it’s a little messy in my mind tonight.

By “tonight,” I really mean recently.

This past weekend I had the opportunity to visit friends in Georgia. Good friends. Friends that I love and friends that I am so incredibly thankful to have. It was one of the best weekends of my life, because we really didn’t do anything and, as Dana put it, “everyone seemed content with just being.” And that’s the truth, because all we did on Saturday was sit and enjoy life. Ryan played around on his guitar for a bit. I wrote. Everyone read. We did homework. We sat on the deck and watched the sun move from one end of the sky to the next. I even got a little bit sunburned on my cheeks. It was the most beautiful and relaxing day.

And while the weekend was wonderful in the best of ways and did some good for my heart, the good for my heart has ended up tilling the soil and uprooting some things from the past. The good, happy, easy things that the Lord was doing in my heart on the weekend turned into really good, hard, sting-filled things by Monday afternoon. The best way I can describe it is when someone gets something huge stuck through them — like they’re skewered by a pole, or something crazy like that. You can’t just pull that thing out of someone’s body, because then it’ll bleed and be messy and hurt a whole lot and get infected and blahblahblah. I feel like that’s what just happened to me, though. I had gotten use to the pain from certain things and chocked it up to slight discomfort. And then this weekend… it’s like God just finally pulled that thing out. Whatever that “thing” is… he pulled it out and now? Now there’s a giant hole where my heart-insides are falling out.

Memory after memory after memory are being brought to the surface. Pain after pain after pain. Sin after sin after sin. And they’re not little sins, like the time I stole my neighbor’s cool shiny rock from his dresser (only to return it a day or so later because I felt so guilty). It’s more like big things. Like contributing to and actively participating in another human being’s depravity. Like being the sole cause, the root of someone else’s depravity. Like encouraging someone to partake in my depravity.

It’s a whole mess of sins being sifted through right now. This week has been brutal, specifically yesterday.

And although… although confession is beautiful and literally lifts weights off of shoulders, it’s still not enough. Although confession of sins and acknowledging a need for accountability is good and fruitful and biblical, it still doesn’t seem like enough.

Someone had asked if I had truly asked God for forgiveness of these sins. Have I? Am I?

I don’t think I have. Not for the things that are still rearing their ugly heads. If I had, they wouldn’t be bothering me anymore. They would be like the other things I’ve already asked forgiveness for… those things just sit there, a part of my past and nothing more than a part of my story in which I give glory to God for my salvation. Those things are easily shared.

These things? These things I dare not speak out loud for fear of being overheard. These things I barely speak to myself in my head. These things I don’t mention to practically anyone, because you never know who you can trust. These things I hate myself for.

I can’t face them myself, yet I’m supposed to bring them to God?
I can’t bear to name the sins I hold in my hands, yet I’m supposed to give them to Christ?

I know God is good. I know He is God all the time, and that He is God even when I am the dirtiest, ugliest mess anyone could ever be. I know God is gracious. I know God loves. I know God loves me. I know God wants the best for me. I know God wants me to know how much He loves me, forgives me, wants me to understand His great plans for me.

I know all this.

What I don’t know is how to get a firm grip on all these Truths.
What I don’t know is how I can work up enough courage to face these Truths.

These things being brought to the surface, uprooted? I wish I would never have to look at them again. But they’re here, and they’re not going anywhere until I deal with them. Or attempt to deal with them. And let God deal with them through me, for me.