my rescuer..

I have been living in suspension the last week. Full of feelings and full of peace and wondering how I reconcile the two. Or do I even? I had a trip to my hometown that fulfilled all my needs. It was beautiful in most every way. Visits and love and fun and rest and joy and water and ice cream and nieces and nephews and sisters and friends and worship and praise and I am brought to tears even now to think about it. But they are tears of peace. Can peace be overwhelming? Can peace bring you to your knees? I am not in turmoil, I am not wrung out from sorrow, I am feeling His presence in a way I have not felt in a long time. 

I have been a shadow of myself these last few years. Colleen is not an angry, sorrowful, nervous, anxious person. Colleen is quick to laugh, to make a joke. She is up for little adventures. She knows God is on her side and she surrenders to Him. But, over the last few years a stranger had taken up residence in my heart. It had pushed me down and controlled all my responses. It buried me 6 feet under. Under where it is cold and silent. Deep under where light cannot reach and decay begins. It was threatening destruction but it wouldn’t win. I felt someone calling for me. I had not been forgotten, I had not been left alone. I begged God to rescue me. I needed rescuing. The real Colleen needed rescuing from fear, from self oppression. My Jesus, he was already on the other side breaking the ground. It wasn’t overnight, but it began. In little ways He began to dig me out, as he always does, by reaching down to me. I continued to call to Him; my Saviour, “Here I am!” not for Him to find me but for me to keep my mind, my heart, my eyes on him. I could feel the weight of the earth above me releasing, my body felt lighter and lighter, I could breathe. I could feel the warm air, and finally, the light, the sun, the Son. He reached down one more time to wipe the earth from my eyes, my ears, my mouth and nose. His hands cupping my chin and lifting me from my grave of fear. He breathed life into me again and awoke my heart. 

He is life and breath in me and in Him I live and move and have my being. 

These past few years I have been trapped in my own space, my own feelings, trying to make sense of it all, trying to figure it out on my own. Impossible. I wasn’t calling on Him to help me. Fruitless. I carried my hurt with me everywhere I went, and my family felt it most. I was burdened to call on His grace but felt ashamed and unworthy of it. Turmoil. I was living the very opposites of the fruits of the Spirit, because I wasn’t allowing the spirit to move within me. But now, as I think about all those feelings, they melt away, they are important but they are not burdensome. I am staring into the Glory of the risen Christ who has rescued me! He has done it before and he did it again and will probably be asked to do it again.

I used to always feel guilty about this. That I kept stumbling and kept having to ask Him to help me back up. But now, I am just grateful. Grateful that His love never fails, that it is unstoppable, He is the one that never stumbles. That is why He can always catch me. I know I will never always be sure footed. I am a sinner. And now, I have peace in that. It sounds strange I know, but if I deny that, if I expect that I should be more than that, then I leave no room for Him, for His grace, for the gift of salvation. As Paul warns, we do not sin more to increase grace. That is not how it works. But we recognize our abilities and how much we lack without Him. 

So now, it is on to peace. And the greater the emptiness lived, the deeper the grave, the greater peace abounds. And in the best possible way, I am overwhelmed. His love is higher and greater and deeper that any heights or depths. Did He die so we could live in the grave? Was He bled for His own gain. By no means! Take it from a sinner. Call out to Him. He will answer you. He will rescue you.