Weeping and Longing

These days it seems I spend a lot of time weeping. I don't think I've occupied this sort of emotional space since the last year that I suffered from depression, when the desperation and longing to be set free was growing on a daily basis. When hope for that freedom seemed to diminish on an equally daily basis, in direct proportion to the growth of my longing for it. The further away the hope of release seemed, the more desperately I seemed to long for it.

I'm in that space again.

Let me be quick to say that I am not, in fact, depressed. But to an unschooled observer, my life these days must closely resemble what it looked like three years ago, as I longed to be freed from the darkness, that, over the course of seven years, had so consumed my life.

My nose piercing aches these days. While it certainly wasn't my intention five months ago, when I paid a stranger to put his finger in my nostril, drive a needle through the nostril, and fill the hole created by that needle with a jewel, it would seem that I paid to have a spiritual barometer of sorts punched directly into my face. It would seem that by making the decision, on the second anniversary of my healing from depression, to mark my freedom on my body in a visible way, I created a sort of measuring stick for that freedom. And so, in the moments when I feel most bound, in the moments when I am most keenly aware of my desperate need to be set free, my nose piercing aches, or even becomes infected.

And I spend a lot of time in tears, or close to tears, or just recovering from the most recent bout of tears. Last night a friend described new found freedoms in her life to me, and I wept. With joy that she has found that for which she has longed and wrestled. And with longing of my own, asking the Lord when my turn will come.

I long for release. For freedom from the graveclothes that bind. For life. To feel light and warmth on my face once again. And I find myself, in the midst of that longing, in the midst of begging the Lord for that freedom, asking for eyes that see, ears that hear, and a heart that understands, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of sharing in His suffering, and the joy that His redemption brings.