Years ago, I wrote a series of poems brought on by what needed to happen in my soul and spirit. Death. (I believe they are posted in the archives.)
I submitted to what I knew would be a tedious and slow and painful process. I remember when the mountain that was me was blown apart into massive granite slabs big enough to bury six lanes of I-70 or crush a building. The plunger that detonated this blast was in the hand of YHVH, but He could not activate it without my permission.
Since then, the gigantic pieces have been systematically reduced. Each reduction carrying with it its own brand of agony as I cease to exist, the me that was the original mountain. A mountain of ideas, perceptions, and abuses that created the twisted shell of a counterfeit me that in no way resembled the intent of Abba for my life.
A little over a year ago a salt covenant was performed over me. I, like most I think, really had no idea what this was all about. Research. Study. The root of the word for salt means to grind into dust or powder, to pulverize. Oh, great. What more can be left? Eight months after the salt covenant I am instructed “to wear my salt”. I find a small locket online that can hold some of the leftover salt from the covenant and I order it. It is a constant reminder of the pulverizing that still needs to take place.
My identity. Who am I? Really? There was a time when I told Abba that if I lost anymore of myself, I would cease to exist. And He replied: So? So, how do you die and still live? He lays it out in His word and it seems rather simple. Seems. Dying to the flesh - the inclinations of mind, emotions and physical comfort that rule so totally and deceptively that often we are convinced it is God’s way. Dying to the flesh is not about death as much as it is about giving it to the God who owns it in the first place. And there is nothing simple or easy or painless about it.
What is still in me that needs the mountain life crushed out of it? I am told it is self control. Hmm. I thought I did a pretty good job. Nope. My response to emotional hurt is to stuff it, because that is self control, right? I am frustrated, angry, resentful. What do I resent? The fact that I am burying things that fester and make me angry. Abba, why do you use me to help people unbury things and then have me bury them? His response: I never told you to bury anything. Ahhh. That is MY idea of what self control looks like. Push down the feelings, swallow the hurt, refuse to confront. Make it look like I am in control, when everything is spinning out of control, and wait for the inevitable explosion.
Abba has shown me I am still leaning on my own understanding, my idea of what it is He wants, instead of asking Him. I am so adept at image making that I can create one from words on a page, a thought, an idea, and not even know I am doing it. The image maker needs to be pulverized. What does this look like and how is it done? This is where I am. Fighting for an identity that has always existed, but I do not know, the one established by my Creator. One that is unfamiliar and as such, terrifying to me. This journey has me emotionally spent. The obedience is exhausting - warring against the flesh that wants to rise up. Honestly, these pebbles that need to be crushed seem harder to let go of than the mountain of years ago that I asked to be blown up.
There is no turning back and going forward is the fight, the war, I am engaged in. . .