Though I sort of doubt it.
The last few weeks have been tumultuous-- not only with regards to personal stakes, but over the last week, my spirituality has been greatly challenged. In particular, the way I write and what I write for has come so sharply into question that I am going to leave it for a while-- and leave this blog entirely. No more even infrequent updates-- just nothing for a while after I write these scant few words. Ah! I'd better make them count.
Am I scared? Yes. Though I still believe that the power of self-expression is one I have received from God, the places I go to and the powers I draw on when I write may not be. Now
that is a hard thing to hear, especially when one believes all along that one has been labouring for the glory of the Lord and the furtherance of His Kingdom. Yet I am frightened more because I have relied so heavily on knowing myself and being known as a budding writer that to see myself as valuable and significant outside of what I do and have done is a leap I cannot, at this moment, make. The question of "
who am I" is answered easily enough by "
you are God's beloved son", but there is no feeling in me to answer it thus. I might as well be saying "
4 is the sum of 2 and 2", a mathematical fact that has no emotive value except to say that God is rational and constant.
The promise of all of this is that I should know myself as God's Beloved, something I admit that I am not always capable of seeing. The last time I remember feeling such love was when I returned from a run one Friday afternoon and, walking in through the door, suddenly felt the
closeness of God and something of a divine embrace. I choked back a sob. In that little moment, every nagging worry that I carry with me evaporated in the blaze of such immense gentleness.
This goes further, deeper than just writing-- though writing is how it often gets in. It touches on painful memories I have yet to be healed from, glances across betrayal and nakedness of many kinds, and works tendrils and runners into what I do now. There is, I am told, a taint to my writing and to my preaching that reaches the people. Hearing this makes me not want to preach anymore-- what preacher worth his or her salt wants to be known for poisoned lips? Yet I will still preach. Only now, I must be more careful where I draw from when I do.
Those of you who can pray, I would ask to pray-- though I am somewhat tired of people laying hands on me over the last couple of weeks. There are things operating around me and in me that I am only now becoming aware of, so pray that these things be dispelled and cast away. I'll not do them anymore honour than to mention them in briefest terms for now, but pray that I might be delivered.
Until I write again,
ed
