ABIDE

As things with the Lord and I go, today He calls me to abide. The pain of placing my hope in things that are not Him surfaces as I choose not to hope in those things any longer.

It feels like death.
Death of desire, death of promise, death of my heart.

Perhaps somewhere in there, God will bring life again. All I know is this... I cannot hope in anything that isn't Him anymore. It's too disappointing. My heart rises and falls by the expectation it has built around things that He has promised. I've focused far too heavily on the promise and not the One who has made those promises to me.

In a way, I don't doubt the promise. I do, however, doubt the form I imagined those promises taking. And so I give up on those pictures--those vain imaginations of what I think life should look like given what He has spoken over me. I wash my hands of those things with the tears that fall from my eyes.

I release.
I abide.

And for today, I feel a bit like a wheezy robot. The lump that rises in my throat as I think about this "letting go" and sticks there uncomfortably. I think it's grief. I think I've caused it for myself this time.