The Marinade

Waiting. This word has real resonance for me at this time as I continue on in my journey of emotional healing. A journey that is not optional but essential in order to be able to fully connect with those around me and the world in which I live. As past memories surface reminding me of the wounds deep within - I ache so badly. So, so badly. I would do anything to numb the pain – but I wait. The journey of waiting is as necessary as the healing that I long for with all that I am.

Waiting brings a depth to my experience. My experience of myself, my experience of others and my experience of my God. The waiting is necessary but God knows how much I beg Him to take it away. He could. He’s a God of miracles as I’m told time and time again. And yet I wait. I continue waiting. While I wait I hear my God telling me to keep looking ahead and to hold on tightly. He warns me not to be afraid of the depths down there below, that He is with me.

‘Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for you are with me; your rod and your staff they comfort me’ Ps23 v4.

Deep inside I know I’m on my way up from the underground. I’m on my way out, past all the pictures that remind me of so much that terrified me once a long time ago. ‘Hold on my child’, I hear Him say. I continue waiting. How much longer Lord? I don’t think I can take much more. This is too much. You said that you would not give me more than I can bear. I start feeling like I’ve been stolen away by the darkness and then I realise.....I’m still standing....waiting.

‘If I say, ‘surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me’, even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.’ Ps 139 v11-12. Inside I know my God knows me and my God hears my cry in the loneliness of the night. Yet I shouldn’t even know this with the wounds that I bear. My spirit just seems to know that my God is for me. Waiting is the journey I must make. Waiting means tears and vulnerability - when all I want to be is strong. Waiting means pain and more pain - when all I want is relief. Waiting means holding on even when you can’t see clearly and there is no obvious way of escape. Waiting implies there is hope and there is. Hope comes in the waiting. Waiting is the journey I must take.

‘Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.’ 1 Cor 13v7.

I continue to wait.........