Dear Jehovah-Shalom,
I can’t seem to get my body to stop shaking. My gut keeps spasming, as if I am about to be sick. My hands are unsteady, and I cannot see straight.
As you know, of course, I was riding along the road at my usual speed, trying to continue on my way home. Out of nowhere, a truck came upon alongside me, and I pulled farther right so that they could pass. Rather than giving me space to continue on my way, the driver of the large, black truck pulled closer to me. I pulled off further, and he slowed to my speed, rolling down the window as he did so. “Get off the road, hippie motherfu--” he screamed over the roar of his large engine, and, so caught off guard, I pushed down hard on my brakes as fast as possible. I flipped over my front wheel, luckily landing on my backpack. Thanks, I suppose, for watching out for me a little bit.
Much more than my few scars, I am left just so... terrified. The truck headed off in the same direction I am going, and I wonder if he’s coming back for me. How many more slurs could he throw? He must have been drunk, but what’s stopping him from doing it again? He must have been drunk. And maybe next time, what if he pulls over faster? Maybe he has a gun.
Oh God, God of peace. Wash over me now, for I am so afraid. I know we haven’t been on the best of terms lately, but I promise you, I am trying to do your will. I just can’t seem to hear you anymore. I need your peace. I am left weak, and scared, and trembling before you.
Is that what we’re supposed to do? Is this how we work out our salvation, in the midst of fear and trembling? What does salvation require? Let me say the magic words, Lord, and then just fix everything. Transform me without struggling with guilt, without working on healing, God. Just make it easy.
No? Nothing? Why isn’t your Spirit descending to come and take away my fear?
Am I just too much of a sinner?
I have spent the last year in penance, Lord, for the brokenness endured with and render unto Cassie. Every time I seemed to heal a little bit more, and I felt that my weight had been lifted, I would just begin to get lonely. 2015 was the year of fifteen unstable relationships, all but one ending just the others: She would become dependent, I would realize I could only hurt her, and I would end it. I felt like a bomb with a lit fuse, but I had no idea how long the fuse would be.
I begged you for forgiveness, God. I asked over and over for healing, and that those I had left behind might be made whole. I pray now for reconciliation, and that each one of them can find what they’re looking for. We were all struggling towards happiness, and wandered into one each other’s lives. Then I departed before they were ready, leaving them spinning and me with the weight of their pain on my shoulders.
Let me give it up, Lord. Take away from me the burden of my sins. I know that the list is long, and I do not even know of all the ways I have hurt those around me. How many broken people can one broken soul create?
I thought I was healed. I was ready to be alone. I felt your peace for that week or so. And then I fell into another relationship. But I was happy then, too. It lasted a little while longer, and I fell in love. I thought you were there, in the midst of that love. And you probably were, I suppose. Why didn’t I feel complete then?
That ended, too, without much of a warning. Like the sands on the shore, one storm wiped it all away, and I was left more wounded than I had been since Cassie. But, why? Why did it happen? Is it because I never really dealt with the pain from Cassie anyway?
What did I do?
What did I do to be nearly run off the road by the drunk, angry driver?
Some part of me continues to cry out that I am just a sinner, and that I deserve everything that has come to me. But God, the book I believe to be your word declares that I can lay down my sins before you. Is there still some deep karmic power, outside of your control? Or is this all part of my punishment?
I do not know what sins I have committed, Lord. I do not know who I have broken nor to what extent their heart lies in ruins. For all the sins I do not know, forgive me. For all of the sins I am committing now, forgive me. I would repent if I could name them all. Please, take me out of this purgatorio, out of this hell lying before me!
I want to know your presence, God. And so I’m sitting here in the cold, trying to read the Bible from the dim light of my phone, wrapped in the prayer shawl your people in Oregon gave to me. It is here that I last felt you move, and it is here to where I must run when it feels as though you are missing. Dismiss this distance, Jehovah, and bring me your Shalom.
"I sought the Lord, and he answered me,
and delivered me from all my fears.
Look to him, and be radiant;
so your faces shall never be ashamed.
This poor soul cried, and was heard by the Lord,
and was saved from every trouble.
The angel of the Lord encamps
around those who fear him, and delivers them.
O taste and see that the Lord is good;
happy are those who take refuge in him."
Day 6: Nineteen hundred and twenty-eight miles to home. Maybe only a few more to me.
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