i have made a habit of walking our block to get the sun upon my face, escape from the 4 walls of homeschooling in our little house, and pour my heart out to God. i walk my block over and over again - the number of laps i make usually correlates with how i am really doing. stressed, angry, worried? many laps. happy and carefree? just a lap or two.
i am not one to process my pain well on my own, and yet i am not one to process in front of others either. that usually leaves me with no processing at all. i often don't really know how i am doing until either it slips out my fingers onto the page or out of my mouth talking to God. you see, i talk out loud to Him while i walk. i am sure many a neighbor or those who drive by me have thought i was crazy, but it is the only way i know to let Him into the deeper parts of me that i don't know how to go to on my own.
and with the blinding brightness of the sun warm against my cheeks, tears escape my squinted eyes, and i let it all out before Him. i let go of all the expectations of others that i carry, the disappointments that weigh heavy, the fears, the failures, the strife to make things right in my own strength, the anger that bubbles up, and the questions that lay just beyond the surface and influence all i do.
all that i should have been stares me in the face and taunts me with what my very best self can meagerly produce, and i ask Him - what do you think of me? silence. the tightness in my chest wants to badly to hear approval while my eyes almost don't dare to look up. then i get this sense in the very depth of my gut that He is okay with messy real me - the me who doesn't do it quite right, who doesn't know how to let others in, who desires to be pleasing but so often falls short. no one else may ever understand the complexity of how i work, but He is the One who formed me in my innermost parts, and He knows and understands and He is okay with me...
...and that is enough.
charis
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