Shame.

Today I feel it.

Today I want to hide.

Today I miss human touch so much.

Today I feel broken….

Too broken to love….

Too messed up for reconciliation.

Today the void is really big.

I haven’t felt this in awhile but I know I can’t let it progress too far or I will be under water before I even notice.  So I fight this fight because I know that it is not truth.  I talk about it because I know that we all feel these things at one degree or another.  It is such a hard thing to feel something and yet tell yourself that the emotion is the one lying to you.  It is a hard thing to know truth but feel the opposite.

I need to throw it off of me with these words I write because I hate the way it makes me feel.  It’s like a blanket that is smothering me.  It makes me feel as if I am covered in fine dust that clouds everything and refuses to let my skin and nerves and mind breathe.  It is a perpetual pit in my stomach.  An argument between what is real and what is not.

I hear the words that I am not good enough….That there is  a better choice than me….That I am hard to love….That I make poor decisions….That I am not worthy of walking through darkness with….That I am not special enough to be in the trenches with…..That my history will always dictate my future….That somehow I always fall short. These words are feelings.  And these words are lies.

When I began to understand that I was not chosen anymore, when I began to see my failings that helped lead to this pain,  there was a choice that was laid before me.  And I’ve realized it’s not a choice that I only needed to make one time….It is a choice I must make over and over and over again, until God moves me forward into another season.  And that choice is whether or not I am going to believe what I am feeling.

The truth is, God doesn’t think I’m hard to love and He’s been in the trenches with me since my first breath.  He is not ashamed of me, even when people are.  When I make a poor decision, He walks with me until I find redemption.  He never believes that I am a hopeless case, that I will never get it right. He knows I am the right choice because He is the one who chose me.  And He chooses me every day, even when not a single person notices my existence.

So, even though, in this moment, I don’t see how all this brokenness could possibly be put back together, I am choosing to believe that my feelings are just that.  Feelings.  And feelings are not facts.

So while I am still trying to find my way in this maze, and reconcile what I know to be truth with what my emotions tell me, I will feel and speak and choose breath.  I refuse to live in dust and ashes.  I need to say it over and over again.  I refuse to live in dust and ashes.  As an act of my will, I WILL NOT live in dust and ashes.  I hope you choose the same with me.