EVERYTHING MUST GO
Very little of my spiritual landscape has changed the last month. Time bleeds together, the days of going through the motions merge into weeks, and the mounting frustration over what can only be described as a de-evolution is regularly compromising both my mood and actions. My wife has called my parents, seeking intercession, and everyone is becoming increasingly concerned about me.
I've written of shedding my identity, of freely handing it over to God and becoming one with him, but it seems my expectations are in need of substantial revision. I sat on the porch the other day when God revealed just how substantial. In honesty, pain, and anger I asked him why he had forsaken me in this difficult time and confided that I simply can't do this alone. I reflected that with each passing day it seemed another brick, another stone of myself, was cast down and anxiously fingered an emerging sense they would all be thrown down, until no part of me was left except the very bedrock on which I was built.
In that moment of desperate crying out, a moment of clarity silenced all the noise, and I realized this is part of God's plan. He has looked upon this house I've built and found nothing worth salvaging. It must all come down. And just like that, like Peter realizing he'd just denied Jesus a third time, I recognized that I'd signed up for this very thing and need not be complaining.
Still, it is very, very difficult and not at all like the images of transformation I held when I first considered this journey as a young adult. Those images were a fairy tale, words devoid of any real understanding and completely naive of the very real, harrowing process it actually is. Right now I feel as though my identity itself is an open wound, and I shudder to think of what will come of my life if this continues and reduces my functional ability to zero. And yet, something tells me that is exactly what is required. For this process to complete itself properly, I cannot resist or customize it to my tastes. I can't say of my ego, "You can have this God, but I'm keeping that." It's all his, and he has shown me it must all go.
And why shouldn't it go? For thirty-seven years I've tried to scratch out an existence, to create an authentic manifestation of who I thought I wanted to be, and it's been a complete failure - culminating in suicidal intent a mere nine months ago. I have every reason to cast it off, to cast into oblivion the husk of this endeavor - a graven image, fashioned by my own hands, in the likeness of worldly expectations. Yet it's the only thing I've ever known - the only me I can recall. So it's hard.
As I've said before, once you reach the razor's edge, which way do you fall? It is not an easy or pleasant place to be. For me there is but one clear path. I will shed the shell of a man I've been, say goodbye to who I am, and die to the false self I've projected these many years. He was forged of this world, by this world - forged by circumstance, by a broken and cruel humanity - a child of the flesh and a son of man. I release him of his charge, and love him in letting go.
And in letting go, what do I expect? I expect I shall become Me - a child of the Spirit, a son of God - forged by the Spirit, by the will and hand of God. I will be reborn, to become the man God made me to be. Will I even recognize myself when I meet him?
God, I say this to you now, from the depths of my soul, strip me of every shred of who I've been. Though the very idea is almost inconceivable to the mind, I ask that you lay siege upon this worldly man until there is nothing left. Help me, oh so very much help me, receive the grace you'd impart in my death - not a symbolic ritual, nor a physical event, but a real, complete death to self - the expiration of who I've been. Grant me that courage Father; you have led me this far, may I leap into your outstretched arms, over the chasm below, and realize myself in you. It is so dark right now, and I cannot see you; may I trust you all the more.