...of the grey, especially.

Last night was my monthly release.  

I leaned over the bathtub, naked and sobbing.  Ten minutes later Daniel found me there and stroked my hair as I wept in his arms.  I dragged myself from the tub and the crying continued into our bed.  What should have been a night of relaxing and enjoying his company, like usual, turned into me confiding my deepest hurts, betrayals, and grotesque secrets of my inner thinking.

 As always, morning felt clearer.  The curtains flung open and the pane of each window felt bitter with chill from the night where I slept away my sadness.  Later, as I was dancing our girl in the kitchen, I heard this song by Switchfoot and I sobbed again, holding her close and thanking God for meeting me exactly where I am, as always.

I am the sea on a moonless night
Calling falling, slipping tides
I am the leaky, dripping pipes
The endless, aching drops of lights

I am the raindrop falling down
Always longing for the deeper ground
I am the broken, breaking seas
Even my blood finds ways to bleed

Even the rivers ways to run
Even the rain to reach the sun
Even my thirsty streams
Even in my dreams

I am restless
I am restless
I am restless
I'm looking for you
I am restless
I run like the ocean to find your shore
I'm looking for you

 I am the thorn stuck in your side

I am the one that you left behind

I am the dried up doubting eyes

Looking for the well that won't run dry

[ Lyrics from:

Running for the other side

The world that I've always been denied

Running hard for the infinite

With the tears of saints and hypocrites

Oh, blood of black and white and grey

Oh, death in life and night in day

One by one by one

We let our rivers run

I am restless

I am restless

I'm looking for you

I am restless

I run like the ocean to find your shore

I'm looking for you

I can hear you breathing

I can feel you leading

More than just a feeling

I can feel you reaching

Pushing through the ceiling

Till the final healing

I'm looking for you

Until the sea of glass we meet

At last completed and complete

Where tide and tear and pain subside

And laughter drinks them dry

I'll be waiting
Anticipating
All that I aim for
What I was made for

With every heartbeat
All of my blood bleeds
Running inside me
I'm looking for you

 Every word that was sang in that song today resonated in me deeply.  I am restless.

I am restless in my days.  I am restless in my nights.  I am restless in everything I do because all that sustains me is untouchable at this time.  It is eternity that my heart longs for.  It is not here.  It is not attainable in this life.  And yet I long for it deeply.  

I listened to the singer explain why he wrote the song and he explained that when he began writing the lyrics it was raining outside.  He started thinking about each rain drop and how each one of them takes a passionate pursuit to their place in the ocean.  Each one of them has a journey that makes up a greater something.  And we're the same.  We're all part of something that is so much greater. 

 Even if you don't believe in the same God that I believe in, even if you don't share the same journey, the exact story, the same morals or even the same convictions...you have to know that we are involved in something that is complex and unique yet combined and saturated with purpose.  

For something.  

Whatever that is for you, is what it is.  And that's ok with me.  Just know that today my purpose was to hear that song and feel the lyrics that cried out all that I was feeling inside.  When I went back and read the line that says 'even my blood finds ways to bleed,' I felt a hurling inside of my gut.  I thought of the immense pain that I am capable of one night and the distinct joy that ultimately follows after the release.

 And then I thought about my God.  The very man that stood in a garden so sacred and holy just before the time that He knew He was going to be betrayed and killed by those who both loved and hated him.  In that garden, his sweat and tears turned to blood as He literally pleaded for God to let this step in the journey pass from Him.  

But the step was necessary for the greater something.

And out of that greater something for Him evolved this greater something for me.  Sometimes I feel like I could cry tears of blood as I plead that there be another way through this than the inevitable.  But that's not so.  It's just not so.

I heard the following words from the song as I danced on my cold kitchen floor holding my beautiful mess of 'grey' and I wept for the confirmation that God is here and He feels me.

"Oh, blood of black and white and grey

Oh, death in life and night in day

One by one by one

We let our rivers run."

He knows it's not black and white.  Not this.  Not most things.  And He is the God of the grey.  In fact, I believe He is God of the grey, especially.