Poured Out in Agony

Lamentations, "See, O LORD, how distressed I am! I am in torment within, and in my heart I am disturbed, for I have been most rebellious. Outside, the sword bereaves; inside, there is only death... I have cried until the tears no longer come; my heart is broken. My spirit is poured out in agony..." The agony that comes after the party is over. How many times I have been on this weeping path. One of the final times, when I had had enough, was right before I left my ex. I came to Colorado to spend time with my grandmother. I was an addict and after being here for one week, I ran out of weed. After the fog had cleared, I could see myself for what I really was. I had been stripping for one year and addicted to drugs for more than three. My life was falling apart and I hit my knees. It is hard to look at your failures; to see yourself for what you really are. I was everything disgusting to everyone who looked at me. I was to be used and thrown away as trash, for trash is what I had become. I had turned from God and now laid truly naked, without anyone to help clothe me. The feelings of utter despair and regrets filled my soul to the point that I felt I would not be able to take another breath. It was in this, that I was able to see my need for Christ, for He is the only one who could ever clean someone as dirty as I was.

It was in this moment of revelation that I felt rejuvenated, refreshed and ready to change. I never could have guessed the changing process would take so long. In this process I got a divorce, my addictions would not let me go, and my life was utterly torn apart. Every time I looked at myself, all I saw was a complete failure. In my process of destroying myself, I had been in the process of destroying everyone that come in contact with me. Now the reality of who I was, was staring me right in my face. I have never cried so much. I had never been torn like that before. It was in this lonely dessert that I was able to truly see myself. Oh how I hate to look at my decay. How truly healing this was for me.

(3:19-27) "The thought of my suffering and homelessness is bitter beyond words. I will never forget this awful time, as I grieve over my loss. Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this: The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is His faithfulness; His mercies begin afresh each morning. I say to myself, 'The Lord is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in Him!' The Lord is good to those who depend on Him, to those who search for Him. So it is good to wait quietly for salvation from the Lord. And it is good for people to submit at an early age to the yoke of His discipline: Let them sit alone in silence beneath the Lord’s demands. Let them lie face down in the dust, for there may be hope at last. Let them turn the other cheek to those who strike them and accept the insults of their enemies. For no one is abandoned by the Lord forever. Though He brings grief, He also shows compassion because of the greatness of His unfailing love. For He does not enjoy hurting people or causing them sorrow."

If you are in a time of sorrow; If you feel you are a failure in everything you do; If you feel you will never be set free from your addictions; Wait on the LORD, for He has not abandoned you. We want the change to come so easily and quickly, but we did not dig this ditch over night. It takes work, it takes relying on Christ, it takes effort on our part to see who we really are. I am constantly looking at myself and asking God to reveal my failures to me. I am not sitting in sorrow any longer, writhing in pain, feeling like an utter failure. I am asking God to show me truth, so that I can live free. Those bonds sneak in so quietly that you are in the battle, before you ever knew there was a war. Every day I turn to Him first. Then to others who are wiser than me, for I know my failures.
I know how weak I am without Him and this helps me to be strong.

Oswald Chambers, "We always have a vision of something before it actually becomes real to us. When we realize that the vision is real, but is not yet real in us, Satan comes to us with his temptations, and we are inclined to say that there is no point in even trying to continue. Instead of the vision becoming real to us, we have entered into a valley of humiliation.

Life is not as idle ore,
But iron dug from central gloom,
And battered by the shocks of doom
To shape and use.

God gives us a vision, and then He takes us down to the valley to batter us into the shape of that vision. It is in the valley that so many of us give up and faint."

Don't give up. Turn to God. Look at yourself through the eyes of truth, so that you can find freedom. Allow Christ to make you strong...

http://www.rbc.org/devotionals/my-utmost-for-his-highest/07/06/devotion.aspx?year=2009