Yesterday we did a day of solitude. It was the first day that I could, would, finally write the words of were I truly was at with this trip, my heart...everything. I had been avoiding it for months. Longing to bring some clarity to where I honestly was at but avoiding the process as one avoids the plague. It was the first time I let myself face my own disappointment. My disappointment in what I called the trip when it really was with myself. My failure to gain that which I thought should have been gained. To experience that which I thought, in my romantic view, was supposed to be lived. It was the first time that I allowed myself to ask, "Why?" I laid it all down. My fear of the future, my fear of facing the past. My fear of feeling like an alien in my home, yet longing for home. Dealing with the ways I have been trying to cope and finally letting the Father heal. Letting Him teach me that which He has been trying to get into my stubborn head all along. It was rather a relief. I let it all come out. I let myself, willed myself to face the dirty laundry I had been keeping in the back of the closet and discovered a treasure inside.

    You know one can spend a whole day listing one's grievances to God. One's fears that you would like to think as not being fears at all. Denying the source of the contention, turning a blind eye to the reason. Turning a deaf ear to the voice of healing because you dread the process. Dread the pain. Doubt the freedom. The promise. You fear the fear of having gone through so much that it was for nothing. You fear at looking because you are afraid you will discover nothing. You are afraid of understanding your own heart because you fear disappointing yourself. Of disappointing God. That this was all for nothing when it actually was for everything and I have just screwed it up beyond repair, beyond compare. That after all I have gone through, all I did was backslide 100 paces down a mountain I have been trying to climb all my life. Fallen into a pit that I don't have the energy or even the will to climb out of again. To climb the mountain again. To have gone through so much just to screw it all. Being driven into survival mode because I didn't have the strength to do what I was suppose to do and the enemy just annihilated me and...God let it happen. You face the question of whether you made Him let it happen. But you invariable come to the conclusion that He is bigger than your mistakes. That He loves to bind the broken hearts and bring freedom to the captives. That through it all no matter how much you screwed it all up your one desire was that you desire would be to please Him. You come to the conclusion that you are a broken vessel in the hands of the Great Potter, and maybe, just maybe, He broke you Himself so that He could create something even more beautiful out of the broken pieces. Level 2 of the dying seminary completed, or is it abandoned. Part of me wants to go home, another part wants to run away. A place where I am isolated from the world. Busia...Busia I fear dissecting. It is like a nightmare that is better left untouched. A door better left closed. Yet it is such an essential part of me that it has to be faced. I have to let Him touch. But in my fear, in my weakness, I don't even know how to begin processing. How to begin to even think about it. I get a bad taste in my mouth when I think of it. I squirm in my seat and my spirit gets into a wrestling poise. I dread driving through it to get home. Mbita has become like a being in a bad hospital after receiving a fatal wound. It tries to heal, to help you, but unwittingly it just pierces the wound more, makes the thought more unbearable to think about.

     Yet He is the surgeon standing above me, denying me anesthetic, yet holding healing within His hands. Those hands that I have come to trust. To love. That have always caught me when I have fallen. Held me when I was afraid. And...I trust Him with it. Its such a personal thing. A place where no human being can touch, that no seminary can fix. It is a secret place where you are left with Him and Him alone. The author and perfecter of your faith. The one who promises to make all things beautiful in their time. Who sets you free for freedom's sake. Who loves with an everlasting love. Who can reveal things to you out of anything. You know how He set my heart at rest yesterday? He gave me joy out of the most idiotic revelation. I can just see Him smiling with His mischievous grin as He brings me freedom from nothing else but "License to Wed." Yeah, I'm not kidding, but it did the job. He was Robin Williams and I was the couple. The movie is all about a couple who go through a seminary with a pastor (Robin Williams) to see if they are ready for marriage. They go through it all terribly and you are quite sure they are failing miserable. They were convinced by the end that they had screwed it all up and that the test was over. They had failed and they simply were just not compatible with each other, not ready. After they separate, however, you still see the pastor hanging around and he says the most startling thing, "Right on schedule." A few scenes later, at the end of the movie, they are together where they were always suppose to be and the pastor is standing there to wed them. The girl turns and ask if they were the only couple to have failed the test. He turns and says, "Who said you failed." And they realize that when they though all was lost, when they thought they were screwing up the whole thing they actually were passing all along. They just had to go through the process to get were the where suppose to be. Where they were meant to be.

      You know as many times as you find yourself sitting in the Pit of Despond and quite sure that you have botched it for the last and final time, you discover that He isn't surprised at all. That you are right where He knew you would be and He let you get there for a reason. To learn something you could learn no other way. That He has it all under control. Discovering that He has the whole world in His hands and that includes you. He knows your need. He knows your imperfection. It is actually your very imperfection that gives you the ability to experience the perfection of the Father in deeper way than your facade of perfection would ever let you go. Their is a freedom in embracing your nakedness and His holiness. Letting yourself admit to your nakedness so that you can be clothed in His righteousness. Admitting to the wounds that go so deep so that He can heal and touch that which you were in denial of existing. He is so good and I know in the depths of my soul that this journey has been for a reason. That I have gained something that can never be lost even if I can't see the fruit of it at this very moment. He holds my future, my past, my present, my life in the palm of His hand and it could be in no better place. I trust Him with it and here I can find peace, here there is healing.