Wide Open

Heartsick

This afternoon I wrote on an envelope on my table, "My soul aches."

I keep asking myself how can I feel awesome and heartsick all at the same time, and how I can just sit with it all, knowing that it's all going to come out the way I'm hoping for it to...it seems that God must be working on the back of my tapestry right now...it's tangled and filled with knots, yet it reflects a beauty of its own.

I wasn't really wanting to write about this, but tonight I was listening to Sara Groves' new CD, "Fireflies & Songs." She sings some wonderful songs on this album about real life...I started out listening to "Twice As Good," which is in keeping with my sentimental mood this week, reflecting on how good it is to walk through life with good friends.

I am one of the lucky ones...I have amazing friends, as I wrote about yesterday. I am truly blessed to have people in my life who celebrate my victories and cry with me in painful times. And yet there are moments when even those brief moments of sunlight seem to last only a few minutes in the scheme of a day.

A Brief Moment of Sunlight

My soul remained troubled this evening despite the encouragement of said good friends, so I turned to the One I always turn to when I'm hurting...my Friend, my Hope, my Savior. His name is Jesus, and if you haven't met Him yet, you will one day, and you'll find that He is all that you have ever been searching for.

Anyway, as I was feeling His comfort wrap around me like a warm blanket, suddenly the song changed to "It's Me." I started out listening, and I ended up balling my eyes out through that song and the next one and into the next one. Finally, I came upon the one that spoke deep enough to penetrate and remind me of the prayer I pray for myself.

Wide Open

The song is called "Like A Lake."

I know this post is a little darker than usual. I do hope to leave you with hope. I sure have a good measure of it brewing within my spirit. It's just that my soul also carries a lot of pain. I'm walking slowly and carefully through this season in hopes of shedding some of it along the way, and I am confident of this, "that He who began a good work in me will carry it on to completion in Christ." (Philippians 1:6)

In Quietness & Trust is Your Strength

Here are the lyrics, so you can read along as you listen to the song:

So much hurt and preservation

Like a tendril round my soul

So much painful information

No clear way on how to hold it

And everything in me is tightening,

Curling in around this ache

I will lay my heart wide open

Like the surface of a lake

Wide open like a lake

Standing at this water’s edge

Looking in at God’s own heart

I have no idea where to begin

To swallow up the way things are

Everything in me is drawing in

Closing in around this pain

I will lay my heart wide open

Like the surface of a lake

Wide open like a lake

Bring the wind and bring the thunder

Bring the rain til I am tried

When it’s over bring me stillness

Let my face reflect the sky

And all the grace and all the wonder

All the peace that I can’t fake

Wide open like a lake

Everything in me is tightening

Curling in around this ache

I am fighting to stay open

I am fighting to stay open

Open, open, oh wide open

Open like a lake

May we all be wide open like a lake.

~Angela