Subtitle: I didn't know I had it in me.
but that Thy blood was shed for me
and that Thou bidd'st me come to Thee,
O Lamb of God, I come. I come.
From my last post we move into a different era. Since that cathartic Friday, weeping Saturday, and tender Sunday, I've been in the Now portion of this journey. I didn't know that weekend would create such a divide but I've noticed that I speak of preceding incidents using a big Before and following incidents using a big Now. It was a pivotal weekend, thanks be to God.
Since the divide, it's been a draining battle of more back-and-forth-ing than I expected. I didn't expect MORE of a skirmish Now. I didn't know I could fluxuate like this.
After months of being able to victoriously resist the temptation to use my coping mechanism--and I really thought I had turned a corner with this during the Pivotal Weekend--I came crashing into an intense relapse.
One month ago today I was alone too long and in the wrong environment and in the wrong frame of mind. I gave in and I almost liked it. I guess I liked the relief that comes from the end of resisting but soon enough I felt the familiar, deep shame and felt hot and shaky like I had a fever. It's a lot like having a fever.
Just as I am and waiting not
to rid my soul of one dark blot:
To Thee whose blood can cleanse each spot,
O Lamb of God, I come. I come.
And I relapsed the next day, even harder. The cruelty I turned toward myself and the creativity in destructive behavior, it was startling at the time and more startling in the light when I later confessed to close friends.
How robotic I was. How robotic I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Often, I can't believe I have it in me.
The plunge back into enveloping, hot shame as well as having a reason to hide myself from others, it took some real adjustment after so long but it sadly felt like home.
I took a day off because a friend pleaded with me to just not do it that one day, a Tuesday. But then, come Wednesday morning, when I felt I had honored the request, I snapped and snapped and snapped. It was explosive and compulsive.
It was so easy to give in again when I had already given in so recently. A shoulder-shrugging "well, I'm already here" would often dissolve my last straw of resistance.
Another day off and then a tragic relapse on Friday evening leading into a peculiar Saturday morning which comes up in Part 10, the penultimate installment.
When I wasn't relapsing, toying with it, recovering from it, being disgusted by it, or confessing I had done it, I was spending my time crying, thinking, not-thinking, crying, worshipping, learning, processing, crying, light-bulbing, crying, and chasing after God like a madwoman.
Just as I am Thou wilt receive,
wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve;
Because Thy promise I believe,
O Lamb of God, I come. I come.
I think I was having an identity crisis. Or at least an identity what-is-wrong-with-me-why-can't-I-get-this-is.
So much back-and-forth-ing: so many richly beautiful and profound moments with the Lord or with Him and others...so many epiphanies, so many little steps in the right direction, and then a backsliding. (How did I do it? Rather--how am I doing it? I was a few moments and a few bad thoughts away from relapsing not twelve hours ago but the Lord told a friend to text me at just the right time. And then I had a cry.)
So much cloudiness. So much weight. So much pressure, sometimes! So much pain. So much pain, and so much unknown, betangled pain.
Just as I am, tho' tossed about;
with many a conflict, many a doubt;
fightings and fears within, without,
O Lamb of God, I come. I come.
So much worship. So much divine intimacy. So often I thank Him for being Him. How blessed I am. How profound and inarticulable the experience of personal anguish being overlaid with God's glory.
I live in hope.
Just as I am, Thy love unknown
hath broken every barrier down;
Now to be Thine, yea, Thine alone,
O Lamb of God, I come. I come.
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