My life is like that story. The one in the bible, yea I know that you know it. The one where this guy, Peter, walks out into these massive waves, and walks on the water with Jesus. But as soon as Peter takes his eyes off of Jesus, Peter starts to sink. “Lord Save me!”Jesus reaches out his hand and saves him from the waves.
I have a hard time sleeping. The waves of my own life threatening to pull me under. When I cant sleep, I imaging this story. I put all of my fears, doubts, and troubles into the water. When I actually visualize that, its pretty scary.
Then I imagine a cross. The cross. You know the brights lights that you see when you stare at the sun for half a second too long? That is what I see. I see a white yellow haze that just outlines the cross- only when you look at it really close can you tell its shape. But its moving. Revolving around it are all of the words from the stories in the Bible. Then I can hear all of my prayers that I have ever said to God. The cross even has a heart beat. But the heart beat is not mine. Its a moving, living, breathing cross.
When I look at the cross, the world seems less scary.
I have trouble sleeping, which I already said. Maybe I am loosing it. No. Stare at the cross. Staring. Yellow white haze. Focus, you can do this.
The longer that I focus the more relaxed I become. Thats how this works, or at least that is how it is supposed to work.
I’ve never heard anybody confess to me that they know Jesus, love Jesus, and follow Jesus, but are so mad at Him that they want to pretend that He isn’t there. I can’t possibly be the only person who has felt this right? Such anger that I force myself to look away from the cross and to the waves, just to spite Him.
I know I should tell myself that there are people who have it worse, that I should be grateful for where I am at and for the life that he has put in my lungs. I know all of the right answers. I know I should repent and apologize, but its almost like I do not know how to.
Get out of bed. Heart beating fast, feet on cold tile, tears streaming down my face. I pace back and forth, the cross and the waves in front of my eyes. I fall to the ground on my knees, and I weep. Weep because of my situation, and because of the void between God and myself.
God,
I do not know how to do this. Why must you keep on breaking me? It is getting too hard to handle. I just do not see a way out. I do not know what to do. God help me to say ‘thy will be done’. I don’t know if I have the strength to say those words yet. I know that I am holding more of a burden than I should- it would be easier if I just let it go and give it to you. God I pray for answers to my broken prayers. I pray that you fix me. God please heal me. God in know that every battle will be won if I am on my knees. So here I am. I do not understand it. I guess I just have to make my peace with the fact that I will never understand it- the reason for my torture. But I guess you want me broken in order to build me back up the way that you want me to be. So I guess that is my last prayer before I fall asleep. Break me God, break me into a thousand pieces, because I trust that you will be there to build me up.
Amen,
I get up off of my knees, slide into bed, and let out a breath I did not know I was keeping in. And even though every bone in me does not want to, I force my eyes to the cross, and I swear I can almost see Jesus’s hand coming down to save me.