mental game

yesterday i found myself uttering, if you lose the mental game, you've lost everything. no one can help you. (no one except God that is.)

how those words sum up this wilderness experience. when i let my hand unfold and the tattered strands of hope drift like so many tiny spiders upon the winds, then i am lost. i run aground on the jagged rocks and am ruined.

my friend asked me, how can we help you?

you can't. i replied. we're beyond the reach of man.

she said, how are you?

i just am. nothing more, nothing less.

you look like Jesus to me, she said.

and i wept.

if these many trials do nothing more, than as brennan manning says, carve the signature of Jesus upon my flesh, than these many trials are welcome.

i can no longer abide the "happy ending" christianity preached by most, who don't realize that their happy endings are more for themselves to feel better than the one sitting in ashes and sackloth. there are no words for a time and place like this. there are no happy endings. (sure ultimately we go to Heaven, but nowhere in the Book do i read we all get "happy endings" here on earth. certainly stephen did not. moses, it could be argued, did not. why would i then?)

i didn't go to a bible study recently cause i couldn't abide hearing any more "promises from God." while praying prayers of faith and being more than a conquerer is what we are called to do, there is also a time for weeping, a time for sowing seed in tears. my tears have watered acres upon acres these many years, but i may not have sown my tears in full as yet. but i can hope.

i wrote a poem, if hope is a car, about my not abandoning hope. but what happens when hope abandons me? when i look everywhere but she cannot be found, or she is so gaunt and pale she is beyond recognition. what then my prayer warrior friend? what then?

i have told the Lord, no more promises, until i see some movement in the positive direction on the ones heavy in my heart. i cannot hold anymore there. i am full. i am heavy with promises, counting the minutes until delivery. don't give me anymore promises and please, stop your servants from uttering them before their words taint my ears and break my heart yet further.

i specifically asked for movement in the positive direction because i am no fool. movement in the negative direction is movement as well. but i want to see fulfillment. even and only if like simeon i spy it before i die, in its infancy. i pray i've faith enough to believe and receive the fulfillment then cross over into forever and my tears are wiped away.

no more promises.