i've been waiting...

well it sure has been a long while between these two posts. i don't think it's so much that i'm having trouble figuring out when i have time, it's just that it seems like i don't really have anything that i feel is worth saying these days. i came here several days, sitting, staring at the blank box, blinking cursor, and always ended up saving the draft. i would delete anything that made it far enough to publish. i'm all bottled up. it's hard for things to break through and get out.

but this morning i was thinking about the major decisions that i've made in the past 48 hours. i was mulling over some kind of outlet for the pain and frustration they've caused and will continue to cause. and it occurred to me that i've probably waited all of you out, and you don't read this anymore, so i'm completely safe explaining myself here. safe. ha.

idolatry. do you know what it really means to have a problem with idolatry? because i thought i did. and as it tends to be with the things of god, i came quite abruptly to the realization i didn't. a few days ago, it occurred to me that as much crap as i tend to give the israelites for their cyclical issues concerning the subject, i'm a blatant violator of the same commandment and worse yet, i'm in denial.

however, this problem, in my defense, was not as easy to spot. you see, it isn't really any one thing that i place before god. it's....well, it's everything.
relationships. psh.
friendships. boy howdy.
my job. understatement of the year.
it's like i use god's name to get me the v.i.p. pass into any christian event or relationship or conversation that i intend to wriggle my happy little self into. and the piece de resistance...i do everything possible in my minuscule and pathetic power to eliminate any time spent alone with my own thoughts, through which the father might capture my attention and correct me. which creeps out the people i use to accomplish that end, and makes me feel like i don't even know who i am anymore.

and this, my friends, is why i don't write anymore. until now. because i'm facing the demons now. i'm alone now. no one is here to save me from the work that i have to do now. two nights ago i drove around and cried. all night long. from 4 am when my friend and i got done with middle of the night coffee, until 8 am when i had to go to work. i listened to the same song over and over and begged god to tell me just one thing i could do to make this better. to stop this horrible blackness that was eating my insides. to end the voices clamoring for me to stop plugging the holes in my soul with faces. i begged him and he told me. cut it off he said. cut it off, cut it out, remember who you were. how you were. and when i promise god something i do it. there have been people i would have married, places i could have lived, jobs i would have made substantial money doing. but those things weren't god's will. i promised him i wouldn't. i can't break promises to him.

so i'm cutting it off. sawing it roughly, really. jagged edges tearing away at it. breaking nerves, capillaries. i'm bleeding out, and it feels like i might suffocate for the weight of the pain sinking into places i never knew existed. but this one relationship is symbolic of the entirety of my unrighteous ignorance. it hurts me to be alone. but it's righteous pain. they can't save me. they can't fix me. he's my immanuel. i've been plugging that hole long enough.

consider yourself unloaded upon.