I typically restrict my posts to expositions of my thoughts or leading regarding my walk of faith. Though my faith underlies my thoughts, this post will be more one of wandering in the desert, so – my apologies.
I don’t know who I am. I have become a stranger to myself, looking in the mirror and seeing only a shadow of someone I once knew. How did I get here? God only knows. Literally, God only knows. In the silence of the evening or the still of morning, my mind wanders once familiar paths, but they are paths leading through the past, illuminated only by dim recollections and shadowy reminiscences. Perhaps a stranger is better than remaining the person I once was. A stranger presents the possibility of a blank slate, giving me once more the ability to choose who writes me upon it. The painful truth though is the realization that there is no one who wants to know me – either the me I was or the me I may become. I once had someone describe me as an “empty well”. I have wondered what was meant by that assessment, lacking the courage to ask for further elaboration. When something hurts, it is rarely wise to ask for clarification that could potentially make any pain you feel more exquisite.
An empty well can mean many things. It can be a well that was drained and never refilled, leaving only a blighted scar on the surface conveying only memories and the continued danger of falling in. It can be a dry well wherein the efforts and investment in drilling yielded only loss and disappointment. Or it can be an unfinished well, where desire and commitment failed before drilling deep enough to reach the reward that initially inspired the effort. In reflecting on this, both through prayer and my own limited understanding, I initially believed that I was being assessed as one of the three. I naturally clung to the last as it offered the possible promise of a positive outcome. After all, you don’t wander through the desert desiring for more sand, and it’s only the hope of an oasis that inspires further wandering. However, I have recently concluded that it isn’t just one of the three that is true, but all three at once.
Later this month I will take a trip to visit my daughters, whom I haven’t seen in several years. In so doing, I will be prying off the well caps to all three realities. We will connect based on the recollections of that life the well provided before, we will address the long dry spell that has existed since that first well was capped, and I will commit to prying off the third well cap and drilling deeper in hopes of establishing a new and deeper relationship. I am confident in the latter, as I daily strive to yield the control of the drill to the Holy Spirit, who understands the dirt I am drilling in better than anyone. I am reminded of the passage from Psalm 37, verse 25 – “I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.”
In a dry and thirsty land 