shadows and shackles

My dear friends--for the few of you who take the time to read these words, I count as friends--I wish I knew what to write. For the past month I have been belaboring over seven posts, yet none of them are quite right, and some of them I am not ready to post.

I am afraid.

Fear, how I hate thee! Yet I cling to thy comfortable bars, familiar to my callused hands. I hide in the striped shadows, fading into the background. Though I now know fear for what it is, know more of my own fears, I yet feel powerless against it. My cowardly flesh cages my soul, and I long for freedom, yet I do not even reach through the bars anymore.

I love things of the earth too much. I love harmony, and would rather live with subtle discord than vexing confrontation. I love when people like me, when they are not offended by me. I love when people think well of me, and cower from anything that people might misinterpret or read into or make me look like the fool that I am.

Life is not all fear now. There is rest, too. And overwhelming gratitude. An attitude of thanksgiving was pricked earlier this year, and spurred by the words of Ann Voskamp. But the shadows of fear still haunt me, pointing over my shoulder, whispering lies.

I recall the words I read this morning: "When I am afraid, I put my trust in You." Psalm 56:3

Trust.

Again, and again, He asks me to trust. So I will. I will and do trust that somehow, some way He will finish the work He has begun in me. Trust that He will show me how to choose Him over that which I am too fond of. Only He could do such work. For that work, which is oft painful, I am grateful. There is no greater love than this.

{But the greatest thing to remember is that though our feelings come and go, His love for us does not. It is not wearied by our sins, or our indifference; and therefore, it is quite relentless in its determination that we shall be cured of these sins at whatever cost to us, at whatever cost to Him.} C.S. Lewis