where am I?

I am not sure where I am.

This morning I woke up anxious about details in life. Homeschooling is around the corner … begins again next week… and I feel unprepared in my spirit for it. Unprepared to love my kids well through it.

But that is only some of it… the anxiety comes and goes quite a lot lately. It has made it hard to make decisions and feel any kind of peace about how I spend my time, or even what I make for dinner, or any purchases I need to make for the house. Everything feels 'off'. I never seem to know what I should do next. And while I am doing something … it feels like I 'should' be doing something else.

Last week on Monday I spent the afternoon locked in my bedroom - on my closet floor crying. I wasn't even sure what I was crying about. But it took hours to work through while my kids fended for themselves on the other side of the door. I JUST KNEW I could NOT be seen. I cried out to God for rescue or for understanding … really anything!! Finally after time I started to paint … just to put my mind on something - put my hands in something. Whatever God was doing it hurt on the inside.

It feels like God is rearranging me on the inside. Opening up doors in me that haven't been opened in years. Things that I would like to keep buried … but I can't if I truly want to change. In my last post I spoke about the Screaming One living within me…. I know I can not leave her there undealt with, BUT man, I really don't want to deal with her!!! The rearranging at times feels good and other times feels like I am being poked and prodded by a surgeon with no anesthetic. The wounds need to get sewn up and healed though… so I have to stay open.

I am thankful that God is moving …

Here's what little I know so far… as I continually wait on the 'break through' revelation of God. That piece of information that when spoken by God will make all of 'this' make sense… will make all of this worth it … it brings healing and repentance and peace. Man, I am longing for that moment.

The Screaming One inside me is a guardian. She is protecting something very precious and terrified, wounded and vulnerable in me. What exactly it is -- I am not sure. That is the revelation I think I need. But I think it has something to do with crushed longings in me.

I started reading a book by Mike Bickle that he suggested in his teaching series on the Song Of Solomon, its called 'The Seven Longings of the Human Heart'. I am astonished as I am reading it how little we talk about our longings. We spend way more time focused on our sin and how we can eradicate it. The problem is that many times I think, we confuse our God given longings FOR sin, instead of recognizing them as an actual NEED that must be filled with God and Him alone. So we end up confessing this NEED as sin to God … rather than asking Him to fill us up with a greater desire, understanding and fullness of the longing He has created in us.

Anyway … as I am reading it … the first chapter was about understanding our 'longing to be enjoyed by God'. I read it and feel like 'yes' I indeed have things to learn in this area … but that my problem lies not in missing that, or misunderstanding that, but that something in ME … on this side of the equation is missing. I think that is what this last year has taught me … that even though I felt buried … I KNEW that God loved me. It was the first time in my history as a believer that I did not doubt that God loved me … in the midst of trial. I think that what I don't get has to do with misunderstanding something about myself - or how I am created - or who I am - or how I have deceived myself in someway…. rather than a wrongly held belief about God. I think it's something like … I am too ugly, too sinful, I want to be beautiful for myself and my own glory… I am unseen or don't want to be seen…

anyway … it's still unclear. But everything seems to be pointing in that direction. This need to be beautiful/not ugly/seen whatever it is … can be seen in the way that I have tried to cover it. My struggles with weight and eating, not wanting to be in front of people, wanting to hide. It seems like a deeply held shame of some kind. Even the memories God has brought to mind … the time I was lost, and more recently remembering not even answering to my own name in Jr. High, because a more beautiful/popular Amy existed in school and they were usually calling out for her. These are the things that God keeps showing me.

My head is spinning … but I am glad God finally brought that word SHAME out … that is the word… now I just need to know WHAT it is. That is what the Screaming One is trying to keep hidden. It must be so painful whatever it is...