A Doxology in Darkness - Chapter 3 - Groping
Sharon July 2nd, 2008
As the end of November approached, I was becoming frustrated by my deepening depression. I felt so weak and helpless. My embarrassment at my inability to get a hold of myself was eating me up inside. Pride has always been one of my biggest struggles, so of course I want to be perceived as strong, and “together.” I didn’t want myself or anyone else to recognize just how quickly I was drowning.
And so it was that I came to find myself driving down the road that night, screaming at God that He was a complete and unadulterated liar. There I sat, screaming and cursing, flying in the face of the Creator of the universe, not caring one bit if He silenced my lips for eternity with a flick of His wrist.
I squeezed the final bit of bile out of my heart, and the silence engulfed me in the glaring absence of my venom. The drone of the car tires spun glibly away, and I felt curiously exposed and transparent. What could I possibly say to Him now?
Being the church entrenched person I was, my first reaction was to assume the infamous “devil made me do it” position. I just assumed I must’ve been “under attack.” Right? I mean, what else could that have been?
The image came to mind from one of my favorite movies, The Fellowship of the Ring, where the orcs and goblins, Sauron’s evil army, are taking axes to the roots of the trees of Fanghorn Forest. The scene, set in the middle of the blackest, rainy night, portrays these beautiful trees, groaning in ancient pain as they are hacked and chewed and pulled down with ropes, their every branch and leaf straining under the weight of the malice being hurled at them.
As I drove down the street in the wake of my cries, the thought came to mind that I felt like one of those trees. My faith was being hacked at and bruised like one of their beautiful trunks. The enemy was applying an axe to the very roots of my faith, trying to topple me over and drag my limp corpse off into the darkness.
Whatever it was, I knew I needed prayer. And A LOT of it.
The next day at church, I pulled aside my pastor, Dave, and told him, “I’m having a faith crisis unlike any other I’ve experienced.”
Once I shared the details of the night before, he said something that shocked me, and my knee-jerk reaction was to think it sounded so foreign to me, he must’ve been way off base. He said, “Well, maybe that is actually something inside your heart that needed to come out, and the Lord used this to expose what was already in there.”
What?
I stood and ruminated on his words for a few seconds. Now here was something disconcerting. That stuff was in me? What exactly did that mean? Part of me hated God? I thought He was a liar, and a cruel liar at that?
Obviously this was something which I needed to investigate. In all my years of knowing Him, I had never even let myself question whether there were parts of me that raged against my Father. It had never dawned on me that in my life, when I experienced pain and loss, that deep inside me, down in the pressured heated bedrock of layer upon layer of soul and spirit, there may possibly lay dark minerals of doubt and anger. Deposited particles of savage and blind rage, silent until now, never having pushed their way up to the surface until this very moment. Flinty resentments toward Him that lay dormant and voiceless, until the first crack in the surface appeared for them, affording them the opportunity to explode out of my heart, fully grown, and ready to shake their fist at God in utter foul, malignant venom.
But it could be true.
It sounded too familiar to believe that it was untrue.
I looked back up at Dave. My silence told him I agreed to this possibility, so at that point he recommended I go see a prayer counselor he knew. He told me she was gifted by God in praying with people, and helping them invite Jesus to point out places that needed healing. Deeply underlying places which became exposed in ways just like that: the good old fashioned, pounding the steering wheel, screaming until hoarse kind of underlying places. She had been praying with people in this capacity for years.
Dave didn’t even need to finish his sentence. “Count me in,” I said, “I’m there.”
| 
| Digg This!
This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008 at 8:46 am and is filed under Anger, Christianity, Dating, Demonic Attack, God, Healing, Jesus, Loss, Pain, Prayer, Religion and Spirituality, Satan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
That simple definition is profound.
Tony Heringer
Good show guys and I for one am...
Who Are You & What Do You Want? - Ukleja & Lorber on SBE
Gene Elllis
I believe that God speaks to me in a quiet wlhisper and a...
Walking with God - John Eldredge on SBE
perimeter member
Her’s a church that put the proposal into action:...
What do you think about my proposal?
Mahthellin
Hmm. I think it IS revival. Not the complete definition...
What do you think about my proposal?
Gene Wright
i HAVE also walked and talked with God And Steve Brown has...
Walking with God - John Eldredge on SBE