Stick with Me

Yet I am poor and needy;

Come quickly to me, O God,

You are my help and my deliverer;

O Lord, do not delay.

-Psalm 70:5

You are trapped.

I can feel it in your deepest spaces. You crave to be better, to live with certain promise and bathe in the beauty that blooms in your heart. But you fight it.

You fight Me.

And all I can give you. All I can cleanse you from, all I can color into your monochrome existence. And so you run. Down dark alleys of appreciation that soon choke you and demand you pay for the attention. To the terrors that hunt and hurt, that demand you give more and more of yourself to the pain that dwells within, poised to hold you accountable for every scratch, every guilt, every defiance to the hope I harbor for you.

My love, please don’t disappoint Me. Please don’t discard Me for the pleasures that pass, for the fantasies that fade and whims that are wiped away by shame and sulking.

            Do you not think I am enough? That My strength is not enough force to get you through? That My grace does not feel fresh against your face, soothing to your soul?

            Beloved, I am enchanted by you. Why can you not be content to stick with Me? Every night you pass Me up for noise and nothingness and the disillusion that what I offer holds nothing you desire. I am a jealous lover, letting no one come between Me and you. I have moved mountains and clashed with death at Calvary for you. Your breath has always been on My lips. My heart has always been imbedded with yours. You just choose to chase the tail of temptation.

            Come back to Me, My dear one. You are sick with sin and lost with loneliness. When you are hidden in the shadows of your suffering, Whose hand is it that holds yours? Is it not Mine? Are you not firmly nestled in My grasp? I have given you My word that I will never let you go. Why do you pretend that this time, somehow, you have finally managed to slip away and lose My love? Do you not desire My devotion? It is yours to take; I will not reel it in and let it loose among another more deserving. For it is in My great compassion that I reach for you, and my most fervent hope that you realize I am here and ready for My love to comfort and console you.

 

Prayer:

Beloved Lord, how feeble is my devotion. I am wrapped in Your warmth a thousand times over, and yet again and again each time I stray from You and seek after my own desires. I am surrounded by a thousand sins, yet it is Your promise to wash each and every one away from my soul. Help me to fall back to You, to fall back into Your love and let it cover me with a promise of hope anew. Amen.