all or nothing

whether or not it's a genuine crisis of faith or not, i've certainly been wrestling with what it means to be a christian struggling with these dark places in my soul.

so i've been having days where it feels like there is no light. nothing to lead me out of thls place. last night we went to a friend's house, dear friends who we have known for a decade. i usually walk through their home, wishing my life looked a little more like theirs. last night i noticed the water stains on their ceiling from a roof leak, the cabinets in the kitchen that their 4 dogs have chewed, and the basement that has flooded twice. in what felt like a major breakthrough, i finally saw their life for what it was. just another life.

and then, course, the bottom dropped out on the way home. i ended up crying the whole hour drive home, wishing we weren't homeless, wishing we weren't falling apart, wishing I wasn't so broken. and in my fear and pain, somewhere, it became an issue of God not seeing or not caring, or maybe just focused on the little things, rather than this issue of being homeless that most daysi feel breaking me. it grinds on my heart, stone against stone, and i am the rock being destroyed in process.i've seen God be faithful in little things. things that seem so inconsequential as to be almost meaningless. and now, as my life is actively, completely falling apart around me, there is nothing. no response, only a tireless press through the dead bodies of my dreams and hopes as they fall like victims of poisoned gas in the trenches of my life. yeah. maybe a little histrionic, but it's where i am.

so getting back to the faith thing. this morning, i felt like i was hit with a two by four in worship today. i felt Him ask 'can I believed? do I care everything or nothing? because there's no middle place. no place where I care for part of you, but not all of you.' needless to say, i was pretty weepy this morning. i can't feel the light on my face, i can't see the breaking of the sun into this well, but somewhere, i am being asked to believe, there is a light.

the worship team mentioned that they had felt there was someone in the congregation struggling with despair and hopelessness, and if that person was here, to please come get prayer. yeah, i was there, and i needed so much prayer. after going down front, a woman - who i know very well, but never knew she was sexually and physically abused as a kid, came down to pray for me, to pray with me. and all i did was cry. she knew the places in my heart that were so broken - the little girl who knows no one will come to rescue her. that her mother is too busy picking up the broken parts of her heart and body, that her father is too busy hurting her little brother, that her little sister is too weak, and too sick to understand. over and over, she said "He is coming to rescue you. you can't see Him yet, but He's coming to rescue you. to heal you." am i to believe it? i don't know. it seems too good to be true.

of course, the day ended with a spectacular fight, and the spouse in tears, and me being bewildered because i don't know what to do. sometimes the numbness is so painful, because i can't respond. i'm stuck. we'll see what tomorrow brings - most of the time, these terrible conversations become background noise in a day or two, and then meaningless in a week, and forgotten in two. and he can't stop remembering.