Consumed

"The heart is deceitful beyond all else, and beyond cure. Who can understand it?" -Jeremiah 17:9

Tonight I have been wrestling with so many thoughts and emotions. It doesn't help when I am trying to write a story for my Creative Fiction class. When I read fiction, it's easy to just get lost in another world, but as I write it I am realizing that I am nowhere in it, and that is a battle. I feel like my heart is fighting what I am writing on the page and what is inside of me. There are so many stories within me that I can't possibly contain them all.This is why I am a writer. It is in this moment when I am realizing that I cannot write anything more until I write what's inside. Yet, the question that I always seem to struggle with is this: are my stories important? I guess it has always been a fear of mine. That the history I carry will be kept hidden, or die with me. There are a few in my life that have heard mere echoes of these stories, some have even caught some depth to the shadows forming shapes out of the blurred images I somehow create. I am still trying to shut out the accusations that my heart is screaming at me.... "You will never be fully known. Will anyone fully love you if you are?"

I apologize for the raw honesty here, but nights like tonight where I can't quite pinpoint the root of where these thoughts are coming from, it helps to process it all through writing. I believe that God gave me this life for a purpose. Every single part of it is an unfolding and revealing of His love on display, His glory made manifest in and through my life. Every part of me a chapter in the story He is writing, including the darkest moments and things that I have been most ashamed of. The question now vying for my attention- Which stories where meant to be told? I understand that not every part of me is meant to be laid bare before every soul that I encounter, that it takes wisdom to know how and when to tells these stories.... but how do I guard my heart, yet not shrink back because of fear? The fear of rejection or fear of my life proving to be of no worth at all is a common struggle for me. I know that half of this is a lie, but how do you shut out those subtle voices telling you it will never matter, all while feeling if I do not write, I will be consumed. The stories are almost like that "fire shut up in my bones." The other day I was posed a question that I suppose I am still wrestling with, one that continually echoes in my heart as a reminder of all those empty spaces that need to be filled and all the wounds yet to be healed: "Are you okay living your life with no walls and no ceilings?"

A scary concept if you think about it. To be so transparent before man that they see your every weakness, every failure, every success.... and to be so vulnerable before God that there is no denying my continual need for Him moment by moment. Yet, this is what I want. This is one of the voices clamoring through the other lies that come screaming out at me in the late hours when I sit at home alone, in silence. This voice is quieter than all the rest, but the truth and the hope of it makes it so much stronger. I guess when I think about the prophet Jeremiah and what he was really talking about when he said that he said God's word was a fire in his heart that could not contain... the fire shut up in his bones.... he was talking about walking out the path God laid before him in obedience and humility, even in the midst of persecution and rejection. Jeremiah was a man that understood what it meant to love without walls or ceilings in his life. My prayer is that whatever my heart is finding in the midst of its wrestling with these ideas, sorting out truth from lie, that it is glorifying to Christ. Though my heart is truly shouting, "You are ALL I want!" My spirit is willing, yet my flesh is weak. Lord, have mercy, for I am undone!