Rahab Waiting

I wrote a letter to my Pastor today.  He had asked how I was doing and wanted an in depth answer.  I will share part of it with you.


*****


*long sigh*

And so it begins, the bearing of my soul.

*insert waning smile here*

I am good, tired, happy, sad, and all that falls in between. Frustrated mainly.  Mentally I just want to ignore the barrel.  God isn't letting me.  He isn't telling me what needs to be done to enter it either. The more I try and let myself step up to that barrel the more guarded, more broken I become.  Entering the barrel means becoming a child. I can't "adult" and be child.  I can't be strong while being weak.  I can't heal while drowning in hurt.

Can't/won't/don't-know-how to be both/and for those things. Be both adult and child, both strong and weak, both healing and hurting.

I am not depressed, shamed, or self hating any longer.  That is progress that is notable, remarkable really.  I have lost shame, hate, and depression over the last almost two years of living here.  There is forward momentum happening, but now we are at my wall and it isn't coming down.

A big part of me feels like Rahab.   Sitting in her house waiting for God to tear down the wall, so that she could be free of her past and the sins of her own and of others upon her.  Rahab with her scarlet cord.  Rahab with nothing more than her belief in the God of the Jews and her trust that He would spare her.  Rahab just waiting to be free while sitting behind a wall that she could not take down on her own.  Rahab the harlot that sat waiting for God to tear down a wall.

Waiting is hard.

I wonder if Rahab scratched at her side of the wall as she waited, maybe even a fingernail at a time, in passing.  I wonder if she ran her fingers over it, feeling the sheer depth of it, the hardness of that rock that stood between her and freedom.   Rock dust under her nails.

So I wait and I scratch and I wrap a crimson cord around me tight.

"See this cord, Lord.  This crimson cord. The cord of my past.  The cord the color of Your blood.  Both crimson, both calling;  'Forget me not.'  I am waiting Lord, waiting for these walls to crumble away at your bidding, but remember your promise and don't let me crumble with them. "

That is where I am spiritually.