I got a nervous text from one of my very best friends, Molly Bear, last night. For a girl with the kind of energy that never fails to keep you on your toes and the kind of wit that leaves your stomach aching and your face burning from laughter, nervous was new.
She asked if she could email me something she wrote because, well, she just needed someone to read it. In her exact words she text:
“I don’t really know the purpose in writing it. It has no conclusion. It’s a lot of me complaining, lol. But maybe if you read it and say you’ve felt it, I won’t feel like such a psycho. Or maybe you’ll say you haven’t felt it and my psychoses will be confirmed.”
And then an email buzzed in titled Hear Me and I doubled clicked and I read her words and my eyes filled with tears and my heart burned like a wildfire and everything in me wanted to scream, “I HEAR YOU! I know! I hear every word.”
And so I read it again. And I read it again. And her words became my prayer. FINALLY someone had put into words what I have felt in the past, at times, and what I’m sure I will feel in the future. The thing we never talk about…the thing we are never allowed to admit.
The seasoned believer. The faithful Christ follower. In a season of feeling like they’re wandering alone.
So for the believers who have known His touch on your skin, and are wondering where He has gone…this is for you. And for the faithful followers who don’t doubt His truth, but ache for His Holy voice again…this is for you. May these words give voice to the cry in your heart and may you know you are not alone.
A prayer for the times Jesus is simply quiet.
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” Tonight I can’t keep my eyes open, but for some reason I have to write (and I never have to write). Because I have this cry in my heart that screams for the nearness of Jesus and maybe in my writing You will take over these hands, captivate my computer screen and type the exact words I probably should say out loud.
The crazy thing is: life is really good. Like really, really good. But why does my heart feel like it is spread into a thousand different places, wanting a thousand different things, speaking of the hope in the One true fulfillment but hoping for a thousand other fulfillments to enter in, too. I don’t have room for it all; do I Jesus? I don’t have room to want You–to really, really want You–and to want everything else too; do I Jesus?
So then where are YOU? Where are you when I beg for your presence? And where are you when life is a thousand miles per hour and I need a stronghold on something unmoving? Where are you when I sit, exhausted, head spinning and heart hurting, wanting to walk out this door and conquer the world equally as much as I want to sit on my floor and just wait to feel you around me? But I can’t do both; can I Jesus?
I can’t seem to figure out the dance. I can’t seem to figure out how to run a good race full speed ahead all the while sitting and knowing and waiting for YOU. I can’t seem to figure out how to pour out all that I am just to fill up again during my barely six hours of sleep so I can make sure to pour out equally as much the next day. Do you see me running on empty Jesus?
You must not. Because surely if you saw me, you would come for me. Right, Jesus? I know you were the good Shepherd when I was the lost sheep. You had ninety-nine faithful and still you came for me. You brought me into your dwelling and you rejoiced over me as I delighted in You and the heavens sang salvation songs. It was GLORY.
But now I am not one, now I am ninety-nine. And maybe you’re just too busy chasing one to notice that I miss your pursuit. There are souls needed to be saved, eternally. But my soul is a mess, internally, and I need YOU.
Sometimes I think about the collisions in my life; you know the moments where you wrecked me and I had no choice but to speak your name in every breath? Those collisions. And I contemplate the idea of having another one, just maybe in the hopes that you’ll notice me again and it will be just you and me. Because right now it feels an awful lot like you and them, and even more like me and them. Because I am starting to talk more about you than I talk to you. Because the “already, but not yet” of your kingdom is the “already, but not yet” of my heart. And the not yet? It’s a mess.
Will you see me Jesus? Will you know me Jesus? Will you hear me Jesus? Will you take me in my mess, Jesus? Will you come for me, every day? Come for me. “
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