Entry to my soul may appear to be dismal and bleak as I walk through the archway, but it really is an encasing to narrow the way inside without distraction from moving forward. Much like my life, the anticipation of addressing what is on the other side of desire can be a consequence or lighted path to another space. Much like a labyrinth, the meandering around on the inside of my soul shares deep lessons of integration that seeped into my beliefs from their un-entanglement. The pockets of doldrums quiet the whole right quadrant of the house with darkened rooms and a cold chill. The whispers I hear from that area need to be ignored in order to follow the lighted path on the left. As I slowly look at past memories from childhood the awareness of hardship keeps the protective plastic over the scenes that were accessible in adulthood to address hence, the redemptive tone of light but without its ability to melt away the barrier. I suppose the boundary protects my heart from the reality that I was always alone and without help. The existence I lived was confusing as I was my own resource without access to others. I suspect that is the reason I have sought saving from so many people along the way even after I found Jesus. Somehow, the formation of my life predisposed me to bettering myself, but not knowing how and consequently producing a void that draws me into His presence for periods of time that replenish before I eek back into concern. The closed doors that pepper, my formative years feel guarded by shame and sadness, so I let them stay shut. I place a white feather above their door posts as an invitation for Holy Spirit to crack their seals. I hope of refreshment to wash the memories before they are revealed.  Yet a large portion of my heart will continue to move past these rooms and focus on healing what is remembered. I can feel the Lord’s hand on these doors as He plans to redeem the innate innocence and I can see the kindness in Jesus‘s eyes as they communicate His intention to overcome. We keep walking down hallways where excitement poured through the decorating of a rental home that brought me to Georgia. Just peering back at  the memories of color and beauty that surrounded that space with creativity are special. And yet having to leave so abruptly was crushing. It seems that maybe my quick end and rushing off could’ve been a familiar reaction, a direct correlation to the vows of leaving I made when younger. It feels reminiscent of all the times my runner part protected the betrayal from holding onto people who are untrustworthy. The haste feels premature now as I see flashes of so many instances were leaving felt like survival. Could it be the loss of a safe environment propelled me into a lifestyle, constantly expecting others to leave and my venturing into sole proprietorship? I know plenty of others who have been on their own like I have at the age of 15, yet comparatively they have settled down in a home to call their own. Maybe that isn’t in the cards for me, after all I tried the married life, but chose wrong mate. Which leads me to the darkest rooms that I house. Why even have me embark upon ministry, a life dedicated to you if it would only become my source of great pain, the absolute source of so much rage? If given a room full of tables I’d flip them with such violence they would launch through cement walls and blow up in heaven.  I’d wield the  most dense pieces of wood that replicate primitive times of when you walked this earth, and still have enough fury pumping through my veins to pass through into this present day. I feel so abandoned by you Father that I can separate you from Jesus and Holy Spirit, I feel you have left me to squander my life and search of fitting in among your people who are arrogant, deceptive, childish and approved of because they married well, had backing from a crony, or downright manipulated people to get ahead. I don’t get it, maybe that is why I am so burnt out on Christianity and all of its new “non-denominational” paper cut-outs that look like all the others they deviate from. This hollowed time has been filled with perfectly placed sheets of fossilized rock so heavy,  that it’s formed a cliff so high to scale that I would only attempt to reach it, to get closer to you. I am there. I believe you have allowed me to set my sights on you alone now because all else has failed. What do I have to lose? Should I tread up smooth stone that will take the rest of my life to feel a place for my hand to grip? Who has been with  me that I should wait for, haven’t I tried that endlessly? I am tired and long to reach that precipice of height in you above all else. Who else do I have, where else do I have to go? I’ve been running to and fro for so long that I have encased my soul in a maze of fixing that I have run out of remedies. I have wasted years seeking the acceptance of others that I abandoned myself. I turned around hoping that grace extended would allow my re-entrance to groups that were never highlighted by you in the first place.  The sadness I have housed for decades needs to be burned.  All the lost dreams and empty pursuits, the memories compartmentalized like a waffle and buried. I relinquish all I have tried to fix, perfect and gain affirmation for so it can set a blaze to the original fire within. Take it all for I cannot scale this rock with the heaviness of my grief. I seek it’s burning to a crisp so that the smoldering is a footstool at the base of your mountain. I want to reach you and you alone and jump into the cleansing waters below without a second thought of who comes with me.