Returning to This Whole Blog Thing... (And dealing with Fear)

So obviously I am struggling with writing on this blog. But to be honest it isn't the blog, it is my devotions in general. They are haunted, ghosts and memories of thoughts, which I remember. I see them from afar, but I can't seem to touch them. I haven't given them flesh and blood for what feels like an age. So here is my return to devotion. I plan to finish my look at the apostle's creed, but at the moment I have other thoughts in my head, other words I would like to share. 

I wrote this piece last night. I was stuck in the narrow space between hardness and rock. I apologies if its a little rambling. 

Ps 144: 1-4
'Praise be to the Lord my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle. He is my loving God and my fortress, my shield, in whom I take refuge, who subdues peoples under me. O Lord, what is man that you care for him, the son of man that you think of him? Man is like a breath; his days are like a fleeting shadow."

Ps 145: 1-5
'I will exalt you, my God the King; I will praise your name for ever and ever. Every day I will praise you and extol your name for ever and ever. Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom. One generation will commend your works to another; they will tell of your mighty acts. They will speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty, and I will meditate on your wonderful works.'

I was unready for the battle. Napping, I was napping. I had spent the morning lazy, trying to keep my dreams long after my body was awake. I had risen late and gone to work. Menial work. Cleaning the bathroom not because I like to clean, but to feel some realness. To feel some sense of accomplishment. My mind seemed stuck else where, some place dark. I was unready for battle.

I eat lunch late, suddenly realizing that I was late to eat by three hours. My body telling me its blood sugar was low. My motivation dwindling, my mind already returning to dream. Tracing familiar fantasies, unwilling to deal with reality. I choose to return to my mind, to my dreams. To sleep away the long daylight hours.

I was awoken by a phone ring: a bugle calling out the march.

I was unready for the battle, but it came none the less. A voice, a call of deep overwhelming need. Reality. Blood in teeth, sweaty palms holding a blade, a slap across the face, all my dreamed battles. The real one is different, deeper, harder, bound to undo me. My heart falls. My soul cries out.

That voice. The voice of a friend I have long called sister. The voice of a soul seeking relief from a pain caused by memory. I tremble, keep my words even, but I am already destroyed. My heart is bleeding. Every pore expels pain. This voice, this sister who can so easily draw me, quarter me. I feel her grief. Know without being told her pain. I enter the battle to stand helpless at her side.

All my depression, all my thoughtless dreams, I build like realities to guard me. Even the little faith I cling to seems unable to keep at bay the on-slaw. My words steady. But once the phone is down and the sister voice removed by miles of space, I am helpless. The fear. This slithering thing which I hold at arms length, comes coiling up my arm, to weave itself thru me. To choke me, pull me under. The storm releases through my eyes. Its thunder my sobs, shacking me, tossing me. I am a boat with out anchor. A tumble weed loose in a cyclone. A warrior shieldless, armor-less, and sword-less, standing in the fiery breath of a dragon.

I was unready for the battle. Removed by miles of road, and car-less. I can not venture to find that sister voice. I can not reach her through electronical pulses, satilights, singels. You can't hold the crying form of a friend through the internet. And my words seem empty, voiceless. I know not what to say. My heart screams a silent prayer. Tumbles into a avilanch of emotions. 'God please' the prayer of the helpless. 'God help' the prayer of the needy. 'God why?' The prayer of the faithless.

I have felt this anger before. 'Why?' I want to cry, gasping, grasping for something real. God always seems so near in those moments. Yet never without his veil. To feel, but not touch. My anger mixes with my fear as the wine in my mouth mixes with my saliva. I'm drinking to numb myself to the fear. And it is the fear I dread. The endless relentless wave which pounds against my sea wall. The searching fingers of water which seeks every crack, to enlarge, to flood.

'God' I cry. My every fiber seeking that endless being. My little faith, the small stretched rope on which I walk. I return to the words of David. 'Praise be to the Lord my Rock, who trains my hands to war, my fingers to battle.' I wonder at those words. I pour them out and over my angry hot coal heart. 'He is my loving god and my fortress.' I shiver. Dare to climb inside those words. Seek the assurance of that God. The God who called creation to being. I crawl into His reality and claim his shield my own. His rock my foot hold.

The fear is now a braying dog at the door. Ferocious but outside. I lean on the door, pressing myself against its grain. Stay out, stay out. And I pray. Thoughts not words. I have no words. Only knowledge that in him, all will be right. That he holds in reality, that sister voice I can only touch through technology. That he holds what is true. And I write what I hope and pray. To think. To exist outside of myself. I'm halfway through a second glass of wine, still terrified. I cling foolishly, but with abandon, to the truth which David sung all those thousands of years ago: 'I will exalt you, my God the King: I will praise your name for ever and ever. Every day I will praise you and extol your name for ever and ever. Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise. His greatness no on can fathom.' 'Praise be to the Lord my Rock, who trains my hands to war, my fingers to battle.'

I was unprepared for battle. I was unready, taken by surprise in fear.  But I shall write this and pray my heart will read it as truth: The Lord is Love. He loves me deeply. He loves my sister friend as much and better then I could. He is well prepared for the battle. He has already fought the war and won. He is the rock on which my feet find rest. He is the sword in my hand, the shield on my arm, the fortress sourounding me. 'Man is like breath; his days are like a fleeting shadow' But the Lord is without end, without beginning. He is a God who created and knows all things. He is, thus I am delivered.

I was unready for the battle. But the one who stands with me is great, his love surpasses understanding. His greatness, beyond knowledge. His love, unending. I was unready for the battle, but the God of the universe has already won it for me. And my friend, this sister voice, is held within his great loving hand. Whom, What, Shall I fear?