Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Breakthrough

I reached another milestone tonight. For the first time that I can remember since returning to SA (and possibly since Zoe died) I was able to pray out loud, in front of other people. For me, that marks a significant step forward.

Till now, while I've been able to pray on my own, or occasionally with Graeme, I've felt unable to pray with others. It's hard to explain, because I never used to have that problem. On the one hand, I think I felt so far from God, the things I felt I needed to pray about were not things that I wanted to say out loud in front of other people. On the other hand, I've really struggled with why God would listen to me, and answer me, when it appears he failed to do that on so many issues - so why bother? And on the other hand I think I was intimidated by some of the people I was with, and so didn't feel willing to open myself up to their potential criticism. And on the other hand (no - I don't actually have 4 hands, but I do have 2 hands and 2 feet, which is close enough) I've been so absorbed by my grief and my own little life that I've had no compulsion or desire to pray for others, or to really consider their pain. How self-absorbed is that?! But it's the truth.

Grief makes you completely blind to everything other than your own pain. It's like a wolf caught in a trap - if left to its own devices, it would chew its own leg off to escape, even to the extent of completely ignoring any other threat. Sometimes grief feels a bit like that - you feel like you need to chew off that part of you that is in extreme pain, to the exclusion of everything else. But I digress....

Anyway, tonight - I can't explain why it was different (well, no, actually, I probably can, but I choose not to), but it was. I felt completely free to pray out loud tonight, and it was great. It gave me such hope that things between me and God will get sorted out, and that they will be better than ever. I'm sure I'll have a valley moment in a few days again, but for now I'm enjoying the mountain top view.

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