An Arrow in the Making: Prelude to a Pit: Here Comes Goodbye

Friday, February 7, 2014

Prelude to a Pit: Here Comes Goodbye

**Just getting started? Head back to day 1 of Prelude to a Pit: Just Another Day to read from the beginning**

It's a Saturday afternoon. The walls are closing in on me.

Lord, You can't still be here!

~~~~

It was what I had wanted.

I was home more with my daughter, working toward being a stay-at-home mom one day.

We'd play tea party and sing along to her favorite cartoons and snuggle before naptime.

My favorite days involved a Hobby Lobby outing. With glee, I'd rummage the aisles for hidden gems and potential house projects. Scrapbook paper to cover the outlets. Paint for the side tables. Burlap for curtains. Fabrics in inviting hues to warm the windows. Countless sprigs of greenery and sprouts of flowers that cozied the kitchen and living room with pinks and purples.

All the while, I'm frantically feeding Harlow pretzels from a full-sized Kroger bag, praying she doesn't have a pre-nap meltdown in the picture frame aisle.

It was simple, but exactly what I wanted.

Not the stuff that accumulated, but the life that reverberated in those ordinary Wednesdays or Mondays.

The warm air would kiss our cheeks as we raced like rabbits with our loaded down shopping cart that clickety-clacked to the car. Harlow giggles and then whines as I strap her into the car but hushes when the sound of Doc McStuffins returns to her DVD player with the turn of the ignition.

Happy memories. Perfect. Pleasant.

I don't want to have to say goodbye.

But as the air turns cold and the days are dark, even at four o'clock, the shadow of change descends upon us.

God said, Let go, and I said no.

I held fast to what I knew was good and whole and perfect. To the Hobby Lobby memories and the singalongs in the car.

To the sunny walks through the neighborhood and the planting of new things in the yard.

To the smell of new paint on the walls and fresh sheets on the bed. To the bark of the dogs as they escaped to the backyard. To the life that I had established. To the contentedness I felt.

Let go, He said.

I don't want to have to say goodbye.

This isn't how I wanted things. I didn't picture it this way.

Lay it all down, He said.

Sacrifice. Not giving up what's extra and unnecessary. Not giving up what you wouldn't miss.

No. It's prying your grip from what matters to your heart. And when you feel you've given enough, He says,

more.

It isn't sacrifice until it hurts. Deeply.

I need this, I say. But He's firm. There's no way out.

Lay it all down, He says.

And with yelling and screaming, my knuckles white with fight still left in them, I open fast my clutch, and it all falls to His feet. It never belonged to me anyway. But it had become part of me, sewn to my soul. A familiarity that comforted.

But I'm not left with nothing. His glorious hand upon my back, He guides my worn frame to a pile.

It isn't from Hobby Lobby. It's not pretty and pink. It doesn't provide a sweet aroma of welcome.

It's a cross. And it's splintered. And heavy.

Pick it up, Chels, He says.

I look at Him sadly, and He raises my chin, lifting my face to the sky.

You've talked your talk, He says with firm gentleness. Now it's time to pick up your cross. And walk.

I said I would. I promised I would on my knees when I was six. But you hope He won't ever think to ask of you. You pray He asks it of someone else. And when He does, it all becomes real. The faith becomes real. The God that sits two-dimensional on a page of Scripture comes forth. He isn't just the God of Abraham and Jacob and Isaac. He isn't just the God of Elijah and Joseph and Job.

He is your God. And He is my God.

And you won't feel the real until you sacrifice the complacency.

The cross He hung on was real. And the one He asks us to carry as we follow Him is just as real. And it's a death, to selfish dreams and wills and hopes. A dying to yourself.

Nailing all of the easy life to the wood and watching it lose its breath is necessary--necessary--