Cornered

My wife is a generally cheerful person.  She almost always is smiling, especially when she is with other people.  To say that violence and powerful demonstrations of anger go against who she is at her core is the understatement of the century.  In the over eight years that we have been married, I have only seen her yell in anger a handful of times.  This only happens with some pretty serious provocation.

One such time was during the labor of giving birth to our son.  She was two weeks past her due date.  We arrived at the hospital so they could start inducing labor at nine in the morning.  By seven or eight at night things were getting pretty intense.  She opted for the epidural.  If you don't know what that is, they take a needle full of drugs and inject it directly into a specific point in your spine so that you lose general feeling from a certain point in body on down to your toes.  It is very important that this injection not be too high in the spine because then it can cause respiratory problems.

When Melissa was getting her shot, the woman administering it kept telling Melissa to bend forward and arch her back as much as possible, thus making it easier to get between the vertebrae and safely give the medication.  So she would lean forward, while sitting on the edge of a hospital bed with way too many people around and having contractions about every minute and a half, and the woman would just keep telling her she needed to arch her back more.  I have no idea how hard it is to arch your back while leaning over a huge pregnant belly during a contraction, but I am absolutely sure that it is not easy.  Eventually Melissa lost it and started yelling as loud as she could, "I am!  I can't arch my back any more!  I already am!!!"  I was quite taken aback because I had never seen her be angry like that and we had been married three years at that point.  I think if she hadn't been giving birth and half naked she probably would have punched that lady in her mouth.

I tell this story because I identify with it.  No, not with the pregnant part, but with the frustrated to the point of uncontrollable anger part.  The few times in my wife's life that I have witnessed her "lose it" have all had a common theme--being told that it was necessary for her to do something that she did not think was possible for her to do.

So much of my life is spent feeling guilty over the things that I can't do or can't stop doing.  It saps my strength and motivation.  I wonder what would happen if I just stopped focusing on what I can't do and started to do with passion the things that I can do.

I cannot control the wind.  I cannot make God be present in such a way that I feel it.

I can believe that He is here anyway.  I can remember that even though the sun sets it will rise again.

I cannot stop my flesh from wanting what it wants with fleshly efforts.

I can feed my spirit while I wait for God to set me free in His own timing.

I cannot make others relate to me in a way that I never feel rejected or undervalued.

I can stop owning that this makes me worth less (space intentional).

I cannot make myself feel saved, holy, good, woth it, valued, loved, or wanted.

I can trust in spite of my feelings.  (Yes, this is the hard one.  Feelings are everything to me.)

I am going through a lot of internal struggle right now.  I constantly feel worthless and any time I delve into my feelings, I just want to weep.  I believe God is uncovering something right now, but I still don't fully know what it is.  So when I scream, "I already am.  I just can't do any better!" please forgive my anger.  I just don't know how else to process my emotions right now.  I expect though, that just like my wife, something amazingly valuable is about to be birthed and it will all be worth it.