Crying

Sometimes you cry.

Sometimes all the blessings in the world can't knock out the dread despair you feel over a certain issue, an issue of love and choices and loss and waste and rebellion and distance and love.

And then there are times when you cry.

Even though you love God.

You know He is in control, somehow, although it doesn't feel as though He is.

You want Him to manage things, to take things in hand, into His all powerful hands, and manage them and fix them and put them right.  Right now.

But He doesn't.  Not right now.

He doesn't need your ideas for a solution, either.

His ideas are better than yours.

So is His timing, although you'd like to tell Him otherwise, but you would be wrong.

Still, it hurts to wait and watch.  It hurts a great deal, and the pain provokes tears.

Usually you hold the tears back, for the most part, blinking, blowing your nose, changing the subject, breathing deep.

Sometimes you cry messy, sobbing loud, gripping your sides and feeling your belly heave against your forearms.  This is unpleasant, and invariably you come to a point where you hear yourself, your cracked throat making these wretched, embarrassing sounds of grief, and you feel stupid and dramatic.  A voice in your head says, "This is ridiculous.  Knock it off."

At that point, you really would be awkwardly self-indulgent to continue, so you stop, wash your face, get back to something that you can't really focus on.  Trying to focus is better than drowning in that other grief over there.

I have heard people say, "Worry and fear are the opposite of trust."  I suppose on the surface that's right, but I still worry about pain, even as I trust the Lord to do what is right and best.  I think it's like going in for surgery at the hospital.  I trust the doctor.  I have to trust the doctor.  I go for the surgery, submit to the surgical prep, allow them to stick the needle for the anesthesia drip into my arm.  I let them do the surgery, because I trust that they will do a good job, and I trust that in the end, I will be better off than I was before.  I understand the necessity of the process.  However, I still worry.  I still have fear.  I still dread waking up in pain and going through the recovery.

I also worry as God leads me through the valley.  I do not worry that He will make a mistake.  I worry that the process will hurt.

I don't like pain.

Pain makes me cry.