My Hunger

I'm hungry. I'm thirsty. All the time. There is this hunger that gnaws at me...deep inside me. I am not talking about this metaphorical hunger or a poetic description of some vague feeling that has to do with missing a stoic lover. This hunger is literal. A couple of times I would even think "Why am I hungry like this? I just ate. How come I never get full anymore?". The thought would enter my mind that maybe I was hungry for the romance I used to share with Christ. Maybe I was thirsty for the way I used to feel when God would speak to me. He hasn't been speaking to me lately. So, of course I take the human approach and say "Fine. If you're gonna be like that...I'll be over here doing ---*insert your own personal sinful treat here*--- until You come around, God." And if you are thinking "Well I can't really relate to what she just said, I don't really do that", then your personal sinful treat is probably lying :). When in reality, as I mentioned before in my blog, He did not distance Himself from me, I fell back and pushed myself away from Him. In the meanwhile I fed myself with everything I could find to fill the hunger inside me. When one thing wouldn't fill me, I would try something else. I would fill my stomach with almond m&ms or my lungs with smoke. And I would always fill full for a second. But then I would hate myself knowing what I really should be filling it with. So here is how God has been speaking to me;

Apparently I have developed this keen ability to become numb to pain inside of me. I imagine it developed over time and it is a habit that comes from running from God all the time. I have never experienced Love like the Love He gives me. So when I am running from it...how could I NOT feel pain? Anyways... the past couple of weeks I have been struggling with a decent sized lump of pain in my stomach, and it has been swallowing up these temporary escapes I use and leaving me hungry. A couple of days ago I looked in the mirror and realized that I have aged so much in the past couple of weeks. My blue-grey eyes weighed heavily on the grey side. My skin was lifeless. Not only was that brightness gone, but there seemed to be shadows cast on my face from a source I could not see. The lines on my face that linger from smiling and laughing had been ironed back into my skin by the constant starvation inside me. I realized this even more when I was standing in chapel, and my friend Candy and I were observing the different hair styles in front of us...and she pointed at this girl with cute curly long hair. I studied her profile. The skin on her face seemed so flawless as if life had not taken a cent of a toll on her. Everything on her was in it's right place. I have never felt that way. Each strand of her hair curled perfectly into a calculated pony tail. But her skin was almost translucent. I thought to myself "she probably has never weathered a storm in her life". But then some voice told me "Or she has, and she weathered it with grace and did not feed her life the junk that you have." Either way I realized I felt like old; like my skin was rough and my smile jaded. Later on that day I was sitting on my couch and I was about to look for something to do. And the thought ACTUALLY crossed my mind: "Maybe I should go pray some, I haven't talked to God in a while." It didn't feel like myself as much as it felt like God was asking "Come spend time with me!". I surprised myself by LITERALLY shaking the thought off and telling myself that journaling would prove to be more affective. I felt God's heart break inside that starving lump in my stomach. Days went on and I dealt with a number of things on my own. Carried the weight. As Dr. Laan would say, I walked through the desert with my own strength, avoiding any bit of shade God offered me. So, surprisingly enough I was not scheduled Friday night. Perfect because I have been feeling drawn to attend Celebrate Recovery. So I go. I even attend the dinner to make friends (although no one that Candy I sat with spoke to us...but we still had fun). At one point the guy that was speaking that night used such a trite line I have heard so many times before. He said there had been a God-sized hole in his heart. I mentally scoffed off the thought by thinking "How big would that be? It would be like the size of...well, infinity. And that guy's heart is definitely NOT the size of infinity. Pssssh." (Mature, huh?) During group time, we had to answer a question concerning resentment. A lot of different thoughts came together in my mind and they whispered their secrets at me in unison, as if to bring me to this conclusion. I was holding onto SO much resentment towards my ex-fiance. The first time I had gone to that group was because of the situation my ex-fiance was in. Needless to say after we broke up and I stopped for a second in my life. All the things I had been running from for seven years all settled around me. It was almost the same effect as when the dust and debris settle after a violent twister. I've never actually seen that happen, but I can imagine that the most intense part would be that silence after the storm that allowed people to see the damage this violence had caused. That's how I felt. It all caught up with me. Anyways, I am getting side tracked. In that time I faced many issues and there was no way I could solve all of them. My ex...we'll call him Bob. Bob caused me a lot of heart ache through several actions which I DO NOT hold against him. He was engaged to a crazy person. However, there was a pain in me that resulted from some of choices he made. That pain was very deep inside of me, because it tied to so many other ghosts that I keep caged. So, sitting in group last night I realized I resented Bob very much for this pain I would have to work through. I had been so angry at him and so bitter towards him. These harsh feelings I wished towards Bob kept me from realizing that he is in a very lonely and dark place right now. How could I wish ill on someone who was already spiraling himself there? And whether or not I feel the same way about Bob as I used to, I love this man. I should have been on my knees for his soul. Not on my tippy toes so I could get a better view of all the sickness I was wishing his way. So that was a very eye opening experience. The night ended and Candy and I left to continue on to this ceremony that consisted of burning things from my past as symbolism that I was moving along from the past. We incorporated wine into this ceremony. The ceremony went well, and I was deeply grateful to share with Candy those moments. I was able to share hurts with her and she was able to just...be there.

However, I woke up today with this feeling...of emptiness. I have felt it before, but never this solid. I knew this hunger would not be filled with a bowl of cereal. I knew I could no longer run from these thoughts. Candy came over for a second, and she must have seen that realization on my face because she asked if I was ok. She had to go to a birthday party so she told me she loved me and left. I sat here for a minute and that "God-sized hole" in my heart started aching. (The God-sized hole makes sense to me now. God means SO much to me that if He is not residing in my heart, my heart might as well have the hole the size of the universe, because that would make it non-existant, and that's how I have felt lately). So I felt that call again, "come talk to me, Dars". I had heard it earlier, but had decided to make coffee instead. This time when I heard it, for a second I thought "I'll finish my coffee first or it'll get cold." But that thought lasted two seconds because the heart ache inside of me was bigger than my need for caffeine. So I went. And I cried. I would like to think I cried in His arms, but I couldn't feel that. I haven't cried in a very long time. My heart has been hard and my spirit has been coldly going through the motions. I went to Him this time. And I am pretty sure He met me there. But I have to learn that God is not my yo-yo, and as much as I hate people rolling me up and down on an emotional string, I can pretty certainly say that it's not God's favorite thing either.

So here I am at this place I have been so many times before. Wanting to put all my faith in Him and walk away from the life I have drawn up for myself...hand over the pencil and let Him take over. I will pray that He will have me as I find my way back to Him. I will ask Him to romance me and show me how He loves me. But even though He has proven Himself to me over and over and over again, I still have this fear...that He won't be there. That this time there really is nothing loveable. That I will not be able to have that glow in my soul when I feel His love. But I am so hungry for His love, and nothing else has satisfied that hunger. So I come back like I have so many times before asking that He can fill this God-sized hole in my heart and fill me up. Because I am hungry...