Another night that my soul bleeds

It's amazing sometimes the things I will do to avoid going to bed.
It's late and I've been cleaning the Kitchen.
Recently a friend came and helped me de-clutter and spring clean the Kitchen.
it's the only room in the house that's in any sort of order, the only "grown-up" room in the house. And I quite like being in it.

I've found a piece of music that right now says exactly what I want to pray, and is often on repeat, playing whilst I wash-up,
playing while I clean,
praying while I clean.

I've had one of those very strange days.
I've spoken to no-one.
I work in an office of about 100 people
currently on an account of over 600 people
at a site with thousands of people
and I spoke to no-one - no phone calls no-one.
Last night the phone kept ringing, tonight nothing.

I might as well have not existed today - no-one would have noticed I wasn't there.

I came home to a job application.
It's a job other people think I could do, it's less responsibility than one a few weeks ago that I thought I could do. But there is absolutely no confidence in me that I could even fill the form in let a lone handle the interview or the job.

Are the two connected?
left entirely in my own company
my confidence ceases to exist? ......hmmmm

A few years ago the Church of England rejected me.
My take on it tonight is I am damaged goods.
Too damaged for the Church of England to see my potential.
Too damaged for them to take the risk.

I am not too damaged for God
in fact right now it is being damaged that links me with him.

I once wrote to the 14 year old me.
I wrote something like this.

"I guess if you said to me that you thought your heart had broken, you'd expect me to say it didn't, it might have felt like it, but it didn't really break.

Well that's not true.
It did break
into a million pieces
and Jesus is what holds those pieces together.
It is an incredible job, He has to hold them together enough so your heart still functions, it still beats, it still pumps blood around your body.
And at the same time he can't hold the pieces too loosely other wise the blood just pours out.

Jesus is right there in the middle of you covered in all the gore of your broken heart keeping it working without leaking blood in the wrong places."

Sometimes I think some of the pieces have started to knit together, and sometimes I still see the not quite a million other pieces still so vulnerably held together.

tonight is another night that my soul bleeds.

Another Big Stepping Stone

In the UK last Sunday was Mothering Sunday – traditionally a time that people went home to visit there Mothers, and their Mother Church. It has been adopted as our Mothers Day..

There was a line in the sermon on Sunday – something like
“Some people’s happy event is other people’s nightmare”

Yeah – it was a nightmare for me.

I shouldn’t have gone to church, I guess because I knew what the sermon was going to be (I’d been given a sneak preview earlier last week) I thought I’d be ok. But I wasn’t. There were prayers I couldn’t say… which is ok because God knows I can’t say them. The service was a really good attempt at trying to hold together those who have a good experience of Mothers, and Motherhood, and those of us who don’t. It just didn’t help me.

I have many times stood waiting to administer the chalice and told God “with my Body I thee worship – I am only here in body, my heart and soul hurts too much to be here and wants to be elsewhere”. I am aware of the incongruity of the statement, the very fact I am praying means I am there in more than physical body, at least part of my mind is engaged. This Sunday I stood with tears in my eyes, wishing I was somewhere else.

Jesus spoke to me “You know this that is causing you the pain wasn’t your fault?”

“Yeah I know – but can you understand the pain I feel?
“Yeah” and he stood with me.

He stood with me reassuring me that I was ok, that though not my fault, the pain was very legitimate, and he would not take it away, but he would stand with me in amongst the pain. I found his presence very reassuring the rest of the day as I wept myself to sleep. Aware as I awoke that he was still with me. I Didn’t really get anything I’d planned to do on Sunday done, and the echoes of the pain are still reverberating around my soul, making breathing hard work. I explained, in a lot more detail than here, my day to one of my wise men. I told him what was happening, and how I reacted, and that Sunday had been a very painful day but I was ok. He replied that he thought I was very ok. And we talked of how this day was another big stepping stone in my journey.