it. Perhaps in believing this lie I thought that I should also refrain from asking for and especially from expecting You to meet this need; for in praying I am refusing to accept this "normal way of life".
I cannot do this any more. I know that You will carry me, calm the seas, pour out Your blessings... I know all of these things, but I am frightened by the raging sea of isolation. I am asking for Your help not because I think this sea is impossible. I know that nothing is impossible with You. And that is precisely why I'm asking. I feel as if I am drowning. I don't want to just keep my head above water. I want to be lifted high above it in Your arms and set on the dry land where the sea cannot reach me. Yes, somewhere inside myself I believe that You are able to do abundantly above all that I could ask or imagine.
I do not know what will satisfy this need, what could make me rise above it. A friend? A marriage partner? A deeper trust in You? All of the above? Only You know, and whatever it is You can give it. That is all I ask: that whatever it is I need right now You provide.
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