How's your heart?

How's your heart?

For years I have hated this question. I am not a fan of being vulnerable nor do I understand those that ask and expect you'll open up just like a book and lay it all down for them. So, most of the time I dodge this question and brush people off with a quick....I'm good. (or is it I'm well?...whatever.) But, one of the loveliest parts of marriage is that you cannot quickly brush someone away. They see you day in and day out. I've been a wreck. I know it, and my husband knows it. It is hard in a way to be a "minister's wife"...I'm not good at it and hate (a lot of the time) what comes with that job title. I like to run away...guess if I'm uncomfortable being open and honest, why should I put myself out there to be a person for others to be open and honest with?...and all the while with a smile on my face.

When trying to sort though all that I am feeling these days, I try to explain it and sort through it all with Brad. Am I crazy? Does that make sense? What do you think?....all questions that I pose daily to him. And, perhaps the toughest thing I've had to sort through these days is what I believe to be true about this situation and my God. I stumbled through the words yesterday trying to explain where my "heart" was. Then today I began reading a book that has sat of my shelf for years. I read the words I have been at a loss to use when describing where I'm at in all of this.

C. S. Lewis explains in A Grief Observed...

...where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, so happy that you are tempted to feel His claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be --or so it feels--welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. you may as well turn away. The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become. There are no lights in the windows. It might be an empty house. Was it ever inhabited? It seemed so once. And that seeming was as strong as this. What can this mean? Why is He so present a commander in our time of prosperity and so very absent a help in time of trouble?

He goes on to explain the same fear I have...

Not that I am in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him. The conclusion I dread is not "So there's no God after all," but "So this is what God's really like. Deceive yourself no longer."
--Lewis (A Grief Observed)


There it is. All of you caught a glimpse of vulnerability from me. Honest. Real. I'm trying to find my way through all this. Christ is real...He has even questioned "why has thou forsaken me? But, it is still not easy to understand. So, I will continue to search and seek the one that knows me best...I just want to feel like He hears me.