Sleepless Nights

She woke up at 3: 42 on the dot, her mind reeling from dreams that wouldn't let her sleep. Chaos, shapeless forms, flashes of light, dishes breaking, people shouting. She had spent too much money on skim lattes and cheap paperback novels, medium cigarettes and wine with people that didn't care. Voices tormented her, voices of regret and indecision. Voices that told her no one cared, voices that told her she would forever be stuck in this cycle of stupidity, this cycle of longing but never reaching. A memory flashed.

Creaky stairs.
Daddy sitting by the fireplace.
Daddy said he was thinking about stuff.
He couldn't sleep.
How could sleep be lost?

She rolled over onto her stomach and tried to bury her face in the pillow, but it was too late, she was already wide awake, awake to thoughts she didn't want to acknowledge. She wasn't fine. She had cried herself to sleep last night. The regret of trying and failing, trying and regressing clung to her like bad lint, haunted her like a mean ghost. Her soul ached, if ever a soul could.

She was tired of living in a halfway house. She was tired of the in-between. She was so tired of living like everyone else. She wanted to burn! She wanted to die trying to be closer, to give all her life and all her mind and all her spirit in search of knowing the Maker. But she kept getting caught in the flow of life, of living just like everyone else.

But she was so tired of fighting it. Of pushing the boundaries, of pushing for freedom. Of being stretched, pulled, shaped. She often had an overwhelming feeling that she should give up, leave this place. She feel lost, like she should be looking for something else, some other place that she could call home. But she'd felt that feeling before, when she was home.

Where do I go?
What is it that I am looking for?
I am out in the open,
not hidden under Your Love.
Where are you?

She remembered Luthien. She had read of her once, when she was a child. Luthien was a daughter, a lover, a woman in the old tales that Dad had read by her bedside every night. She remembered the words to this day.

Luthien stood upon the bridge, and declared her power; and the spell was loosed that bound stone to stone, and the gates were thrown down, and the walls opened, and the pits laid bare; and many thralls and captives came forth in wonder and dismay, shielding their eyes against the pale moonlight, for they had lain long in the darkness of Sauron.

Do I have power like that?

Do I have any power at all?

If You don't come, I have no hope to carry on.

She could not love by herself, not one could without the cross, because everyone was stuck in their boxes of pain, they were all under a veil of hurt that blinded them to see any soul for what it truly was. 

We are a broken people,

Made up of broken edges

And shattered pieces.

We long to be close,

But fear the tearing

of our hearts

again.

But she knew the cross was more than a story. Christ was more than a theological idea to be pondered and dissected by men. He could speak for Himself and heal the way He said He could. He was not dead. He was the One who could take man's twisted thinking and warped perception and transform it into a beautiful thing, a thing that would endure to the end. 

She could stand, fearless, not as a weakling but as a warrior. In her pain she could love, and in her love she would never be weak, for she now loved with His love. She worshipped Him and escaped from her veiled, selfish, blind heart into His perfect one. It was so beautiful, more beautiful a communion than ever she imagined a communion could be. She was in the Unveiling. She could approach the throne of all thrones. She could drink of the same stream that she would drink afterward, when the race was run and the mountain was climbed, the water that flowed from the living Fountain. Now she saw every soul in the right light, through His eyes and His heart.

He is with me, 

In me,

and for that I have found my joy, 

even in sleepless nights and in torment. 

He has called me to my destiny, 

drawn me close to His hope, 

sheltered me with His song.


I pray you realize you are a warrior today.

All my love,

B
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Author's Note: Sometimes I write in the third person about myself. It's a sort of therapeutic processing that helps me see what's actually going on in my heart. While a rather strange practice, I recommend it to someone stuck in their own head and in need of a way to express what they are actually feeling.