Get Ready for this one
I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel like I’ve ever really trusted anybody enough. Once a blogger spoke about remembering how it felt as a little girl to sit in her grandmother’s lap, and I reflected at that time, “Gee, I don’t ever remember relaxing in someone’s lap.”
My parents loved me and wanted me, but I never remember feeling rested in their laps. I always tried to get away from my mother’s grasp. My father never tried to hold me. He wasn’t the touchy type, except to cross the street. Then he would dutifully hold my hand and that was sort of wonderful. There weren’t that many streets.
Sometimes my mom would spot us with her eye and then approach my brother or me and we would just cringe. She would kiss us with a sloppy and loud kiss on our cheek that we would rub away with a loud groan. It wasn’t relaxing. My dad would make the same kind of shriek when my mother approached him. He would push her away too. He would be like trying to watch TV or something and she would come over and try to plant one on him. The whole memory-picture is rather sad and tragic, although not completely so.
As a little girl, I remember waking up many a night with anxiety as I heard my parents argue. They usually picked nighttime to fight. It was awful and not very considerate. My brother and I would like yell for them to cut it out, but they couldn’t stop themselves.
A couple weeks ago, I went to bed early to then awake to hear my husband shout about something. He was upset with the child for something. He just let out one holler and that was it. Not that that is good conduct or anything, but it wasn’t that big of a deal either. But when I was awakened from my sleep to hear the holler, even though brief and even though the situation was resolved in a moment, I kept lying there, my heart beating in my chest, feeling anxious for no reason except out of an old habit, so to speak. I reflected upon those early nights as a child when I would lay in bed anxious as my parent yelled on and on, saying mean things to one another.
As a small child, I remember feeling like I was a ball of rage and I was always at the edge of some out-of-control behavior. I wasn’t that bad of a kid, but I had a lot of these uncomfortable feelings stirred about inside of me. Perhaps I just wanted to relax in someone’s lap with someone who was relaxed as well, and bigger than me and could hush me to sleep and tell me that everything was going to be okay, that they were here and nothing bad would ever happen to me and that they understood and I could just feel that wonderful feeling of relaxing in a grown-up pair of arms.
As a new wife I depended greatly upon my older husband. We began dating when I was 18 and he was 24. We moved in together the month I turned twenty. We were married when I was twenty-one and later that year, I became a born-again Christian.
My husband seemed to be everything that I could ever want and need, and boy, did I need him. I needed him, like, well, I could talk about a silly analogy or two – like a flower needs the sun, like the flower needs the rain. He thought that I would be a good doctor, and I wanted to be a doctor, so I felt like heaven on earth, like I found my soul mate, like I could face the world and conquer it.
Soon enough, God began the long and laborious process of creating my own person out of me, separate from my husband. “If only he could be a Christian,” I would cry out to God, then I could really trust him. I just wanted to be able to trust my husband the way that I could trust a dependable, perfect Father in heaven. But God did not "fix" my husband and He did not save him for a long, long, long time. My problem was much more complicatd than an imperfect husband.
Nineteen years after I became a Christian, did my husband begin to show the slightest acceptance of the things of God. And during all of those years, God changed me more than He changed my husband, I think. (Well, let’s hope so, since I was the Christian.) I needed changing. I needed growing up and maturing and finding myself apart from a man than I wanted to hide within.
These days, I feel like I am more out on a limb that I have ever been in my life. Everything that I am and everything that I believe, everything that I do and everything that I desire, is wrapped up in God and I can’t see Him or feel Him. Sometimes I feel like I feel Him, but I don’t know if it is Him. I think it is Him, but it may not be Him, and He is just not a person that I can talk to like I need Him to be.
I need Him to sit down on a big rocking chair and call me out to come and sit on His lap. I need to be able to relax in his arms and for Him to hold me and comfort me and tell me how it is all going to turn out. I need Him to physically be here but He is not here. He is here but I can’t see Him. He is working, but I’m not sure in what way exactly, and I want to know exactly, because I want to trust what I know.
I trust God, but I want to be able to trust a person too, I guess, or I want to be able to trust God as though He were a person that I could relate to and understand. God is so big, that when I think that I have Him figured out, He changes.
My life is wonderful and yet it is not. I want (the carnal person in me wants) so very much, so very, very, very, very much to be like the man who stored up all of his grain for many years to come, so all he had to do was trust in it, because nothing bad was ever going to happen to him bad again, because he had all that grain. And he had plenty of everything that he needed and he was fully satisfied on this earth. There is no such person and there is never comfort or rest in things of this earth, but oh, how I wish it were not the case.
I am not fully satisfied on this earth. I keep thinking that if such and such were different and if so and so did things differently, perfectly and the way that I think that they should be done, then I can relax. Then everything will turn out okay. Then I can fall sweetly asleep. Meanwhile, God is taking care of everything and has always taken care of everything for me. He has showed me tremendous favor and blessing. Even the fact that I was not rested/relaxed as a child, He turns for my ultimate good and His glory.
Sometimes I feel anxious and sometimes I am still frantically searching for the person that I can crawl into, hide away in and everything will be all right. Well, Jesus is that somebody, but like I said, He is difficult to assess sometimes.
Like tonight, I was driving down the strange road, with these strange circumstances and very real concerns (yet God has never let me down before regarding these “very real concerns”) and I was praying and talking to God, and I said to God, “but I don’t even know who You are,” not exactly, not precisely for this situation. Who can really (fully) know God?
And then it makes me think that life is just so difficult when you really don’t trust others enough - when there is a part of you that is like an open socket that is firing, and it just needs to be soothed, but it isn’t going to be soothed, because no one can sooth, because no one can comfort the little girl who refuses to be comforted, who can not be comforted, who can not relax, who will not really relax, until one fine day the King of kings and the Lord of lords comes on His white horse for me. And He will lift me up and He will wipe my tears and I will ride upon that horse’s back and we will ride away and then later the little girl will fall asleep in her Papa’s arms and everything will be okay.
I really do feel better now. I hope that wasn’t too intense or weird for you. Ahhhhhhh…(exhale). God bless you.
My parents loved me and wanted me, but I never remember feeling rested in their laps. I always tried to get away from my mother’s grasp. My father never tried to hold me. He wasn’t the touchy type, except to cross the street. Then he would dutifully hold my hand and that was sort of wonderful. There weren’t that many streets.
Sometimes my mom would spot us with her eye and then approach my brother or me and we would just cringe. She would kiss us with a sloppy and loud kiss on our cheek that we would rub away with a loud groan. It wasn’t relaxing. My dad would make the same kind of shriek when my mother approached him. He would push her away too. He would be like trying to watch TV or something and she would come over and try to plant one on him. The whole memory-picture is rather sad and tragic, although not completely so.
As a little girl, I remember waking up many a night with anxiety as I heard my parents argue. They usually picked nighttime to fight. It was awful and not very considerate. My brother and I would like yell for them to cut it out, but they couldn’t stop themselves.
A couple weeks ago, I went to bed early to then awake to hear my husband shout about something. He was upset with the child for something. He just let out one holler and that was it. Not that that is good conduct or anything, but it wasn’t that big of a deal either. But when I was awakened from my sleep to hear the holler, even though brief and even though the situation was resolved in a moment, I kept lying there, my heart beating in my chest, feeling anxious for no reason except out of an old habit, so to speak. I reflected upon those early nights as a child when I would lay in bed anxious as my parent yelled on and on, saying mean things to one another.
As a small child, I remember feeling like I was a ball of rage and I was always at the edge of some out-of-control behavior. I wasn’t that bad of a kid, but I had a lot of these uncomfortable feelings stirred about inside of me. Perhaps I just wanted to relax in someone’s lap with someone who was relaxed as well, and bigger than me and could hush me to sleep and tell me that everything was going to be okay, that they were here and nothing bad would ever happen to me and that they understood and I could just feel that wonderful feeling of relaxing in a grown-up pair of arms.
As a new wife I depended greatly upon my older husband. We began dating when I was 18 and he was 24. We moved in together the month I turned twenty. We were married when I was twenty-one and later that year, I became a born-again Christian.
My husband seemed to be everything that I could ever want and need, and boy, did I need him. I needed him, like, well, I could talk about a silly analogy or two – like a flower needs the sun, like the flower needs the rain. He thought that I would be a good doctor, and I wanted to be a doctor, so I felt like heaven on earth, like I found my soul mate, like I could face the world and conquer it.
Soon enough, God began the long and laborious process of creating my own person out of me, separate from my husband. “If only he could be a Christian,” I would cry out to God, then I could really trust him. I just wanted to be able to trust my husband the way that I could trust a dependable, perfect Father in heaven. But God did not "fix" my husband and He did not save him for a long, long, long time. My problem was much more complicatd than an imperfect husband.
Nineteen years after I became a Christian, did my husband begin to show the slightest acceptance of the things of God. And during all of those years, God changed me more than He changed my husband, I think. (Well, let’s hope so, since I was the Christian.) I needed changing. I needed growing up and maturing and finding myself apart from a man than I wanted to hide within.
These days, I feel like I am more out on a limb that I have ever been in my life. Everything that I am and everything that I believe, everything that I do and everything that I desire, is wrapped up in God and I can’t see Him or feel Him. Sometimes I feel like I feel Him, but I don’t know if it is Him. I think it is Him, but it may not be Him, and He is just not a person that I can talk to like I need Him to be.
I need Him to sit down on a big rocking chair and call me out to come and sit on His lap. I need to be able to relax in his arms and for Him to hold me and comfort me and tell me how it is all going to turn out. I need Him to physically be here but He is not here. He is here but I can’t see Him. He is working, but I’m not sure in what way exactly, and I want to know exactly, because I want to trust what I know.
I trust God, but I want to be able to trust a person too, I guess, or I want to be able to trust God as though He were a person that I could relate to and understand. God is so big, that when I think that I have Him figured out, He changes.
My life is wonderful and yet it is not. I want (the carnal person in me wants) so very much, so very, very, very, very much to be like the man who stored up all of his grain for many years to come, so all he had to do was trust in it, because nothing bad was ever going to happen to him bad again, because he had all that grain. And he had plenty of everything that he needed and he was fully satisfied on this earth. There is no such person and there is never comfort or rest in things of this earth, but oh, how I wish it were not the case.
I am not fully satisfied on this earth. I keep thinking that if such and such were different and if so and so did things differently, perfectly and the way that I think that they should be done, then I can relax. Then everything will turn out okay. Then I can fall sweetly asleep. Meanwhile, God is taking care of everything and has always taken care of everything for me. He has showed me tremendous favor and blessing. Even the fact that I was not rested/relaxed as a child, He turns for my ultimate good and His glory.
Sometimes I feel anxious and sometimes I am still frantically searching for the person that I can crawl into, hide away in and everything will be all right. Well, Jesus is that somebody, but like I said, He is difficult to assess sometimes.
Like tonight, I was driving down the strange road, with these strange circumstances and very real concerns (yet God has never let me down before regarding these “very real concerns”) and I was praying and talking to God, and I said to God, “but I don’t even know who You are,” not exactly, not precisely for this situation. Who can really (fully) know God?
And then it makes me think that life is just so difficult when you really don’t trust others enough - when there is a part of you that is like an open socket that is firing, and it just needs to be soothed, but it isn’t going to be soothed, because no one can sooth, because no one can comfort the little girl who refuses to be comforted, who can not be comforted, who can not relax, who will not really relax, until one fine day the King of kings and the Lord of lords comes on His white horse for me. And He will lift me up and He will wipe my tears and I will ride upon that horse’s back and we will ride away and then later the little girl will fall asleep in her Papa’s arms and everything will be okay.
I really do feel better now. I hope that wasn’t too intense or weird for you. Ahhhhhhh…(exhale). God bless you.
posted by An Ordinary Christian | 3:55 PM
3 Comments:
I appreciated this post. Reminds me of Christ's promise to come to Him, and He will give us rest. That's the only place we will have true rest.
Thanks for sharing.
Jesus would like to wrap His arms around you. Just let go and let God carry you, Andrea. Jesus loves you very much.
Aww Andrea, I sympathize.
The mistrust, the void to be held, even some childhood memories of waking up to a fight, I can relate to.
I find comfort in Jesus' arms and am learning to trust those I love and love me. I know I will get hurt, unintentionally and sporadically, they are human too. But it's so much better then the constant hurt that the mistrust brings. I have to give a chance to get a chance:-)
I pray for you. I hope you are feeling better.
God's Grace.
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