Full moon...

Last night as we drove home from Franklin it was so BRIGHT out! Even though it was nearly 8 p.m. and clouds were covering the full moon, it was so BRIGHT. I marveled over how much a full moon makes a difference out here in the country. At any other time of the lunar cycle if I am standing in my living room looking out my front window, it looks as if I am the only house for miles. But when there is a full moon, it is amazing! I can see ALL the way down to the end of the cul de sac in front of our house! You don't notice these things when you live in the city where streetlights (man's light) crowd out the moonlight (God's light). In the city, the wonder of a full moon passes with hardly any notice. It looks cool up there in the sky, but it doesn't really impact our existence at all. It got me thinking about that concept....

Is God playing the role of full moon in my city-dwelling life? Is He looking cool up there in the sky, but He really isn't impacting my existence at all?

Lately I've been struggling through healing some old hurts. It has been a HORRIBLE week of pain for me. The only thing I can compare it to is having a broken bone that healed improperly re-broken and set properly. It has been excruciating! Yesterday I felt God telling me to write it out, to write it ALL out. In a private place where I don't have to worry about other people telling me what they think about it, I wrote.

It was AWFUL! I hated it! I was NOT eloquent. It was not well-written or engaging. It was bare and raw and UGLY. I cried through much of the writing, and when I was done I felt icky, as if I had just taken a swim through raw sewage. I told John first thing this morning that I must have heard God wrong. That did me no good, and I wasn't going to write my way through any more of it. Then just a few hours ago, it was weird... I started to notice a feeling in my heart that had been missing for a while. I started to feel warmth where there had been numbness. I started to feel hope and love where there had been despair and fear.

God quickly called another medical situation to my mind. After I had Hannah (via c-section) I developed a horrible hematoma (it was about the size of a foot long Subway bun) underneath my incision site. The solution to that situation was the most physically painful thing I have EVER endured.... worse than all four births rolled into one. With no pain medicine administered, my doctor re-opened a small part of my incision and then for what felt like HOURS she "bled" that hematoma. She pressed and pressed and pressed on the pocket of blood until she had drained it all. It was terrible. I remember my nails digging so deeply into the palms of my hands I thought they would draw blood. For weeks after that experience with my doctor, John would have to repeat that process at home to remove the blood that continued to refill that area. Each time was a little less painful and eventually the incision site healed.

I think God called that situation to my mind because that is how this emotional healing will be. Emotionally, I think last night's private journaling was the initial draining of the hematoma. I think the first time was the worst. As I keep journaling, I will continue draining the hematoma, and it will still be painful. But each time will be better and better until full healing comes.

Back to my full moon analogy.... I think this whole week.... painful memories.... reliving traumas... new hurts revealed... last night's painful journaling... has all been a way of God moving me out of the "city" of pain and regret I've been wallowing in, so that I can abide in the country where His truth, healing, and glory don't just look pretty up in the sky but they affect my entire existence. I think that for MONTHS I have been residing in this city where I know that God is there, and I know His truth in my heart (I've know it all since I was a little girl) but because of the streetlights all around me I haven't been able to let the FULL weight of His light affect my landscape. At least that is what I'm hoping this week was, because I am NOT a fan of pain just for the sake of pain :) So I'm going to continue on. It is NOT fun! But some things just HAVE to be done. I'll continue writing in private (sorry even a bare-naked girl like me has to have SOME things which are kept to herself), and I'll keep hoping that God will move me out away from all the streetlights which are crowding out the moonlight.