Growing up, I did feel all alone. The little boy in me still felt alone because that place in me and my development was so empty due to that deprivational need I had experienced at such a young age. Today is a new day though. I have been able to come into the light after a fresh encounter with the Lord Himself. In prayer this morning, I felt the weight and pain of alone-ness afresh. It was one year ago today that I fell and shattered my elbow. This terrible triad fracture is a difficult one to repair, but on top of that, the doc who attempted the surgery really botched it up. He should have referred me to a specialist, rather than tackle it himself poorly. My arm is still in a cast one year later, after my forth surgery.
In the midst of all this God is working in my life. He has been healing trauma that has marked my life since childhood and so impacted my personal psyche that I am marked and behave a certain way. Much of what occurred in my life in childhood lives on and impacts my life today. We are all like that. The profound beliefs that we internalize due to events and experiences of the past give us colored lenses through which we look at life and the situations we face in the present.
I saw myself as a small boy, afraid, alone, intimidated. I cried. Partly from how my life has been impacted from the broken elbow. Partly due to fresh feelings of loss and sensing that I am alone in all this. Another person we have loved and cared for this past year is saying goodbye in a few days. Another person we have trusted to help us and to be a valuable team member is moving back to the mainland. The past few years have been marked with significant losses with people leaving. This has been hard to face, alone again is what I feel. Yet I fail to see that I am really not alone at all. I am in the midst of a crowd of lonely people.
Lord, come! Lord shine your light. Lord, I need you! As I quiet my heart, sob a little and wipe my tears, there is a Word of comfort. I sense the shining of the Lord's light. Not just an ambient light, but a search-light with specific focus. And the light shines on me and my life. He sees me. He looks to me. He knows me.
I see myself alone but not because I am the only one there. I feel alone but there are others around. Lord where are you? What is wrong with me? I feel I am unable to trust. I must rely on myself. But these are lies that trap me, that actually are a prison to me and control the way I live and interact with others. Lord set me free.
He comes, he has been preparing a table for me in the presence of my enemies. He comes to choose me. He comes to pick me for His team and puts a jersey and a baseball cap on me. I don't remember ever being selected like that for a team before. I was always the one that was left after everyone else was chosen and the teacher would either put me on one team or the other but no one really wanted me.
And the amazing thing that comes next is being put on His lap and sat at the table and invited to eat whatever I would like to eat. I am amazed. I am loved. I have been chosen and I feel accepted.
