Whole

Out of the depths I cry to You, Lord;
Lord, hear my voice.
Let Your ears be attentive
to my cry for mercy.
-Psalm 130:1-2


You are not whole.

Can you feel it? The gap between your lungs? Air flickers through the void, aimless, without weight. It clears your soul to hover in an uncomfortable unknown.

Because of it, you feel heavy. Anchored to some invisible line, leading to blackness. It clips your throat and steals your breath. You cycle through emotionless day after emotionless day, forging ahead, filling your mind with trivial details you won’t remember the next week just to keep yourself from acknowledging the aching in your heart. From acknowledging the tear across your aorta where dreams disband and darkness develops. It is forbidden to feel. You will not let yourself admit to your misery because that would mean relying on someone other than yourself.

You’ve attached yourself to a plethora of people who welcome you for a time but rid you when you’ve served your purpose. All you want is for the dullness inside to deepen, to take root and twist around you so you are wrapped in something that won’t let you go. Each day is the same strain to keep together; each night brings terrors that reach for you with chilling hands. How much more heartache can you handle before you slip into nothing, a shell of the woman you once dreamed to be?

You are still a little girl inside. Still vulnerable, still hopeful beyond rational reason. You play with perfection, watch it slip to the molting earth and wonder when it was, that moment you stopped believing.

What can you say when your voice is taken from you, when you call out for answers and are met with silence? There is a mystery in the caverns of your cry, deep enough to hide in yet easily accessible. When you slip the door open a crack, trying to trust, an intruder bursts in and upturns your lamps, the fire that keeps you ignited. It is a whirlwind, tearing through with no warning, and you are left sitting in the ashes of apathy. Better not to give yourself away, you think. Better to burn out than attempt to kindle any kind of resolution from the mistakes you’ve made.

That missing part of yours still longs to be put together. To find its counterpart and feel, for once, that just maybe you are meant to be taken care of. Meant to be treasured, a pearl in a sea of stained stones.

So you dare to look around the darkness. Dare to face the light that is turning on your hope. Because in the depths of your disappointment, you know that there is more outside these walls you’ve constructed. A bridge across the canyon between your ribcage. A soft landing from your hard fall.

You are spinning. So uncertain, confused at the yearning inside. But movement is good. Movement means there is direction. There is a voice that continues to call. And you follow, hesitantly at first, because you are scared to step away from the prison you’ve preserved. But with each step, the voice grows stronger, sweeter. And the indentation in your soul craves to converse with it. Your soul is smart. It knows what it needs. It knows where to tug, where to pull you. It knows it is meant to be whole.


Prayer:
I am hurt. I am vulnerable. I am so lost in a spinning darkness I don’t know where to turn or how to get out. Lord, I long to be whole. I long to have this burning in my lungs filled with rejuvenating waters. I feel so far from where I once was, from the girl I once dreamed to be. Only You can fill me. Only You can give me the grace I need to be set free from my destruction. Help me, Lord, for I am sinking further into silence and need Your voice to bring me to the surface. Amen.