running

"I run my life
Or is it running me?
Run from my past
I run too fast
Or too slow it seems"

These words from the popular
Lady Antebellum song I run to you , resounded deeply with me on Friday. I sat down in my Therapists office shaking, knowing that we were going to start a new type of therapy that day...once which would make me do the very thing I have been running from for as long as I have had a will to carry me. EMDR, short for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, is a relatively new type of therapy that is supposed to help reprocess trauma to make it less debilitating. Its a type of therapy that doesn't make you talk in detail about what happened...which is what sold me...but it does make you look at it with rather brutal clarity and feel it as though its happening all over again...or so they said. BUT, its supposed to have amazing results that offer freedom from what has kept you bound. It sounds great...until you actually have to do it. Those lyrics replayed in my mind as i drove to her office thinking to myself that the greatest lie I have convinced myself of over the years is that I am the one running my life. I sold my life away to an illusion of control...to a voice that promised me beauty, admiration, and control. It promised me predictability and protection. Operating in my violated trust of a world that seemed so cold and heartless, i gave in. "I run my life, or is it running me" amplified a reality i had been trying to close my eyes to for so long. In the quest to control my life I lost the very thing I was after. "I run from my past, I run too fast. Or too slow it seems." I ran so hard and so fast in an opposite direction of my past that I got caught up in the trappings of anorexia...until the past had time to keep pressing forward and caught up to me. It always catches up to you...you can't out run it or out smart it. It just is what it is. There is healing from it. There is beauty that can grow out of it...but ignoring it will only leave you running in circles...all the while it slowly and steadily catches up to you.
I am so thankful that no matter how dark and crazy and painful life gets I have a God who never is caught off guard. That even when I find myself at the end of a street that had a posted sign that said dead end like two miles back...even then God isn't at a loss of what to do. He makes a way. He takes my mistakes and missteps and failings and makes them into a work of art...that brings Him glory and is for my good. It won't be easy. It won't be fun...and trust me, Friday was not fun. But I believe He is leading me somewhere. The people He has placed in my life right now are amazing...it shows me He must love me...or really not like them too much : ). One of the two.
I wish I felt that way though...I wish those words I just typed about the goodness of the Lord felt as true as they are. They don't. I must be honest about that. They feel about as true as the fact that I am going to be free one day. But what hope would I have if I stayed in what I felt? What hope would I have if I believed that my life would never amount to more then a desperate addiction to numb out the pain of the past by meeting the standards of the thin ideal? What if I believed that the Lord of the universe wanted nothing to do with me or with my mess? I wouldn't be alive. I wouldn't have the strength to wake up each morning and share the truth I do have with a world who needs the hope of a savior. Because I believe that even in the pain of what life is right now....I still have something to give...I have the hope and the truth of Jesus. I would rather walk through this pain and have the chance of being able to tell someone who is lost and really does have no hope that there is a love that is so much greater...love that overcame death and sin so they could spend eternity with their maker. They are worth this. They are worth me believing what I KNOW to be true instead of believing what I FEEL to be true. There is a song my friend Kaleena told me about this last week. It is called Times by Tenth Avenue North. That song has been what has carried me through this weekend. Listen to it. Soak in the honesty of our humanity and the response of Jesus to it. He is good. He is so good...even when we don't feel it.

Times

I know I need You
I need to love You
I love to see You, but it's been so long
I long to feel You
I feel this need for You
And I need to hear You, is that so wrong?

Oh, oh. Oh, oh. Oh, oh.
Oh, oh. Oh, oh. Oh, oh.

Now You pull me near You
When we're close, I fear You
Still I'm afraid to tell You, all that I've done
Are You done forgiving?
Oh can You look past my pretending?
Lord, I'm so tired of defending, what I've become
What have I become?

Oh, oh. Oh, oh. Oh, oh.
Oh, oh. Oh, oh. Oh, oh.
Oh, oh. Oh, oh. Oh, oh.
Oh, oh. Oh, oh. Oh, oh.

I hear You say,
"My love is over. It's underneath.
It's inside. It's in between.
The times you doubt Me, when you can't feel.
The times that you question, 'Is this for real?'
The times you're broken.
The times that you mend.
The times that you hate Me, and the times that you bend.
Well, My love is over, it's underneath.
It's inside, it's in between.
These times you're healing, and when your heart breaks.
The times that you feel like you're falling from grace.
The times you're hurting.
The times that you heal.
The times you go hungry, and are tempted to steal.
The times of confusion, in chaos and pain.
I'm there in your sorrow, under the weight of your shame.
I'm there through your heartache.
I'm there in the storm.
My love I will keep you, by My pow'r alone.
I don't care where you fall, where you have been.
I'll never forsake you, My love never ends.
It never ends."
Oh, oh. Oh, oh. Oh, oh.
Oh, oh. Oh, oh. Oh, oh.