~Them~

Four, five or six months ago I got angry. At church. A kind of fury that made me run, punch, and eloquently and scathingly preach; hurt. My angst took me away, on a journey apart from the Heavenly Water and back into the blinding Sahara. 

Feeling abandoned is my thing, when it blankets me in the Light not just the dark all I know is shame, guilt, and anxiety. 

Am I not lovable enough? 

I feel deeply left behind by my church. My people, my community, I love them and hate them in tandem. Where are they when I need them the most?  Do they not recognize me as lost as I slowly vanish into a whisper that no one can hear? Where is my church, my people?

~You~

My God, You declare that You do not care about this hurt and anger I feel towards You.

You care about me. 

You whisper soft winds blowing the sheer curtains in the wind wide open with Your Love. 

I still yell out my anger,  my fury, and my scathing words…because it feels like abandonment and abandonment is my thing. But Not by You~

Never by You. 

The sun cascades in, warming my face forcing the dichotomy to sync; that Love and hurt can co-exist. Immediately I don’t care if they are not perfect.  I am far from perfect, so an unfair expectation has turned my heart into stone and my blood frozen as February.

I realize that they are broken and bonded by a desperate desire to be wanted; just like me. 

~Reconciliation~

 My body fights back. My Mind slips into the Reckoning. My Heart shakes with fervor to rise above. Because even when the dark loses its light, there You are. In that, I choose to keep my eyes on the Prize. My Prize. 

You. 

I get ready on a sunny Sunday morning to come running past the doors of anger and into the loving arms of my church.

Stopping in my tracks, I feel a flicker ignite into a raging flame of a dormant fire inside me; my shame explodes.   It holds me still, stuck in an avalanche of guilt and fear of the loss of love, because abandonment is my thing.  I breathe deep screaming out that I am here, in my own time because I needed a minute to be lonely and angry.  

I stare down my reflection in the mirror, push back my head and grow myself tall; forcing shame out because I did leave~ but today I come home. 

Joy is miraculously replacing shame.  A reunion is on the horizon accompanied by a magnificent celebration in the heavens, as I run back into the loving arms of…my family. I hold my head high as I burst through the doors back into the loving arms of my family, my community; my bridge to You…

The earth shivers in delight, You hold my hand, embrace my journey back as I declare it to be a… A No shame Sunday. 

Ami Beth Cross 2.12.22