I’m afraid… of him arriving. Of this idea clung to my mind since the week began that says: if he arrives it will hurt.
I had never thought about the possibility of finding love and having it hurt for all the right reasons, that one could be so broken still, so calloused or turned to stone that the mere brush of anything that’s the opposite of hatred could hurt. I’ve figured out I know how to handle rejection and loneliness well, they don’t even hurt like they used to… but someone wanting to be there, to be a fountain and not a taker… to stay and never leave… I wouldn’t know what to do. My heart didn’t, the day before yesterday.
I’m not talking about heartbreak or anything like that. I’ll explain:
On Sunday…
Remember I’ve been attending church for about a month? I was raised a Christian, but stopped attending church a good five years back. Maybe more. I ran after the Lord still, until He brought me here. And on Sunday, something happened.
The pastor stood there, closing his sermon and lifted his hand, showing his veins. He listed his two surnames; the blood running in his veins, “But in my spiritual veins, the blood of the Lamb is the one running, and it’s what makes me your family, this makes you my brother,” when I heard that, something inside snapped. Not because I had ever craved to be his sister, no, (I would’ve craved to be someones anyone, but that was another life. Another one, tangled here too, I guess) but I knew instantly what my heart meant when it tried to continue beating and suddenly stopped and another part of it tried to give the next pulse and it hurt instead, well not instead, but while trying to beat, as if it hadn’t moved in years. Yes I’ve listened to all kinds of things coming from podiums like that, decaying things and never a statement of equality and love, for one part, so I’ll give him and God that one.
Also, there’s no use in being afraid of the future, so I’m not really fearing, just trying to understand what happened. Maybe what hurt in part could be that…
After so much bad, could goodness make one jump in fear? Wake up hurting? I don’t even know how to put it. If running away from everyone else’s fists killed you somehow… when someone else’s extended hands welcome you in could it hurt just because you haven’t moved from the ground in years? Maybe your whole life? And this wasn’t kindness directed towards me, just a mere talk from a podium, but still…
I wondered there if it would be possible for my heart to have stopped beating on one side, leaving me to live almost crippled for years; heart crippled. That one side kept moving so as not to die but the other died on the spot when the lack of love got to be too much? I knew this was about rejection and pain, I knew it just sitting there listening to this man speak. And suddenly, with his conclusion, I… could my heart have come back to life that day?
Just because the preacher stated himself part of my family? Or rather, me a part of the same?
I truly cannot fathom why I felt like that, but I snapped and cried in silence for a long while.
There is One that can come to your rescue even when everyone else fails, One indeed. There is a measure of faith needed for this kinds of things, all of this I know and understand, but something inside myself came alive in that instant, still, and I have to say it was because of the preacher man, by the Hand of the Lord. That because of the whole enterprise this Sunday, something came alive, something long ago lost I didn’t even know was there, dead. This would mean it’s something that died before I even had understanding or awareness of my own being. I’m not being poetic, I’m saying the right side of my heart moved, jumped in that instant and it felt like a stone trying to be flesh. I was taken aback by the pain and I’m unable to cast the thought aside, of it having been a new kind of heartbeat from an eons ago dormant piece of my heart, that it was the part of me not even used to hurt, but dead in it, I believe. The part of me that did die, that couldn’t keep on living.
Maybe coming alive hurts, too. Imagine moving and then stop moving for years, an then, having to move again? I don’t believe it’ll hurt forever, it must be like therapy after a fracture.
I don’t know, I just believe.
What I do think is that the preacher was moved by the One I’m talking about to act like His hands and arms and eyes and mouth just to come through to me and bring light to that one place in my heart for it is time to be completely alive, fully. Maybe because it’s time, it was good that everything happened this Sunday, this way I know what it feels like, waking up… maybe it won’t ever happen again because what was meant to come to the Light in my heart, did. Opposed to everyone’s belief, God had come, He came every time I’ve needed someone before but in the way everyone finds as pure delusion, as this sweet tang or scent, as a healing warmth, as light in my mind, as a soothing voice, quiet and calm… for instance, He had been showing me an image of Him hugging me the whole morning, which makes me see I was already shaken before the service even began, but when this happened everything changed once more.
Maybe these are the days where I’ll truly see Him as I’d always wanted, and now I’ll get to be the one changed not only by pain, not anymore, by deathly aches of loneliness and hate… but by life. Life.
Then we took the Lord’s Supper and I ate the whole juice and the whole bite of bread. Nothing hurt the rest of the day, no sickness spell came.
I had been somewhat numb these last few days because, see, the hurt I talk about has to do not with people on the street running away but with family, people you once craved to be loved by, that kind of people, doing quite the opposite. And since August began some things got stirred up because they not only don’t love us, which has been fine for years (some things can’t be helped) but because things they do and have been wanting to do again, the way they treat and talk and even think about my home sounds like pure, deadly, hatred. Having to defend yourself from the ones supposed to love you can be your undoing. And I’m sure they know themselves righteous in their hearts, but as to why this has been like this my whole life I cannot put my finger on. I wouldn’t even want to, so to try and hold on, I just go numb without wanting to. And I had been fighting the whole month not to turn against the Lord like I would have in the past, but still, one does when the heart doesn’t understand. And this Sunday He showed me abundantly how, just because of being His, He will indeed go out to find me wherever I end up and will indeed light the way and the whole hiding spot I’m at until nothing in me shuts him out in despair. Even if this numbness leaves me out of touch with Him, He’ll come.
He came, once again, when I was silent just trying to understand and hold on, failing miserably. And He came bearing gifts, because having a full beating heart truly is one of the best gifts I’ve gotten to receive.
Life’s forever different now, and even if my heart ached the next time someone out there expresses His love instead of all hell’s hatred… I think I’ll be able to bear it.
Maybe it’ll be completely healed soon. Maybe it already is.
Life’s forever different now;
It’s alive now, the right side of my heart.
-SFTS
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