Ask.
I didn't know how to describe it. I didn't know how to wrap words around it until this morning, before my eyes were even fully open and I was there writing three pages because Julia Cameron told me I had to. There I was, head heavy and hand scrawling, realizing what it was for the first time.
I've been afraid. I've been afraid to ask. I've been afraid to ask because I've been afraid to admit. I've been afraid to ask because I've been afraid to admit that my heart longs for things that I'm afraid will never be real.
I realized in my writing, in these three pages of pouring out the first thoughts of the day, that I've been like Adam and Eve, hiding behind fig leaves that can't begin to cover my realness and my nakedness.
Why has it been so hard to put words to my heart's longings? Why do I struggle to bring my desires to my Lord and into His light? Why do I keep silent, or worse, throw a blanket of fake laughter over it all in attempts to brush it off and keep it hidden away?
I try to keep my desires pushed down deep and instead say flimsy "Your will be done" prayers, because that seems easier. I'm afraid to say, "Lord, these are the desires of my heart." I'm afraid that they won't be His plan, so I'm afraid to give a voice to them. I'm afraid of the heartbreak and the disappointment I'll feel if I let myself give these things life and then they don't come to be.
Who do I think I am?
Why do I think my dreams, my hopes, my desires are best? Why do I think I know best?
Putting words to my heart's deepest longings makes me feel naked and exposed. I'm realizing I've been trying to cover up with fig leaves and flimsy prayers and fake laughter.
I've been afraid of vulnerability and afraid of my own heart. I've been thinking I'm bigger than the God who made me, thinking I can hide from Him when He knows every beat of my restless heart intimately. Who do I think I am.
I don't want to be afraid to ask. I don't want to be afraid to be real with my Creator, my Savior, my Father. I don't want to be afraid to admit that the things my heart wants are real. I don't want to be afraid of the potential disappointment if those things don't happen.
I want to give voice to the things in my heart. I want to bring them into the light. I want to put them into words. I want to bare them to my Father and say here's my heart, Lord, take and seal it, and say Your will be done and mean it, and, no matter what happens, even so, even so, it is well.
No more fig leaves. No more hiding. No more fear.
I want to ask. Boldly. Humbly. Transparently. Truthfully. Honestly. I'm asking, Lord. Answer how You will, for I know You are good and You are faithful and You will never fail me.
