Reconciling the And

How does one reconcile the messy space of trust, surrender, acceptance, fight, and taking back what is rightfully theirs?

How do I get my light back? My freaking life back? How do I live as that person who is full of joy in the midst of this pain? How do I reconcile that frankly, it would be easier to die because then I’d be healed and free from this body that is in a painful war that feels like a lifetime long with how much I am not even close to done living yet? And yet, it hurts to live?

How fucked up is that?

I keep asking Jesus to get me to the other side of the lake like He promises us in His Word. Just get me to the other side of the lake. I don’t even care if the other side of the lake just simply means that you have changed my heart and brain so much that I have my light back with my joy certain even with the pain. I mean I’d rather the other side be full healing and restoration, and I’ll take what I can get at this point. 

How do I live fully when the things that bring me joy and make me me are the very things that cause so much of my pain?

Can I live fully without fear of making it worse and simply rest when I need to rest? I am tired of conserving, of planning, of saying no, of being so fucking quiet and alone that I feel like at times my soul is shriveling up to death. 

Well, not all the way alone because God hasn’t left me once. 

Not once.

Not even when I yell or ignore or curse at or tell Him how much His allowing frankly fucking sucks and doesn’t feel good enough. 

What I’m figuring out is choosing joy with pain doesn’t mean constantly fighting the pain, it means fighting to never allow it to steal everything of who I am and want to be while also allowing it to still change me because something obviously needs to be burned away.

Clearly, this fire is refining, purifying, and changing me into the person I’ve been worthy of my whole life. The person who for far too long has been plagued with roots of pain, trauma, and lies.

All these questions and so much quiet to finally get to see Him and feel Him again. Nearly a year after being taken to my knees in pain and learning of the war that had been ravishing my body from the inside out yet He filled with visions with Jesus. Today I finally became so undone I could see and feel Him again, vision and all.

A field with a dead stump in the middle surrounded by dead brambles, thistles, and thorns. A lifetime of pain, of lies, of trauma, and nothing of the truth of who Jesus is in that dead stump with roots so deep. A field now dead and vast of what was once a thriving harvest. 

Jesus is beside me. I feel His presence and His power. His love and His anger. He takes my hand and with nothing but a glance forward He sparks a roaring fire. The dead dry field catches quickly and burns fast. It’s overwhelming watching it burn. There was once good fruit there amongst the thorns and thistles. Years of good fruit. Years of it. And it is spent. It is done. It is time for it to burn all away. It smolders, all burned to black ash. It’s done. Dead. Because a new harvest is coming. One that is full of good fruit. Fruit that will not be overcome by lies of trauma and thorns of pain. The soil is turning and healing. It has what it needs now, nourished from the burn as the sky opens up with heavy rain. Big drops of love and healing. Of mercy and grace. Washing away the last of the pained ashes while feeding the soon-to-be good and fruitful harvest.

Suddenly we aren’t in the burned field anymore, we’re above it. Together from the hill overlooking the scorched valley. Jesus is still beside me, He has been this whole time. Again I feel His presence and His power. His love and His anger. He opens my eyes to show me the massive tree that once stood tall in the field, now scorched. No longer a stump, now only massive beauty quickly burned to a pile of ash from the fire within me and from Him. A fire He never left me to burn in alone. A fire to burn away the old darkness that yes He allowed and was never my punishment. Darkness broken once and for all with a twinkle of green coming soon. A harvest more fruitful in ways above and beyond my imagination. Freedom is coming, even if I don’t know what kind of freedom, it is freedom still. 

Does it mean no more pain? I don’t get to know that yet.

What I do know is that something has finally burned off and although right now I only feel undone (and pain) and not renewed by it yet, I am receiving it. And perhaps in the space that exists in the here and now of finding my footing, taking back what is mine, and of figuring out how to reconcile the very messy And of life with pain and joy, the new harvest is taking strong root.

So today I smile. I smile big, I smile me, a smile that hasn’t been seen much in the last year.

I smile not through the pain, rather with it, taking back my joy alongside the pain because joy is my birthright damn it.