Hoarding His Presence- Spiritual Provision in Quarantine

Emotionally unable to follow the instructions for my classwork this week, here is what poured out of me in response to the lockdown we are all experiencing-

       I have had to attend to my actual self in ways I did not know were needed- much has been revealed to me about the vices of my heart which have long been underground. Although this has been painful, it has been the grace of God because it has pointed me on the long road towards freedom. Not that I am free now- but I have sampled it and long for more. I realize now that I need Jesus to show up for me in real time and tell me truths about myself which I need to hear, but which no human being has been able to deliver in a way in which I can receive. My Lord, unlike His flawed human children, is capable of doing this in a perfect way, bit by bit, until I am slowly convinced of His Truth by the persuasive abundance of evidence He has laid out for me in my prayer projects, journaling and blogging. There has risen within me an inner clinging to Christ and a desire for fruits I have not yet tasted.

It is here in my essay that I wanted to pan out and give an overview of my spiritual transformation over the past 36 years, but because of the recent events of the “shelter in place” order for California, I am rendered incapable of continuing. I want to say I am confident and stable, secure in my faith, but my body betrays me- I am not emotionally or mentally capable of spending my time on the specific class material as it was assigned. Adapting this paper to my circumstances as best I can, I will do the only thing I am capable of today- attend to the work of the Spirit within me and submit to His prompting. Here a profound study of spiritual theology can be engaged as the Spirit leads me into my response to the oppression of social panic and fear. Here I find a tight window of observation where I can evaluate His spiritual formation within me on a smaller time scale, beginning with several events that are in direct connection to the quarantine order which is still unfolding today. As I have struggled to process and submit to the government orders, in my anxiety my Lord has drawn to my attention specific ways in which He prepared me for this coming trial. I find relief and purpose in looking at the way He has provided for me even in such a time as this and recalling the recent past which was nearly just yesterday. In this part of my essay I wish to touch on several specific events which bring me comfort in the oppression I feel heavy on my chest today as I continue to process the sudden stripping of my daily routine.

First, solitude. The biggest struggle I face in this quarantine is my lack of solitude- there is now never a time when I am alone, and this may continue on for another month or even more. As an introvert this brings significant challenges and high levels of stress. But the comfort is this- I have just come from a long season where I had more silence and solitude than ever before in my life. I was called to silence, solitude and tranquility of spirit almost daily for a number of months prior to this quarantine. It felt like a very specific calling, but I was mystified as to why. I was obedient but doubtful. It seemed I was hoarding solitude and silence with God, and the drive to do so came from outside of myself. This calling became a purgation where I was given the gentle presence of a non-anxious God. He sent me shafts of sunlight and choruses of birds in the day, the glow of the moon and melodies of owls in the night, a rocking chair for contemplation and prayer projects for purgation. This calling to a season of purgative stillness is one that stretched the capacity of my soul to now receive the season of this isolation starved of all solitude entirely. Here now I understand why my Lord was piling my memories high with a persuasive abundance of cooperative silence beside Him. While others hoarded toilet paper, I hoarded solitude with my Lord like it was a secret and valuable treasure. For this I am now deeply grateful, and thank my Lord for giving such a timely and perfect gift.

Secondly, a dream. It came several weeks ago. In it I don’t remember where I was or what I was doing, except that I was in an outside area full of many strangers. There in the crowd, I found myself locking eyes with a tall dark man across the way who was engaged in conversation with several others. In that instant, my heart was drawn to him and I literally forgot my earthly identity- as I watched him with rapt adoration, I could only recall with great effort the fleeting thought that I am a wife and mother. For me, once I discovered this man nearby, I could think only of him and never wanted him out of my sight again- all else dissolved in my consciousness except for this one thought, that I must remain near him and be seen by him for as long as possible. I desired that he know everything about me, that I stand out from the crowd to him. When I woke up I wondered who that could have been that my mind would concoct such a dramatic character that resembled no person I have ever known in real life. It occurred to me several hours later in prayer who this was- my Lord. It was He that moved me with love so deeply that I forgot all else entirely- indeed, nothing else mattered in the least except His presence. The object of knowledge in my dream, this tall dark man, so moved my will in love that my mind submitted with total assent to the love of God. This dream revealed to me the feelings that occur in a right relationship between love and faith- it gave me a goal and desire for fruits which I have only tasted but briefly. This dream exposed the potential of my heart, and I can now recall this image in a time of social fear, personal anxiety and stress when the properties of this quarantine become too oppressive.

Lastly, a resurrection. One day several weeks ago I witnessed a hummingbird smack into the window and fall twitching to the ground. It convulsed violently as I leaned over it, with tongue sticking out and eyes closed. I scooped it up with a napkin and lay it’s jerking body in the shade away from exposure to predators or heat. As I leaned over the tiny creature, the wind moved the chimes that hang from our balcony and I felt a prompting to pray. Simply as a child, I asked aloud for Jesus to heal the dying creature. Then I went inside and ate lunch, going about my day while keeping an eye on the bird. Several hours later, it had become entirely still but when I leaned over it I noticed its eyes were blinking. It was paralyzed, it seemed, but looking straight at me with awareness. I moved the napkin just a bit, and like magic it rose up into the air with the buzzing of its wings and promptly landed in a tree close by. It remained there for a long time simply looking at me. Unsure whether it was thankful or curious, I drew very near and met its gaze, contemplating in my heart the way my prayer had been answered. We stared at one another for several minutes before it flew away into the wilderness behind my home.

And here now I can conclude by saying that I have learned the voice of my Lord in ways that only He could teach me. All of this was in preparation for the trial to come. For this I am humbly thankful, and see the fruits of His transforming process in a time of need. During this quarantine so far I have drawn upon all these recent memories as ways to aid in the transformation of my heart that is occurring under the pressure of disruption and change. Specifically, today is the first Saturday of quarantine, which makes it a hard day. I finally have enough time to move out of response-mode and think honestly about the sudden stripping of my daily routine. I have settled into a new way of isolation which weighs heavy as I slow down today to stop shouldering the load of change. Today and in the days to come the enemy will be at work trying to pull me into old sin habits which numb or redirect the pain. Because of the spiritual transformation He has been working in me over the past months, I am aware that I have the option to stand strong by remaining open to the Lord. I can lean on these memories of His work and allow Him to lead me by His voice which I have actually begun to recognize in bits and pieces.

The trust comes now when I look at the ways He has already led me. As I listen to the sound of His voice in the upper room of my home, where the sunlight streams in, the breeze blows through the chimes and the birds chatter amongst themselves, I can trust that He is working. When I sit and contemplate in that chair upstairs, I really believe that He is near- that He draws near to me as I draw near to Him. In this place in my home I can find reasons not to surrender to the temptation to squelch the transformation happening inside, but to open to it. The sin habits of my heart will grapple with my human fragility and neediness, yes. But when I hear His voice I can remember to surrender to my weakness in Christ rather than my strengths in sin. He has continued to give me today my daily bread, and although quarantine is not the same as solitude, His response to my call has not changed at all. When I falter, which feels like hourly since this began, He invites me to remember His provision of comfort.

Indeed, I have been comforted by things out of my control- owls that visit in the night, hooting back and forth in the dusk, birds flitting and chattering throughout the day, a breeze which rustles the drapes and wraps around the chimes below my balcony. The sunlight which streams in onto my rocking chair and warms my toes while I write, and the clouds trail across the blue sky. The yellow blooms and the green leaves grow for miles behind my home. I can control none of these things. I cannot summon them to come or force them to remain. When the owls visit, I am grateful and call back to them without claiming them as mine. When the dying humming bird rose from my hands, I was delighted without crediting my will for making it so. When the clouds roll by, I gaze upon them with joy without demanding them to stop or perform for me. Thus, when my Lord comforts me in this difficult time, I can open to Him without demanding that my trials be taken away. I can receive without hoarding because He continues to provide. If that which I do not control can comfort me, what then should I fear? Clearly, my Lord provides because He loves. I am learning even as I doubt. Hour by hour I must trust anew, and hour by hour He surrounds me and invites me in this ever-unfolding process of hard and unwanted change. That I sometimes hate the fragility and weakness of my own faith does not daunt Him- the persistence of my Lord is gentle but firm. Just as my doubts about God do not keep Him from working new life in me, neither does my fear of tomorrow prevent the sun from rising upon a new day. His provision of transformation is not fragile, nor is it conditional- in this I find hope.

A prayer rose up in me on the night the quarantine went into effect- This prayer has been simmering and bubbling within me for over a week now.  Every time I came to the computer to begin my work, my Lord simply said “not yet”, and I sat there for several minutes drawing a blank until I surrendered and walked away. After the “shelter in place” order, it was midnight when my Lord began forming these words in my soul, and I argued with Him because it was late. Yet I also recognized that it was Him because it was given at such an inopportune and unexpected moment, quite against the desires of my flesh, which was to go to sleep. As the Spirit had His way with me in the tossing and sleepless night, my prayer finally emerged up and out onto paper. As it poured out, I surrendered to His will even as I struggled against it. Prayer truly is a battleground these past days. Comfort cannot be hoarded, only received. Truly, His work is stirring forcefully in me like an abundance of persuasion within-

Be still oh my soul and know that He comforts you. This is a deep and hidden comfort that cannot be detected by your worldly senses. Be still and trust that He comforts you, my soul, but He does so in secret. The fruit of this comfort will be a new wine, formed under the pressure of fear and crushed by the passing of time, this mental and emotional pressure to which I am now subject. The Beloved is making a new wine in me, and He is making a new way through me. May I carry this mission with honor, that I am a chosen vessel for the fruits of His crushing and pressing. Be still, oh my soul, and know that my Lord is the Provider, the refiner and the beautifier of my eternal being. The pressing will only push me deeper into Him. The crushing will only open me more deeply to His love. The world will taste this new wine and so He will be glorified through me, His beloved child. In Christ’s holy name.

Amen.

Upon Retreat - The Re-Opening of my Soul

This past weekend I spent 12 hours on retreat with the faculty at ISF. This was my written response for the prayer project that followed...

On retreat my soul began to open to love in a way it has not since I hit a wall several years ago. In response, I find myself retreating from these feelings in fear and uncertainty- 

I highly doubt my motives for such an opening to love. I believe that for the most part when my soul begins this opening up it will take into itself the wrong thing. 

What is this blooming that defies the dark 
and rides the wind?

In my experience this is true: the bottomless hunger that awakens within me will absorb the easiest thing within reach that appears to be safe and fulfilling, regardless of whether my judgement is actually correct. Based upon past experience, that which my soul draws in will be detrimental to my needs and desires. It is a self-destructive process with momentum; this hunger, when it does surface, is painful and full of endless longing, and it is compelling with a force that quickly becomes all its’ own. It hurts others, and it hurts me.

One dysfunctional aspect of this opening up is a desperate belief that I can rescue another person with my goodness- 

this desire to rescue another human is usually the catalyst which prompts this hunger to surface. 

What is this growing in the barren places?

In the past I believed that I could rescue another, and that they in turn would love me through a realization of my special gifts and unique spiritual powers. Now, beginning on this retreat, I felt, quite against my will, this gaping blooming which began to rise up in my soul once more. It has a voice of its’ own that suggests Love might be calling me again. I had the realization during retreat that it is a hungry reaching which has driven the story I tell- always a desire to rescue is motivated by a need for love, which leads to my unhealthy attachment to the other. 

And always, this attempt to rescue and attach to another has ended so poorly that the relationship was destroyed, my needs rejected, and I was left floating in the sea of unmet longing.

This time, however, this floating has met with a slowly dawning awareness based on experience that I still do need to be attached to someone. This is a spirit attachment, the kind that moves beyond the physical realm. And on retreat it struck me against my will- awareness that the reality of this need has not gone away. A general depression met with a remembrance- 

my soul is still capable of deep opening to another in love if given the right circumstances. 

I felt myself drawn to the people around me on this retreat who were sharing their heart and then listening to mine. I felt myself safe in the presence of authority figures who appeared to be spiritually stable and emotionally healthy. The hole in my soul which longs to share in intensive emotional bonding with another was stirred deeply. I spent the 12 hours of this retreat experiencing others share and also listen to me in ways that awoke the gnawing, gaping hunger for emotional and spiritual attachment that far exceeds the limited capacity of any human person.

In spiritual direction the following week, my director and I spoke of the progress and gift of this new awareness, but also the pain. To acknowledge these unmet needs inside of me is haunting and disturbing- to experience them hurts. 

I believe that I am called to attach to God, and that no other being on earth can offer me what I truly need in this area. It is not a need of my flesh, although it manifests itself in that manner because the spiritual will always spill over into the physical.

Where is God in this place? 

He dwells in the open places without filling them.

Oh how I long for my Lord to fill these empty spaces.

This blooming reveals a barrenness within.

Here my Lord abides.

Here I experience the frustration of realizing that He will not rush in to fill the gap. Rather, He seems to be sitting with me in it, experiencing it with me rather than fixing it. 

I have felt Him draw near to me in my unhealthy responses without doing a single thing to alter them.

I find this confusing and uncomfortable. My Lord seems to desire a dwelling within me in the broken and empty recesses of my unhealthy soul, but He seems to have no intention to begin repairing them at this time. I want Him to rush in and fill the hungry place that has awoken, or I want it to go dormant again. But I realize that I cannot force the hand of my Lord to act, and neither can I be fully human if I suppress my unmet needs. On retreat my soul opened up and howled like a lone wolf in a barren wilderness, panting beneath the moon in hurried search of a drink to slake her deep and desperate thirst.

This blooming has created a vaccume, a space between, full of need.

My God, my spirit is hungry and my soul is weak.

My desires are decrepit, weighed down by the pride of the flesh.

Sin concatenates around my human needs.

This is the opening of my soul upon retreat.

May the will of my Lord be done in me.

Amen.

The Preparation of My Soul {The Incubation of Hope}

In preparation for a 12 hour retreat with the larger ISF community-

I shall not be blown from my purpose 

by the strong winds of conflict, 

for I am fettered 

to a nest of Hope

by the strong branches of Love.

This is the preparation of my soul.

This is the incubation of hope.

The Lord has prepared a great level of fresh angst for me to explore during my upcoming 12 hour retreat. For the past few weeks much has surfaced in my heart and mind that needs the healing work of Christ- I am powerless to change the things which have arisen from the depths within me. Ugly things which are vices and rooted in sin. Things which I cannot pray away, although I often try.
In prayer now I am given a memory which is astoundingly poignant for what I am experiencing in this place- I recall a time when I was probably about 10 years old and my family visited a carnival that had come into town right against our backyard. 

For some reason I don’t remember, I decided to ride a sideways ferris wheel- it spun you around and around like a spinning top, doing both small circles individually while gyrating in one larger circle simultaneously. Nobody gave me sound advice to avoid this bad decision, which was bad because I am not a risk taker, am prone to carsickness and struggle with fear and anxiety. But for some evasive reason I decided to get on. The moment I was buckled in I had doubts, and the moment it started I felt the complete horror of utter helplessness in a situation that attacked my psychology. 

I remember screaming as loud as I could to stop the ride, but nobody heard me. Then my body went limp and I experienced utter helplessness akin to physical pain as I suffered the worst anxiety of my life for 3 minutes. When it was over I remember being totally traumatized, but I put a smile on my face because I did not want to upset my family with my needs and insecurities. So I trudged on through the rest of the carnival as if nothing at all had just happened that was even the slightest bit upsetting, while processing internally the absolute horror of that whirlwind of anxiety that was my own disturbing secret. I silently chastized myself about how stupid I was to get on that ride and avowed to never attempt anything that was even remotely similar, ever again. That experience was filed away as an unacceptable mistake and the trauma was buried quietly down into my deep. I learned to hide and I learned to protect myself- both of which are in opposition to love.

            In a similar way, I am on this ride right now- in fact, I am just getting off of it for the hundredth time and vowing never to get back on it again. I will hide! I will protect myself! But each time I vow to keep my feet firmly planted on solid ground, I eventually find myself climbing back in and getting strapped into a three minute ride that will leave me dazed and anxious for weeks to come. The repetition of this pattern is wearing on my soul in astonishing ways as I grow older and develop deeper awareness of my internal struggles and responses to the trials of life. I find myself screaming at God “make it stop, make it stop!!!” only to realize that nothing I do can stop the momentum of the trial I find myself barreling through. Eventually the only option is to become submissive and allow waves of anxiety and fear to consume my physical and mental being until the ride is over, then get off, put a smile on my face, and process the trauma internally and alone.

But what of my soul?

 While my psychology screams for someone to please turn off the trauma, what is going on inside my soul? In this time of prayer, I am reminded of an eagle’s nest that is not far from my house, where two bald eagles take turns sitting on their fragile eggs. There are any number of discomforts and trials that they face as they sit- wind, crows, cold, heat, fatigue, hunger, poky sticks and achy legs to name a few. But they just sit and sit and sit. The eggs incubate in the heat of their stillness, and their submissiveness is key to this mundane process of growth. When incredibly high winds threaten to destroy their nest, they just keep sitting. When the eggs have been unhatched for too long and are over a week late, they just keep sitting. Even if the eggs are sterile and never hatch at all, they will keep sitting until the dud eggs finally crumble from decay. As my daughter observed, “they never lose hope!” And this is true. Their identity is not in raising babies or building successful nests- 

their idenity is not in being a successful family member. 

If one nest is destroyed or the eggs are dead, they will simply try again. And again. And again. They do this by sitting. And waiting. They sit and wait without fear or doubt about their purpose, which is to be an eagle and to be willing to incubate whatever God wills to give them.

My Lord invites me into the stillness of contemplation.

And this repetitious pattern of sitting and waiting reflects in contrast against the vicious cycle of anxiety and helplessness of that relational carnival ride upon which I find myself periodically and unwittingly strapped. If perhaps my vacillating state of mind is in stark opposition to the constant incubation of my soul, if perhaps my idenity is not found in being a successful family member, then perhaps....perhaps my Lord is showing me that all is well. While my mind vacillates between solid ground and the propulsion of yet another round of harsh relational rebuke, my Lord invites me to sit and incubate a hope that will prepare me for His purposes-

I sit and wait through the discomfort of trials
because my identity is in Christ.

Even as the cold wind blows hard from the direction of relational warfare, my soul will not be shaken. No matter how many times my being is to be strapped to that scary three-minute ride, no matter how many weeks my psychology must suffer to recover from it, my soul continues to sit and sit and sit in solidarity and confidence on a nest of love in a tree of life. Despite the angst of my mind, my soul can be grounded in this one thing- even if I fail as a successful family member, my identity is in Christ. I am still an eagle and can fly to my calling and sit though all manner of trials as my Lord incubates His will beneath my wings. The eagle that is my soul will never be stopped from hoping, because that eagle is identified in the calling to be an eagle, no matter what may come. 

This is the reassurance I receive from my Lord in this time of prayer- I am not identified by my relational standing in a human family. I am identified only in Christ. Eagles are not eagles because they are successful members of a family- they are eagles because they are eagles, because that is what God made them to be. Whether they fly or sit, raise babies or fail to do so, they do not lose the hope of being eagles. Whatever comes, they are eagles. They can sit idly upon a nest, even one with dud eggs, and be completely at ease and please their Lord in their faithfulness to incubate whatever He has ordained to give them. They incubate hope.

My mind may vacillate, but my soul is steadfast in its anchoring to my Lord. As darkness rises, light rises to meet it, and the eagle keeps watch from its faithful perch where transformation incubates silently and hidden beneath the wings that were granted to it by Grace. This is the slow preparation of my soul for union with Christ, which is the calling for all of His children.

All is well, my soul. All is well.

This is the preparation of my soul.

This is the incubation of hope.

Steady as she goes.
Amen.

Reflection on the Purgation of my Soul

Prayer Project for ISF- assigned by Dr.Coe following a lecture on the Maturing of the Saints...

In prayerful reflection I have considered the season several years ago when I was filled with the Holy Spirit to a degree that far surpassed my character. I believe this is why I am now in a season where I am resigning myself to the reality that what once motivated my soul to go forward is no longer sustainable. In November of 2017, following a season of traumatizing betrayals, I received such an inpouring of spiritual inspiration and consolation that I produced an abundance of writings which expressed what was going on inside my soul. I wrote hundreds of pages of material, some which are on this blog and some which are private, all of which seemed to come from outside of myself- when I look back and read it, I can scarcely believe that persuasive abundance of written words came from me. 

My emotions long for the days of creative control.

My soul sings to the moon in the dark of night. 

That work seems now to be foreign. The writing went on for a year, taking me through 2018 and coming to a standstill in 2019. Then I ran out of steam, and the inspiration just fell away. I wrote only two pieces last year, and it has been 9 months since I last created another entry. I now seem to be in a season where God has led me to the end of my flesh- I feel generally incapable of producing anything inspired and find it difficult for my spirit to receive motivation except for quick and unexpected spikes in moments of consolation that do not last for long. What swept me into seminary like a tidal wave has since become a thin trickle that dries up now and then. Here now I stand before God with empty hands- all the fire of my soul is behind me in this season. While I firmly believe He is doing a continued work within me that is even more purgative and transformational than in the past, I now experience very little in terms of inspiration, fire or motivation. Were it not for seminary, I wonder if I would be spiritually dead. Not even church on Sunday can rouse my passions any longer, and in this I have journeyed so far from the person I was not so long ago.

There is, however, an awareness in my soul of the seeds of new purpose. As my Lord continues to purge me of my passions from the past, and to separate my true identity from my wounds, I know He prepares me to shed the old man and clothe myself with Christ. But the process is painful, and the season I find myself in today is in opposition to the desire of my senses. 

I am at a crossroads where I hunger to continue finding meaning in relational wounds of the past- because these hurts were followed by such dramatic consolation for my soul, I have begun to crave that spiritual pleasure which proceeded from emotional pain. 

But my Lord has taken away from me the brute strength and propulsion of offense, and in that vacancy I can find nothing adequate to refill my soul. I am now experiencing the insatiable and decrepit hunger of my vices- my attachments are fleeting and ever-changing, my ability to withdraw into myself entirely instinctual, my skill in distancing myself from relationship stronger than ever. 

My emotions wander like a visceral vagabond, vascillating between loyalty and rejection of relationship with my God, myself and others. 

My emotions long for the days of creative control.

My soul sings to the moon in the dark of night. 

I do realize in moments of spiritual clarity that my flesh desires the very things which make me despondent- offense, bitterness, anger, relational conflict, wounding and revenge. I long for the fruits of Egypt rather than the manna of the desert. I desire these because they make me feel alive and give me purpose and bring me the attention from God that I long for- rivers of consolation which fill me with the experience of an internal sea of living water. This is why my abundance of writing was so natural several years ago, because it was fueled by the fires of woundedness and the consolation of the Holy Spirit in response. 

Now, in the interim between offence and identity, I am called to silence, solitude and tranquility of spirit. This calling is a purgation because I long to be filled with the consolation that comes only after a piercing of the heart, and instead I am given the gentle presence of a non-anxious God who wants only to minister quietly to the empty places- He cannot do His best work if those places of my heart are full of the many things which get in the way. Here instead of passion He sends me shafts of sunlight and choruses of birds in the day, the glow of the moon and melodies of owls in the night, a rocking chair for contemplation and prayer projects for purgation.

Windchimes ride the wind 

in response to my repose.

But the wild vices of my heart long for the days when I was fueled by the fires of injustice and the consolation of the God who responded to my pain with deep inspiration. This calling now to a season of purgative stillness is one that stretches the capacity of my soul to someday receive the fruits of this despondent waiting. Here my soul must resign. Here I wait for the fresh outpouring of His hidden work within my soul.

Amen.

It Means The World To Me- John 15:19

Pneumatological Reflection, submitted to Dr.Coe for the assigned meditation upon John chapters 14-17.

“The world would love you as one of its own if you belonged to it, but you are no longer part of the world. I chose you to come out of the world so it hates you.” -John 15:19

The world has taken unexpected but important forms in my life- places where faith, hope and love should be most secure in my memories. But on my journey, these are the places where the world has ruled over my own imperfections and vices and then turned them against me. Now no one person has ever volunteered for such a position- rather, these are victims of their unawareness, knowing very little of how the world is using them to wound me in secret places of my soul. Just as the Pharisees genuinely believed that they were righteous and holy, so do these messengers of the world believe they have acted rightly. The world turns their heads so that they see my vices and believe it justifies the wounds they inflict. This has been my cross to bear, and I bear it even now- that those who represented love to me have come to represent the world from which Christ has called me to be set apart. Now I am reminded in John 17:15 that my Lord is “not asking God to take me out of the world”, and so I shall remain in this place of incredible tension. But I am also reminded that my Lord is asking God to “keep me safe from the evil one”, and so the conspiracy wrought by the world shall not prevail over me. 

But I will be misunderstood- 

indeed, my faith in Christ will be misunderstood 

for the sake of Himself and His transformative work within me. 

I myself will misunderstand His refining work in moments of desolation. 

This is to be my dark night and my dark contemplation- that my greatest humility will be in discovering my calling to be set apart from the ones I once idolized with a deficient heart. I have come to learn through my vices and failures that my loves were not love- they were idols because they were the world to me. They were, for me, avenues for the world to enter my hidden heart. To be set apart is to be humbled to my core- humbled that I can not save them, fix them, be fully loved or known by them in this way. None of this was possible because the hidden heart can only be healed by the presence of Christ over the years of a lifetime. I step back and now reflect how these idols had become the world for me. Here I must fully surrender in trust to my Lord, because I can no longer lean on those who gave me a false sense of security and identity. Those who once brought me comfort and meaning only did so because I was a participant in their ways- now that I am set apart by the maturing and awakening of my wounded spirit, I can no longer take comfort in those relationships, and in this way they are lost to me in my former manner of living. We each are on our own journey into God, and mine requires a humble admission that in my attempt to rescue those relationships I only succeeded in burning bridges. 

And I see now that bridges needed to be burned in order for my Lord to show me where the world had its hold on me and where my hidden heart was in submission to powers and principalities that were much bigger than the relationships themselves. 

I am called to lay down my weapons of desperation, fear and desire and to fly to the feet of the Lord who calls me, to be still and quiet in His presence as He administers His healing balm of humility, surrender and trust. Here I must see that the world has indeed hijacked the vices of my former loves and turned them against me. Here I also see that the enemy hijacked my own vices and used them to submit me to the world. In this reflection I can understand that silence and solitude are the only ointments that will cure the wounds of relational loss- to allow myself to become empty will prepare me to be filled. To submit to the reality of broken relationships is to submit to the work of Christ. To release the people who have betrayed me, to release them to the world to which they presently and unknowingly belong, to trust also that Christ is working to rescue them in ways that do not involved the heroic efforts of my faulty flesh. Here I must detour from the world, away from my former idols, and in this purgative contemplation I will not be betrayed by my Lord who guides me ever onward into the hope of spiritual humility and full surrender to His love.