Lament to God

I am failing, Lord. I need you. I am crying out in spirit and in voice every day and every night. My medicine has instilled such biochemical anger in me, Lord, and it brings up every anger I have ever felt. Our lives have been disrupted, Lord. The courts reared their ugly, injustice-filled head and took half/half custody of the kids away from us. We are now weekend parents. Lord, I wanted to be so much more to my kids than that. I want to impact them, Lord. I want to love them and not put them in harm's way, which is what is going to happen, Lord.

But all this is Your will, Lord. Husband and I prayed about the custody outcome and promised to accept whatever Your will was and this is it. We accept it. But it is hard, Lord. It tears at our guts. In the Bible, there is a lot of teeth-gnashing. We are gnashing everything, Lord. As hard as the rain now falls on the skylights of my living room, our souls scream out to the beat of the injustice.

I seek You, Lord. I am David crying out to you. And yet I do not open the Psalms. The evil force has me at times, Lord. My heightened anger simmers through my body and gives boils and warts and every emotional scar possible.

I listen to my favorite songs on Life 102.5, Lord, Your divine music - or at least the music that You have inspired these artists to write and perform - and the words do not touch me as much. Or at least in a positive way. All I hear is the yearning, oh the yearning.

I haven't loved You for that long, Lord. Not in a way that I understood. I still yearn for something from You. I half-expect some arm to reach down from the clouds and pick me up to hold my fragile, gnawed form. Please do that, Lord.

But I know that You are not that self-gratifying. I want instant gratification right now and You wish for me to have faith. And faith is not about instant gratification. Faith is knowing there is some reason the ex-wife got more time with the kids, some reason why my emotional life is one big thunderstorm. There is always that need to stretch your faith to have faith.

Yes, it takes faith to have faith.

"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."
Romans 11:1

Lord, let me be the bleeding woman. Let me, too, be healed.

1 So they arrived at the other side of the lake, in the land of the Gerasenes.

2 Just as Jesus was climbing from the boat, a man possessed by an evil spirit ran out from a cemetery to meet him.

3 This man lived among the tombs and could not be restrained, even with a chain.

4 Whenever he was put into chains and shackles--as he often was--he snapped the chains from his wrists and smashed the shackles. No one was strong enough to control him.

5 All day long and throughout the night, he would wander among the tombs and in the hills, screaming and hitting himself with stones.

6 When Jesus was still some distance away, the man saw him. He ran to meet Jesus and fell down before him.

7 He gave a terrible scream, shrieking, "Why are you bothering me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? For God's sake, don't torture me!"

8 For Jesus had already said to the spirit, "Come out of the man, you evil spirit."

9 Then Jesus asked, "What is your name?" And the spirit replied, "Legion, because there are many of us here inside this man."

10 Then the spirits begged him again and again not to send them to some distant place.

11 There happened to be a large herd of pigs feeding on the hillside nearby.

12 "Send us into those pigs," the evil spirits begged.

13 Jesus gave them permission. So the evil spirits came out of the man and entered the pigs, and the entire herd of two thousand pigs plunged down the steep hillside into the lake, where they drowned.

14 The herdsmen fled to the nearby city and the surrounding countryside, spreading the news as they ran. Everyone rushed out to see for themselves.

15 A crowd soon gathered around Jesus, but they were frightened when they saw the man who had been demon possessed, for he was sitting there fully clothed and perfectly sane.

16 Those who had seen what happened to the man and to the pigs told everyone about it,

17 and the crowd began pleading with Jesus to go away and leave them alone.

18 When Jesus got back into the boat, the man who had been demon possessed begged to go, too.

19 But Jesus said, "No, go home to your friends, and tell them what wonderful things the Lord has done for you and how merciful he has been."

20 So the man started off to visit the Ten Towns* of that region and began to tell everyone about the great things Jesus had done for him; and everyone was amazed at what he told them.²

21 When Jesus went back across to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him on the shore.

22 A leader of the local synagogue, whose name was Jairus, came and fell down before him,

23 pleading with him to heal his little daughter. "She is about to die," he said in desperation. "Please come and place your hands on her; heal her so she can live."

24 Jesus went with him, and the crowd thronged behind.

25 And there was a woman in the crowd who had had a hemorrhage for twelve years.

26 She had suffered a great deal from many doctors through the years and had spent everything she had to pay them, but she had gotten no better. In fact, she was worse.

27 She had heard about Jesus, so she came up behind him through the crowd and touched the fringe of his robe.

28 For she thought to herself, "If I can just touch his clothing, I will be healed."

29 Immediately the bleeding stopped, and she could feel that she had been healed!

30 Jesus realized at once that healing power had gone out from him, so he turned around in the crowd and asked, "Who touched my clothes?"

31 His disciples said to him, "All this crowd is pressing around you. How can you ask, `Who touched me?' "

32 But he kept on looking around to see who had done it.

33 Then the frightened woman, trembling at the realization of what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and told him what she had done.

34 And he said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. You have been healed."

Mark 5:1-34

I, too, am afraid to come too close. I have suffered for so long, for thirty-something years, Lord. Do I dare come close? All this time, have I been too afraid? Have I really come to you at my lowest, repented, and sought You out?

Yes, I did last night. You know the details, Lord; I was at my worst, my ugliest, and out of exhausted tears, I whispered, "help me."

I will follow You through dark disaster And sing hallelujah through the pain
~ "All My Praise," by Selah

All I did after that was sleep, and although today I am not bright and cheery, I no longer feel the evil within me and for that I am grateful.

Lord, I wish to know You more. I wish to be worthy of You. I wish to love and be loved.

Lord, heal this wounded spirit.