Roots

This week I started a Bible Study with ladies at my church. We are studying a book called "Stuck."

It's a little intimidating because its a much more personal bible study than I realized it would be. Immediately we were talking about, duh, what has you stuck in your spiritual walk, and in life.  I was quite comfortable when it was my turn, to offer up my own examples of places in which I could say I've been stuck: Self confidence, worry, and trusting God for all of the things...not just the big things.  That seemed pretty safe and inside of my comfort zone...

And then when I got home I plunged into the individual study portion, and realized that I am going to have to go waaaay deeper... and possibly do  so in front of people I am not sure I'm comfortable with, like a few coworkers from the preschool, in addition to a group of women I am just meeting, and may forever be know to by what I say in the study. Yikes!  So I put the book down and decided I'd get back to it in a few days.  And then the next day came, and suddenly I felt like God showed me the root of each of those issues. The one I would have to tackle before anything else in my life could change.  Its huge, and if feels impossible.  But I was reminded of a quote used in the study by A.W. Tozer:

  “As God is exalted to the right place in our lives, a thousand problems are solved all at once.”

So...maybe its what I've gotta do.  Here's the deep down, core of most of the problems I face in my existance... I have spent my entire life with the deep down belief that somewhere in my core, I am fundamentally broken. I have fought sadness, anger, depression, frustration all toward God because of this, and finally somewhat believed I had settled on acceptance that I was created the way God wanted to create me.  Broken. For some unknown reason or purpose.  But the pain still festered, and over the last year as I have watched Gabriel struggle with many of the same issues with ADD, insane sensitivity, and an emotional intensity matched pretty much only by me, the festering has built into a volcano, seeping destructive lava, mostly in a slow dribbling, aching flow, and at times erupting in monumental and catastrophic displays of fury.  This is the thing I am going to have to deal with.  And just as I began to think that there is no way I can deal with this in a Bible Study setting, delaying the inevitable even further, Dan confronted me in a rare moment of clarity.

He may  not be perfect, but he sure is putting up with a lot.  Out of the blue, and out of his second bottle of wine last night, he had the sudden epiphany (knowing nothing about my Bible Study topic), that I'm going to need to deal with the fact that I believe I am flawed and broken before I am going to be able to deal with any of the surface issues and struggles that have been plaguing me.  Ba-Bam. Convicted.

So I'm going forward. I am still skeptical that a summer bible study is enough. I am skeptical that I will be willing to put enough on the table to really get what I need out of the study.  But apparently its time to put it to prayer, and challenge God to make it happen.  I need to trust and believe that I am no more broken than everyone around me, and that God created me not just how he wanted me to be, but that he made me to be OK, and whole.  Gah!