Deeper Touch

There's many times that people ask me,
"Don't you wish you could live your life over?"
"Don't you wish your life was easier?"
"Wouldn't you have rather had a normal life?"

I think about it a lot.
In fact, as days pass and pain increases and it becomes so intensely hard to find new things to praise Him for, to trust Him and lean on Him and stop leaning on my own strength, to collapse into His arms and through faith alone trust Him to carry me through and not stoop to my own pain-coping methods...to not doubt and despair and turn back into the darkness...
I even sometimes start to say those things myself.

Some people even doubt that I have a capacity for feeling pain. Some people have asked me, even after seeing me working with tears streaming down my face, how it is that I am so happy all the time.
I know people think I'm a happy-go-lucky fly-me-by butterfly who dances through life on a whim. I know people can think me intensely childish, depending which side they see.
People who know me best have seen the darkness and the pain, and know that I don't just ride over it but that it goes deep. That sometimes I can't cope with it, but it doesn't mean I don't feel it. That sometimes I have to switch down to cope with the intense level of feeling it raises.

During one point in my backslide, I reached a height of pain to the point where I determined I wasn't going to let myself be hurt any more. For about two-three days, I succeeded in my emotions being completely dead. It was strange. It wasn't right. I was an automaton.

I can't remember much of those times, except for a dark haze of pain and confusion and facts along the way - along with strong emotion associated with those facts, here and there.

This year has been a year of pain, for my loved ones and for me. God has stretched me to an extent I never ever ever would have conceived possible.
I look back and again, I don't remember everything. But I see facts, and I remember strong points where God has reached down gloriously and carried me through by revealing a new aspect of Himself or one of His blessings.

Each day is like living in a raging tsunami. I don't even realise until the end of a struggle and look back and wonder how in the world I'm alive after the mound of depression swallowing me every few days. Literally, it's like going into a swell, coming out, taking a deep breath and going under the next one - and clinging all the time to what feels like a feeble piece of bark to keep me going. Except I know that the Hands of God are underneath me. As long as I choose to see His Hand in this, I won't go under, because He has got me.
Prayer, praising and Bible reading are essential to floating me through the increasing current of pain. I go under without them. Quite literally.

The choice to know the presence of God around me is also dire need. To not switch down and concentrate on something in the world that would at least take my mind off the pain or replace it for a few moments is very hard, but I know without that I won't be relying on God.
The pain drives me to Him. I need that. Even though I'm screaming, and I can't cope. He can.

Do I want a different life to this? Would it have driven me to the Lord and be changing me into His likeness? Would the Refiner's fire be as hot and burning and scorching and intense with heat and pain if I had another life? Would I choose a mediocre life of serving the Lord for one with less pain?
Answer in the long run - no.

Do I want a normal life? Would I be serving God to maximum potential? Would He be able to use everything that I am and have? Would these unusual trials, where very few people understand the deeper reasons and strong beliefs I am making some of my decisions on, even exist there?
Answer - no.

Am I a masochist? I used to wonder. Now I know. I'm not. I hate pain. I want a normal quiet life with a normal quiet family and be able to do what I'd love to do, singing and dancing and making things and going for long daily walks alone and sketching and music and writing, to have a normal quiet relationship with a normal quiet guy, to have a normal quiet marriage and a bunch of normal not-quiet kids.

It's normal.
So am I.
God calls us to be sojourners, strangers, in this land for Him.
He asks us to stand out.
To be conformed to His image.
To live different.
To act different.
To dress different.
To talk different.
To have different lifestyles.
Yes, to stand out.
Why? Because when we stand out in a positive, God-fearing, anti-worldly way that doesn't tear them down but only what they believe in, then we are glorifying God.

So God's asking me to step out.
To live a strange life.
To live a painful life.

I'm only in the birth pangs of what He's got for me. Right now, I'm so blinded by my surroundings and this intense pain I can't see more than a very hazy blur that He's preparing me for something I don't know about yet. One day I'll see it. Right now, I haven't got the faintest clue.
That's one of the hardest things, to endure pain and fear when you've no idea why you're going through it.
But God does. And that's where trust and faith in Love come in.
Unlike so many others, He won't leave.

So yep. I'm a pretty normal person. Just called to live an unnormal life.

Expect great things from God? Attempt great things for God.

Be willing to accept what His Hand metes out. Be it pain or happiness or terrible suffering or laughter or calmness or tears. You'll find peace in that. And joy, even in the worst.
Keep seeking His Hand. Keep searching for Him. Keep striving to find ways to praise Him. And I do not promise that it will be easy. It'll be anything but.

But He is there. He is God. He is mighty to save. There is none like Him. He has everything orchestrated to the finest detail.

Let your lamps shine!

God bless,
Mademoiselle Sian