Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Mud bath: an update

Mud.  I've been wallowing in it lately.  And I do mean wallowing, y'all. Scalp deep in the mud, not especially inclined to come out of it.  I've jumped in with both feet.  The mud that is resentment.  And more than a little self-pity.

And I am waaaay down deep in there.

Shaking my head back and forth so it gets all in my hair.  Wiggling around so it gets in all the nooks and crannies.  Yes, there is no part of me that isn't touched by the mud somehow.  In the ears, up the nose, in between the toes.

Funny.

How comfortable the mud is, I mean.  It wraps you up and entices you to abandon all else but the wallowing.  Keeps you focused on the mud, hopes you don't remember your direct line to clean Water.

And why do I run from it?  The Water that washes, cleanses, builds, restores.  Is it because I would have to let go of my "rights?"  My hurts that I delight in stacking around myself?  Smugly constructing my wall of you-did-this-to-me and you-did-that. (I'm not interested in I-did-this-to-you.  This is about me.) 

Keeping careful count of each ugly, selfish, mud-caked brick.

The mud slowly becomes a strait-jacket that can only stop the Blood's flow to my heart.  I don't even notice the constriction until it's so tight I can't move.  Nothing outside myself matters while I wear it.  Everything I touch is a muddy mess.  Everyone I encounter walks away with mud-stained shirt, glasses, heart.

And I stubbornly choose to wear it!  With white knuckles I hang on for dear life, not seeing - not wanting to see - that it is Life I need most desperately but will. not. seek.

But He calls me.  Amazing.  He calls me!  *I* wouldn't call me.

He still chooses to get His hands dirty.  With me.  I am His child, He has promised to discipline me.  What wonderful crazy love that is.  He leads me to pools of Living Water, rather than the fire I so richly deserve.  He gently pries my white-knuckled fingers away from my wall.  I can do nothing but weep and stand exposed to Mercy's Rain as It melts the dried, baked-on mud, washes it away.

Washes me clean.




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