Diving Deep

Linking up with Lisa-Jo and Five-Minute-Friday



I tear off the page of my calendar and take a deep breath.

Ready...
Set...
Go.

Diving Deep.
Into a new day, a new year, a new hope.

Glad to bid December farewell; kindred with Jamie, I ponder the pleasant escape and comfort of Prozac.  Would this pill perhaps go down easier than the bitter one of facing my demons?

Some tell me to shut up, sit down, stop rocking the boat.  Keep that mask firmly in place, and all will be well.  Speak the positive, lift yourself up by the bootstraps, heal thyself!  Onward & upward; you can do all things thru Christ who strengthens you!

Others reach out with tender hands, gentle words, and assure me: you are still loved, even in stormy-seasons of suffering, burning, refining.  Surely, as you fix your eyes on Jesus, you will emerge shining as gold; beauty from ashes.  Embrace the pain, trust the Healer.  Fortunate are the poor in spirit, for they shall be comforted!

I know not which is true, which is best, which path leads upward from these dark crashing waves of foreboding fear and doubt.  Perhaps it is both?

And yet for so many weeks I've been kicking, choking, fighting upward on my own ever-waning strength.

So this time, I dive.
Down, down, down...

Deep into this place of grieving; leaving behind the shining, glimmering, ephemeral fairytale.
Diving, swimming, fighting, kicking...and then...
Letting go.
Drifting.
Drowning.

Gentle me, Lord!

Trusting.

There will be Arms to buoy me.

The Love-Maker holds the future; one of faith-tales to replace fairy-tales. Plans for hope. 
Resting.
Quietness.

A season of hush.
Silencing the enemy-voices of fear and shame clamoring at the surface.
Silencing the words bubbling from this broken and longing heart.
Silencing the discontent, the guilt, the constant fear of failure.
Silence.
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“Woe to the rebellious children,” says the Lord,
“Who take counsel, but not of Me,
And who devise plans, but not of My Spirit...

“In returning and rest you shall be saved;
In quietness and confidence shall be your strength.”
But you would not,
And you said, “No, for we will flee on horses”—
Therefore you shall flee!
And, “We will ride on swift horses”—
Therefore those who pursue you shall be swift!

Therefore the Lord will wait, that He may be gracious to you;
And therefore He will be exalted, that He may have mercy on you.
For the Lord is a God of justice;
Blessed are all those who wait for Him.

For the people shall dwell in Zion at Jerusalem;
You shall weep no more.
He will be very gracious to you at the sound of your cry;
When He hears it, He will answer you.
And though the Lord gives you
The bread of adversity and the water of affliction,
Yet your teachers will not be moved into a corner anymore,
But your eyes shall see your teachers.
Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying,
“This is the way, walk in it,”
Whenever you turn to the right hand
Or whenever you turn to the left.
You will also defile the covering of your images of silver,
And the ornament of your molded images of gold.
You will throw them away as an unclean thing;
You will say to them, “Get away!”

Then He will give the rain for your seed
With which you sow the ground,
And bread of the increase of the earth;
It will be fat and plentiful.
There will be on every high mountain
And on every high hill
Rivers and streams of waters...
Moreover the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun,
And the light of the sun will be sevenfold,
As the light of seven days,
In the day that the Lord binds up the bruise of His people
And heals the stroke of their wound.