Shake the dust. Shake the dust. Shake the dust and after you've taken the time to take the mistakes, the lessons learned, the statements we wished we never said, and the sentiments we wish we would proclaim every once and awhile, shake the dust. Shake the dust, and when it twirls in the currents of our busy atmosphere, when you see it whisper, scream, and turn, take out your hand and your heart, pick it up with the fingers of grace, and toss it again. Toss it again and let it be carried through the winds and the storms, through the sun rays, nights, and days that need it more than I do. Dust, when we muster a little hope, restores its beauty and tells a beautiful story when we're not necessarily looking. Shake the dust.
Tonight I don't know how I am. I don't know who I am to think that I can do this by myself- not for another semester, not to spend more time missing out on life. Who I am to think that I have the strength to do so? The strength to stand in the face of this overwhelming world and say, "Oh, I'm golden. I've got this." A lost soul. That's who I am. And that's when the dust piles up the most, so high that it starts to cloud my vision and distort my perceptions. I haven't figured it out. I haven't put the pieces together, but there's no way I can do this again.
Hey God,
I'm afraid. I'm afraid I'm going to get in that crazy spiral and let my emotions get the best of me and lose sight. I'm...I'm human, but I'm not doing You justice and that just hurts. The pain's real right now- real in losing Gail, real in hearing those boys cry, real in trying to keep level like I said I would. Hey God, I'm afraid to let go. I'm afraid to let go entirely and free the shackles that bare on my mind so many hours of the day- but who am I to think that I have control, right? Who am I to sit here. It's not You I'm afraid of God. It's never you. It's the anxiety building up. It's the fear I have with trust, with understanding, and with reconciling myself. It's with loving myself and feeling worth it in your arms, God.
Sometimes, I feel like all of this worrying, all of this anxiety, is just letting Satan win. All of the calculations might be just a way of functioning for me, but each time I'm doing that and making these conjectures, falling apart to the hands of my mind, well that's not letting you in. That's not trusting You wholeheartedly as I should. A lyric just came on through my headphones, "It's never easy to loosen my grip" and I think that's exactly accurate, God. This whole letting the knuckles loose and coming entirely to You is just so hard. It's so hard to be that vulnerable.
Which brings me to my point: Shake the dust.
I just got back from Bible Study tonight, more compelled to blog and get this whole thing out of my brain instead of doing homework with a heavy heart. This. right now. Is the moment where I shake the dust, Lord. This is whole heartedly where I take my newspaper pieces with the headlines of fear, where I crunch them with the belief that you have command of my life, and where I toss it all that you are. I toss it, and when it comes back down and whirling around, my arms extend to the one that offers me piece and solace, and toss it back up again. Dust is dust. Dust was last semester. Dust was these last few weeks. Beauty comes through the dust now tonight. Beauty is created through the particles of worry and the fear that this girl so lives in, changes right now. It changes right now.
Not by my own command, but by your grace I'm given everything. I'm given everything at each new corner, at each day and each moment of exhaustion, it's by You. It's by You that I am challenged and for Your mighty wonder that I'm dying to know all I can. I'm done making excuses. I'm done of the exhaustion and the self calculations. Your love is what I need to trust. It's what you're handing me as you knock at my door- each new day.
...No joke, there was just a knock at my apartment door.
You're handing me a gift each day. You're given me hope and restoration in each new day. You're offering to comfort me when the world turns too quick, and I need to step up. Step out of my head and into the river of faith. I need to take those dusty caverns and just wash it clean. Wash it in Your hope because I can. Because you offer such great promise.
Is it going to be easy? No way. No way, and I know that. But living my life in calculation, in estimation, in anxiety and worrisome thoughts? That's not easy either, God.
I'm a broken vessel, Lord. I'm a broken vessel who sees the pieces and is desperately crying out to you to be rebuilt. Completely reconstructed.
Shake the dust. Shake the dust. I'm coming to You, God.
Matthew 10: 12
Colossians 2:6-7
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